Welcome

He comes in late July, when Alabama is at its hottest and most humid— The sort of days you spend sitting on your family’s home back porch with a fan that mostly blasts hot air and an endless pitcher of lemonade; it’s Sunday, a holy day, but the man is there just after mass, with his tool belt and pick up truck— The roof of the barn caved in after a particularly bad storm and although that sort of thing is usually fixed by your father, he’s still recovering from the last time he fell down the old ladder and your mother will not have him climbing that ricketing thing again.

So she offers Joel Miller to the gravity deities instead, on a holy day so hot and humid your dress sticks to your back and your thighs no matter how much water you splash on your face. Your younger siblings manage to refresh themselves a little more by hosing each other down; you’re half tempted to join in but, at twenty-two, your mother makes sure that you know your place. You’re a young woman now, no longer a child that can run and giggle underneath a spray of water on the hottest day of the summer— You must learn how to cook and how to clean, how to serve others rather than tempt them with your wet clothes. 

That demand to serve is how you end up inside the barn when the sun is still high in the sky, balancing a tray with a sandwich and a pitcher of water. Mr. Miller has been slowly but surely making progress on the roof for hours without food and your father scolds you for the lack of christianity at not thinking about thy neighbor’s needs.

“Mr. Miller?” You call out, setting the tray on a bench. He’s sitting in one of the beams, at least twelve feet from the ground, and all you can see is the dark wash denim of his pant legs and the mud-covered work boots. “I got you a sandwich.” 

“I’ll be right there, sweetheart.” He says, his voice strained as if he had something between his teeth. 

You should go back to the house. His food is served, and he knows it’s there— You have no reason to linger but you do, hands smoothing an inexistent crease on your pale pink dress. You’re just… Curious. You saw Mr. Miller from afar, his broad frame towering over your father’s lithe one, and you want to get a peek up close to the mysterious man that has just moved into town. Nothing else, really. So you wait, hands wringing and smoothing your clothes and then tugging at the golden cross on your neck as he slowly climbs down the ladder, grunting when his boots hit the dirt.

He’s just as handsome as you thought he would be. Older, rugged, his face marred with the passage of time and salt and pepper in his beard— Nothing like the boys from your church, all bare faced and chubby cheeked. Mr. Miller is a man in the best sense of the word, broad and thick and tall. His hands are dirty with sawdust, clothes stained with dust and mud, sweat glistening on his face and the hollow of his throat. You can see just a peak of chest hair poking from the opening of his flannel and it’s an incredibly difficult task to look away.

Most importantly, and perhaps the thing that distinguishes him from everyone else the most, is the fact that he doesn’t look away from you. Not when he fills a water glass to the brim, drinking it down in just a couple of swallows. Not when he sits down on a stack of hay and motions for you to do the same, his brown eyes watching you with intent. You’re used to being ignored, glanced over. You’re not sure what to do when someone refuses to look away. You sit down, tugging the hem of your dress down even if it doesn’t slide up, playing with the simple gold ring you wear on your middle finger — the only inheritance you got from your late grandmother — and keep your eyes averted from his face. 

“Is the sandwich any good?” You ask when he doesn’t offer any subject of conversation. You know it’s good, you know your cooking skills are better than your mother’s and you can make something special out of even a simple sandwich, but pride is a sin, so you try to remain humble. “I make the mustard myself.” 

Joel chews slowly, his eyes raking up from your roper boots all the way up to the cross hanging from your neck. 

“Delicious.” 

Heat creeps up your neck and you bite down on your bottom lip, his praise getting to you more than anyone else’s ever did. 

“I uh—” You all but jump up from your seat, unable to keep still. You want to sit back down, to talk to this enigma of a man, to learn anything else about him other than the fire in his eyes and the gravel in his voice but you simply can’t phantom the idea of standing under his gaze anymore. “I have some clothes to wash. I’ll be back later for the plates. If uh— If you need anything else, Mr. Miller, just let me know.” 

Joel smirks as if he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. 

“Don’t worry, pretty girl, I will. Thank you for the sandwich.”

As much as you tell yourself that you don’t care, you spend the rest of the afternoon waiting with baited breath— You want him to need you, want to see his strong shoulders come through the kitchen backdoor with a request on his lips. You do your chores dutifully, with the same care as always, but Joel’s presence is like a beacon; even if you can’t see or hear him, you know he’s out there, in the barn, and it burns in the back of your brain all day. 

You can’t stop thinking about how he called you pretty girl. You’ve never been the pretty one. You’re sweet, and kind, and good, but never pretty. It stays on the back of your mind, trying to burn into the forefront of it. Vanity is sin. Your body is a temple and you must care for it, yes, but anything further than that is a slippery slope into temptation, and temptation leads to damnation— You’re not supposed to care about such frivolous things, because they will take away the Lord’s place in your heart. 

Still, between loads of laundry and the biscuits you knead by hand, you stop to fix your hair more than once.

It’s almost dusk by the time you see Joel again. Your mother is upstairs bathing the baby, your younger siblings are trying to catch fireflies in the front lawn, your father is somewhere out in the field and you sit in the kitchen, scriptures in hand, not reading a single line— You stare out the window instead, the sun turning bright orange and pink in the horizon. You notice him before he gets to the porch and there’s a good ten seconds during which you don’t know what to do with yourself, fixing your hair and your dress and smoothing the pages of the Bible that you hold more as a prop than a holy book. 

“Hey sweetheart.” Joel calls out as he makes his way through the door, holding the empty tray. You jump from your seat, plucking it carefully from his hands and setting it to soak in the sink; there’s nothing in it that requires soaking, but you can’t help but make yourself available to him, not wanting any other tasks to get in your way. “Think I could use your phone for a minute?”

You can only pray that your face doesn’t reflect the disappointment you feel. 

“Hm… You’d have to ask my father for that. The landline is in his office, and we’re not— He doesn’t like when anyone else goes in there.” You bite down on your bottom lip. “I think he’s out by the orchards.” 

Joel tsks, switching from one foot to the other. “Can’t you just let me in real quick? I don’t want to upset your old man, but it’s a little urgent. I should’a been home by now, my daughter will start to worry.”

“Oh.” 

