"He was a mean son of a bitch, and he wanted me to be the basketball player that he couldn't have been, so he trained me harder than any kid my age should've been trained."

Flashes of my childhood came rushing back to me as I held Virginia in my arms, the rightness of the situation made so wrong by the ugly truth of the past that I was finally sharing with her in hopes that she'd in turn share with me what was upsetting her so badly at the party.

I knew it was a shitty reason to get someone to open up, by using my own past as almost like a traumatic past ice breaker, but it was all I had.

"Any time I'd miss a three, he'd shove me on the ground and I'd cut up my back on the asphalt, sometimes on gravel when we'd play at different courts. It wasn't until later, when I started getting really good, that he got jealous of my skills."

I still remembered the first night it happened, in sharp vivid detail. He'd been drinking, and my mother was arguing with him over money, one of their most common arguments, but he caught sight of me shooting three after three through the window in the kitchen to the backyard, and for some reason, he saw red.

"My mom saw him the first time he hit me, and she didn't do anything to stop it. He stormed outside while I was practicing, and told me I wasn't worth anything. I got mad, so I shoved him back like he used to do with me, but he didn't fall on his back like I used to. He reared up and punched me right in the face so hard he almost broke my nose. My mom screamed, but she didn't really do much."

Virginia was shaking, but I couldn't look her in the eyes, not yet, so I couldn't tell if it was from sympathy or anger, but knowing her and the fire in her spirit, anger was a likely option.

"After that, the practices were longer, his drinking got worse, and when I went away to college last year, I thought I was done, but my dad, my real dad...he always wanted me to follow in his footsteps and I felt the best way to honor him would to try and be the best I could be. My only reason for regretting leaving was my little sister, because she's only my half sister. I don't know if he'd ever hurt her, because she's his blood and I'm not, but when she gets older and if she disrespects him? I could see it happening, which is what makes following this to the league so hard, knowing how often I'll be gone and not around to protect her from him."

She stiffened in my arms, so I finally allowed myself to glimpse down at her and I sucked in a breath at the pool of tears gathering in her eyes. I hadn't told her the story to make her cry, or to feel bad for me, but to let her knew that whatever she was going through, I'd understand, that I wouldn't judge her for things out of her control.

"Did...did you ever tell anyone else what he did?"

"No. I figured since my mother saw and knew about how he treated me, that even if I told someone else they wouldn't believe me because my own mother hadn't done anything to help me."

Her hand traced the side of my cheek, delicate fingers soothing my skin with her touch.

"I don't want to say I'm sorry but I don't know what else there is to say to that. How did you get through it?"

I didn't even have to think about it.

"My real dad, the values that he taught me have been there from the start, even if he died when I was so young. The thought of protecting my sister by keeping my step father's attention, negative or otherwise, on me and how I was playing was something that kept me going. I figured if he was too caught up in what I was doing, he would pay less attention to her and give her less chances to be hurt. Plus, funneling all my energy and emotions into basketball was easier than using it in a way that would hurt me, like partying too hard or fighting, which was something that I did get caught up in before I figured out what worked for me."

There was only a slight pause between my explanation and the next question I'd asked her, though it felt like an eternity as her breath hitched and her eyes found mine in the dim light of my room.

"V...is there something you need to help get you through what's happening with you?"

"I-I don't know what you'll think when you hear what I have to say."

My hands reached out and one snaked around her head while the other palmed her cheek, tilting her head back up to look at me, and the pain evident in her features would've been enough to knock me off my feet had I been standing.

"You don't have to tell me anything, but I'd never judge you. I just told you my darkest secret, one that I've never told anyone before. It wasn't to try and get you to tell me everything, just to let you know that I am here for you when you need it, and you don't have to worry about hiding things from me. You don't have to fake it. I can wait, but I don't want you keeping whatever this is locked in, because that will only hurt you in the long run."

Seconds passed with only silence between us, and then she pushed closer towards me, our noses brushing lightly as she pressed her lips to mine, a chaste undoing of my mind and then she pulled back, features shutting down as she began speaking.

"I was twelve when my parents were in their car accident, but what no one knows is that I was in the car that night, too. My dad wanted to keep it out of the media because he figured there'd be enough spotlight on what happened already, and he didn't want me to go through anything more than I already had. Looking back, I now realize how much of that night not only isn't public knowledge, but also law enforcement knowledge, too."

Her tone had turned dark and snarky, but while I had no idea where her story was going, I had a growing suspicion it had something to do with her dad.

"I was always told that it was a drunk driver who'd killed my mom, and paralyzed my dad. Watching it from the backseat, your mom just...bleeding out like that while your dad is passed out and you can't do anything because you're trapped in the backseat-I was terrified, panicked, so out of my mind that I think I started to dissociate. I forgot so many things from that night that I only just started remembering through my nightmares. Things that I never thought could be true of my father."

