Adam swallows tightly and doesn't look at any of them, jaw clenching visibly as he searches for some kind of calm. There's no denying the truth of what it says because isn't that just typical? Isn't that just the kind of syndicated cable movie truth about someone like him? It's a truth no one acknowledges, even Adam himself, because he hates himself for the delusion and the weakness.

Or maybe it's not delusion. Maybe it's just true. Hadn't his mother calmly, gently told him that it was a little bit his fault? Hadn't he altered his life to make sure he didn't earn his father's wrath?

It's such an ugly truth. It's another part of the rags to riches story that he'll edit out once he's gotten to the riches because there's no room for victims in the biography of a self-made man.

He's not a victim.

"I'm going to put a shirt on," he says, voice slow and so painfully Virginia.