You feel foolish, your eyes immediately falling to his hands; you hadn’t considered the possibility of Mr. Miller being a married man, but it makes sense— He’s charming, handsome, hard-working. Of course he would have a wife and a daughter at home. He doesn’t wear a wedding ring, there’s no tan line as if he removes it for work, but you figure that doesn’t mean much anymore; couples are getting more modern, marriages a little less sacred, and well… He’s a man that works with his hands. Maybe a wedding band would simply get in his way. 

“It’s just the two of us, you see.” He tells you, head tilting to the side so he can catch your wandering eyes. “Her mama passed when she was real young, and I’m all she’s got. We wouldn’t want her worryin’, would we?”

“No, of course not.” You have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling, knowing you’ll be praying for hours to repent for feeling so elated at the death of a woman you don’t even know. “Just… Just don’t tell my father, okay?”

“It’ll be our lil’ secret.” Joel winks. 

You can count on one hand the amount of times you’ve been inside your father’s office; all of them when you were young, too young to know better— When the physical punishments were more constant, when you kept messing up the rules you weren’t familiar with just yet. 

You haven’t been inside the office since you were twelve. Your siblings come here more often: Joseph specifically, at just ten years old, who is brought to the office for some sort of punishment at least once a month. The black sheep, your mother says. The child that needs a firmer hand and more prayers if they want to remain a family once Jesus returns in all of His glory. 

The room, much like the rest of your childhood home, seems to be frozen in time. There’s a decaying bookshelf on one side, filled with evangelical books that your mother keeps bringing home even though the only book she ever reads is the Bible, the wallpaper yellowed and stained— There’s a square where the wallpaper is lighter and, while you can’t remember what the picture used to look like, you know once upon a time there was a picture frame with a photo of your grandparents in it; the only memory your mother had of her family, which your father took down because it was too close to veneration of idols in his opinion. 

It was one of the few times you’ve ever seen your mother cry outside of the church’s walls. 

The landline sits on top of your father’s carved wooden desk, brown and beige with a thick layer of dust between the buttons— The phone is older than your siblings and younger than you, but not by much. You know your father uses it, you’ve heard him talking through the walls, but it looks so old and worn that you’re surprised it even works. 

“Please be quick.” You tell Joel; you don’t want to bring up the phone bill, it’s rude to talk about money like that, but the last thing you need is your father noticing the strange call when the bill finally comes. 

“Don’t worry, I will.” Joel gives your shoulder a squeeze as he walks past you towards the phone. “Why don’t you stand outside, as my lookout? Just tap the door if you hear anyone else.” 

You shouldn’t listen in. It’s rude, unnecessary, and reminds you of the old ladies at church that always know everyone’s business— And you hate them for it, the way they look down on everyone else and use other people’s wrongs to feel good about their rights. You shouldn’t, you should love them just like Jesus does, but it’s hard when you can feel their eyes and hear their whispers whenever you walk past them. 

You can’t hear anything, no matter how hard you press your ear to the door. Joel isn’t the sort of man that speaks loudly from what you’ve seen, but the silence that comes from the room is odd. Your father is quite soft spoken but the walls are thin enough that even he can be heard, even if it’s impossible to make out what words are being said. The first thing that crosses your mind is that, maybe, his daughter isn’t picking up. Maybe she’s not home, or maybe she’s busy with something else and Joel is in there, receiver to his ear, listening as it rings and rings. But then he steps out of the room not even five minutes later, thanking you for helping him. He tells you that his daughter is fine, that she’s going out with some friends and he can stay for a little longer, just until it gets too dark to work. Joel squeezes your arm as he walks back out, the pads of his fingers rough against the soft skin of your bicep, leaving you puzzled and warm all over.

Later that night, when the house has quieted down and you’re alone in your bed, you can’t erase Mr. Miller from your mind. The way he smiled at you, his smell of sawdust and his deep brown eyes— His voice alone had been able to shake you to your core, butterflies flipping around your stomach and sending you into sinful thoughts with a single praise. 

Your grandmother warned you about men like him. Beautiful men, sent by Lucifer himself, to deviate well-behaved women— She’d told you, on her few and far between moments of lucidity, how the Devil would come knocking at your door one day, with soulful eyes and easy smiles, and how he’d charm you into Hell if you were not careful enough. 

Your snakes between your thighs before you can second guess yourself, staring intently at the sliver of darkness that you can see from your half-open door — no closed beddoors are allowed in your house, but you’ve set it shut just enough to pretend it was the wind if your parents complained about it. At first you’re just trying to make sure the hall is empty but, as your fingers run slow circles over your clit, you can’t help but picture Joel on the threshold, hair mussed from a hard day of work, his flannel stretched thin over his shoulders. You think back to his gravely voice, how he’d called you pretty girl and sweetheart, and you wonder if he’d say it again with your naked body underneath his. You think of his full lips on yours, soft and warm where they lay scorching hot kisses, his cock pushing into you. 

You come with one hand on your pussy and the other over your mouth, swallowing down the name that threatens to spill from your lips.

You think Joel Miller might be the Devil himself. 

And Hell doesn’t seem like such a bad idea if you get to feel his big hands between your thighs.

You hear about the movie from the teenagers at the youth group that weekend. You’re too old to partake in the group but you’re always lending a helping hand, setting up meetings and baking goods for them, giving advice to the younger girls and helping the pastor with whatever he needs that weekend. You’re busy refilling their cups of soda while they chat after the sermon and it’s the word hunk that catches your attention— You stall, just a little, taking more time than necessary with stacking the napkins. The ‘hunk’, it seems, is a cute actor from a horror movie that is screening at the local movie theater. One of the girls says she wants to watch it because she just loves Drew Berrymore, while the other says she wants to see it because of the dreamy main actor. One of the boys nods, says he’s seen it already and that it’s the best horror movie he’s ever seen. 

You have a soft spot for the horror genre. Always had, since you were a little girl and you found a forgotten VHS tape of Carrie. It’s strictly forbidden in your household, of course, because those sorts of media are the devil’s work and only serve to weave immorality into society and you know that, you know that, but… 

Well, you still think about Carrie’s blood soaked prom dress and the murderous look in her crazed eyes and just how much you rooted for her in those moments. How much you’d seen yourself in her shoes in the years to come, during those harsh teenage years and how you thought that being forgotten and neglected by your peers was certainly better than having tampons thrown at you. 

And, even though you try with all your might, you can’t help but see a little bit of your own parents in Margaret White. 

