Chapter 39

“Anyway, one man’s rape is another’s uncontrollable passion. We were kids then. We were drunk. Things got a little out of hand. No, that wasn’t it. I loved him, only he was always such a goody-two-shoes. We mustn’t. We mustn’t do this, and we mustn’t do that. ‘We mustn’t take your father’s car without his permission, Mal. We mustn’t drink and drive.’ Only he went, didn’t he?

“In a way, he was then a lot like you are now—drawn to what he wanted but was afraid to do. I’ll prove it to you. You tell me to get out. Fine, I’ll go you one better: You go now. You go to the police. See how much they’ll care about a supposed crime that happened a dozen years ago. Or better yet, go to your precious Brenna—who called us trog, trog, trog—”

“Troglodytes.”

“Yeah, she had the nerve to call us that.”

“She said that some members of the NFL act like troglodytes. And anyway, how can you be offended by that when you don’t even know what it means?”