𐌌𐌉𐌔𐌕𐌙

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Thursday, August 18th, 7:32 AM

You woke up earlier than the rest of your family, not meaning to. Your neck screamed when you sat up, and your back popped in three places. 

You could hear something moving downstairs. Your mamá's footsteps, you knew them by the way they moved from counter to stove to sink in.

You walked downstairs.

Your mother was at the stove, her back to you, she was wearing her housecoat, the blue terrycloth one with the bleach stain on the sleeve, and her bare feet were flat against the floorboard, and there was something about the slope of her shoulders that looked almost relaxed. 

"Mamá..." you said quietly.

She hummed in response. A low, absent sound, like she'd already forgotten you'd been locked in your room twelve hours ago, like she'd already forgotten the slap and the drag and the rosary beads thrown at your chest. 

"What are you making?" you asked.

"Tostadas francesas," she said.

You stopped in the doorway. Your mother never made French toast, not on weekdays, and not even on ordinary mornings. French toast meant someone important was coming over, or something bad had happened and needed smoothing over. 

The last time she'd made French toast was the morning of your father's funeral. 

You'd eaten it dry, without syrup, because your abuela said syrup was an indulgence and a funeral was not the time for indulgences.

You stepped into the kitchen fully, the floorboards creaking under your weight.

"After I finish this, we're going out," your mother said. She still hadn't turned around. The smell of cinnamon and browning butter filled the kitchen. "To buy you new dresses. Abuela and I have someone for you to meet. I think you'll like them."

The words landed like stones dropped into still water. You stood there in your rumpled, sweat stained sundress and she was talking about new dresses and someone to meet, and you understood, all at once, what was happening.

She was marrying you off.

Or trying to. Dressing you up like a doll and presenting you to some boy, some nice Catholic boy from a nice Catholic family who went to Mass three times a week and didn't ask questions and didn't look at girls across the street in white babydoll dresses. 

This was her solution. The lock didn't work, the prayers didn't work, the slap didn't work, so now she was going to fix you the old fashioned way, with a ring, and a husband.

She turned around and smiled at you. This morning, in the soft kitchen light, she looked almost gentle. 

Almost like the mother you'd had before your father died, the one who used to sing while she cooked, the one who'd taught you to braid your own hair when you were six years old and had sat you on her lap and shown you how to cross the strands over and under and through.

"Go take a shower," she said. "And don't put on the sundress. Put on the outfit your aunt bought for you."

Yeah right, like you were going to put on the dress Manon had gotten you. Not a chance in hell. 

You nodded. Your voice was somewhere else. "Okay, Mamá."

The bathroom was small and humid even before you turned the water on. You peeled off the sundress and let it fall to the tile floor.

You stepped into the shower. The water was hot and hard, and you sighed in relief the moment it hit your shoulders. The sound that came out of you was almost obscene, a long, low exhale that turned into something softer, something that would've been a moan if you'd let it.

Your mind wandered.

It always wandered now It wandered across the street and up the Bannerman porch and through their front door and up the stairs to wherever Manon was right now. Her face came to you in pieces, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, the mole just above her lip, dark and round and perfect, placed there by a God who must have known exactly what He was doing.

Your hand slid down your stomach. You didn't tell it to, it moved on its own, a slow, drifting drag that followed the path of the water down your skin, over the curve of your belly. Your breath hitched.

Your fingers found the slick seam of your pussy, and you gasped. You'd touched yourself before, sure, in the dark of your bedroom when everyone was asleep, under the covers where God couldn't see. But it had never felt like this. It had never felt like your whole body was a tuning fork and someone had just struck the note.

Manon.

You slid a single finger up through your folds, and your knees almost buckled. The water beat down on your back.

Your other hand braced against the shower wall, palm flat against the cold tile, and you circled your clit with a finger that was clumsy and hesitant and desperate all at once, your hips jerking forward into the touch like they'd been waiting for permission your whole life.

Your mind filled with images you didn't know you had, Manon's mouth, Manon's hands, Manon's tongue on the back of your hand but lower, somewhere else, somewhere that made your thighs tremble and your cunt clench around nothing.

The sound you made was high and keening and barely human, a whimper that started somewhere in your chest and got caught in your throat—

"Mija! We gotta go!"