On Monday evening you walk past the movie theater on your way home from one of the babysitting jobs you take here and there. Your parents aren’t expecting you home just yet — You’d been babysitting for the Mortons that night and your mother knows their date nights tend to run late — and you find yourself standing in front of the movie poster, unwilling to walk away. 

Scream. 

Your stomach is tied into a hundred tiny little knots as you move to the counter, purchasing your ticket and then a small bag of popcorn. It’s wrong and exciting at the same time, your knees trembling as you find your seat at the back of the movie, shoulders hunched; you pray that you don’t run into anyone you know, pray that the rumor mill doesn’t run off and it feels like you’re committing the absolute worst of crimes but, at the same time, it feels like an invisible noose has been removed from your neck.

You leave just as the credits roll, head down and shoulders up, trying to sneak out before the lights turn on. There’s a light mist pouring down, enough to frizz up your hair but not enough to get you wet, the streets empty this time of night. Your watch says it’s 8:39, which means you have about ten minutes to get home before your mother starts to complain that is getting too late and might decide to tell the Mortons to pay you more the next time— You’re almost jogging on the sidewalk, clutching your bag to your chest, cold finally starting to seep in when Joel pulls up next to you, his old truck lulling on the sidewalk. 

“Get in.” He says, pushing the passenger door open. “I’ll drive you.” 

You should say no. You should smile, and thank him politely, and then go on your way; proper young women don’t climb into strange men’s cars— You’ve heard the stories, know it ends in pregnancy or death or something worse, and you know that your father would most likely take you into his office if he found out his oldest daughter had been driving around alone in a car with a man that isn’t him or the pastor but after a night of reckless behavior, accepting a ride from a man you technically know doesn’t seem like the worst transgression. 

And it’ll get you home in time. 

“Thank you.” You smile, rubbing your hands together. “I didn’t plan for the rain.”

Joel turns the heat on and you can hear your mother in the back of your mind, berating you that you’ll get sick; it feels like just another tiny rebellion when you put your palms up to the hot blowing air, relaxing as it warms your clammy skin. 

“How was the movie?” 

“I wasn’t at the movies.” Your tongue feels twice as big when you chuckle. “That’s— Unbecoming. I babysit every so often, and the Mortons were running late from their date night. I’m uh— I’m usually home earlier.”

“You need to learn to lie better, pretty girl.” Joel’s eyes dart from the road to you. “I caught you just as you walked out.” 

You bite down on your bottom lip, heart thundering so fast inside your chest you think it might crawl out of your throat. “It— It was a scary movie. I didn’t know. I— I wouldn’t have gone if I knew it would be so… Sinful.”

Joel hums and you can tell he doesn’t believe you. You wouldn’t believe it either, really, and you’re ashamed of getting caught in such a terrible lie. 

“Please don’t tell my parents.” You say, turning to face him. “They’re… They can get real strict about this sort of thing.” 

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.” You’re just a little put off by the switch in conversation but also incredibly glad to steer away from focusing on your wrongdoings. 

“Then there’s nothin’ to tell ‘em. You’re a grown woman.”

Your face burns with embarrassment and you finally look away from him, letting your eyes fall down to his arms, dusted with dark hair and prominent veins. 

“You seem to be the only one that thinks so. I don’t think my father will see me as a grown woman until I’m married off.” You hate how bitter, how petulant you sound, but you can’t stop yourself, the words slipping out of your mouth like a confession. “He only sees me as an adult when it’s convenient for him.” 

“I reckon that’s a dad thing.” Joel says, his fingers thrumming on the steering wheel. “I still see my Sarah as my baby. You just gotta show ‘im you’re not a kid anymore, he’ll get used to it eventually.”

“How old is Sarah?”

Joel is silent for so long you wonder if maybe he’s one of those absent fathers that don’t even know how old their own child is, even if he hasn’t shown himself to be the type. 

“She’ll always be thirteen to me.” 

It’s such a specific answer that it makes you even more curious, your head cocking to the side; you open your mouth to press for more but Joel reaches for the radio, turning the volume up and drowning the cabin with the classic rock and pitter-patter of the soft rain. 

The silence makes you realize you never answered his question in the first place. 

“The movie was incredible.” You say, trying to shake off the mortifying feeling of being rude to this man that has been nothing but kind to you. “It’s called Scream.”

“Horror flick, right?” Joel smiles and, if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s proud. “Didn’t think you’d be the type to be into slasher movies.” 

You wring your fingers on your lap, unsure of how to answer him— He says it like it’s a compliment, even if you’d never take those words for something good. 

“Have you ever seen Black Sabbath?” Joel asks when you don’t answer. He doesn’t seem mad at your silence, but you still feel bad. “It’s an older one, but it’s good, a buncha different horror stories together. The first one is very similar to Scream, I think you’d like it.”

You’ve never heard of that movie before and, for a moment, you consider lying and pretending you have just to save face— But Joel doesn’t seem to judge you, he doesn’t ask with the same tone most people do, as if not knowing something popular was a moral failing on your part; you’re used to it, really. It had been even worse in school, where the girls would act as if you were an alien for not knowing the name of a cool actress or a new band. 

“I— No, I haven’t.” It’s what you settle for, in the end. Not a lie, but not the whole truth either. “It sounds fun.”

“We can watch it together sometime.” Joel licks his lips and your eyes can’t look away from the way his bottom lip shines. “I gotta put my Blockbuster card to use.” 

“Oh.” His offer makes your chest warm up and your heart explode into a wild gallop inside your chest. You’ve never been to a boy’s house before, even if classifying a man like Joel as a boy is laughable. “Won’t your daughter mind?”

Joel’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel, his eyes glued to the road in front of him. 

“No, she won’t.”

Two weeks later, on a Friday afternoon, you lie to your mother. You go with the least inconspicuous lie, which is that you’re babysitting for Joel. You doubt his daughter is at babysitting-age but your mother doesn’t seem to care much, just waving you goodbye as one of your siblings tugs at the hem of her dress, demanding attention. Joel is still at the farm, still slowly repairing the roof, and he gives you a ride; you have the perfect excuse on the tip of your tongue, the argument of him needing to shower and fix himself before whatever it is that he has to do and needs you to babysit, which you don’t know what it is because Mr. Miller’s personal life is none of your business and all you know is that he’ll be home late but, again, your mother doesn’t seem to bat an eye. Your father in fact clasps Joel’s shoulder, thanking him for his kindness— Joel makes a little joke about ‘headin’ in that direction anyway’, to which your father laughs harder than you find necessary. 

