Page 7 of Heartland

“Shit, Chastity,” says Rickie. “I’m sorry to bring up something painful.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I say, but my ragged voice makes me a liar. I take a gulp of my cider. “I didn’t see Zach again for three years. The worst part was wondering if he was still alive.” Every night I’d lay in bed trying to imagine what a homeless Zach would do. “I knew nothing of the outside world, so I pictured things I knew from the bible—beggars at the side of the road trying to fill their bellies.”

Rickie’s eyes are round. “What did he do?”

“Oh—he hitchhiked to Vermont. You know the Shipley’s neighbors, Leah and Isaac? He knew where they’d run away together, and it wasn’t too hard for him to find them.” But at the time I hadn’t known this—I’d thought he was dead. “Zach says getting kicked out was the best thing that ever happened to him. And now he’s one of the happiest people I know.”

“Uh-huh. But what aboutyou,” Rickie asks. “They didn’t throw you out?”

I give my head a slow shake. “I got a beating. They had to make an example out of me. If you get into the back of a car with a boy, you’ll be beaten until you bleed. There were at least ten men taking turns with the strap. I didn’t sit down for a week, my ass was so sore.”

Rickie’s eyes bulge. “Jesus Christ.”

But I can’t bear to tell Rickie the worst part—that I’d been naked for the beating. That was the real punishment, I think. The toxic cocktail of pain and total humiliation. I don’t mind telling Rickie how badly they hurt my skin, but I can’t talk about the sound of their laughter.Slattern, they’d called me.Harlot.Whore. I will never stop hearing those voices.

“I still have the scars,” I say with forced cheer.

“And so you ran away after that?”

“Nope. I hadn’t figured out that I could. But when I turned seventeen, nobody wanted me for a wife, because I was compromised.”

Rickie makes a noise of disgust.

“It wasn’t, uh, true. But that didn’t matter. And here’s where it gets interesting—I realized I was going to be a leper, basically. So I asked my stepfather for a job, and he set me up with a really unusual thing—a job off the compound. I became a cashier at Walgreens.”

“Now that’s living.” Rickie grins.

“No—it was! I got to leave every day and spy on the rest of the world. You have no idea how much fun I had selling candy and aspirin. And magazines—I readSeventeenandAllurebehind the counter. I didn’t get to keep the money, though. My father deposited my checks into his account. I never saw any money until I finally learned how to steal some.”

“You are afascinatinggirl, Chastity.”

“Oh, please.”

“I mean it.” He reaches for my empty mug. I don’t even remember drinking all that cider. It was gone so fast. “What would your life have been like if none of that happened?”

“They would’ve married me off to an old man on my seventeenth birthday. I’d get a five-minute wedding during Sunday services. And then I’d leave my parents’ home to live with whomever the elders chose for me.”

“And then the wedding night.” He watches me over the rim of his mug. “I’m guessing birth control was not an option, either.”

I shake my head. “I’d never even heard of birth control until I started reading packages at the Walgreens where I worked. Bearing children was our number-one job. They told me that every Sunday.”

What I don’t add is that I’d been looking forward to it. I used to sit up straighter on the bench when our Divine Pastor spoke about wifely duties.Lie beneath your husband and give your body to God. Accept his love. Accept his seed. Bring forth a new generation to worship at our tabernacle.

I couldn’twaitto lie beneath my husband and accept his seed. When I was six, I asked another little boy to practice with me. He tattled, and we both got spankings. That little boy got tossed out of the compound when we were fifteen. (Not because of me, thank goodness.)

But I still remember his smile. His name was Jacob, and he had clear blue eyes. I always liked the boys too much. Eventually I learned to conceal it, but that was my secret shame. My cross to bear.

It’s still true, too. Since those kisses with Zachariah in the back of a car, no other man has touched me. But I wish one would.

Dylan, specifically.

But now I’m very tired of my own bullshit. “It’s your turn, Rickie. What’s your story?”

He pushes my refilled cider mug toward me with a teasing smile. “I grew up an army brat. Lived in ten places by the time I turned eighteen.”

“Is that why you speak German?”

“Das ist richtig. And here’s the part you won’t even believe—I won a spot at the U.S. Military Academy. I did my first year of college there. With the buzz cut and the uniform.”