Sheri was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Carol Boone. In the living room, Sheryl was fast asleep on the loveseat, Nikki was on the sofa, and Karen had curled up in an arm chair.

"Thank you for coming over, Mrs. Boone. I really appreciate it." Sheri said. "I mean, I hate that you had to drive all this way, but I am glad not to be alone."

"No problem," Carol smiled. After seeing Sheri for herself, and asking a few necessary questions, she had decided that Sheri was fine, other than a few scratches and bruises. Physically, at least.

Emotionally, she was scared and hurt, like anyone whose trust had been broken in such a way would have been.

Sheri toyed with the rim of her coffee cup and looked out the window again.

"Your daddy'll be home soon," Carol assured her.

"Yes, ma'am," She replied. "I just hope he stopped Gerry before he got himself in some real trouble."

"Herman said everything was fine, when I talked to him."

"Yes, ma'am." She paused. Then said, "I know that I got off lucky and things could have turned out a lot worse than they did, but I just don't get why he did it. Why did he try to force me to sleep with him? I mean, he's handsome and popular and a star athlete. I know several girls who would sleep with him, right now, if they had the chance, so..." She held up her hands and shrugged. "Did I dress too provacatively? Or was I sending out the wrong signals or something?"

Carol shook her head. "No. You weren't doing any of those things. If you told him no or to stop, then nothing else matters. No is no, stop is stop."

Sheri nodded again, but she didn't look convinced.

"Listen," She continued. "Nothing that happened tonight is your fault. There are some men in this world who think of women simply as things. We all talk alike, think alike, act alike, look alike, because we are things. Things can be owned, and can be dominated, and can be controlled. So that makes us, just things. They believe that it is okay to abuse, assualt, and belittle women, becuase like things, we have no feelings, but those they give us. They think that their bad behavior is thier right, because we have to be kept in 'our place' as second class citizens. It's a hate crime, just like racism. Only worse, because the hatred of women exists in every race, religion, country, culture, and class. Unlike racism, though, it isn't on the front pages of the newspapers, so it very seldom gets called what it is. Hate."

Sheri nodded, again. this time more convinced. It made sense, what Mrs. Boone was saying. Ray was a big racist, so he was probably sexist, too. She smiled. Then she hugged Carol.

Carol was shocked. Sheri was the first white person to ever hug her. But she wasn't to shocked to hug her back. "It's okay, Sweetheart. It's okay to be hurt, and scared, and whatever else you are feeling right now."

"Mad."

"Esspecially mad," Carol emphasized.

Sheri sat back down in her chair and looked out the window, again. "Daddy's here. That was quick. If he was just leaving when Coach Boone called you."

"He's worried about his little girl," She smiled.

"I wish he didn't even know that it all had anything to do with me," Sheri replied.

"Why? Honey, you didn't do anything wrong," Carol insisted. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, or need to hide."

"I wasn't where I was supposed to be," She admitted.

"Well, I don't know your daddy very well, yet," Carol assured her. "But I can already see that won't be the detail he's hung up on. By monday, most of the kids in school are going to be talking about Gerry and Alan and Ray fighting and they're all going to be talking about why. He's gonna overhear from somebody and he needs to already know what really happened, from you."

"Sheridan?" Coach called out.

"In the kitchen." She jumped up from her chair and hugged him as he came into the room. "Daddy."

He hugged her tightly. "Precious."

Carol smiled. That was exactly what she had thought would happen.

"Mrs. Boone." He nodded to her, not quite ready to let go of Sheri yet.

"Hi." She stood to leave. "Now that you're here, I'd better be getting my girls home."

"Here, let me help you with the girls," he offered.

"Thank you."

He gave Sheri another hug, then he helped Mrs. Boone by carrying Nikki out to thier car.

"Come on, Sis," Sheri said, waking Sheryl. "Time to go to bed."

"Is Coach home?" The sleepy little girl asked.

"Uh-huh. He's helping Mrs. Boone take the girls out to her car." She pulled Sheryl to her feet.

"I wanna see him," Sheryl protested.

"You just want to stay up a little longer," Sheri laughed. "You know he'll come tuck you in." Together they climbed the stairs. She helped Sheryl get into a gown and get in bed. "Night, baby." She kissed her forehead, then started to leave.

