“She would hurt me,” Josh’s squeaky, little voice barely got the words out.

The tape cut out. The call dropped.

I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. Or the next night. I went on a 48-hour drinking and smoking bender in the comfortable confines of my living room. Ignored the calls from work when they came in and picked up the calls which came from the unknown number with recordings of Josh talking with a counselor.

“So she hit you?” Every word hurt when it came out of that smug counselor’s mouth.

I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle the shit out of that little mousy fucking counselor. The last three messages had been her talking Josh into the idea that I abused him. Something that I swear never happened. I was pretty deep into the bottle back then, but that’s just because I was still numbing myself from Josh’s dad leaving me and my parents dying in their 50s.

There was a long silence on the line.

“You’re shaking your head yes, Josh,” that asshole counselor’s voice kicked up again.

I tossed the phone across the room.

It wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t true. It didn’t matter what those tapes said. It wasn’t true. You have to believe me. I know it in my own heart.

That was the last of the phone calls. I patiently waited by my phone with the cracked screen waiting for more calls. I checked every five seconds for a new voicemail whenever I left my phone or fell asleep for a few moments. I didn’t leave the house for a week. Started to just eat pancakes without butter and without syrup for every meal because it was the only food I had left.