“I wish my parents wouldn’t have agreed and I wish I hadn’t either. I wish I was as strong as you are and that I—”

“You don’t know anything about me.” She spun around, eyes a flinty gray.

I held up my hands. “But I do know you are strong—stronger than me. You did the right thing and I know it couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“I know.” I think this chick just wanted to be argumentative.

Her sharp chin jutted out. “Nothing about this was easy. Talking to the police—the detectives and then the lawyers. Having to keep going over every fucking thing he did to me?  In detail? Wasn’t easy. And I wouldn’t have to have gone through any of that if you had stuck with the truth!”

“I’m sorry—”

She moved so fast and I was so unprepared for it that I just sat there.

Molly smacked me, snapping my head to the side. Tears of pain and surprise pricked my eyes.

She had smacked me right across the face.

I almost couldn’t believe it. The entire side of my face burned red-hot, stinging. Damn. For someone so skinny she could deliver one hell of a good bitch slap.

Fury stamped down the shock and my hands itched to replay the favor. But I got Molly’s anger. Her pain was still so fresh and it was cutting too deep. I’d been in her shoes, was still there every so often. The anger never really left. Maybe it never would. So I got why she was so furious.

That was one of the reasons why I wasn’t currently introducing my fist to her face.

“You deserved that,” she said, voice shaking.

My cheek stung as I stood. “Maybe I did. But I didn’t deserve what Blaine did to me and I don’t deserve all the shit you’re giving me for something I decided when I was fourteen and had very little choice in.”

“Your parents didn’t put a gun to your head and make you sign those papers, did they?”

I shook my head. “What would you have done if you were fourteen and your parents demanded that you do that?”

Her mouth opened.

“Don’t even answer that, because it doesn’t matter. I am sorry—but if you hit me again, I will hit back—I’m sorry that this happened to you. And I’m sorry that you have to go through a trial and all of that. And trust me, the biggest thing that I’m sorry about is signing those fucking papers and agreeing. But I can’t change that. All I can do is let it go.”

“Well, you have fun letting it go then.”