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touched an emotional hotwire.
     
    “Tristan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop about your issues,” I apologize and imagine a small, withdrawn, sandy haired boy wandering around in misery. It breaks my heart to think that such a beautiful man could have been so vulnerable once.
     
    “Were you put into therapy around that age then?”
     
    “I was five years old when I was abducted and tortured. The psychotherapy came much later. Before that, I’d been a happy child,” he lets his words trail off. His face looks wrenched with pain. It’s time to change the topic.
     
    “My father died when I was a baby,” I offer. “My mother, Carmen, married three times after that. I guess she could never get it right after my dad was killed.” Tristan looks at me with sympathy for a moment.
     
    “We all have our issues,” he observes. “Did you like your stepfathers?”
     
    “I really grew to love Rob, the second husband. He was a carpenter and treated me like the son he never had. I learned about self-defense and I can really handle a hammer because of him. We’re still close,” I explain with a wry twist to my mouth. “So I had a good childhood but I wasn’t at all happy during my teen years.”
     
    “Well, who is?” he says with sarcasm.
     
    “No, this was due to more than hormones and high school cliques, Tristan. My unhappiness started the moment Carmen divorced Rob and married husband number three.”
     
    “What about her third husband?” he asks carefully. Now, he’s found my Achilles heel. I debate how much I want to share about Richard.
     
    I huff, then start on my sordid story, “Maybe I should refer to him as ‘Dick’ because he certainly was that and more.”
     
    Tristan looks at me with surprise for a beat then assures me, “You don’t have to talk about it, if it bothers you, Joanna.”
     
    “It’s alright. I saw a therapist during college for a couple of years. She helped me work through my resentment of Carmen and sicko Dicko,” I add with sarcasm.
     
    “What happened, did he hurt you?”
     
    “He beat me with a belt, for starters, for the most ridiculous reasons, and I was 13 years old,” I spit out with venom. “Carmen did nothing to stop the ‘spankings’. That’s when our mother-daughter relationship began to sour.”
     
    Tristan blanches when I mention the beatings with a belt. It affects him in a dramatic way since he recoils from my description. Maybe he was also abused in that way.
     
    “I’m sorry you were hurt by him,” he offers and pats the hand that’s curled in my lap. Tristan’s facial expression shows confusion and frustration. What’s that about, I wonder.
     
    “Thanks, but that’s not the worst of it. When I was fifteen, good old ‘Dick’ decided to hide in my shower one day. He was hoping to watch me take my clothes off. Luckily, I noticed something weird about the way the shower curtain hung,” I shake my head in disgust at the memory.
     
    “Did he have a knife? Was he ready to strike you, like the fellow in Psycho?” Tristan suggests to lighten the mood. However, he’s hanging on every word of my story by now.
     
    “I wish I’d had a knife at that point,” I exaggerate, “I would have cut something off, if I could’ve.”
     
    “So, what happened then?” he urges. His amazing aqua eyes have grown dark and serious.
     
    “I was looking in the mirror, probably popping a zit, and noticed the crooked curtain. I turned around and decided to straighten it. As I did so, I noticed the tips of someone’s shoes in the bathtub. Then, I pulled the curtain back quickly. Dick was hiding in my shower with his pants down to his knees and you know what, in his hands. I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran as fast as I could out of the room.” I physically shudder at the memory, as it comes to mind again.
     
    “What did your mom do, then?”
     
    “That was the end of marriage number three, to the pervert,” my lip curls up in