"Riley."

"Riley. I'm talking to you."

"Can you hear me?"

"Huh?" Riley asked groggily, pushing his face up on his palms. Upon examination, he noticed he'd been drooling on the table. He was tired, very tired. He'd been in that interview room almost all night and barely said a thing. Why was he so afraid? It was him talking that had gotten him there in the first place.

"Good, you're awake," the interviewer said. Riley couldn't help but notice how pretty the woman was. She was pretty, just like his mom. "Now, do we need to go over this again?"

Riley narrowed his eyes. "What?"

The interviewer sighed, reaching across the table to grab a doll, the doll she kept showing Riley. He didn't know what to say about the doll, or how he was supposed to say it.

"Can you show me where your mom touches you?"

Riley's face reddened, and tears filled his eyes quickly. He struggled to find words. There were too many memories brought up from that question, too many for his young mind to process. "N-no."

"No what?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," Riley muttered in honesty. Talking about it hurt too much, yet at the same time, talking about it might help. After all, Granddad and Huey were waiting in the lobby of the Child Protective Services, waiting patiently for him to make his statement.

Fiddling with his fingers, the twelve-year-old tried his hardest to block out the memories that threatened to surface and tear him apart again. They were there, clearer than ever, begging to be voiced to someone.

It was almost as if he could feel her there with him, her long, fake nail scraping lightly down his lower back and hooking its way into his waistband. It happened so often that at one point he was almost used to her mouth on his pre-pubescent body, leaving lipstick marks all over his belly and waist and privates.

He was almost used to something he shouldn't have even been able to experience until years in the future, and he was almost used to the feeling of a woman's vulva resting snugly on his penis.

Talking about it, though, was something he'd never get used to.