It’s only then that it dawns on you just how much they trust him— How much your parents like him, for some reason. It’s confusing, and off-putting, but you decide not to look a gifted horse in the mouth: If it means less questions, you’ll gladly accept it. 

Joel’s home is a small, one story house in one of the shadier neighborhoods; it looks stuck in the past, the outside looking more like a cheap 60s house than the newer McMansions you’d see in the nicer neighborhoods— Not that there were many around town, anyways. Most of your town felt like Joel’s home, everything with some degree of decaying, stuck in the past as if the new millenia wasn’t just a few years away. 

The house is dark and empty when you walk in, and you remove your shoes by the door even if it doesn’t seem like something Joel and Sarah practice— There’s no shoe rack, just a rickety table where Joel throws the key of his truck without a second thought. 

The house barely looks hospitable. You think it’s probably because of how recently they’ve moved in, empty in a way that lacks furniture, no personal touches anywhere yet. In the carpeted living room there’s a green plaid couch, a stained coffee table and a small yet bulky television, the VHS player balancing on top of it. The walls are bare apart from a loopy wallpaper that is probably older than you, not a single potted pant or throw pillow or indications anyone lives there. 

The only personal touch is a picture on the coffee table. It’s not framed, thrown loose on top of the dark wood next to a used coffee cup; you sit on the couch, knees drawn together, and look at the photograph carefully while Joel busies himself in the kitchen with soda and snacks— The photo is at least a few years old, a younger Joel smiling with his arm thrown over the shoulders of a teenage girl, her curly hair poking out at the sides of a pale pink french bonnet. They don’t really look alike, the girl’s skin darker and her smile fuller, but you recognize her as Sarah immediately— For all of their differences, her sweet eyes are a carbon copy of Joel’s. She can’t be older than thirteen in the picture and, when you turn the photo around, it reads ‘Dad and I — winter 1989’ in loopy, purple ink. 

There’s a heart in the ‘i’ of winter, and you think it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. You look up when Joel’s frame shadows the entrance to the living room, holding two Dr. Pepper glasses; he looks stricken, his face a little pale as he stares down at you even if you can’t understand why. 

“Sarah’s really pretty.” You say, placing the picture back where you found it. “She’s not home tonight?”

Joel clears his throat, frozen for a second longer before he finally comes close. “Sleepover at a friend’s house.” 

“I can’t wait to meet her. She seems like a sweet girl.”

“You will.” Joel nods, his voice a lot more somber than you think the conversation requires. “Soon enough.” 

The movie is beautiful. It’s an Italian film from what has to be the sixties, but it pulls you in from the very first scene: A beautiful woman, alone in her house, her undressing ritual of the night cut short by a menacing voice on the telephone saying she’ll be dead before morning comes. 

The movie is tense, claustrophobic even, but you have a hard time focusing on anything other than the woman— She’s gorgeous, even in despair, and there’s something so utterly sensual about her that it has you squirming in your seat. 

“She’s really pretty.” You say eventually, sipping your Dr. Pepper. Joel sits next to you, close enough that you have trouble breathing; his legs are sprawled in front of him, arm draped over the back of the couch. You’re not touching, but barely. The last time you sat this close to a man you’re attracted to was while you still attended youth group, sitting next to the twenty-something year old pastor that only had eyes for the prettier girls— Still, you’d been sweaty and nervous then, just as you feel now. 

“She is.” Joel agrees, and there’s something in his voice that makes you unstick your eyes from the screen and turn to him. 

He’s staring directly at you. The intensity of his gaze makes your stomach flutter and you can’t hold his gaze for more than a moment before you look away, busying yourself with the straw of your Dr. Pepper; it tastes a little funky but you down it anyway, not wanting to offend Joel— He doesn’t seem like the type to be drinking diet sodas, but you figure that maybe the soft drink belongs to Sarah and he doesn’t want to drink alcohol in front of you. 

Joel seems like a beer drinker, you think. There’s a very strict no alcohol policy in your home, but you can see Joel coming home after a long day of manual labor, kicking his work boots by the door and throwing himself on the ratty couch; in this fantasy you’re right there, in a pretty dress, bringing him a can of ice cold beer before settling next to him. 

You try to settle next to him the same way you’re imagining, staring at the screen without properly watching it, far too aware of the man sitting next to you, radiating warmth and Old Spice towards you. You miss a chunk of the movie and then suddenly there’s another lady there, just as beautiful, though not nearly as innocent. By the time the first story ends, you’re a little drowsy, your eyelids taking longer and longer to open with each blink. 

Still, even in your sleepy state, you don’t miss how the final kill has no blood on screen. It seems like such an oversight it has to be on purpose and you frown, unable to name the discomfort you feel. 

“He didn’t bleed.” You say, the sentence cut off by a small yawn. “I really wanted to see ‘im bleed.” 

The words don’t strike you as odd until after you’ve already said them and you tense, waiting for the joke or the odd look but Joel doesn’t give you any. He just hums, nodding. You yawn again before he can respond, and Joel cracks a smile at that. 

“Tired, sweetheart?” 

“A little.” And then, because you don’t want Joel to feel like he might’ve chosen the wrong programming, you say: “I’m liking the movie, though.”

“That’s good.” He says, his voice just a little flat— Almost as if he isn’t listening to you at all. You frown, turning to look at him; out of all the people in your life, Joel has been the only one that shows a proper interest when you speak. 

Joel is staring at the half-drunk soda in your hands. His face is clouded by something that you’re fairly certain to be annoyance, brow furrowed and lips downturned underneath his mustache. And then he catches you looking and it’s gone, his face melting into a pleasant smile when he taps his thigh.

“C’mon, finish your drink and lay down.” 

“Uh— What?” You’re not sure you get his order, heat and embarrassment exploding through your belly; he taps his thick denim-clad thigh again, mirth shining in his eyes. 

“ ‘S fine, sweetheart. Sarah falls asleep on my lap all the time, we ain’t got nice pillows for the couch yet. Drink up ‘n’ lay down.” 

You’re fully aware that you shouldn’t— This is a stranger, an older man that is asking you to lay your head on his lap and you know you should know better but… Nobody has ever looked at you the way he does, the soft lighting from the television reflecting on his face. And, well— The mention of his daughter shifts the situation a little bit. 

