Bianca tried to keep Miranda chatting as the cab driver drove them across town to the doctor's office. She wanted to make this seem as normal as possible, so she asked about school and what plans they should make for the weekend and tried to stop her own tension showing.

Dr Stanhope was there waiting for them in the foyer and led them both through to the office. There were three chairs set up in a circle and they all quietly took their seat.

"When you're ready." said Dr Stanhope calmly.

But both Bianca and Miranda sat in silence not sure how this conversation should start.

Recognising the tension, Dr Stanhope smiled.

"Miranda," he prompted. "I know you have questions for your mommy. I want you to ask your first one."

Miranda looked pained, so Bianca gave her an encouraging smile, even though her own stomach was doing somersaults.

"Why?" she asked quietly, almost too quiet to hear.

"I'm sorry sweetie, I can't hear you." said Bianca leaning closer, hating to see her child so nervous.

"Why did he hurt you?" Miranda asked her voice only fractionally louder.

Bianca sighed.

"He hurt me because he wasn't a very nice man."

Miranda nodded in understanding even though her eyes told Bianca that she didn't. Bianca realised it wasn't enough anymore just to say a bad man hurt her. This was the part where she had to try and explain it all.

"… he wasn't a very nice man," Bianca repeated. "He staged a takeover of my mother's beauty business through trickery, bulling and theft. He wanted to ruin her! But he also wanted to hurt her. He tried to attack her the same way he later attacked me but there were people there to stop him, and then he tried to do the same to Kendall but there was someone to stop him then as well. He was a truly horrible man! They managed to get him arrested, I can't remember exactly what for any more, but the charges didn't stick. When he was released from prison, he was really mad. He wanted revenge. As soon as word got out about his release Uncle Jack sent a police guard to anyone they thought might be at risk, Erica, Kendall, and Lena, my girlfriend back then, anyone who'd gone up against him. No one thought for a second that he would come after me! But in his twisted mind it made perfect sense. By hurting me he was also hurting everyone who cared about me, including my mom and my sister and my girlfriend."

Miranda's eyes were wide as she listened and Bianca wondered whether she had already said too much. One quick glance at Dr Stanhope's encouraging smile however was enough to make her realise that this was the right way to do this.

"It was a horrible night." Bianca continued. "There was a huge thunderstorm that knocked out the power to half the town. When I got home it was so dark and I thought the house was empty. I thought I was alone. But then he struck a match. Michael Cambias was there waiting for me. I should have fled right then and there but I couldn't believe that he would hurt me. I couldn't believe that anyone could be that cruel." Bianca swallowed nervously. "He locked the door… both locks … and then he started talking, just talking. But really he was playing with me. He knew he was going to hurt me, he just liked to see me scared. I thought I was doing okay. I thought if he was talking then he wasn't hurting me. I tried to be nice; I even danced with him when he asked me to. I was trying so hard not to show how much he was terrifying me. But then he said something that made me angry. I was angry at how scared he was making me and how easily he made his threats, so I shouted at him. I told him he was a worthless human being, I think! I shouldn't have shouted. He stopped pretending to be nice… he just grabbed me. I got away, I hit him with something, but I couldn't unlock the door. There was no way out. He had me!"

Bianca wiped a tear from her cheek, not quite prepared for how vivid the memories would still be after all this time.

"Did it hurt?" Miranda asked quietly.

"It hurt," said Bianca, "Because I didn't want it to happen."

Bianca lean closer and put her hand on her daughter's knee.

"I know you are still very young, but what I don't want you to do is confuse sex with rape. Sex is a moment shared between two people, it is joyous, loving, fun, and sometimes the good kind of scary but always a moment shared. Rape is… is someone taking something precious from someone else that they don't want to give."

"It's being mean." said Miranda.

"Exactly."

Miranda bit her lip.

"Was it like the film?" she asked.

"The film…" said Bianca with a big sigh. "He never hit me like they showed. He was so strong he just held me down with one hand. I got a bruised shoulder where I tried to twist out of his grasp. I screamed more… He said less… It wasn't really like the film…"

Bianca melted into silence not knowing what else to say. It felt like every word out of her mouth was traumatising Miranda more rather than less.

"Why don't you tell her what happened afterwards." Dr Stanhope prompted.

Bianca looked briefly across at the doctor and then back to her child. Miranda was still watching her wide-eyed, waiting for more.

"Afterwards I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened." said Bianca, "I thought I could make it all go away if no one else knew. I was stupid. I should have gone straight to the police; I should have saved the evidence… Instead I destroyed it all. I tidied up the house. I washed every trace of him off of my skin and then I took the clothes I'd been wearing to the park and threw them on a bonfire. There was no proof it had ever happened. I kept it a secret for months. People knew something was wrong but I couldn't tell them, I was too ashamed. My friend Maggie, you remember Maggie, she got it out of me in the end and then it became easier to talk about it, to tell people what he had done to me. But I'd left it too late. They arrested him and they had a hearing but it was my word against his. I'd destroyed all the evidence. They had to let him go…"

Bianca leant forward and squeezed Miranda's knee.

"And then David told me I was pregnant." she said, smiling briefly at her daughter. "There was proof. But again rather than go to the police I was stupid again."

"You were in shock both times." said Dr Stanhope. "You couldn't have reacted any other way."

Bianca nodded gratefully at his kind words before continuing.

"I thought I would go to Michael myself. Tell him I had the proof that he'd hurt me and demand he leave town and leave my family alone. I was terrified though, so to make me feel braver I put a gun in my purse. Bad move. When I told him I was pregnant, he was actually happy! His father had disowned him, but a child would mean he could get his hands on the family fortune again. He told me he was going to take the baby, and that he could take me too, anytime he wanted and nobody would stop him. He grabbed me again and I got away, only this time I had a gun! He laughed at me. He came at me as if the gun wasn't there… and I just pulled the trigger. I killed a man! That was the worst part of all of it. He'd made me a monster just like him. He'd turned me into a killer."

"But he was going to hurt you!" said Miranda.

Bianca looked into her daughter's eyes.

"But if I hadn't gone there and gone to the police instead…"

"Bianca," warned Dr Stanhope softly. "You can't change the past, remember. You can only look to the future."

It was a familiar mantra that had got her through the trauma all those years ago when all the what-ifs and maybes almost drove her insane.

"It took me a long time to get over it." said Bianca, taking up her tale again. "But Dr Stanhope was here to help me, and Kendall and mom. And I had a reason to get my life back. You, Miranda."

Bianca reached out and stroked her daughter's cheek.

"And do you know the most amazing thing?"

"What, mommy?"

"If I had to choose between not being raped and not having you, I would go through that hell all over again …for you. What we have been talking about here was nine months of torment and heart-break. The nine years of joy I've had because of you trumps it every time, a million times over. Thinking about the rape sometimes makes me sad, yes, but then I think of you and I'm happy again. Do you understand?"

"You love me?" said Miranda softly.

"I love you with all my heart and I always will. Even when you forget to tidy your room, or fight with your sister or hide your peas under the mash potato so you don't have to eat them. Oh I see those things…" said Bianca, smiling at her daughter's look of surprise at her knowing that trick. "I love you. What happened in the past will always be in the past. But we have the rest of our lives to be happy. I just want you to be happy again, Angel!"

"I love you too, mommy!" exclaimed Miranda, jumping up from her chair and giving her a huge hug.

"So when the nightmares come," Bianca whispered, holding her daughter tightly and stoking her hair, "Please try to remember that. The past is the past and it can never change the fact that I love you!"

…