The city of Thompson in Canada's providence of Manitoba is hardly what people have in mind when they envision scenic Canada. It's not an idyllic town where residents can keep their doors unlocked and currently has the highest crime rate per capita in Manitoba. She was born in 1989 to Hugo Lynch and his wife, Yvonne, three years after the birth of her brother Sergio. By all accounts, the first four years of her life were standard: littered with milestones and with seemingly caring parents as well as a protective older brother. A four year old Dominique Lynch was none the wiser that bad things could happen with her parents and her older brother to protect her. She was a precocious child; always getting bumps and bruises from falling too hard on the pavement while playing or falling off the swing set. Typical for a little girl who was too rambunctious for her own good.
That illusion of safety was shattered for Dominique when her mother brought a family friend into the house to stay for a while. A four year old Dominique was hardly affected by the addition to the household and at first liked the attention that was paid to her over her brother, Gio. To her, she had another adult that she could charm and show off to. The young girl didn't realize that the late night visits to her bedroom were far from normal. All she could really comprehend was that something didn't feel right but she kept quiet from a combination of fear and coercion. It was two years later that her brother finally was let in on what was happening to his little sister; that there was a reason why she cried herself to sleep late at night and he promptly took care of the situation after the initial disbelief from their parents. Dominique remembers her father's guilt and outrage once he started to finally believe her allegations and her mother's subsequent indifference and leaving with the man that she had let harm her daughter in the worst of ways. The family moved to Boston a while later to start over in their father's hometown. Dominique couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow all her fault.
The adjustment from a small city to a booming metropolis wasn't hard for a young Dominique. She hadn't gotten too attached to her fellow students at her old school in Thompson. Her elementary school teachers were pleased with her school work and her ability to socialize and her father was relieved that his daughter seemed so resilient. The change was good for Dominique until she started to go through puberty and was plagued with flashbacks of the incident. Dominique didn't tell her brother or father what was going on and like her brother, she too got into fights at school that landed her in the principal's office every now and then - she would be damned if anyone ever hurt her again. The tipping point was when Dominique went to a middle school dance with a boy she was friends with whom harbored a crush on her. When her friend tried to kiss her and she felt his hand on her waist, Dominique responded violently by pushing the boy to the ground. Other than a few scrapes and cuts, the boy was fine but his parents were clamoring to have action taken against Dominique for hurting their son until her father talked them out of it. Her school still took action and gave her an in school suspension for the incident. Her father took it as a sign to find a therapist for Dominique to help her deal with her past trauma.
Dominique was forced to change her tune after seeing the disappointment and guilt her father had. She tried to reassure him that there was nothing he could've done and that it wasn't his fault. So, she went to therapy despite the fact that she would've preferred eating glass over talking about her feelings about anything and everything. She tried to stay out of trouble in school and polish up her grades that had been below average in anything other than her art classes.
Therapy wasn't the magic fix it all that anyone had hoped for it but it helped Dominique to heal. Her trips to the high school principal's office weren't as frequent. She became more involved in school activities - while Gio was the one to play hockey, Dominique was the one to paint signs in puff paint to support athletics, decorate the homecoming dances, and helped to paint the mural in the hallway. She regressed back to her own ways when Gio left home - she wanted to prove to herself that she didn't need her brother to protect her and beefed up her own bravado. Dominique cooled down eventually but still missed her brother all while building a better relationship with her father who seemed relieved that his daughter was living a quasi normal high school existence. Dominique had a few friends, tried to date to "get it over with", and brought home good grades. Her hard work paid off and she got into a good number of colleges but opted to stay close to home to her father. College was definitely better for Dominique than high school was and she earned a bachelors in Art History at Tufts and managed to visit her father every other weekend though he insisted that she should have a social life that didn't include coming home and going bowling with her dad.
Dominique remained in Boston after graduating, choosing to move back in with her father. It wasn't out of the norm these days for college graduates to move back in with their parents and the both of them worked together well as harmonious roommates. Except that Dominique had to always remind her father to put gasoline in the snow blower before the first snow storm of the season. Dominique desperately wanted to work in a museum but found that her experience wasn't good enough and worked at a call center after exploring the wonderful world of retail and having her patience tested. The set up wasn't too bad but it came to a point where her father wanted her to live a more independent life. After much talking, Dominique decided that the best course of action would be to move to California to be near her brother.