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“Why seventeen? Did your parents want you to?”

Or not.

“No, I never met my parents.” I sighed and dropped onto the ledge by the window. I ran my hand over my head, somewhat disgusted by how long my hair had gotten, but also recalling how it felt when Lia had her fingers in it, so I couldn’t hate it too much. “I was an orphan. I grew up in a convent in southwestern Ohio.”

“A convent? You mean, a place for nuns?”

“Yeah, and also orphanages a lot of the time, usually for kids who are hard to place in foster care or whatever.”

“Are you Catholic, then?”

I snickered a bit.

“Nah, not really. Not anymore.” My hand instinctively moved up to my chest, and I fingered the dog tags hanging there. I could feel the raised letters.

“What happened to your parents? How old were you when you went there?”

“I don’t really know,” I admitted. “I’ve never found out who they were, just that—for whatever reason—they either died or didn’t want me. I was there as long as I can remember, so I guess pretty much always. No one would ever tell me what happened, not even when I got older. I’ve always assumed it was because they didn’t want to deal with a kid at all because if they were dead, someone would just tell me, wouldn’t they?”

“You would think so,” Lia agreed. She lay back on the bed and leaned her head against her hand. “So why seventeen?”

“I was emancipated. I was done with high school, but I didn’t really have any money or anything. I wanted to go to college, so the military made sense.”

“Are orphans usually emancipated?”

“No, not usually.”

“So why were you?”

I hadn’t expected this portion of my past to really be a part of the conversation, and I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. Still, I had promised her I would tell her everything, so I did.

“Because I asked for it,” I said, “and the Mother Superior wasn’t in a position to deny it.”

“What do you mean by that?” Lia’s eyes darkened.

She was way too perceptive.

“Well…” I let my voice trail off a second while I thought about how to word it. There really wasn’t a clean way to do it, so I went with blunt. “I’d been fucking her, and I threatened to use it against her if she didn’t sign the papers.”

“Holy shit!” Lia yelled out. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“But you were underage! How old was she?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. Fifty-something, maybe?”

“Jesus Christ, Evan!”

“It had been going on for years,” I told her. “I think I was fourteen wh

en it started.”

Lia contemplated a moment.

“She molested you.”

“Whatever you want to call it,” I said with a shrug. “I wasn’t complaining. Knowing all her dirty little secrets came in handy when I wanted something. If she was using me, I was using her just as much.”

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