You’d never fallen asleep on your own father like that, but he wasn’t exactly known for being a warm person, let alone a comforting one. Maybe this is what your relationship with your father is supposed to be, you tell yourself, downing the last of the funky Dr. Pepper before scooting down on the couch, gingerly placing your head on his thigh. It’s comfortable despite the rough denim, Joel’s leg warm and strong underneath your cheek. 

“Good girl.” Joel whispers, the words settling somewhere deep into your chest. He brushes the hair away from your face, already staring back at the tv when you look up, his body entirely at ease, as if having a young girl’s head on his lap was the most normal thing in the world. 

And you tell yourself again: Maybe this is what it’s supposed to be.

You wake up on Joel’s bed the next morning, and you feel like death. Your head pounds, and your body feels like you’re trapped in Jell-O as you drag yourself to the bathroom; you don’t vomit but it’s a close call, washing your face with cold water before Joel pops in on the bathroom door. 

“Mornin’. I made breakfast.” He says, leaning against the threshold. He’s changed clothes, his salt and pepper hair still wet and slicked back, a dark blue flannel stretching over his chest. “You okay? Yer not lookin’ so good.” 

Your stomach rumbles, half hungry, half nauseated. He frowns, coming close and pressing the back of his hand to your forehead. Your body recoils, hip bumping painfully against the corner of the sink— You don’t even notice until after you’ve done it, your body pulling away on instinct. 

“I feel sick.” You tell him, using that as an excuse as to why you’re suddenly pulling away. 

Truth is, you’re scared. Your head is foggy, feeling too heavy on your neck— You’ve only been drunk once, when you were twelve and had stolen a bottle of Jim Beam with your best friend; the beating you’d gotten had left you feeling worse than the hangover, your body black and blue for days afterwards. 

You feel as hungover as you did back then, except this time you didn’t drink. You think back to the odd taste of your soda, the way Joel had been pushy to get you to drink, how he barely drank his. You don’t want to accuse him of anything, you really don’t, but you’ve heard enough stories of silly girls who get too drunk and put themselves in danger to not consider it. He cocks his head to the side, just a little. 

“You’ll feel better after you eat.” He says, giving you a small smile. Joel steps back, not crowding you inside the small bathroom anymore. “You fell asleep halfway through the movie, I brought you to my bed and then slept on the couch. Maybe you were already feeling a little sick yesterday?” 

“Yeah.” You run a hand over your forehead. “Maybe.” 

“C’mon sweetheart, let’s eat and get you home.”

You arrive home a little after nine am, and the farm is already bustling. Joel drops you off with a well-prepared lie, apologizing profusely to your mother for not letting her know you’d be gone for so long, telling her about how he didn’t have a phone line yet, with being so new to town, and then singing a thousand prayers about how you’d been so kind to Sarah and how much she loved you— He spews a story of you falling asleep on the couch after a movie marathon to which your mother twists her nose — all movies belong to the devil, for all she cares — but she accepts gracefully the exorbitant amount of money he gives her “for her troubles”. He talks for so long and smiles so sweetly that your mother swoons, even giving him a slice of pie for the road while you run inside your house two steps at a time, ready to wash off last night from your skin. 

All hell breaks loose after Joel leaves. Your mother berates you, talking in hushed, sharp whispers about what the church would think if they saw you leave a man’s house in last night’s clothes, how she had to lie to your father and how she might as well go to hell because of you— She calls you a whore, her face purple from lack of proper breathing and anger as she spits the word at you even after you swear to her that nothing happened; you almost tell her the truth then, you almost say you’re scared and that you can’t remember a single thing that happened after Joel had you laying on his lap and how you woke up in his bed but you don’t. You know she’d spin it, know she’d blame it on you and then she’d tell your father and most likely your pastor and the consequences of your confession might be worse than living with such a terrible secret.

After so many years, you hate that you’re still surprised by your mother’s antics. She doesn’t tell your father about what happened, and she still treats Joel with kindness whenever he comes over to work on the roof, but her attitude towards you change— She doubles your chores and triples her affection with your siblings, the gap of the coldness she has towards you only becoming even more blatant. She barely speaks to you unless it is to bark orders, and she keeps a close eye on whether you’ve been doing your devotional and your prayers as if you’re ten years old again. 

By the time she brings up the doctor’s appointment, you’re so relieved that she’s back to addressing you as a human being that you don’t even question it. You’re not sick, but if it means your mother is talking to you again, you’ll go to as many doctors as she’d like. 

You should’ve known better than that. 

The two of you take the bus — your mother doesn’t drive, because women shouldn’t have to drive — two towns over, and you’re extremely anxious by the time you stop at the clinic: The only reason your mother would take you to a doctor so far away is to make sure nobody in your town hears about it, which can only means it’s going to be bad. 

It’s a women’s clinic, which you quickly learns it means a gynecologist; your mother had never allowed you to visit one before, saying those clinics incentivise sins like pre-marital sex and abortions, but she drags you inside with her head held high and hawk-like fingers clutching both your arm and her cardigan, almost as if the dirtiness of sin might rub off on the both of you just by sitting in the waiting room. 

“The doctor” she says, putting enough judgement in the title that it makes you want to curl in on yourself. “is going to make sure you haven’t done anything you’re not supposed to. And so help me God, girl, if I find out you’ve laid with that man—”

“I didn’t.” You say, hissing through your teeth. She’s clearly taken aback by your tone, but your heart is beating so fast you barely have time to control your anger. “I told you already.” 

“I don’t believe you.” Your mother’s nails dig into the skin of your forearm, her tone sharp and hushed. “You’ve always been a liar.” 

The exam is every bit as invasive and painful as you expect it to be, your eyes full of unshed tears as you lay on the table, a man between your bare thighs for the first time in your life. You’re thoroughly humiliated by the time you finally leave, after your mother has made the doctor reassure her three times that your hymen was still in place, as if he was as much of a liar as you.

You’d never admit to her or anyone else but, in the end, you’re relieved to know that Joel had been telling the truth all along.

