"Casey," I'm getting even more anxious now and after what just happened with Micah, I can feel my breaths starting to get short and my throat is tightening. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Josie had a nightmare. When I tried to wake her up, she started freaking out. She told me what Davis did to her. Did he do that to you too?"

"No," I lie because I never wanted him to find out about how Davis violated me back when we were living at that house. I don't want him to know that that kind of evil exists in this world and I don't want him to think of me like some flawed person. And I don't want him to feel guilty, which I think that he will, if he realizes that Davis used him to get to me.

"Ellie," He sighs and he looks like he's about to cry. I have to focus on my breathing so that I don't spiral into a full-blown panic attack. "Somebody who does something like that to somebody doesn't just start doing it out of nowhere. You lived with him for ten years and he never hurt you?"

"Casey," I step closer to him and glance over at Josie who is still sleeping because we're talking pretty quietly. "We haven't lived in that house for four years. It doesn't matter what happened there, it's over."

"You basically just admitted to it," He calls me out. "Ellie. Why won't you tell me what's going on? If he was hurting you, why wouldn't you leave?"

"And leave you, Case?" I look at him. It's useless now to deny what happened because he's pretty convinced now.

"You should have, yes. I would have understood," He insists. "I mean, I knew that Davis was an asshole but I didn't know that he was a monster. Why didn't you at least tell the social worker? They would have locked him up. Why didn't you do anything?"

"Let's go talk in your room, we shouldn't wake Josie up," I pull him into the hallway and then into his room. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to know. There's nothing good that can come out of you knowing about what I went through there. Yes, okay, it was hell but I wasn't going to leave you there. I couldn't abandon you."

"But I would have understood!" He insists and now he's starting to cry. "How long was it happening?"

"Casey, you can't blame yourself for this."

"You only stayed there because of me. That's what you're saying, isn't it? If I wasn't there, you could have done something about it, you could have gotten out of that house. How long was it happening, Ellie?"

I sit down on the edge of his bed. "A while, I guess."

"A number," He insists.

I take a deep breath just trying to fight off this creeping anxiety. I need to calm down but Casey is freaking out too and I can tell that he's not going to let this go until he gets answers. "Six years."

He starts crying harder and he sits down beside me. "How am I worth that? How could you stand that at all?"

"Hey, stop crying," I say gently as I wrap my arm around his shoulders. "You are a thousand percent worth it. Alright, and it wasn't just that if I left, I'd be abandoning you. Davis knew that you were the only thing that I cared about and he used that against me. He threatened you to keep me quiet. If I left, I wouldn't have been abandoning you, I would probably would have been killing you."

"That makes me feel a hundred times guiltier," He mumbles with a sniffle.

"You can't feel guilty about this, Case, it's not your fault that this happened," I promise him. "It was Davis. You're feeling guilty just because I love you? That's ridiculous."

He's still crying but I think that I know how to calm him down, I just didn't want it to come to this. If he wants to know everything though, maybe this will help him a little bit.

"Okay, listen to me," I take another deep breath. "Let's say, hypothetically, that you didn't exist, alright? I would have gone to that foster home alone and sure, Davis wouldn't have been able threaten you to get to me but I was twelve. He's a grown man, he would have still gotten what he wanted from me. Honestly, I did have a hard time dealing with what was happening. I wanted to die but I didn't because of you. If you weren't there, I would have killed myself, Casey. Alright?"

"Are you being serious?" He asks me.

"Yes, I'm being serious," I confirm with a nod. "Do you remember how we would sit by the window in my room? When it all got too much for me to handle, I would just sit there and I would lose it. And I just asked you to sit with me."

"Yeah, I remember," Casey nods at me and then sniffles as he keeps his head resting on my shoulder.

"I was reminding myself why I had to stay alive. For you," I admit to him. "So don't feel guilty, alright? If anything, you saved my life, kiddo."

"I just don't... I don't get how this could happen to you," He admits, sniffling one more time as he's sobering up and drying his tears. "After everything. After Mom and Dad bailing, and you getting stuck with me, and I don't get how all of this stuff keeps happening to you. You don't deserve any of it."

"Maybe not," I mutter. "But that doesn't matter. What matters now is how we deal with the right now and the future. All of the things that happened, our parents bailing and everything in the foster home, it's over. I've dealt with it, I've gotten over it. So now, we move forward. We get you through high school, we get Josie back home to her dad, and we just move forward. You and me make a pretty great team and we'll keep moving."

"Okay," He decides, seeming to be calming down now.

"I'm going to go get some air. I'll see you in the morning?"

He nods as I'm standing up from the edge of his bed. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. I love you, Ellie."