Your mother's voice cut through the steam like a blade. You snatched your hand back like you'd been burned. Water pounded against your pussy, cold now, or maybe that was just the absence of your own touch. Your heart was slamming against your ribs.

"Coming!" you yelled back, and your voice cracked on the word.

You stood there for another thirty seconds, breathing hard, the water running over your face and into your open mouth.

Your clit was still throbbing. You hadn't finished, the ache was still there, coiled and hot and unsatisfied, and you didn't have time to do anything about it, and part of you was almost grateful.

You turned off the shower and stepped out. The air outside the curtain was cool and sharp. You towelled off with rough, hurried strokes, and then you looked at the dress your tía had given you. And then you looked at the sundress from yesterday, lying in a heap on the bathroom tile, still stained, still smelling of sweat and fear.

You couldn't wear the dress.

You picked up the sundress.

The walk into town was misery.

The sun had climbed higher since you'd woken up, and the heat had stopped pretending to be mild.

Your mother walked beside you. Not in front of you, like she usually did, but beside you. Close enough that your elbows almost brushed.

"Why couldn't we use the car?" you asked, wiping sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand. "It's hot out here."

"Your thighs are getting fat," she said. "You could use the exercise."

The words were casual. The way another mother might comment on the weather, but they landed in your chest like a punch, and your step faltered, and you felt your face go hot with a shame that had nothing to do with the sun.

You slowed down and let the distance between you and your mother stretch like taffy until you were walking three steps behind her instead of beside her, your eyes fixed on the back of her.

You didn't want to be beside her, didn't want to be anywhere near her.

The store was downtown, on Main Street, wedged between the hardware store and the bakery that had been boarded up since the recession. It wasn't the kind of store your family usually shopped at.

The mannequins in the window were wearing dresses that looked like they'd been airlifted from a different century, lace and ruffles and high collars, sleeves that went all the way down to the wrist, hemlines that went all the way down to the ankle.

Modest church dresses.

The kind of dresses that said I am a good girl, I am a pure girl, I am not thinking about women in white dresses, I am not touching myself in the shower, I am not anything but what my mother wants me to be.

The store was packed.

Apparently everyone had someone coming over, or maybe everyone was just as desperate as your mother to find something that would fix whatever was broken in their daughters.

The air smelled like perfume and floor polish and the faint, sour undertone of too many bodies in too small a space.

"Go look for some dresses," your mother said, already scanning the store with that sharp, hungry look she got when there was business to be done. "I'm gonna go talk to Mrs. Avanzini and Miss Laforteza."

You followed her gaze.

They were standing near the changing rooms, the two of them, Mrs. Avanzini from the Baptist auxiliary and Miss Laforteza from the post office, the same two women who'd been gossiping about Manon in Piggly's, the same two women whose whispers had gotten you slapped and locked in your room and starved.

They were already whispering to each other when your mother approached, their heads bent together like crows sharing carrion, and your mother slid into their circle as easy as a knife into a sheath.

Her daughter caused quite the scene at church, I heard, Mrs. Avanzini's eyes said as they flicked toward you. Best to marry that one off quick before she brings more shame to the family.

You turned away and walked deeper into the store.

The racks were endless. Row after row of dresses in colors that all blurred together.

You ran your fingers over the fabric as you walked.

Lace, eyelet, tulle and cotton so stiff with starch it could stand up on its own.

Nothing here looked like you. Nothing here looked like the girl you'd seen in your mirror last night.

"Hey. You're Mrs. Molina's kid, right?"

The voice came from behind you.

You turned around.

The girl standing in front of you was about your age, maybe a little older, with black hair that fell to her waist in a curtain of liquid silk. Her face was heart-shaped, delicate, with a small pointed chin, and her lips, full, pink and perfectly shaped, the bottom lip slightly plumper than the top, like a doll's mouth, like a mouth that had been drawn by someone who spent a lot of time thinking about mouths.

She was wearing a sundress the color of ripe peaches, the straps thin, the neckline square, the hem swinging just above her knees. A thin gold chain hung around her neck, and nestled in the hollow of her throat was a tiny cross, real gold, you could tell by the way it caught the light.

You recognised her, but her face. You'd seen her in the background of your life for years, at Mass, at the grocery store, walking down Main Street with a cluster of other girls around her like petals around a flower's center.

