My dad was drunk behind the wheel of a car that crashed head-on into a tree. That was my last memory of him.

The memory is real.

The events are real.

But the circumstances surrounding it? The lead-up? They were all things I didn’t know about. All things my mother tried to keep hidden from me.

His death happened exactly a week after the detectives knocked on the door of our family home two towns over from where we currently are. It’s the same town that holds the yearly autumn festival. The festival Logan had taken me to. The boy who made the allegations was from the same town. My father had been his swim coach.

He was ten years old.

My dad had written Mom a letter before getting in his car.

She calls it a suicide note.

I call it an admission of guilt.

In the letter, he’d admitted to what he’d done and named all his victims from oldest to youngest.

There were five names.

Logan’s name was last.

After his death, we moved to Raleigh, where she went through the process of changing my name, homeschooling me, blocking all access to anything that might reveal who he really was, and burning anything and everything that could possibly remind me of him. She kept me sheltered, hidden from his actions, and was grateful I was still too young to ask questions.

She did it to protect me.

She tells us all of this in an unoccupied, private room of the hospital where a clock ticks too loud, and my pulse is too thick, and everyone’s sniffs and sobs are constant.

I sit on the floor in the corner of the room, holding on to my knees. I rock back and forth, back and forth, her words replaying in my head like a broken record. “I burned his letter, but I’ve memorized the names, and I’ve spent the past ten years trying to find each one of them, trying to make sure that the actions of a monster I once called my husband hasn’t ruined them,” Mom says. “For the past ten years, I’ve been paying for therapy for the first boy who came forward. There are two who want nothing to do with me, who swear they don’t know what I’m talking about. One of them is currently deployed in the army. I was about to find Logan when… when he brought you home that first time.” My mom cries through her words, her heartache.

Toms stops pacing. Starts again.

“Aubrey, honey,” Mom says. “Say something.”

I shake my head, press my cheek to my leg, and rock harder. Faster.

I am empty.

I am void.

I am eight years old, and Dad’s letting me sit in the front seat of his car for the first time. He’d bought the car when Mom was deployed. He didn’t ask her if he could buy it, and I heard them arguing about it the first night she was home.

I reach into my backpack and sift through my clothes.

“Put your seatbelt on, sweetheart,” Dad says.

I find the hand lotion Grandma gave me and do as Dad asks.

“How was your sleepover at Grandma’s?” he asks, reversing out of the driveway.

“Good,” I say, looking up at him. “How was your night?”

Dad smiles. “I had a lesson that ran a little late. Besides that, it was the same old boring night.” He taps my knee with his finger. “Don’t tell your mom, but I had candy for dinner.”

I laugh to myself as I rub the lotion into my hands. I try to put the tube back in my backpack, but with my seatbelt on, it’s impossible to reach, so I drop it into the pocket of the door. I sniff my hands, and Dad says through a chuckle. “That’s really smelly, Aubs.”

“It’s nice,” I say. “It smells like summer. Like sunshine and cut grass and strawberry milkshakes.”

“It smells like poop,” he says, scrunching his nose.

I sit on my hands, saddened by his words. My fingers brush something flat, something cold. I pull out a penny from between my butt and the leather seat and hold it up in front of me. “Where did this come from?” I ask, looking at the coin.

Dad glances at it quickly, then back at the road. “One of the kids I coach was in my car last night. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket.”

“Aubrey,” Mom says pulling me from the memory.

I gasp, get to my feet.

Whatever reaction is on my face has Cameron stepping toward me. “You’re in shock, Aubrey. It’s okay…” His hands settle on my shoulders. Strong. Defiant.

I shrug out of his touch and aim my glare at my mother. “You wanted to protect me?” I growl, my anger and hatred directed at her. “You may have protected me then, but you didn’t protect me now, and you sure as fuck didn’t protect Logan!” My heart pound, pound, pounds, then stops. Drops. I scream, “You knew! This entire time, you knew, and you didn’t say a thing!”

“Aubrey,” she cries. “I tried. God, I tried. But, how could I? How does one…” She falls into a heap on the bed, her head in her hands. “I tried, Aubrey,” she repeats. “And then I got to know him, know his family, and he seemed fine—”

“Fine?!” I shout, throwing my arms in the air. “How the hell is this fine?!”

“He told me he grew up happy, I assumed—”

“Why the hell didn’t he say something?” Tom says, his tone breaking my already dead heart. “Why wouldn’t he come to us… why…”

Lucy lets out a sob. “Because Mom was sick… and we were all… we were going through so much that he… he…”

I run out of the room, her words slicing at my soul, killing me from the inside. I race down the hall, ignoring the heavy footsteps behind me. I can’t deal with my mom right now, and I sure as hell won’t force the Prestons to be in my presence for a second longer.

My heavy legs carry me to the exit, where air hits my lungs, and I bend over myself, my hands on my knees. My stomach lurches, my entire body convulsing with the force.

I clasp the penny in my palm, look up at my dad. “What’s his name?”

“His name is Logan.”

I giggle. “Is he cute?”

I empty the content of my stomach into the bushes by the front door.

“Aubrey.” I recognize the voice as Lucas’s, but I don’t turn to him. “Don’t, Luke,” I cry out, my mouth covered in spit and tears and turmoil. “Don’t come near me!” I start to walk away, my phone gripped tight in my hand.

“Where are you going?” he calls out after me. “You can’t leave him, Aubrey. He needs you now more than ever!”

I freeze in the middle of the road, my shoulders tense. Then, slowly, I face him, his dejected figure blurred by the tears that won’t fucking quit. “He needs me?” I repeat, my voice breaking. “Lucas… how can he ever look at me the same? Every look we’ve shared, every touch… God… how can he look at me and not feel sick to his stomach?”

“Because… because he loves you, Aubrey.”

“Love isn’t enough anymore! He can’t… he can’t pick and choose the parts of me that will settle his mind. That’s not how this works. No…” I cry, walking backward, giving me the distance to breathe. “He can’t love me. Because I’ll always be my father’s daughter, and my father will always be the man who molested him.”

Behind me, Leo’s voice echoes through my agony. “What is she talking about, Lucas?”