Alyssa Brown’s murder is the first one your town had in over fifteen years. She’s a nineteen year old supermarket clerk that went to school with you, engaged to her high school sweetheart and a faithful member of your church; the entire town is devastated, setting up a memorial that spreads through fifteen feet in front of her home, flowers and pictures and letters from almost every citizen adorning the white picket fence. They find her the morning after you’ve slept over at Joel’s house, drowned in her bathtub, a gash on her forehead that was done by a lampshade the police finds broken in her bedroom, arms tied behind her back and the only part of her body that is underwater is her head and shoulders— No forced entry, no fingerprints or DNA left behind to identify who had so violently killed her and you sit through dinner while you hear your father rant about how the police force was woefully unprepared to handle such a terrible tragedy; your mother prays and cooks for her family, and then gives you a snark remark on how Alyssa, ‘unlike some girls’, had certainly gone to Heaven.

Alyssa’s funeral is the second you ever attend, following your grandmother’s funeral when you were a child, and it is every bit as uncomfortable as you expect it to be. You sit with your family, dressed in black pressed clothing, and offer her family condolences you don’t really mean: Alyssa had been a stranger, just a name you heard in passing, and you truly don’t feel the grief the rest of the town seems to feel. 

Her funeral is also the first time you’re alone with Joel ever since your little movie night— You’ve seen him around the farm, but your mother doesn’t allow you to be in the same room as him, always sending you into the fields or the cowshed whenever he’s on the property. But she’s busy that day, holding Alyssa’s mother in her arms and singing comforting hymns, and doesn’t notice when Joel saddles up next to you after the ceremony. 

“What a tragedy.” He tusks, taking a swig from a metal canteen whenever nobody is looking. You can smell the whiskey on his breath when he leans in, way too close to your face. “Such a beautiful girl, taken from her family like that.” 

Jealousy blooms deep in your stomach, bitter and overwhelming. You twist your nose, turning your face away from him to hide how much his words affect you; Joel isn’t looking at you anyway, his eyes glued to the coffin at the center of the room. 

“She looks just like you, don’t you think?” He takes another drink from his canteen before shoving it back in his pocket. “Same eyes, same hair color. Could’a been your sister.”

You hate how right he is. You’d never noticed it before but, standing in the back and staring at the poster of a dead girl’s face, all you can see is your own. It’s not just the eyes or the hair— Her smile is just like yours, the same thickness of your lips and the same slope of your nose. Her skin is a little darker but not enough to wash away the similarities, her hair texture the exact same as yours. 

You feel like you might be sick. Joel waits a beat, and then another, before he adds:

“Could’a been you.”

next part. (coming soon)

Your Ma met Clark’s Pa when you were six, and he was seven. On a Sunday spring afternoon with a shining sun, Ma and Pa dropped you two off at a dingy playground just off the interstate, next to the McDonald’s parking lot. It was not far from Pa and Clark’s old rickety farmhouse, and you were told the purpose of this activity was for you two kids to get acquainted. While Ma and Pa were busy doing whatever it is that grown-ups do when they are alone together in the back of the car, you stood next to Clark in front of the jungle gym at the back of a small crowd of children, unsure of what exactly to say or do to this boy who was a complete stranger to you. 

One burly-looking kid, who seemed to be about Clark’s age, was at the front of the group playing a video game on his (what looked to be) brand new Gameboy Color. You were a bit too short to see what game he was playing, so you jumped from time to time and stood on your tiptoes while Clark stood well tall enough to see on his own. You managed to get a glimpse of a few pixelated superhero characters fighting what looked to be a Godzilla-like creature when the light hit the screen just right.  

“Die, die!” the kid who was playing shouted, making explosion noises between each intense press of his chubby thumbs. “Yeah! Pew, pew!”

Around him, every eye was frenetically glued to the tiny screen.

Clark interrupted your sporadic attempts to see. 

“Hey, uh, Y/N,” he asked, waving his hand in front of your bouncing face. “Hey, that’s your name, right? D’you want me to pick you up so you can see better?”

You stared up in surprise at the older boy, who you had barely said a word to, sort of honored he would literally be willing to bear the weight of carrying you when you were basically just some random girl to him.

“Are you even strong enough?” you smirked, eyes nervously darting to the ground when his blue eyes connected with yours. 

Yeah, he was tall, but you weren’t that far behind! But, on second thought, his being bigger than you was a bit intimidating.

Clark’s black hair fell into his face as he promptly bent over, wrapped his arms around your waist, and pulled hard, launching you about six inches into the air.

His strength was almost shocking, and you giggled in impressed glee.

“Better?’ he asked through a grin of his own.

“Yeah, thanks,” you replied, now able to properly see. “But you can’t see ‘cuz you’re holding me ‘n all!”

“Can I have a turn, Jimmy?” whined a small child in jean overalls, cutting off Clark’s answer, to the boy playing the game. 

“No me!” another older boy with freckles snapped. “You said, Jimmy.”

“Shut up!” Jimmy insisted, chancing a glance behind him while still jamming the plastic buttons.

Then he spotted Clark.

“Hey, Clark!” he shouted with a grin.

“Hey, Jimmy!” Clark replied, poking his head out from behind you.

“Want a turn? Jeez! Die, die!”

Clark looked over at the flashing console with clear longing, but then something caught his eye. He turned his head left toward a big oak tree, which brought the rest of him and you turning too, since he had never put you down. 

“Nah, thanks though. Gotta do something first.”

He plopped you down gently on the grass and took off towards the tree.

Should you follow? You wondered. You didn’t even know this boy, and yet you took off after him, racing like there was no tomorrow.

-

At the base of the massive oak tree lay something brown that nearly blended into the wood chips that speckled the ground. Clark bolted over and bent down to crouch next to it on the tips of his toes, and you stared in horror as he gently lifted a songbird with a broken wing up into your line of sight. 

“We gotta save him,” Clark told you when you caught up. “I’mma put him in my pocket, but golly, don’t tell Pa, alright? He’ll be real mad if he knows what we’re up to. When we get home, I have a nice shoebox I’m gonna keep him in under my bed until he’s better.”

You thought it was a bit weird that Pa might be mad at Clark for trying to help save a baby bird, but you didn’t question it. Something about Clark made you want to nod and smile big and agree.

-

A few hours later, at the old Kent residence, you had survived the shock of your Ma telling you that Clark’s house was your new permanent home. 

You were in Clark’s room, since, through your tears, your mother had simply told you and Clark to “go play.” 

