I already know where this is going.
“His name was Lance. To this day, if I hear that name, I want to throw up. Lance with the buzz cut and too much Polo cologne. Lance with a smile like a shark’s. My father worshipped him, my stepmother flirted with him, and I stayed as far away as I could because of the way his eyes followed me everywhere, like one of those haunted house paintings at Disneyland.”
She stops abruptly.
My voice low, I say, “What did he do to you?”
“Everything,” she says with no emotion, as if it happened to someone else. “Everything that a grown man could do to a helpless young girl.”
I have to close my eyes and breathe slowly and deliberately so I don’t scream out loud. “Did you tell your father?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Do?” She laughs. “Nothing. He didn’t believ
