ELENA
"You didn't protect me."
The words came out in the car before I had decided to say them. We were three blocks from home and I had been holding that sentence for forty minutes and I was tired and it came out.
Dom turned to look at me.
"I know you stepped in," I said quickly. "I know you told your mother to stop. I know that. But she had already said it. She had already done it. And you—" I stopped.
"What?" he said.
"You let it go on long enough," I said. "The first two courses. You sat there while she made her little comments and asked her pointed questions and you—" I pressed my hand flat against my knee. "You let it run."
"I was watching," he said. "I was waiting to see—"
"To see what? To see how much I could take?"
"To see if you needed me to step in," he said. His voice w
