She exhales a shaky breath, but allows me to take her hand and lead her to the living room. She waits until I sit on the couch before moving to the love seat. I’m disappointed but unsurprised that she wants space.

I sip my wine and try not to allow the displeasure to appear on my face. I make a mental note to have a couple cases of good wine delivered to her house so she doesn’t feel compelled to drink this shit. Running my hand up and down my thigh a few times, I take a deep breath. “I’ve never shared this with anyone, Charlene. I had hoped I would never have to.”

I take her in, noting the protective way she cups the bowl of the glass in her palms, warming the white. When I reach her throat, I note her missing pearls and my chest constricts. Charlene always wears them, and the significance of their absence is like a razorblade slice across my heart. Her expression and her posture are both guarded. I hope I haven’t lost all my gains because of this.

I hate my parents so much for making me feel secrecy is necessary.

“I was raised by my mother’s parents.”

“Because your parents are porn stars.”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t ask for more information, but silence will only widen the gap between us. She wants me to tell her without having to prod.

“My parents started dating in their last year of high school. They were eighteen and careless.”

“And your mom got pregnant,” Charlene says softly.

In a lot of ways our stories are similar. Young adults making mistakes and having kids—us—way before they were ready. “She did. And because of my grandparents’ beliefs, she kept me. They agreed to support her if she broke it off with my father.”

“But she didn’t.”

“She did not. They ran away together—such a romantic notion, isn’t it?” I smile at the irony and glance at Charlene, who looks sad. “They learned very quickly how difficult it is to afford a child with no education and no support from family, so they found a way to make money. And they made a lot. But with certain professions, there’s a lifestyle.” I look down at my hands and a disjointed series of memories that never made much sense until I was older flicker like an old movie behind my eyes. “At a young age I was exposed to things I shouldn’t have been.”

Charlene’s teeth press into her lip as she puts together what I mean. “Oh,” she breathes.

“It was . . . damaging in more ways than I can count, which is why I don’t like to talk about it. Most of the memories are vague and indistinct, like wisps of a dream I can’t quite catch and hold.”

She nods. “I understand that. Sometimes I feel the same about my childhood, like it’s shrouded in a fog I can’t sift through.”

“Exactly.” I worry what telling her this will do to us. I worry more that we’re too cumulatively messed up to be good for each other. “When I was four, I was removed from my parents’ home and sent to live with my grandparents. I was raised in two very extreme households. The first was expressly permissive and overly sexual. The second was suffocatingly oppressive. There were restrictions put on me that weren’t always reasonable.”

“What kind of restrictions?” Her voice is a whisper.

I consider how much I want to tell her and decide I might as well let her in all the way. “As soon as puberty hit, the door to my room was removed.”

She frowns. “Why?”

“My grandparents wanted to eradicate the perversion out of me.”

“And they thought they could do that by taking away your privacy?”

“Mmm.”

“God, you must’ve had to take a lot of long showers.”

I give her a rueful smile. “They put a timer on the thermostat in the shower. The hot water shut off after five minutes.”

“How did you even manage?”

“I lived and breathed hockey. I spent hours at the rink every single day, and I became very accustomed to being uncomfortable. Thankfully I was drafted at eighteen. But sometimes, when you’ve been oppressed for so long, freedom causes more pain. I think you might understand that.”

Charlene nods, and her fingers drift up her throat, but stop when she doesn’t come in contact with her pearls. I want to ask where they are since they rarely come off.

“It’s hard to trust,” she murmurs.

I edge closer to her, my knee nearly touching hers. “Yes. That’s it exactly. The only people I could safely place faith in were my teammates.”

Charlene drops her head, her fingers dragging down the side of her glass. “Is it like that still?”

Charlene is just as broken as I am. Someone whole would be better for her, but I don’t think I’m selfless enough to let her go if she’s damaged enough to want to stay.