I didn’t see the red-bearded man again, but I didn’t expect to. I wouldn’t sleep with another man who came to the farm, nobody who knew Lobo, nobody who might get my mama high. There were a couple of men in town: one from the feed store, one at the biker bar the boys from high school were too tired to go to now after their shifts, too worn out from children they didn’t know not to have. For those men, I took off my clothes in trucks—those pieces I needed to take off—slipping out of one leg of my jeans but not the other, leaving my shirt on but raised. I could wiggle out of my bra without taking off my top. The windows steamed, and the men cried out, and I felt the same thing, the same two things: pain and nothingness, twined together.

Poison ivy and jewelweed.

Lisbeth and I tried it. It was so confusing. The Church forbid everything before marriage, even kissing, and I was stunted by...stunted by—I didn’t know, but I was obviously doing something wrong. I was supposed to feel an explosion of longing. I was supposed to open up and feel warm and emboldened, as bright as a day lily, as free as white trilliums. Wasn’t I supposed to want this? To want it more and more? My mama had moved us to the farm for this, uprooted and permanently scarred our lives to twist in Lobo’s arms, to cry over the dirty dishes for him, and put up with him: his anger, his moods. She wanted him that badly.

And I could barely get through it without squeezing shut my eyes.

“When I get married, I’m going to need to know how to do this,” Lisbeth said. She was very serious. “We need to practice, Wil. I don’t want to be bad on my wedding night. I don’t want to let my husband down.”

I lowered my head. Was I supposed to start? I was looking at the floorboards of her bedroom, the dark spots where water had spilled and been left too long. I was trying not to look at Lisbeth’s knees, the bony domes of them beneath her skirt, and the folds of the fabric, where it twisted—and then her lips were on mine.

This was different. They were soft, she was soft. It felt really, really sweet—that was what I thought. Tender, hesitant. Her hands were nowhere near me, not touching me or trying to, not searching for a way in. That was different, too. I didn’t have anything to bat or twist away from: my wrist pinned to the truck window, my skin burning with a tension men thought was desire but really was me resisting the impulse to run, to fight. With Lisbeth, I just sat there and felt safe. It was just the flutter of kisses, then—