“Some men ain’t kind, sweetie. Some men are. We need to protect each other from the bad ones, because no one else will,” Gigi whispered as she rocked me gently. “So if that man ever touches you again, so help me God I’mma go to your mama’s house to give him a beatdown he won’t forget. You tell him that, you hear?” The next time he went to tickle me, I looked him straight in his beady eyes and said, “I told my grandmother that you were a bad man. You better not touch me. Or else.” I’d never felt so powerful, never mind that he laughed in my face. He also never touched me again.
