Most of all, if I had ever gotten into trouble, like Lexie Pine in that last picture, would he believe that I’d caused it? Lexie’s body had been passed around, splayed out and stolen onto paper, shown to everyone she knew, shaming her. She’d said no, or tried, with her covered-over mouth. His actions had erased that no, and his choices had erased her future.

He was right in one particular. Our girls were safer than Lexie Pine had ever been. Trey, with his money and connections and powerful family, would destroy anyone who treated his daughters even a fraction so poorly. But he never extended that protection to Lexie, even though he owed it to her. He hadn’t then. He should have stopped when she wanted to stop. If he had, he would have seen Ansel. He could have gone ahead and punched him and taken the negatives then, skipping so many steps and saving Lexie’s future. Instead he’d chosen not to see. He was choosing not to see again, now. He really could not imagine his daughters in her place.

“Because our girls are Cabbats?” I asked, trying anyway. My voice was low. Quiet. Not at all angry. “Trey, you’re a Cabbat. And you were there. You tried the drugs. You wanted the experience. It could happen to Ann—”

“Oh, fuck you,” he said, flushing even darker. “How can you say these things, in our own house? In our bedroom. You know me. You know me.” He paced all the way to the door, waving his arms. “Why are you asking me these things?” It was like he was asking the ceiling or God. He finally looked back to me and said, “You think it’s my fault Robert almost died. You think it’s my fault Spencer—”

“No! Not at all. Not at all, I swear,” I said over him. “That’s all on her. I would never blame you. And we can get through this, I promise. I love you. You’re a good husband, a good father, a good man. Nothing in the past can erase the good I see in you. I love you so much. I’ll stay with you and support you. But you cannot keep on lying to me and to yourself. You have to face it.”

My words had begun to mollify him, right up until the end. Then he hit a level of rage I’d never seen in him. It was worse than the yelling, this ice-white stoic fury. The dark blood color leached from his face. His blue eyes went vacant and cold.

“Are you actually fucking threatening to leave me? Over a thirty-year-old picture of a passing fucking gas pain some shitty girl felt for a fraction of a second in the middle of her own damn orgy?”