"Sissie?"

Sheri turned around. "Yeah, baby?"

"Are you really okay?"

"I'm fine, Sweetie. Get some sleep. It'll be time for church before you know it."

"I love you, Sissie."

Sheri smiled. "I love you, too."

She to her room and got ready for bed. She had just crawled under the blankets when she heard Coach talking to Sheryl. She rubbed her sore wrist.

"If you keep running around, playing and rough-housing with the boys, then you are going to get a bad reputation," Arleane Yoast's voice came back to her, scolding her for a rip in her dress when she was nine years old. "That might not mean much to you, now, but it'll stick with you, and hurt you when you're older."

She left not long after that.

Maybe Mother was right. Maybe she had given herself a bad reputation.

"Hey, Sweetheart." Coach was standing at her door.

"Hi."

"Want some company?"

She shrugged.

"Come on, Sheri, talk to me," He said. "You know there ain't nothing you can't tell me. Me and you always talk to each other."

"I know."

He sat down on the bed beside her and pulled her into his lap, like she was a little girl. "Either one of us is getting bigger, or this bed is getting smaller," he laughed, earning a smile from her.

"The bed is shrinking," she replied.

"That was my guess, too." He hugged her up. "Do you want to tell me what happened tonight? Did Ray...,"

"No, Daddy," She interuptted. "No. Listen, we went to the party, just like I told you, but we left. I know I'm not supposed to tell you I'm going somewhere, then go somewhere else, but I did. We were just going to go for a drive, but he took me out to this little place down by the lake that his Grandpa owns and we were talking and he kissed me and I didn't like it. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't. He had my hands, so I couldn't...." she knew he would see her wrist sometime before they healed, so she went ahead and held them up. She saw anger flash through his blue eyes, but he didn't say anything. So, she continued, "So, I kicked him in the one place I knew would stop him, and I got my bag out of his truck and started walking. We were a long ways out of town, going towards Hayfield. Then, there was Gerry. And Julius. Gerry just knew where I was, and he gave me ride home. He saw my arms and got mad and that's why he was trying to hurt Ray. I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad at me."

"Mad? I'm not mad at you, Sheridan," he assured her, placing a kiss on her forehead. "I'm not happy with Ray, but I am definitely not mad at you."

"But, it's my fault," she replied.

"No. No. Who told you that?" He questioned.

"Mother."

"Your mother?"

She nodded.

"You talked to your Mother tonight?"

"No."

"Then..?" He was confused.

"When I was little. She told me that if I didn't stop running around and playing with boys, then I was going to get a reputation and it would stay with me when I was grown." She explained between sobs.

He sighed. "Sheridan, your mother told you a lot of things that weren't true. That was one of them. You know you don't have a bad reputation. Was that why you didn't want to tell me this?"

She nodded.

"Listen to me," He replied. "You don't ever be afraid to tell me something. No matter what. You're my baby and I'll always love you, and I'll always be proud of you. But, this wasn't your fault. It wasn't. Please don't cry about this."

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. She wasn't crying because of what happened with Ray, but there was no reason she could see for Coach to know that.



"Try to get some sleep."

She nodded. "Coach, will you stay here until I go to sleep?"

"Yeah, I'll stay." He replied.

She snuggled up against him. She loved the way Coach smelled like green aftershave, old leather, and fresh air. It was the way he had smelled all her life. There was something comforting and safe about it. It was Coach.

She hadn't slept with Coach since the night her mother had walked out and she decided she was going to start being a big girl, but tonight, tonight she happy to be Daddy's little girl again.

______________________________________________________



Sheri walked into Sunday school with butterflies in her stomach. Jenn had met her on the front steps of the church and told her everything Ray had said. That was what everybody was believing. The worse part was since she didn't want them to know what really happened, she had to deal with them believing she slept with Ray.

Then she saw Alan. Poor Alan. Both his eyes were black and he had a busted lip.

"My sweet Alan," She pushed back tears again. She knew his face had to hurt, and he was being punished by Coach Boone, and if she knew his dad, things weren't so nice at home either, all for her. "You know Ray was lying, right?"

"Sheri, you know you don't even have to ask me that."

That did it. The tears came again. She was in his arms, the two friends hugging as if they hadn't seen each other in years.