"I love you too, kiddo," I tell him before I disappear out of the bedroom. I first get dressed in some sweat pants and a tank top and slide out of the wedge heels I've been wearing and then I head outside because I'm still feeling fairly anxious. I don't know if anxiety like this is genetic because my mom also had bad anxiety or maybe it's been caused by the things that I've been through. I guess it's probably a little bit of both but even with all of my attempts at trying to get my breathing right again, I know that I'm about to have a panic attack.

I don't even know why. I mean, I had a stressful night but it's mostly all dealt with now. I calmed Casey down, I distanced myself from Silas. I mean, I'm sad that I had to end things with Micah but that's not the worst thing in the world. And yet, here I am, sitting on the curb outside of my building hyperventilating with tears falling from my eyes. I'm not crying but with my breathing unable to keep up with my lungs, it just makes my eyes water.

I never told Casey about Davis coming into my room at night because I didn't want him to know how bad the world can be. I knew from a really young age just how terrible the world could be but I wanted to protect him from that. I wanted to create rose colored glasses for him to look through forever where he believed that the world was perfect.

I wanted him to believe that my teenage years really weren't so bad and that foster fathers never rape the children under their care. I wanted him to believe in unicorns and fairytales and I know that it's unrealistic but I was just trying to protect him. And I didn't want him to feel guilty about being the thing that Davis would use against me to force me to cooperate.

At first, Davis would hit me when I wouldn't do what he said, if I started to fight back or try to tell Cynthia what was going on. When he realized that I didn't care what happened to me and that I would always fight back even if he did hit me, he realized that I cared about Casey more than I would ever care about myself. And so if I didn't do what he said, he'd hit Casey instead. Or he'd lock him in a closet and wouldn't give me the key until he was satisfied.

If I would try to go to the social worker or somebody at school, he'd have Casey sent away. I wasn't sure if he could actually do that but I wasn't willing to see and find out. So yeah, I guess if Casey wasn't there, it would have been harder for Davis to control me but he still would have been able to control me. Even when I was fighting back, he could easily overpower me.

But what I told Casey was true—if he wasn't there, I would have killed myself. There were times when I thought that I couldn't stand it anymore. The knocks at my door, the smell of whiskey on his breath. I felt like I was going to lose my mind but I just had to look at Casey, I had to remind myself that he needed me. I remember the horror I felt when I found my mom laying in a pool of her own blood on our kitchen floor and I know that I could never do that to him.

It was my one mission, and it still kind of is, to make sure that Casey doesn't go through what I went through. Like the bridge builder, he suffered through getting over the rough chasm and then he built the bridge so that nobody else would have to suffer like he did.

I'm building that bridge for Casey so that he never has to feel abandoned or lost like I did. He'll never have to wonder if he is loved because he will always know that he is. And so I had to stay alive because Casey needed me.

I don't want him to feel guilty for being the thing that Davis leveraged against me to be able to control me. He was the one thing that got me out of that house in one piece. I think that he will still feel guilty but I don't know what else I could say to make him understand that he didn't make anything worse for me at all.

I lay on my back in the grass and wait for the dry heaving to stop and eventually, in the fresh night air, I'm able to catch my breath again. I stay in the grass for a little while longer though, just looking up at the sky. In the city, you can't see the stars very well but I know that they're up there. I'm sure that they're looking beautiful tonight.

As I'm calming down, my mind starts drifting back to Micah. He has a very comforting presence, it would have been nice to be able to talk to him when I was feeling anxious. Maybe I shouldn't have cut things off with him like I did. I mean, sure I might see Silas or Jay around if they hang out in the same circles but so what? What could they possibly do to me? The only thing that Jay can do is tell Micah that I'm an escort but he won't do that because he'd then have to admit that he hired an escort.

My father can't really do anything either, it's just that seeing his stupid face makes me angry and I wouldn't have any fun with Micah if I was just tense and bitter the whole time. But how many times would I run into him even if I was with Micah? It's not like Micah is friends with Silas, like they hang out or anything. And Micah seems pretty understanding of me having secrets.

When he saw me covered in mud with a cut on my arm bleeding pretty badly, he didn't press for more details than I was willing to give. So if I just told him that we could only be together if I'm never in the same room as Silas, I think that he'd just be okay with that.

But I also think that he's so in love with my mysteries that once the curtain comes down, he'll lose interest in me. So really, I'm just saving us some time by stopping our budding relationship now.

He would eventually find out everything about me. He'd find out why my parents left, what happened to me in foster care, he'd find out about what I do now. And then after he finds everything out, he would realize that I'm not as interesting as he had hoped and when there's nothing left to find out, he'd disappear. He seems like he could do that. He seems like he's really just curious about me. I gave sarcastic or vague answers and it intrigued him but he doesn't actually like me.

At least, that's what I tell myself to try and make the burn of this entire thing feel a bit better.