"You are not responsible for someone else's actions, duck," Marcus says, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his. "You're just not. Everyone makes their own choices and his were... cruel. Horribly selfish and horribly cruel, but from what you've said, he was a jealous, angry and terribly misogynistic man. If he hadn't done that, he would have done something else, something just as awful."

Men like that don't learn. They don't change. They only hurt others for their own personal gain.

"You're not a monster," he says gently. "You never could be. We are not our parents, you and I. We are our own people. Whatever mark they think they get to leave on us is ours to do with what we will. None of what you learned changes that."