It's late, and we've just got back from a party one of her friends was hosting. She's drunk, but amazingly, she doesn't look it. She's led me around on her leash all night, with me walking ten feet behind her, my eyes lowered like the good little girl she expects me to be. She's drunk enough to yank me behind her all the way home, even as I stumble on the wet pavement, because it's dark and I can't see where I'm going. Even more amazingly, no one stops us, or even looks at us as if it's odd to see one girl leading another around on her leash.

When we get back to her house, she pulls me up to her room and sits me down on the bed. "Get undressed," she orders.

I shake my head, wrapping my arms around myself in shame. I can't let her see what my father did to me last night, when he asked me why I was out so late and I stupidly replied that I was with my girlfriend. He travels a lot, so he hadn't known about her, but I should have known he would have a problem with it. "Good Christian girls are not lesbians," he said, and made me lie over my bed while he spanked me with his belt, until my skin was torn and bleeding. Today, the welts are so large and painful that it hurts to sit down, and I don't want her to see them.

She pulls off my clothes anyway, and I see something flash in her eyes when she sees the welts, but she masks it quickly. "What's this?" she asks coldly.

I lower my eyes. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

She smacks me, hard, across the face. "What is this?"

"My – my father," I stammer. "He punished me."

"For what?"

I don't want to tell her, I realty don't, but it's not as if I have a choice. "I told him about you."

Her face contorts, and she yanks on a clump of my hair. "Get up. You're going to be punished."

I let out a sob. "Please, ma'am, no! I know I shouldn't have told him! I'm sorry. It hurts! It hurts. Please don't. Please don't! I'm sorry!"

But my begging does me no good, and she hits me anyway, over and over and over until I'm screaming so loudly that it's a wonder the neighbors don't call the police. And when she's done, she locks me in the closet and leaves me there, bruised and broken and more confused than ever.

I wake up crying, and panic when I feel body sleeping beside me. I'm back with her, her arms holding me so tight that I feel like I'm suffocating. "Please don't," I whisper, raising my hands over my head to protect it from the anticipatory blows. "I'm sorry!"

"Shh, Alex, it's okay. It's just me. I'm here. You're safe." Olivia gently takes my arms and brings them back down to my sides. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

I breathe a sigh of relief when I realize it's just Olivia, but then I tense up again. Now Olivia knows. I was crying in my sleep, probably screaming too, and she knows everything.

Olivia gently rubs my back. "That was a pretty scary nightmare, huh?"

I just nod, grateful for the comfort that she's offering, allowing her to soothe my residual terror.

"Can you tell me about it?"

I can, but I won't. She should know that by now. But here I am, in her bed, wrapped up in her arms, and I know I won't be able to keep my secret for much longer. Being here with her just feels too good. But I know as soon as I tell her what happened to me, what I let happen to me, she'll be gone, and it'll be my own fault.

She holds me even more tightly. "Okay, sweetie. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. But I'm here for you if you ever do."

I'm trembling in her embrace, and she keeps rubbing my back and whispering assurances in my ear, promising me that I'm safe, that she'll protect me from whatever it is, that she's here and she's not going anywhere. My body slowly calms in her arms as the remnants of my nightmare slip away. I wish Olivia could be here for every nightmare, to soothe away my fears. But I know that Olivia will never want me here again. It's over between us. I've ruined it, with my mini-meltdown in the restaurant, my clinginess, my tears, and now my nightmare. Olivia deserves so much better than me, so much more than I can give her.

It seems to occur to us both at the same time what we must look like: in bed together, with her arms wrapped tightly around me. And here we were thinking last night was a first date! A first date that culminated with us in bed – fully clothed, I might add.

Odd as it would seem to an observer, Olivia doesn't seem to mind. "It's okay," she repeats, threading her fingers through my hair.

It's not okay, though. I disentangle myself from Olivia's embrace and curl up on the floor beside the bed. I don't deserve all the affection she's showing me. I don't deserve to be in her bed, in her arms, even in her apartment. This is where I belong, on the cold hardwood ground where she always put me, in the dark closet where she made me sleep. Even at fourteen, I was afraid of the dark, and that's why she punished me that way, over and over. She always knew just what would hurt me most, and that was what she did to me.

I cringe when I feel a warm pair of arms encircling me once more, but my body relaxes when I realize it's just Olivia. She's on the ground beside me, holding me once again. I don't understand.

She strokes my hair for a few moments, then leans close to whisper in my ear, "Don't run."

My body tenses, and suddenly that's the one thing I want to do, but as soon as she says this, I know I won't. She really wants me here with her. I don't know why, but suddenly it doesn't matter. I'm here, in her arms, and I'm safe.

We lie there in silence for a few more moments, then she says, "Let's sit back on the bed, okay? It's comfier."

I try to get to my feet, but I can't move. It feels too good, to be here, with Olivia, and I'm scared that if I move a muscle, I'll wake up to find that it's all been just a wonderful dream.

She gives me a smile and wraps my arms around her neck. "Don't let go," she says, and lifts me onto the bed, then sits down beside me.

I'm too overwhelmed to even object, although she's treating me like a child, and I'm not particularly keen on that. And yet, maybe it's what I need right now.

She takes my hands in hers and ducks her head so she's looking right into my eyes, and then she says, simply, clearly, genuinely, "I love you."

My heart stops. She's just told me she loves me. Olivia loves me. Olivia loves me.

I shake my head, and my whole body convulses. She doesn't love me. She can't. No one has ever loved me before. No one ever can. She told me she loved me, too, so long ago, but she hurt me. She lied. Olivia can easily do the same. I'm just as easy to manipulate now as I was then, just as easy to hurt.

I try to pull my hands away, try to get up and run, even though I've just promised I wouldn't. I can't handle this, not now, not when my pain is still so acute. If I give Olivia the power to hurt me, she will, and I can't take any more pain.

She doesn't let me go, though. She doesn't loosen her grasp on my hands and holds my gaze steady. "No matter how far you run, nothing can ever change that," she says, quietly but firmly. "I will always love you."

For just a moment, I let myself believe her. And I don't run.

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