a part of Kayden so I can have strength and courage. “You

remember my twelfth birthday?”

This seems to confuse him even more, his head slanting

slightly to the side, his blue eyes getting a little squinty and his

forehead scrunching up as he assesses me. “Yeah… didn’t you have

a party?”

Pressing my lips together, I nod. “And there were a lot of

people there.”

“You know how your mother likes a show,” he says with a

heavy sigh. “She’s always loved her parties and get-togethers.”

I nod again and then push forward before my pulse and my

thoughts can catch up with my voice. “Something bad happened

to me… that day.” My thoughts drift back to when he pinned me

down and I start to shake. Please get off me. It hurts. I’m breaking.

Please. Help me. Help me. Help…

He sits up straighter and scoots forward in his chair, like he’s

about to go kick someone’s butt or something. I don’t want him

to, though. I just want him to know.

“Dad, please stay calm when I tell you this.” I fidget with the

bottom of my coat, unzipping the pockets and then zipping them

back up, and then I return my hand to the clover. “I need you to

just stay calm.”

His fists clench on his lap. “I’ll try my best, but no promises.

Callie honey, you’re really scaring me.”

“I’m sorry.” I run my hand down my face and then up it,

drawing my hood off my head as I remember how I felt that day. I

wish I were invisible. I wish I didn’t exist. I want to die. The room lightens up a little as the clouds part from the sun just outside the window. I grip onto the clover and grasp onto the feeling Kayden

has given me. “I was raped.” Just like that it’s out there, in the air, for him to hear, like tearing off a Band-Aid, lifting skin, wounds,

everything with it because there’s no way to prepare anyone for

this.

My father stares at me for an eternity and a thousand

emotions rush across his expression: wrath, rage, frustration, pain.

Then he does something I’ve never seen him do. He starts to cry.

He’s sobbing hysterically, with his head hung in his hands, and I

don’t know what to do, so I stand up, cross the room, and throw

my arms around him.

He keeps crying, but my eyes stay dry. I’ve cried enough over

the last few years and I really don’t feel like shedding anymore.

* * *

The conversation with my mother doesn’t go as well as it did

with my dad, especially when I have to tell her who did it.

“No, no, no,” she keeps saying, like if she repeats it enough

the denial will be real. She keeps tapping her feet against the

ground as she sits in the chair in front of the window. “It didn’t

happen… There’s no way…” But every time she looks at me, I know

she knows it’s true. She’s probably going through every detail of

my past, when I chopped off my hair, started hiding out in my

room all the time, when I changed my wardrobe to “hoodlum

clothes,” as she put. She’s probably thinking about when I stopped

talking to almost everyone. When I stopped crying. When I

stopped living.

We’re in the living room, sitting on the couches. My father is

next to me, close, like he thinks he can still protect me from

everything bad in the world. Jackson left the house right after I

took my dad out of the room so he doesn’t know yet, but I wonder

what he’ll do when he finds out—if he’ll believe me or take his best

friend’s side.

“Yes, it did,” I say, surprised by the strength in my voice. “You

were outside and everyone was playing hide-and-seek. And he…

Caleb told me he had a present. He took me into my room and

then… and then it happened.”

She’s shaking her head over and over again and my dad

starts crying again. “There must be a mistake. I wish it were a

mistake.”

“It’s not,” I say simply. “It happened and here I am telling

you… I really wish… I really wish I could say it was a mistake,

though. But wishes are just wishes, Mom. I know that.”

She keeps tucking her hair into place and smoothing the

wrinkles from her sweating, like she needs to fix something. “Why

didn’t you tell us when it happened, Callie? I don’t understand.”

I’m not sure she ever will. My mother loathes dark, ugly

things that exist in the word and her defense has always been to

ignore them. And now her daughter is telling her that these dark,

ugly things have been living in her house, eating her food, smiling

at her, charming her, and slowly killing her daughter.

“Shame… guilt… fear,” I say, trying to explain the best I can,

focusing on my pulse and the feel of the metal of the clover as it

rests against the hollow of my neck. “The sheer fact that saying it

aloud makes it real.”

“Damn it!” My dad pounds his fist on the armrest and then

pounds it into the wall, making my mom and me jump. His eyes

are red and his skin is pale. “I’m going to fucking kill him!”

“No, you’re not, Dad,” I say, shaking my head as I touch his

arm, trying to calm him down. “Killing him will get you nowhere

but in jail. I don’t want you to go to jail.”

Tear streams from his eyes and it’s so strange to see. I watch

them fall onto his lap as he says, “Is that why he did it? Kayden?”

I nod my head once. “He wanted to make him pay… for what

he did. And it was… it was the only way he could think of to do it.”

My dad rises to his feet and shadows over me. He’s not that

large of a man—medium build and height—but right now he

seems enormous. “Oh, he’s going to pay. I’m going to call the

police.”

I jump up and grab his arm, wrapping my fingers firmly

around his elbows. “You can’t… It won’t do any good… It’s been

too long dad.”

My mother starts to bawl, taking hysterical breathes as she

buries her face into her hands. “This is so wrong… This can’t be

happening… Oh my God…”

“But it is,” I say, and she stares at me through her tears.

“Sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“How can you be so calm?” Her voice is wobbly. “I don’t

understand.”

“I’m not that calm,” I correct her as my hand leaves my dad’s

arm. “I’m just… I’m just trying to move on. Besides…” My eyebrows

knit as I realize how strong I’m being at the moment. “I’ve been

weak for long enough and I don’t want to crumble anymore.”

She takes her phone out of her pocket and starts punching

away at buttons. “This is so ridiculous. This is not happening. No, it can’t… It can’t…”

“Mom, what are you doing?” I ask, and when she doesn’t

answer, I trade a questioning glance with my father.