Clark had successfully smuggled the bird via his jeans front pocket into the house, and now he resided in an open Nike shoe box with three clumsy holes poked in the side of it. 

“Hey, don’t cry, Y/N,” Clark tried to comfort you while looking around his room for something to use as a splint for the bird. “My house isn’t so bad. There’s really just one rule,” he continued, fishing a pencil out of a drawer and breaking it in half with his fist, which made you flinch. “Don’t piss off Pa. You’ll be alright. It’ll be like a big fun sleepover! We’ll be pals.”

You nodded, sniveling into your shoulder, recalling how you’d screamed back at your mother in protest, and she had backhanded you and gone to nurse a bottle of brown liquid that you were fairly certain contained alcohol.

Then – it was almost comically loud – booming footsteps started ascending the stairs, the sound getting stronger with each step.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

“We gotta hide him!” Clark exclaimed, blue eyes wide.

But before he or you could reach the bird, sitting in the open box, the door swung open with a harsh crack of wood.

“You,” Pa pointed at you, standing broad and tall and in uniform in the doorway. “Did you back-talk your Ma? I don’t accept that in this household. You ought to be grateful you’re living here, you goddamned little freeloader!”

You weren’t sure what a ‘freeloader’ truly was or why he was so mad at you, but you frowned as he bounded forward and grabbed you by the collar of your shirt.

“Stop it, Pa!” Clark shouted as you cowered and tried to shrug away from his domineering grip.

Pa turned to Clark to retort and then saw the open box on Clark’s bed.

“How dare you bring an animal into this house!” he snarled when he realized what he was seeing. “I’ve told you, no pets! It will interfere with your training!”

Clark slammed the top of the box back on and threw his whole body over it to protect it. But he was no match for Pa.

“The bird’s injured!” Clark cried out in defense, but the taller man began to beat on him very hard, banging Clark’s body over and over again into the shoebox, creating indentations in the flimsy cardboard.

“Stop!” you shrieked in horror, throwing yourself into the mix.

The finer details of the beating you both received weren’t worth repeating. 

When Pa finally relented, telling Clark it was his ass or the bird’s, you each had a black eye, and you were sobbing on the floor.

Pa slammed the bedroom door shut, and a terrible silence followed as Clark lifted the top of the box to find the bird not moving inside. His fingers shook as he pulled it gingerly out of the shoebox, the tiny bird no longer breathing, its limbs bent in impossible directions.

“No!” he moaned, tears finally coming to his eyes. “I crushed him!”

“It’s your P-Pa’s fault,” you tried through a surge of tears. “He pushed you d-down. You were just tryna save him.”

Clark swallowed.

“We…we gotta give him a proper burial,” he nodded somberly, carefully placing the bird back in the box as he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “It’s the right thing to do.”

-

Bloody and bruising, the two of you crept down the creaking wooden staircase with the shoebox, past Ma passed out on the couch, and Clark’s Pa watching TV in his armchair. You snuck out the back door to a little garden with a willow tree, and Clark found a rusty hoe and dug a hole. 

When he was finished, he placed the closed box into the ground, stood up tall, and cleared his throat.

“Here lies…” Clark began, but then realized the bird didn’t have a name, his lower lip trembling ever so slightly.

“We could call him ‘Chip,’” you suggested timidly, wiping your nose on the inside of your arm. “On account of how he has a chipped wing?”

“Yeah, okay,” Clark nodded. “Here lies Chip, a nice bird, gone much too soon.”

“Amen,” you agreed, making a clumsy sign of a cross over your body, and then helped pool dirt back over the box with your fingers.

Clark piled a few stones on the grave and looked out at the surrounding fields.

“Y/N?” he asked into the warm, dusky evening. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” you replied, wondering what he might confess.

“I know you don’t know me much from Adam ‘n all, and I don’t know how long we’ll be friends, but I want to tell you something, okay?”

You nodded.

“You see how Chip is buried here, under the dirt?”

“Yeah?”

“A-and he can never fly again? Fly away, I mean? And he’s sorta trapped here under the earth? Under the shadow of the tree and earth, and he can’t see the sun?”

“Uh-huh?” you nodded again

“Well, I don’t even know what I’m saying, but I just–In my heart, I don’t want that to be me. You can’t let that be me. D’you know what I mean? I just don’t ever want that to be me.”

You weren’t sure you understood what Clark meant, or that you were capable of protecting the looming boy who stood over you, but you agreed anyway and meant that.

Your Ma met Clark’s Pa when you were six, and he was seven. On a Sunday spring afternoon with a shining sun, Ma and Pa dropped you two off at a dingy playground just off the interstate, next to the McDonald’s parking lot. It was not far from Pa and Clark’s old rickety farmhouse, and you were told the purpose of this activity was for you two kids to get acquainted. While Ma and Pa were busy doing whatever it is that grown-ups do when they are alone together in the back of the car, you stood next to Clark in front of the jungle gym at the back of a small crowd of children, unsure of what exactly to say or do to this boy who was a complete stranger to you. 

One burly-looking kid, who seemed to be about Clark’s age, was at the front of the group playing a video game on his (what looked to be) brand new Gameboy Color. You were a bit too short to see what game he was playing, so you jumped from time to time and stood on your tiptoes while Clark stood well tall enough to see on his own. You managed to get a glimpse of a few pixelated superhero characters fighting what looked to be a Godzilla-like creature when the light hit the screen just right.  

“Die, die!” the kid who was playing shouted, making explosion noises between each intense press of his chubby thumbs. “Yeah! Pew, pew!”

Around him, every eye was frenetically glued to the tiny screen.

Clark interrupted your sporadic attempts to see. 

“Hey, uh, Y/N,” he asked, waving his hand in front of your bouncing face. “Hey, that’s your name, right? D’you want me to pick you up so you can see better?”

You stared up in surprise at the older boy, who you had barely said a word to, sort of honored he would literally be willing to bear the weight of carrying you when you were basically just some random girl to him.

“Are you even strong enough?” you smirked, eyes nervously darting to the ground when his blue eyes connected with yours. 

Yeah, he was tall, but you weren’t that far behind! But, on second thought, his being bigger than you was a bit intimidating.

Clark’s black hair fell into his face as he promptly bent over, wrapped his arms around your waist, and pulled hard, launching you about six inches into the air.

His strength was almost shocking, and you giggled in impressed glee.

