I need you to understand that everything I did these last nine months, every wall I put up, every time I told you I could handle it myself, I was trying to keep you safe.

I sat on the edge of that bathtub with my daughter’s voice rising up off the page after ten years of silence, and I could hardly breathe, and I read on.

Chapter 15 — His Name Is Julian Vance

The father isn’t a classmate from high school, the letter said.

He isn’t a boy my own age.

I let you believe that because it was safer for you to believe it.

The truth is very different, and it is going to frighten you, and I am sorry for that too.