Chapter 70

MELISSA

"I'm sorry, Melissa. You were just a little girl when all this happened, it wasn't your fault," Maggie says, and I nod, still looking at her.

"I hated it when he did that to me; I hated it when he came into my room every night, but I couldn't do anything about it; his threats got worse and worse; he said that if I said anything, he would kill my whole family, and it would all be my fault. I was afraid. I was very afraid of him, Maggie. One night he crossed the line, he was drunker than ever and tried to remove my clothes, but I fought back this time and managed to run out of my room. I went into my older sister's room, and I started crying like I'd never cried before."

It's hard for me to talk about what happened to me. I've been through horrible times, and it all started when I was just an innocent child. I never understood why I suffered so much in this world.

I trusted the man who said he loved my mother. I trusted him because I wanted a father in