“Better?’ he asked through a grin of his own.

“Yeah, thanks,” you replied, now able to properly see. “But you can’t see ‘cuz you’re holding me ‘n all!”

“Can I have a turn, Jimmy?” whined a small child in jean overalls, cutting off Clark’s answer, to the boy playing the game. 

“No me!” another older boy with freckles snapped. “You said, Jimmy.”

“Shut up!” Jimmy insisted, chancing a glance behind him while still jamming the plastic buttons.

Then he spotted Clark.

“Hey, Clark!” he shouted with a grin.

“Hey, Jimmy!” Clark replied, poking his head out from behind you.

“Want a turn? Jeez! Die, die!”

Clark looked over at the flashing console with clear longing, but then something caught his eye. He turned his head left toward a big oak tree, which brought the rest of him and you turning too, since he had never put you down. 

“Nah, thanks though. Gotta do something first.”

He plopped you down gently on the grass and took off towards the tree.

Should you follow? You wondered. You didn’t even know this boy, and yet you took off after him, racing like there was no tomorrow.

-

At the base of the massive oak tree lay something brown that nearly blended into the wood chips that speckled the ground. Clark bolted over and bent down to crouch next to it on the tips of his toes, and you stared in horror as he gently lifted a songbird with a broken wing up into your line of sight. 

“We gotta save him,” Clark told you when you caught up. “I’mma put him in my pocket, but golly, don’t tell Pa, alright? He’ll be real mad if he knows what we’re up to. When we get home, I have a nice shoebox I’m gonna keep him in under my bed until he’s better.”

You thought it was a bit weird that Pa might be mad at Clark for trying to help save a baby bird, but you didn’t question it. Something about Clark made you want to nod and smile big and agree.

-

A few hours later, at the old Kent residence, you had survived the shock of your Ma telling you that Clark’s house was your new permanent home. 

You were in Clark’s room, since, through your tears, your mother had simply told you and Clark to “go play.” 

Clark had successfully smuggled the bird via his jeans front pocket into the house, and now he resided in an open Nike shoe box with three clumsy holes poked in the side of it. 

“Hey, don’t cry, Y/N,” Clark tried to comfort you while looking around his room for something to use as a splint for the bird. “My house isn’t so bad. There’s really just one rule,” he continued, fishing a pencil out of a drawer and breaking it in half with his fist, which made you flinch. “Don’t piss off Pa. You’ll be alright. It’ll be like a big fun sleepover! We’ll be pals.”

You nodded, sniveling into your shoulder, recalling how you’d screamed back at your mother in protest, and she had backhanded you and gone to nurse a bottle of brown liquid that you were fairly certain contained alcohol.

Then – it was almost comically loud – booming footsteps started ascending the stairs, the sound getting stronger with each step.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

“We gotta hide him!” Clark exclaimed, blue eyes wide.

But before he or you could reach the bird, sitting in the open box, the door swung open with a harsh crack of wood.

“You,” Pa pointed at you, standing broad and tall and in uniform in the doorway. “Did you back-talk your Ma? I don’t accept that in this household. You ought to be grateful you’re living here, you goddamned little freeloader!”

You weren’t sure what a ‘freeloader’ truly was or why he was so mad at you, but you frowned as he bounded forward and grabbed you by the collar of your shirt.

“Stop it, Pa!” Clark shouted as you cowered and tried to shrug away from his domineering grip.

Pa turned to Clark to retort and then saw the open box on Clark’s bed.

“How dare you bring an animal into this house!” he snarled when he realized what he was seeing. “I’ve told you, no pets! It will interfere with your training!”

Clark slammed the top of the box back on and threw his whole body over it to protect it. But he was no match for Pa.

“The bird’s injured!” Clark cried out in defense, but the taller man began to beat on him very hard, banging Clark’s body over and over again into the shoebox, creating indentations in the flimsy cardboard.

“Stop!” you shrieked in horror, throwing yourself into the mix.

The finer details of the beating you both received weren’t worth repeating. 

When Pa finally relented, telling Clark it was his ass or the bird’s, you each had a black eye, and you were sobbing on the floor.

Pa slammed the bedroom door shut, and a terrible silence followed as Clark lifted the top of the box to find the bird not moving inside. His fingers shook as he pulled it gingerly out of the shoebox, the tiny bird no longer breathing, its limbs bent in impossible directions.

“No!” he moaned, tears finally coming to his eyes. “I crushed him!”

“It’s your P-Pa’s fault,” you tried through a surge of tears. “He pushed you d-down. You were just tryna save him.”

Clark swallowed.

“We…we gotta give him a proper burial,” he nodded somberly, carefully placing the bird back in the box as he wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “It’s the right thing to do.”

-

Bloody and bruising, the two of you crept down the creaking wooden staircase with the shoebox, past Ma passed out on the couch, and Clark’s Pa watching TV in his armchair. You snuck out the back door to a little garden with a willow tree, and Clark found a rusty hoe and dug a hole. 

When he was finished, he placed the closed box into the ground, stood up tall, and cleared his throat.

“Here lies…” Clark began, but then realized the bird didn’t have a name, his lower lip trembling ever so slightly.

“We could call him ‘Chip,’” you suggested timidly, wiping your nose on the inside of your arm. “On account of how he has a chipped wing?”

“Yeah, okay,” Clark nodded. “Here lies Chip, a nice bird, gone much too soon.”

“Amen,” you agreed, making a clumsy sign of a cross over your body, and then helped pool dirt back over the box with your fingers.

Clark piled a few stones on the grave and looked out at the surrounding fields.

“Y/N?” he asked into the warm, dusky evening. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” you replied, wondering what he might confess.

“I know you don’t know me much from Adam ‘n all, and I don’t know how long we’ll be friends, but I want to tell you something, okay?”

You nodded.

“You see how Chip is buried here, under the dirt?”

“Yeah?”

“A-and he can never fly again? Fly away, I mean? And he’s sorta trapped here under the earth? Under the shadow of the tree and earth, and he can’t see the sun?”

“Uh-huh?” you nodded again

“Well, I don’t even know what I’m saying, but I just–In my heart, I don’t want that to be me. You can’t let that be me. D’you know what I mean? I just don’t ever want that to be me.”

You weren’t sure you understood what Clark meant, or that you were capable of protecting the looming boy who stood over you, but you agreed anyway and meant that.