She was one of the girls your mother approved of. One of the good ones. One of the ones your abuela didn't pray about.

"I'm Sophia," she said. "Sophia Laforteza."

Of course this perfect girl with her perfect mouth and her perfect gold cross was the daughter of Miss Laforteza from the post office. It was almost too neat, like a story your mother would have written if your mother had any imagination at all.

Sophia Laforteza, who steam opened letters for fun, who knew everyone's secrets before they knew them themselves, who'd probably heard all about your shame from her mother before the bruise on your cheek had even finished forming.

You nodded. You didn't trust your voice yet. You'd learned a long time ago that silence was safer than words.

"That's Daniela," Sophia said, pointing over her shoulder.

Daniela Avanzini was shorter than Sophia, dark curls that fell past her shoulders. She has two deep dimples carved themselves into her cheeks like punctuation marks.

She was wearing a yellow dress with tiny white flowers, the fabric clinging to her hips and a stomach so flat, you would've thought she was born with a six pack. Daniela was biting her lip like she was trying not to laugh at a joke you hadn't heard yet.

"And I'm Megan," said a third voice.

Megan Skiendiel was the tall one. Almost a full head taller than Daniela, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a simple white blouse and a floral skirt that brushed her thigh, and she had the kind of smile that made you want to smile back even when you weren't sure why. She was soft, this one, the kind of soft that came from never having been hit.

"My mother's not here," Megan added, as if she'd read your mind. "Sophia invited me."

"So, are you like some kind of hermit crab?" Daniela asked, tilting her head. Those dimples flashed again. "I mean, we never see you out. Ever. You're like a cryptid, a really pretty cryptid, but still a cryptid."

Sophia nudged Daniela hard in the ribs with her elbow, sharp enough to make the shorter girl wince. "Daniela," she hissed, in a tone that was more warning than reprimand.

You felt your face go hot. The three of them were looking at you and you weren't used to being looked at. You'd spent your whole life being watched (by your mother, by your abuela, by the women at church)

"I'm not really..." you started, and then paused, scrambling for the right words.

The English came slowly, still tangled in Spanish, still getting stuck somewhere between your brain and your tongue. "I'm not really an outside person."

You wanted to be an outside person.

You wanted to be on porches and at creeks and in the back of ice cream trucks with the door open and the radio playing, you wanted to be anywhere that wasn't your bedroom with the lock on the outside and the rosary beads in your hands, but you couldn't say that.

You couldn't say my mother doesn't let me go anywhere, my mother thinks I have evil thoughts, your mothers were the ones who told my mother about the girl in the white dress and that's why my face looks like this. So you lied instead.

"Well, you're outside now," Megan said. "You wanna hang out with us after this?"

You looked at her. Then at Daniela. Then at Sophia, who was watching you with an expression you couldn't quite read, something between curiosity and calculation, like she was working out a puzzle and you were the final piece.

"I have to ask my mom," you said.

"Mommy!" Sophia yelled, and her voice cut across the store like a blade, loud and unapologetic and so completely unconcerned with making a scene that you felt a spike of something that might have been admiration. "Can Mrs. Molina's daughter come to the park with us?"

Every head in the store turned. Miss Laforteza looked up from her conversation with Mrs. Avanzini, her eyes finding her daughter with the resigned patience of a woman who had long ago stopped trying to control Sophia's volume. Mrs. Avanzini's mouth tightened into a thin, unreadable line. And your mother—

Your mother looked directly at you.

The distance between you was maybe thirty feet, but it felt like thirty miles and thirty inches at the same time. Her eyes moved over your face, over the bruise, over the dress that was wrinkled and sweat stained and wrong, over the three girls clustered around you like a protective detail. And then she spoke, in Spanish, her voice carrying across the store without any apparent effort at all.

"Como confío en estas chicas y en sus madres, te voy a dejar ir, pero esta será la última vez que salgas si me entero de que hiciste algo o fuiste a algún sitio al que no debías ir."

The threat wasn't veiled, it wasn't even trying to be. It was a knife held to your throat in a public place, and everyone in the store knew it.

"Okay, Mamá," you said.

Your mother nodded. "Be back before eight."

And then Daniela grabbed your wrist and pulled you toward the door, and the bell above the door chimed your exit.

