My jittery hands slowly go to the hem of my shirt, and when I grip the fabric, a pained cry rips out from my constricted throat. It echoes off the concrete walls and floor. Pinching my eyes shut, I slip my shirt off and over my head and then hold it over my chest, even though I haven’t grown breasts yet.

“Pants,” he orders.

I don’t look at him. My eyes remain closed as I unzip my jeans and push them down my legs and step out, still clinging the shirt to me.

“Drop it.”

The ice in his voice frightens me, so I open my fingers and let it drop to the ground.

“Good girl,” he says and I can hear the smile that wears his words. “Now your underwear.”

God, if you’re real, please help me.

Stepping out of my underwear, I attempt to cover myself with my arms and hands as I stand there. And when I finally open my eyes, that’s when Carl speaks.

“Have you ever seen a dick before?” he asks as he opens his fly and tugs his pants down. His is the first I have ever seen and my throat burns with the bile that creeps up.

“You ever touched one before?”

My tears are heavy, and I can’t hold back the sobs any more, pleading, “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

My cries are loud when he makes his demand, “This is what I want. You’re gonna let Pike fuck you while I watch. You do that for me, I won’t lay a hand on you.”

I shake my head vigorously, not understanding what he means, and when I look over at Pike, he stands for a moment before taking the two steps towards me, quietly saying in a choked voice, “You don’t want him touching you.”

My head won’t stop shaking, and I can’t stop crying as I try to stammer out, “I d-don’t know what he w-wants.”

He releases a defeated sigh when he tells me, “He wants us to have sex.” When he reads my confusion, he asks, “You know what that is?”

“I th-think so. I mean . . . I d-don’t, umm . . .” I can’t get my words out through the terror that’s stabbing me from the inside. I’ve heard of sex. I know of sex. I just don’t understand what it is exactly.

“On the mattress!” Carl’s voice booms, causing me to startle.

In a hushed voice, Pike begs, “Please don’t be scared of me,” as he takes my hand and walks us over to the stained mattress on the floor.

“Lie on your back,” he says, all his words in whispers so that only I can hear. He takes off his underwear before lying on top of me and my helpless cries fill the room. He lowers his mouth to my ear and quietly talks to me, saying, “It’s gonna be okay. Don’t even look at him. You don’t have to look at me, but please promise me you won’t look at him.”

I nod my head against the side of his head so that he can feel my response.

His last words to me before I lose every last piece of hope that somehow life will be okay are, “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth.”

MY LIFE CONTINUES to be a wasteland. It’s simply pointless to even try to see the good in anything anymore. I’m now twelve years old. The only hope I’ve been clinging to is that in two years, I’ll get my dad back. But that hope turned to ash and dust when my caseworker stopped by yesterday.

“Only two more years,” I said, and with a confused look, she asked, “What happens in two years?”

“I get my dad back,” I told her. “I can go home.”

She seemed annoyed when she shook her head and sighed, “That’s not how it works.”

“What do you mean?”

“The state terminated his rights to you. When he gets out, you don’t get to go back home. He’s not allowed to have any contact with you.”

My face heated in pure white anger when she added, “This is your home—here—with Carl and Bobbi.”

I walked away from her at that point. The hopelessness and defeat were too much for me to hide and I didn’t want her to see me upset. She’s a piece of shit, this world is a piece of shit, my life is a piece of shit. I used to pray to God to help me, but he never did, so he’s a piece of shit too, leaving me in this nightmare. Me—living in the darkness, bound up with leather belts, scars imbedding their home in the frail skin of my wrists. Me—humiliated and degraded—having sex with my brother while Carl beats off as if we’re his own personal porn show. It’s my living hell.

I used to cry all the time after being forced to have sex with my brother, the horror that started on my tenth birthday. When it was over that first time, I locked myself in my room, screaming and crying into my pillow. I’ll never forget that day; it’s burned its memory inside of me. A day that I truly felt my innocence being stripped away.

Putting my clothes back on, Carl laughs at me and I run up the stairs and into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I feel disgusting and when I fall onto the bed, I take the red-headed doll Pike gave me earlier and with all the force I have, throw it against the wall, releasing a violent sob as I do. I can’t stop the tears or the ache that fills me. I’m nothing but tears and snot and drool—ugly—and the salts from my eyes eventually start making the skin of my cheeks sting. My body wears out, after first being tied up in the closet for the past three days, and now the depth of my breakdown. With swollen eyes, I’m finally unshackled from this misery as I drift off into my dreams.

When I wake up, Pike is sitting in bed next to me. I look up at him as his back rests against the headboard. His eyes are sad and bloodshot, and I’m mortified. I can’t even look at him. I don’t want him to see me, so I close my eyes and roll over, away from him.

His voice is soft and strained when he says to my back, “I’m so sorry.”

I cry. It only takes a second for this heavy weighted pain to claim me—to own me. My body heaves in an unsteady rhythm, and he doesn’t touch me like he normally does when I cry.

Time passes as my cries weaken into shallow whimpers that hiccup out of me, and then he speaks again, “Please look at me. Tell me you don’t hate me.”

I shake my head, keeping my body turned away from him when I feel him scoot down and lie behind me. His head presses against my back, and I hear him sniff before he starts talking to me quietly, making his confessions. “You’re not alone. I haven’t been telling you the truth. Carl doesn’t just hit me when I’m down in the basement with him.” He chokes back a whimper, and when I hear it, the tightening in my throat becomes painful. “He makes me do sick things to him.” His voice cuts off; he’s crying, and I can’t stand it. I roll over and his eyes are shut, but his hands find my face as he rests them on my cheeks.

When his eyes open, he says, “Please don’t hate me. Don’t let him destroy what we have. Don’t give him that power to rip us apart from each other.” He takes in a shaky breath. “You tell me all the time that I’m all you have, but it goes both ways. I have nothing but you. You’re my only family, Elizabeth. Please don’t let him take you away from me.”

Wrapping my arms around his back, I bury my face in his neck as we both cry together. In this world, a world I’m beginning to learn is a cold and dark place, I fear being alone. I need Pike, and knowing that he needs me too, pushes me to finally speak. I never thought I’d be saying these things, but suddenly I become an open book when I start blubbering against the damp skin of his neck.

“I don’t hate you; I love you. But you hurt me. It hurt really bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And now I’m sad and scared and embarrassed and so alone.”

“I am too,” he admits.

“I’m scared I’m gonna lose you.”

“I won’t ever leave. I swear.”

Pike never has left my side. Even though we don’t attend the same school, he has planted himself in my life as a threat to others. I still get teased, but not as much. The summer is nearing an end, and I’m going to be at the middle school this year with Pike at the high school. I wish I could be with him. The only times I feel even a remote amount of relief from the never-ending suffering is when I’m with him. Somehow, he makes it possible for me to breathe in this clandestine world the two of us live in.