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Fat slut .

The words are pounding between my ears like a heartbeat pumped full of adrenaline.

Fat. Slut.

That’s what she called me. Even in my oversized sweaters and flowy skirts. Even though I’m a virgin and have never, ever, been with a boy in any way.

A huff of laughter escapes my nose—the irony of it all too plain to see.

But she’s right. Mother is right . My boobs are large, and my butt is huge, so that makes men stare. I thought that was a good thing—to be admired. She always fought so hard to be admired. But, apparently, when I do it, it’s bad.

It’s because I’m a slut and eat too much.

I need to be better. I need to eat better. Maybe . . . maybe I’ll just have one meal a day. Or just eat salad.

I scoff at myself. Yeah right. Salads are too expensive and we don’t have that kind of money. Maybe if I lose weight, my butt will get small, maybe my boobs will shrink. Then I won’t be a slut. Then his eyes won’t be on me whenever I enter the room.

Fat slut.

Fat slut.

Fat slut.

Distantly, I hear a knock on the door.

I heave a breath, slowly exhaling as I push myself off the bathroom floor. The cold tile felt comforting on my tear-soaked cheeks, and it was all I could do to hold myself . . . together. In one piece.

To just be .

“Junia, hurry up, I need to get in there to do my hair,” Mother shouts. We live in an old, small, manufactured home, with just two bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Before Daren moved in, it was comfortable. Now, it’s too small.

Her voice jolts me into motion. Like the movements of a robot, I’m on autopilot whenever she’s near, only taking the orders and commands set into place for me.

I get up, brush myself off, and rub my fingers under my eyes. My mousy brown hair is messy in its ponytail, sticking out in odd places, and because of the paleness of my dark blue eyes surrounded by pink, it’s incredibly evident I’ve been crying—which I know will only upset her more.

Mother pounds on the door once more, and I quickly push my bangs further into my eyes before opening it. She stares at me, taking in my appearance. Her blond hair is in a perfect bun, her cheekbones are high and pronounced, her waist is as thin as a model’s, and she once had the looks to be one too. Until age sagged her skin and thinned her lips.

“S—sorry.” I try to brush past her, but she grabs my wrist.

“You’ve been crying?”

“No,” I lie.

“Why? And don’t lie to me, Junia Forester. You know what God does with liars.” Her grip on my wrist tightens.

I nod. “I’m sorry. I—Yes. I was crying.”

“From what I said earlier?” She turns me to face her in the tiny hallway.

I slowly nod.

“Oh, baby,” she whispers softly. She pulls me closer to her and pets my hair down. “It’s not your fault. It’s the Devil that made you like food so much. He’s forced upon you the sin of gluttony. He’s the one that makes it all go straight to your curves.” She pinches my stomach. “And this little belly you’ve got here.”

I flinch back, and Mother grabs my upper arm, pressing her lips together. “We need to fight off his influence. You don’t want to be his puppet, do you?”

I shake my head.

“So, we need to go against his demands. We’ll pray about it. But it needed to be said, Junia. You’re making Daren uncomfortable.”

Daren. He proposed to my mom four weeks after they started dating. Which was a week longer than her last fiancé. And though he’s been living here for three months—three months she’s been having me call him “daddy”—I don’t know anything about him. Not really. I know he’s fifty-four, has no kids, and has sandy hair. I assume he works outside, because of what he wears when he gets home, and I assume he was maybe born closer to Boston, because his accent is thick compared to the muted inflections of the Belmouth natives.

Then there is what Daren claims to be. Things I should know about him but only assume aren’t fully true. The first is that he loves my mother. I’ve seen her engaged and married enough to know that her definition of love is definitely something I didn’t see in the Disney and Barbie movies I watched—the only movies I was allowed to watch till I was fifteen. The second is Daren’s claim of being a proper, God-fearing man. I know my mother can handle her own heart. I know she knows what’s best. But something about him makes me feel like he doesn’t have a single verse of the Bible threaded into his soul.

Maybe I’m jaded by her past loves. Maybe the last fiancé who stole her money and ran off with someone twenty years younger scared me. Maybe it was the Christmas we spent locked in her bedroom, as another fiancé pounded on the door, screaming bloody murder before the cops showed up, that changed my mind. Maybe the man she’d been married to—the only man she’d ever been married to—for two whole years when I was eleven, broke me.

But there were commonalities in all these men. They all claimed to be God-fearing.

And maybe it isn’t my place to judge. Only God could judge, after all. Right?

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I say, picking at the skin on my thumb.

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Daren.” She lets me go, turns, and disappears into the bathroom.

Damn. I know she means now . I slowly hobble down the hall and into the living room, where Daren loudly watches TV. Some sports game. His sunburnt arm is thrown over the back of the couch as he sits slouched with his legs wide open.

I take a deep breath, picking at the skin on my thumb. Just do it. Get it over with.

“Uh-uhm, Dare—I mean . . . Daddy?”

His gaze turns to me, and a slow smile creeps onto his face. My stomach drops. He isn’t a bad-looking man. He is tall, and has an okay face, if not a little sun damaged. But all in all, just fine. Normal. But something about him still sets me on edge, as though I’m looking into a dark closet, waiting for something else to look back.

“Hello, darlin’.” He sits up a little.

“I want to apologize,” I say fast, not meeting his eyes. “My mother said I should apologize.”

He pats the couch, telling me to sit with him. Telling, not suggesting.

“What for?” he asks as I move across the room.

“For . . .” I hate that he’s making me say it. “For making you uncomfortable.”

As I sit next to him, his leg brushes against mine. His body is close. Too close.

“How would little Junia make me uncomfortable?”

I flinch. And though Daren notices, he doesn’t back away.

Deep breath. I am alone with this man, for all intents and purposes. A man I barely know. A man I am supposed to pretend is my father.

I don’t know my father, at all. My mother claims he was an awful man, a man she needed to run away from in the middle of the night, with me in her arms.

But I do know Daren is nothing like a father. He’s . . .

“Why would I be uncomfortable, Junia?”

I hate the way he says my name. I hate the way he stares, the way he gets closer to me as he speaks. His breath is rancid with beer and Funions, but it would be rude to back away, and Mother doesn’t like for me to be rude. She says it makes her parenting look bad, despite the fact I was already an adult myself.

“She said my . . . weight gain makes you uncomfortable.”

He smirks, finally leaning back. “Not uncomfortable, just . . . distracted.” His eyes lower to my breasts, and I feel . . . exposed, undressed, violated.

I stand up.

“Well, then—” I take another deep breath, hating that I have to apologize to this man. Have to apologize for my body. For something out of my control, something that I didn’t do. “I’m sorry. I will work on it.”

Daren raises an eyebrow and then turns back to the TV, dismissing me.

I hurry back to my room and close the door behind me until my heart realizes I’m finally safe, alone, hidden.

But it doesn’t—because it knows the truth. In this house, I’m never safe. I’m never alone. Never hidden.