Am I Responsible?

Hey everyone, it’s Marcus. Something pretty awful has just happened and well…I don’t know if it’s really my fault but I feel partially responsible. You see I own this music store and a few months back we were struggling to make ends meet. I have always held up my standards about the kind of music I will sell, but when we started struggling, I decided to start selling some music that I hadn’t in the past. I totally thought we were going to go under. We started carrying some hard core rap music. I know it contains sexually explicit lyrics, but I rationalized if they’re not buying it from me, they’ll find somewhere else to get it from, right? Plus, isn’t it the parents’ job to monitor what their kids are listening to? I might as well be the one making the profit, keeping my doors open. We’ve been doing better lately, so it seemed like the right decision.

Well, a regular was just in my store and told me that he heard that two boys had forced a 14 year-old girl to have sex with them in the back of their car. He showed me the article in the paper and I know those two boys had been in my store recently and purchased some of those CD’s.

I can’t stop thinking about that little girl. She’s what….14? That’s so young--and for her to have so much stolen away from her. I feel sick to my stomach. What if this my fault? I mean I know it’s not directly my fault, but if I hadn’t been selling that music…… I feel so selfish, like I just wanted to make some money and in order to do that I compromised my ideals. Should I have just let my store close up? I am seriously struggling with this. I feel like I have to do something for that girl, but what? I don’t know what I can do to feel better about this situation. How responsible am I for what happened?