Hopeless

pushes my shoulders back until I’m flat on the bed and he slips off my shoes. He walks to the bathroom, then comes back with a wet rag and picks up my hand, wiping it clean. He checks it for shards of glass, then gently lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my hand.
    “It’s just a few scratches,” he says. “Nothing too deep.” He adjusts me onto the pillow and slips his own shoes off, then climbs onto the bed beside me. He pulls the blanket over us and pulls me to him, tucking my head against his chest. He holds me and never once asks me why I’m crying. Just like he used to do when we were kids.
    I try to get the images out of my head of what I remember happening to me at night in my room, but they won’t go away. How any father could do that to his little girl...it’s beyond my scope of comprehension. I tell myself that it never happened, that I’m imagining it, but every part of me knows it did happen. Every part of me that remembers why I was happy to get in that car with Karen. Every part of me that remembers all the nights I’ve made out with guys in my bed, never feeling a single thing while looking up at the stars. Every part of me that broke out into a full-blown panic attack the night Holder and I almost had sex. Every single part of me remembers, and I would do anything just to forget. I don’t want to remember how my father sounded or felt at night, but with each passing second the memories become more and more vivid, only making it harder for me to stop crying.
    Holder is kissing me on the side of my head, telling me again how it’ll be okay, that I shouldn’t worry. But he has no idea. He has no idea how much I remember and what it’s doing to my heart and my soul and my mind and to my faith in humanity as a whole.
    To know that those things were done to me at the hands of the only adult I had in my life—it’s no wonder I’ve blocked everything out. I hold barely any memories of the day I was taken by Karen, and now I know why. It didn’t feel like I was in the middle of a calamitous event the moment she stole me away from my life. To a little girl who was terrified of her life, I’m sure it felt more like Karen was rescuing me.
    I lift my gaze to Holder’s and he’s looking down at me. He’s hurting for me; I can see it in his eyes. He wipes away my tears with his finger and kisses me softly on the lips. “I’m sorry. I should have never let you go inside.”
    He’s blaming himself again. He always feels like he’s done something terrible, when I feel like he’s been nothing short of my hero. He’s been with me through all of this, steadily carrying me through my panic attacks and freak-outs until I’m calm. He’s done nothing but be there for me, yet he still feels like this is somehow his fault.
    “Holder, you didn’t do anything wrong. Stop apologizing,” I say through my tears. He shakes his head and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
    “I shouldn’t have taken you there. It’s too much for you to deal with after just finding everything out.”
    I lift up on my elbow and look at him. “It wasn’t just being there that was too much. It was what I remembered that was too much. You have no control over the things my father did to me. Stop placing blame on yourself for everything bad that happens to the people around you.”
    He slides his hand up and through my hair with a worried look on his face. “What are you talking about? What things did he do to you?” The words are so hesitant to come out of his mouth because he more than likely knows. I think we’ve both known what happened to me as a child—we’ve just been in denial.
    I drop my arm and rest my head on his chest and don’t answer him. My tears come back full force and he wraps one arm tightly around my back and grips the back of my head with his other. He presses his cheek to the top of my head. “No, baby,” he whispers. “No,” he says again, not wanting to believe what I’m not even saying. I grab fistfuls of his shirt and just cry while he holds me with such conviction that it makes me love him for hating my father just as much as I do.
    He kisses the top of my head and continues to hold me. He doesn’t tell me he’s sorry or ask how he can fix it because we both know we’re at a loss. Neither of us knows what to do next. All I know at this point is that I have nowhere to go. I can’t go back to the father who has rightful custody over me. I can’t go back to the woman