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Monty’s lips tightened, and his eyes flashed with anger. I knew he didn’t like what he was hearing, and I felt the embarrassment fill me.It wasn’t your fault,I tried to remind myself.You had simply been taken advantage of by an older man, someone who was already experienced in grooming other young girls like you—girls who had no experience in the matter.Until that point, I had expected predators to be creepy old men in white vans, not charming, wealthy college students with their whole life ahead of them.
“He told me he loved me,” I continued. “And I was pretty sure I loved him too. So much so that, before I knew it, I started changing myself subtly to fit in with who he wanted me to be. He never made his demands explicit, but he would say things like, ‘It would be nice if you looked more like her or dressed like her,’ and then he would gaslight me if I reprimanded him for that. He would talk about other women all the time and would always call me childish if I had a problem with it. Hell, I thought Iwasbeing childish. After all, he was a sophisticated college student, and I was a nobody high schooler. Pretty soon, he had me convinced that he knew best, and he would use his power over me as a way to make me do a lot of things I wasn’t prepared for.” My first time had been with him under those circumstances. I hadn’t been ready to have sex yet but felt I had to keep him interested and prove that I was just like all the interesting college ladies the boys raved about all the time.
“He manipulated you,” Monty’s voice was a low growl that showed how close to anger he was.
I nodded. “Yes. But the verbal abuse didn’t come until later. By that time, he had already broken my confidence down to the point where I didn’t even know what was happening. I just accepted everything he said about me as true—that I wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t attractive enough, that everything I wrote was trash, and I would never get into writing school with it.” I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Well, at least he was right about that last part.”
“Don’t,” he growled the word, anger apparent on his face. “Don’t ever put yourself down like that again. That asshole was wrong about you and had no idea what he was talking about.”
I smiled. “Yeah, well, I wish I could get his voice out of my head every time I want to put down some words on paper. I just hear his criticism whenever I write anything. That’s the real reason I have writer’s block. I’m still struggling to regain the confidence back again.”
“You will,” Monty said in a tone that brooked no refusal. His eyes met mine, and he seemed to transfer some of that confidence to me. “You will get your confidence back because you’re a great writer. And your ex is a fucking moron.”
I barked out laughter, unprepared for that last part.
“Yeah,” I finally said. “I guess he was.”
“How did you leave him?” Monty asked, and he seemed to take some effort to talk in a rational tone.
“One time, we were arguing,” I responded. “I don’t remember what it was about, but I think it was something very trivial. I knew he came home angry that day, and in that mood, he liked to pick a fight, but that day was different. His anger was on a whole different level, and I couldn’t calm him down, so I fought back, sick of it. Finally, he just flew off the handle and slapped me.”
“Fucker.” Monty growled, his voice a menace. “Fucking asshole.”
“Yeah. But in a way, I’m happy it happened. It was the thing that finally opened my eyes because while I didn’t really understand the verbal abuse and gaslighting at the time, I definitely understood that hitting me was way beyond wrong. So, after that, I broke up with him. I blocked him on everything I had and threatened to report him to the police if he ever came near me again. He never did.”
“Jesus.” Monty came to me as if he was unable to resist the urge to hold me again. He wrapped his hands around me, lifting me into his lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “I wish I could find that bastard and make him sorry too.”
I smiled softly at him. “I doubt you need to. Last I heard, he tried the same bullshit with another underage girl, but this time, she had the guts to go to the cops. But that wasn’t the point of the story. The point was that what happened with him fucked with my self-esteem for months after. It was only a six-month relationship, but it was intense, and it had me doubting myself. I started thinking that maybe I was all the horrible things he said about me. But it took some time and self-reflection to get over that. And eventually, I did.”
“You did?”
“I did,” I repeated firmly and then waited. I had shared the most vulnerable part of myself with him. Would he do the same?
It took a few minutes, but then he sighed and finally ventured, “I knew enlisting would be hard—no one ever said the military would be easy, nor do we expect it to be. But I never knew all the shit I would be faced with there.” He swallowed, his body visibly tightening and tension radiating off of him. “And it wasn’t even the danger that was the worst part since I expected that too. It was the bodies. So many fucking bodies. At some point, you forget they’re people. They just become things to you, things you have to avoid, run over, kill, or burn. One after another. And you forget they have families, that they have minds, that they…and then they’re the ones you couldn’t save—”
He gave a choking sound as a haunted look came into his eyes. Then he shook his head abruptly. “I can’t do this.”
He got up and walked out.
* * *
I didn’t seehim the next morning. Instead, there were bodyguards posted at my front door telling me that they had been sent by Vinny to protect me. I could only imagine that Monty had told him to, and as considerate as it was, it still annoyed me that he hadn’t consulted me first.
Monty came back later that afternoon looking determined.
“Let’s go,” he said out of the blue.
“Where?” I asked, blinking.
“To see your father.”
