Page 114 of Tears of Gold

“He’s not my brother.”

“True.”

“Because I thought they wouldn’t believe me.” My throat tightens and I hate it.

“Why? You were hurt, scared, why would no one believe you?”

“He made me think it was okay because my body reacted to his.”

“The body is a machine, it’s meant to react. If it’s cold, it tells you. If it’s too hot or uncomfortable it sweats.” Yeah, I got the memo on that one. “If it’s touched, it will react.”

“That’s not the way he made it sound."

“Tell me, Faith. Did your father hug you a lot when you were young?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, I can’t even remember.”

“What about friends?”

“Abi and I always hugged, you know like girls do, back before I withdrew from her. Dan has always hugged me like a big brother. Al, my uncle, would always…” My throat squeezes tight. “Would always give me these bear hugs that would puff the air out of my lungs.”

“But you don’t remember your father hugging you. You grew up without affection until a boy who was supposed to be your brother touched you.”

I don't think I can sit here much longer. “I don’t know what this has got to do with anything.”

“Do you think you are to blame for what happened?”

“What?!” I almost jump out of my seat, but I knock over the glass of water on my way up, my shin hitting the table and making me wince.

Francine doesn’t look at the water. “Do you think you were to blame for what happened?”

“No. He abused me.”

“But you said yourself you weren’t used to affection. You didn’t know what affection really felt like. It’s only natural you would blame yourself. You must have been to blame if you didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

“No.” Tears well up, stinging along my eyelashes. “No.”

“Were you to blame for letting his sperm through your cervix to fertilise an egg?”

“No.”

“But did you let Elijah’s?”

“Whose side are you on? Why are you saying all this stuff to me?”

Francine leans forward and places a hand on my knee. My body stiffens, but her palm is warm on my skin.

“Do you blame yourself for not knowing the difference between good affection and bad? Or for not knowing what affection is either way?”

I can’t answer. I can’t look in her eyes.

"Is your way of choosing sexual partners as a grown up, your way of controlling the affection you receive? Stopping it from being too much, keeping yourself from the risk of being hurt, or not knowing what’s good and what’s bad?”

Again, my words don’t come. I don’t have any left.

“Do you keep your secrets inside because you are scared what people are going to think? Or because you are worried they are going to think the same as you?”

“I want it all to never have happened.”