Sophie

I ruined their family.

I did, I really did. Darlene was so good to me. She told me, before she left for Wisconsin, that she was only going because she knew I would be there to take care of Dana. She trusted me and I ruined it. You’re thinking he used me. You’re wrong. He kept trying to stop me. He kept saying, “Sophie, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

At first I thought it was my imagination. And then he stopped talking to me while Darlene was home. You know, like he was embarrassed, like he was hiding something. And then she left for six months, but Cy wouldn’t have sex with me. We’d been sleeping in the same bed... Just sleeping. And then... one night... the night before Darlene came home, I woke up in the middle of the night... and he was awake. Then he... I... It happened. It felt like nothing at all.

Kind of like... Kind of like I was watching it happen... On a really small black-and-white television. Like... I was checking my email at the same time. Like I wasn’t really there. I don’t know. The next day we pretended like it hadn’t happened. Then at practice that afternoon we had this big fight in front of everyone. I feel off the beam and he was screaming at me. A few weeks later Darlene said she wanted to talk to me. She said that Dana had become too attached to me while she was in Wisconsin, and that I probably shouldn’t come over for awhile. I just said, “I’m sorry.” She said, “Don’t be silly, kids forget quickly, grownups don’t but kids do. Dana will forget you.”

You don’t think so?

When I left, she gave me a present that she got for me in Wisconsin.

An apron with cows on it. She knows I like to cook and I collect things with cows on them, so... It was sort of... perfect.

I woke up in the ambulance.