Page 16

I have never felt sexy, or hot, or . . . pretty. Mother snuffed that out of me very early on. My eyes were too big for my face, my cheeks too round, my belly too squishy. No boy would ever deem me pretty, so I should take what I could get.

Of course, I should take what I could get only after marriage—anything earlier would make me a slut.

I was eleven years old when she first used that word on me. I had just gotten my period, and the only man she’d ever been married to—after my real father—made a comment about finally having another woman in the house. I didn’t even know what a period was—I thought I had broken something inside of me during school. I stuffed the panties in the trash can, hoping whatever was broken would unbreak, and that everything would go back to normal the next day.

But Daddy found them.

My blood-soaked panties dangled from his finger as he sat at the square dining table, a brown bottle dripping condensation at his elbow. He smelled like earth and smoke and skunk, and his eyes were as red as my panties.

My mother’s eyes shifted to me the moment I entered the room. I still remember her upturned eyebrows, the small frown, the sympathy in her eyes. Guilt, I think.

“Whaddya say, Jill? Should I test out the newer, younger model?”

And just like that, those soft eyes became daggers. Her small frown turned into a hard line, her pale skin turned red.

But—it was directed at me.

“I mean, she is a woman now.”

“Get out.” Mother’s voice was like freezer burn. So cold, it clung and burned and rotted.

My stepfather slowly spun around. “Jill, I was just kid—”

“Not you, idiot. Junia, get out.”

My stepfather and I were both stunned into silence. I still didn’t know what I had done wrong, but I was convinced I did something . That’s why something inside of me was broken. That’s why I bled. Because I must’ve done something wrong—even if I didn’t know what.

Mother squinted her eyes at me, the daggers pinning me to the spot despite her words telling me to leave. “How come Malcolm found your underwear? Did you just leave them out for him to find?” She placed her hand on her hip, her words never slowing. “You wanted him to see them, didn’t you? What were you hoping he did with ’em? Lord, Junia, you are acting like such a little slut. I raised you better than that. Get out. Now!”

Three months later, Malcolm began crawling into my bed after mother was asleep. His hands never touched me, he’d just lay there, pressed against me.

Eight months after that, Mother kicked him out of the house.

Their divorce was finalized two months later, and he moved from Belmouth. We never saw him again, and Mother started dating her next boyfriend, Ian.

It took me months to finally learn what a period was—when I bled in school and a teacher had to explain it to me. I remember the daggers in my mother’s eyes when she was called down to the school to pick me up. She almost refused letting me out for the day, saying something along the lines of, “The embarrassment she faces today with blood all over the back of her skirt will make her remember to never do it again.”

But my teacher and principal were women of St. Mary’s, and after one dirty look, Mother agreed to take me home. I remember the beating I got after that—it was one of the first.

Most important of all, though, that night in the kitchen, with my panties dangling from Malcolm’s fingers, was the last time I ever saw any remorse or compassion or love in my mother’s eyes.

Since then, it’s been nothing but daggers.