"What kinds of things?"

She pulled her gaze from the corner of the room where she'd been staring off into space and looked me directly in my eyes as she spoke the words that chilled me to my very core.

"He was the drunk driver the night of the accident, and he was the one who ran a red light and caused the crash. He killed my mother, and lied about it to every single person in his life, but that's not even the worst part. He alienated me from my grandparents, the people who knew the truth and wanted to take me away from him because of the danger he put me in. He forbid me from seeing them, and for years we would sit at the kitchen every single night and eat desert and build our relationship back up from where it had been before my mom died, and the whole time it was just a lie.

"And now, he's trying to control me more than he ever has. He reported my car stolen to the cops so I have nowhere to go, he tried to get me fired from my job, he pays for my school, my phone, my food, every single thing in my life is controlled by him, and the only way I can get out is if I quit here, get some student loans and move up to Jersey with my grandparents, and that's if I get a scholarship to the school that I want, and even then, I'll still be dead broke unless I can win the prize money for the showcase at the end of the year. I just- I can't-"

"Hey hey, breathe. Take a deep breath, you don't have to figure all this out on your own, and not right now. Just...take things slow. One by one, make a list in your head of the things you need to do to get out from under his control, and I'll do whatever I can to help you."

To be honest, my mind was reeling.

I thought I'd exchanged an abusive coach for a docile, MVP coach who'd take me to the highest of heights in my career, but in reality I'd only swapped one monster for another. I was disgusted at Mike, and my heart broke for V and all the pain she'd already had to endure alone, not to mention under the eye of her cousin and her ex, taunting her like they were better than her.

I had a million questions, like how he'd covered something so huge up in the way that he had, and how V had learned the truth so suddenly, but I realized that she needed a plan of action, something to put her mind to so that she could focus on getting that done instead of getting bogged down in the nitty gritty details of her father's betrayal.

"What do you need? You can apply for a housing loan and get an apartment closer to school with a roommate to help pay for it, go and get all your stuff from your father's house, with a police escort, and then we can work on you getting on your own phone plan, maybe cut your classes back so you have more hours to work and make more money?"

She was nodding before all the words had left my mouth, something similar to hope shining for the first time in her eyes since I'd found her crumpled on the sidewalk struggling to breathe.

"Yeah, and Chuck offered me Maddie's manager position which is a little more money an hour, too. If I can work from four to midnight, that's eight hours a night and I can practice for the showcase when no one is there. I can probably cut back on my first morning class of the day and get myself some more sleep a day. I can make the class up next semester or next year if I have to...I can get a new bank account, sell some of my things, transfer over the money my dad's given me recently...I can do it. But not all at once, I don't want him getting suspicious."

"That might be hard, considering he wants me to drive you home tomorrow night, since it will be a weekend, but I bet I could stall him considering I have a game Saturday. I can say you were wanting to stick around and watch it, support him by supporting me, or something like that?"

"Yeah, we can do that. I am not speaking to him, though. There's no way I can talk to him and not blow up in his face over what he's done."

My arms pulled her body as close to mine as it could get, almost like they had a mind of their own, and the small contented sigh that fell past her lips was music to my ears. It was confirmation that she needed this just as much as I needed her.

"So, your grandmother told you the truth about your father, then?"

"Yeah. I was so upset about what he did with my car earlier tonight that I just snapped and called her and asked her outright. She told me that he bribed the officials who'd come to his bedside once he woke up from his medically induced coma. There was another driver involved in the accident who had been drinking as well, and he's the one who took the fall even though he didn't cause the wreck. He was able to make his blood tests from that night disappear completely because, well, money and reputation. No one wanted to believe the great Mike Bruins was an alcoholic drunk driver who killed his own wife with his daughter in the car."

He was no better than my step father, and while I wanted to voice that opinion, I realized it wasn't the time, not with V yawning in my arms and clutching me just as tightly as I was with her.

Her body fit into mine like a puzzle piece, and while I wanted nothing more than to continue the fire that we'd created only a few minutes earlier, I knew that she wasn't ready for that, not after what we'd just discussed.

It was like an invisible barrier had been crossed with us, and there was no going back. I wasn't walking away from this girl, and if luck went my way, she wouldn't be walking from me either, but even if she tried, I would do everything in my power to keep her with me, because there was no way I was letting go of someone so important to me so quickly and without a fight.

She deserved someone who'd fight for her, and I intended for that person to be me.

I only hoped that she would feel the same about me after she found out who I used to be, the things that I did before I found the healthy way to channel my rage for my step dad.

Because once she learned that truth, there were no more explanations or miscommunications that I could blame it on. And that truth was catching up to me quicker than I had expected, because I would be playing against him in two days time in the charity game.

And V would most likely be sitting there front row, with her family in attendance to the shit show that would explode in every single one of their faces...I just hoped V wouldn't be in the blast zone when everything finally came crashing down.