“She won’t last,” he says. “I’m sure the sex is great, but he gets easily bored.”

“So I’ve noticed,” I mumble before shoving a chip in my mouth.

Rickie flashes me a smile. I like Dylan’s roommate, but he’s a little intimidating. He speaks German and French, and he has an earring. His clothes aren’t anything like Dylan’s. Tonight he’s wearing ripped jeans with black leather boots that would never stand up to farm work. His vintage dress shirt is unbuttoned practically to the navel, exposing some elaborate tattoos.

Some people make my naiveté stand out. Rickie is one of those people.

He pushes a mug of cider toward me. “So what’s your story?”

“What do you mean? I’m just here for the algebra.”

“Uh-huh.” He uncaps a bottle of rum and pours generous dollops into both our mugs. “I mean your real story. Tell me how you got here to Moo U.”

“Don’t you know that part?” I just assumed that Dylan had mentioned my strange story. Don’t mind my dorky friend. She grew up in a cult and can’t help it.

“I want to hear it from you,” he says.

“Well it’s your Wednesday night. I guess you can spend it on my bullshit if you want to.”

He laughs suddenly, and he looks about five years younger. “I fucking love other people’s bullshit, Chastity. Lay it on me.”

I pull the mug of cider closer to me, considering what I might say. “When I was nineteen, I ran away from the religious compound where I grew up out West. I could only afford a bus ticket to the New York border. And then I walked and hiked the rest.” Thank God it had been summertime, or I would have frozen to death.

“What was that place like? The compound.”

“Um…” What to say? I don’t talk about it that much, because it’s weird and embarrassing. “Let’s see. The only clothing I’d owned before I left was something called the Paradise dress. Picture Laura Ingalls in pastel polyester. Long sleeves, long skirt. With a high collar.” I put my hand up to my throat. “You couldn’t show any skin, because that was sinful. We wore the dresses with hiking boots from Payless.”

“Oh fuck,” he says, blowing on the surface of the cider in his mug. “So the place was a fashion disaster. But what was it like? What did you do all day?”

“I worked at home. Cooking, cleaning, and sewing. I didn’t go to a real school after third grade. Nobody wanted us to be smart, anyway. They only cared about obedience. They didn’t want us out in the sinners’ world, wondering why we couldn’t have all the things that other kids had. Too many big ideas. When I was seven, I asked for a pair of new shoes, like another girl at school had. I got a slap on the face, instead.”

“Wow.” Rickie watches me with obvious fascination. He has hypnotic eyes. They’re gray, with a darker circle around each iris. “So they thought you might figure out that polygamy is illegal?”