Page 122 of These Secret Years

“Who is in Detroit?”

“The person who pays my tuition.”

“And for your car. I know that part. Who is it?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

I force myself to swallow. “Won’t,” I choke out.

“And this is the same person who hurts you?”

“How do you remember all this?”

“How did you think I could forget?” he asks.

I shut my eyes and try to focus only on the weight of his hands on my shoulders. The warmth of him at my back. I wish we were closer. I wish he’d wrap his arms around me and tell me to shut the fuck up. But I can’t do that. And maybe it’s because of that—because I can’t show him how much I want him or need him—that I say what I say. “He took me in when I was sixteen. He brought me to his home and told me how talented I was and that he could help me bring my talent to the world.”

“I’m listening,” Knight says softly.

“But he didn’t just want me for how well I could play the violin. He told me…he told me I was like an angel. That every part of me…” I choke, coughing, as tears burn my eyes. “Was precious. Holy and blessed by God.”

He gives my shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “How did it start?”

“Small corrections,” I say after swallowing the lump in my throat. “He’d put his hand on my back while I played to get me to sit up straighter. Then he’d have me stand. It’s called um…conservatory style, when you play standing up. I’d never had private lessons before, so I didn’t know—there was so much I didn’t know.”

Knight’s grip softens, and I put a hand over one of his to tell him I don’t need for him to let go.

“Once I was standing, he’d touch more of me. My stomach, my outer thighs. He’d tilt my head and run…he’d run his fingers down my neck and say something like, “This line, how does that feel?”

Knight inhales, and I feel his exhalation gust over my neck. “And how did it feel?”

Shame again. Warm and pulsating at my core. The shape of a mace. “Good,” I whisper.

“How old is he?”

“He’s forty-five now.”

“And you were sixteen?”

I nod. “Yes, and I looked younger.”

“Did you want him to touch you?”

The tears spill. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“I’ll never judge you, Sullivan. I told you that.”

“You say that because you can’t possibly know what all there is to judge.”

“But I know myself. And I know I keep my promises,” he says.

“Yes, I wanted him to touch me,” I burst through a painful sob that rips from my chest, tearing out of me with claws spread. Claws that have kept this secret fastened tightly in the center of my soul for so long, they’re still fighting to hang on. “No one had ever—I wanted it. His approval. His—he was like—in awe of me, and no one had ever listened to me play the way he did.”

“He worshipped you…”

“Yes,” I whisper.