I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

I remember the day exactly that I lost my faith in him. Him, the one man I was supposed to admire and revere, and know in my heart without a doubt that he would look out for me. It was a turn of his head. That’s all it took. It lasted but seconds and he made no noise doing so, but for me, he moved in slow motion and the sound of his intentional ignorance was deafening. The soldier, fat and greasy and drunk, whose status far surpassed that of the two of us, was eyeing me up and down like I was his next meal. I remember looking up into his eyes, waiting for him to reassure me. And he looked to me, glanced up to the soldier, and then closed his eyes on an inhale. On his exhale he turned his head away from the scene, choosing instead to focus on the leafless, lifeless trees of winter on his right. Right then, in that moment, I knew. I knew it with absolute certainty, and I hated him for it. He, who spent so long protecting me, who kept me safe when those things rose up from their shallow graves and started eating people, who worked so hard to take my mother and me to a safe place, was going to let that soldier get what he wanted. I knew that soon, like so many other girls, I would be given to that fat, drunken soldier by my father. And there was nothing I could do about it.