I am going to destroy a man and I want you to bear witness. It’s important that I have witnesses. Because I am writing on behalf of a little boy who long ago suffered in secret. He grew up to become a writer who is about to destroy a man with two words and one letter.

First name. Last name. Middle initial.

I’m taking a life for a life, because childhood sexual assault is a form of murder, and he’s guilty of it. Whoever I was going to be without a childhood stripped of innocence was extinguished in the fall of 1978 on the night he raped me. I was seven years old.

I have no mercy left for this man, no forgiveness. My vengeance is not cold, not sweet, nor righteous. But it is necessary.

I made a promise. And now I mean to keep it.

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