"What did she say?" Megan asked, as soon as the door had swung shut behind you. The three of them had formed a loose semicircle around you on the sidewalk, blocking you in without seeming to try. "Your mom. What did she actually say?"

Daniela snorted. "Pretty much that if her daughter does something she doesn't like, she's gonna beat her ass."

"She's not wrong," you muttered.

Sophia fell into step on your other side, Megan trailed behind, her sandals slapping against the hot asphalt. The four of you walked like that for a block, past the Methodist church, past the hardware store with its window full of dusty power tools and faded sale signs, past the old oak tree where someone had nailed a sign that said REPENT in red letters that had been bleached pink by the sun.

Then Sophia glanced over her shoulder.

"Okay," she said, and her voice had changed. "We're not going to the park."

You stopped walking. Your sandal caught on a crack in the sidewalk, and you stumbled, and Daniela's grip on your arm tightened to keep you upright.

"What?"

"Please tell me you have a better outfit than that," Megan said, gesturing at your dress. Her nose wrinkled. "Because where we're going, you're gonna want to look less like you just crawled out of a convent."

You looked down at the bag on your arm. It was a simple brown paper bag, the kind you got from the drugstore, the kind your tía had handed you last night with a smile and a wink and a go to your room, try it on.

You'd stuffed the babydoll dress inside it this morning, on some impulse you couldn't name, maybe somewhere in the back of your mind you'd been hoping you'd find a reason to wear it.

"How do you..." you started.

"She told us," Sophia said, and her voice was patient but firm, the voice of someone who was used to repeating herself. "Now where is it?"

You looked at the three of them.

You reached into the bag. Your fingers found the lace, the cool and delicate fabric.

You pulled the dress out. Held it up in the afternoon light. It was perfect, the lace glowing white against the blue sky, the puffed sleeves catching the breeze.

"Perfect," Megan breathed.

They dressed you in the bathroom of Park.

The park was mostly empty at this hour.

The bathroom was a squat concrete building near the parking lot, smelling of bleach and cheap soap and the faint, permanent staleness of public spaces that had been cleaned a thousand times and never quite got clean.

You stood in the middle of the sticky tile floor in your bra and underwear while Sophia held up the babydoll dress and Megan rummaged through her own bag for something, "I have lip gloss, wait, no, that's my bus pass, wait, here" and Daniela leaned against the sink with her arms crossed.

"Arms up," Sophia commanded.

You raised your arms. The dress slid over your head, down your shoulders, over your chest and your waist and your hips. It settled against your body like it had been made for you.

Maybe Manon had seen you across the street, had watched you watching her, had known your measurements by heart just from the way your sundresses hung on your frame. The thought made your stomach flip.

"Oh, she's gonna lose her mind," Daniela said, and her voice was pure delight.

"Here." Megan stepped forward, holding a tube of something pink and glossy. "Lip gloss. It's cherry. Tastes like candy, Manon will like it."

You opened your mouth to ask how Megan knew what Manon would like, and then you closed it again, because the answer was obvious. These girls knew Manon, knew her well enough that she'd told them about you, about the dress, about the letter.

Megan swiped the gloss across your lips. It tasted like cherries and chemicals, sweet and artificial and utterly perfect. Your mouth felt wet, pink, obscene. You caught your reflection in the scratched mirror, and you looked like a different person. Like the girl from last night, the one who'd twirled in front of the mirror and thought I look like I could be hers.

"Alright," Sophia said, stepping back to admire her work. "Let's go. We're already late."

They led you past the park and into the woods.

The path was narrow and dusty. The light shifted as you walked. The air grew cooler as you walked, wetter, carrying the faint mineral scent of water over stone, over earth, over the sweet decay of fallen leaves and rotting wood and something flowering.

"Can you tell me where we're going now?" you asked.

"The creek," Daniela said.

"We go there all the time," Sophia added.

"It's kind of our spot," Megan said from behind you. "Manon found it like five years ago. No adults know about it. It's totally private."

The sound of water grew louder. The path curved sharply to the left, ducked under a fallen log that someone had chopped a doorway through, and then opened up into a clearing.

The creek was beautiful.

It wasn't a creek, really, not the way you'd imagined a creek, it was wider than that, almost a small river, with water the color of strong tea flowing over a bed of smooth grey stones.

