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“What's wrong, butter bean?”
His concern makes me cry. It was easier to keep the tears at bay when it was just me in the baron silence of my hotel room. But hearing my father's voice opens the dam of pain I've been trying so hard to keep sealed since I walked out of the man's office four hours ago.
“Did your meeting not go well?”
I don't reply. I can't. Not because I can't speak through the sobs holding my body hostage, but because there's no way I can explain to my father that I got down on my knees for a man the same age as him during a meeting he didn't want me to go to in the first place.
An appointment on the golden coast with a talent agency that had reached out to me through social media wasn't an easy sell, especially as he's never been particularly supportive of my acting goals anyway. Sure, he thought it was cute when I was reciting Shakespeare monologues at age eight onstage at beauty pageants, but his mind changed once he realized it was something I wanted to take seriously. That it was something that would take me somewhere far away from Tupelo, Oklahoma.
“There'll be other opportunities, Thea. But even if there aren't, you can always stay home and teach at the acting school in town.”
“No, that's not it,” I somehow manage to say.
“Then, what is it?”
“He made me...” A sob overtakes me before I can finish the sentence, making my body convulse through a fresh wave of tears. “...do things.”
“Do things?”
“To him.”
“I don't understand.”
“He made me do things, Daddy. Touch him. Put my“—I stop, suck in a breath and close my eyes—“my- my mouth on him.”
Silence.
I don't know what I was expecting my father's reaction to be, but silence wasn't it. And I'm not sure how it's possible, but somehow, his quietude is louder than the unabated ringing of my phone before.
“Daddy?”
Nothing.
If it weren't for the harshness of his breathing down the line, I'd think he'd hung up.
“Please say something,” I beg on a pained whisper.
“What do you want me to say?”
I don't understand the coldness to his tone, the detachment.
“I don't know. Something. Anything.”
More silence. But this time, it doesn't last as long. And when it's over, I almost wish it wasn't. “What did you do to make him think he could do that?”
“What?”
“What made him think that you wanted to do that?”
“I didn't want to do that.”
He releases a sigh of exasperation down the phone. “Don't play dumb, Althea. Men don't put their hands on women unless they're given a reason to.”
Humiliation creeps like thousands of long-legged spiders up my back and down my limbs, and it's the worst thing I've ever felt. The champagne color of the hotel room décor fades to a dull, lifeless shade of gray, and the air all of a sudden feels unbreathable, like I'll suffocate if I dare let myself take a breath.
“He told me he'd release pictures of me if I didn't do what he wanted,” I whisper.
“What pictures?”