Sunlight broke through a gap in the canopy and hit the water in a long, golden swath, making the surface shimmer like hammered metal.

On one side of the creek, the bank sloped gently down to the water's edge, covered in soft green moss and clumps of ferns. On the other side, a flat wooden bridge spanned the narrowest part of the current, leading to a second clearing where someone had arranged fallen logs into a rough circle around a stone ringed fire pit.

There were already people there. More girls than you expected, scattered around the clearing, sitting on logs, perched on the bridge, dangling their bare feet in the water. Sophia led you into them like a tour guide, her hand on the small of your back, her voice bright and performative.

"Come meet our newest friend," she announced.

The girls looked up. You learned their names in a blur of faces and voices and hands raised in greeting.

Lara Raj, with brown skin that gleamed like polished wood.

She had a dancer's body and her face was sharp and clever, with dark eyes that glittered with amusement as she looked you over.

She was wearing a cropped white tank top and low waisted shorts that showed off the flat plane of her stomach.

Huh Yunjin had a heart shaped face and a wide, expressive mouth that seemed to be permanently on the edge of a laugh. Her hair was an unnatural shade of copper red that glowed like a new penny in the dappled sunlight.

Camila Valdes, her hair cascaded of dark waves that fell to the middle of her back.

Her cheeks are round, friendly, with a button nose. She had a voice like honey, low and slow.

And Adela Jergova was Czech, or maybe Slovak, you weren't sure, with sharp cheekbones and ice pale hair dyed a hot pink that should have looked ridiculous and instead looked natural.

"Another one, Sophia?" Adela asked, her accent softening the edges of her English. "Manon is collecting them like stamps now, I think."

Laughter rippled through the group. You sat down on the log Sophia guided you to, your bare thighs pressing against the rough bark, your hands folded in your lap.

The other girls resumed their conversations around you, Lara and Camila arguing about something intensely, Yunjin braiding Adela's pink hair while Adela talked about some party she'd gone to last weekend in the next town over.

You sat there and didn't speak.

You'd learned silence the way other girls learned piano, practiced it until it was second nature, until not speaking felt safer than speaking, but Sophia, sitting beside you, nudged your knee with hers.

"She should be here soon," Sophia murmured, low enough that only you could hear.

"Who?" The word slipped out before you could stop it, but you already knew the answer. You'd known the answer since the moment you'd pulled the white babydoll dress out of your bag.

"Manon. That's who you're thinking about, right?"

You looked at her. Sophia's dark eyes were unreadable, her perfect mouth curved in a smile that wasn't quite a smile. She knew, all of them knew. The thought should have terrified you, but instead it felt like a relief.

"Yeah," you said. Your voice was barely more than a whisper. "She'll be here?"

Sophia nodded. "She will."

She came out of the woods like she'd been summoned.

One moment the clearing was full of conversation and laughter and the rush of the creek.

The next moment, Manon Bannerman was standing at the edge of the clearing in a black tank top and denim shorts that rode high on her thighs, her dark curls loose around her shoulders, her eyes scanning the group until they found you.

The mole above her lip caught the light. Your heart caught in your throat.

She was holding a canvas bag in one hand, lumpy, straining at the seams, probably stuffed with snacks or towels or something else you couldn't name.

"Well damn, don't start saying hi all at once now," she said.

Her voice. That accent hit you like a physical thing. Lara was on her feet, Camila was shouting something you couldn't make out, Yunjin abandoned Adela's hair and bounded across the clearing, and Daniela was already there, throwing her arms around Manon's neck with the easy intimacy of someone who'd done it a thousand times.

"Where have you been?" Daniela demanded.

"Getting snacks," Manon said, holding up the bag. "And avoiding my sister. She keeps asking me about college applications. It's August. I don't want to think about college applications."

Lara and Daniela flanked her, one on each side, hugging her from both angles until Manon's face broke into a full, genuine smile that made your chest ache.

She looked at you.

Sophia, beside you, made a sound that might have been a laugh and might have been a knowing hum, and then she stood up and moved to the other log, leaving the one you were sitting on conspicuously empty.

Manon crossed the clearing, and sat down beside you. Close enough that the heat of her body radiated through the gap of air between your bare thighs.

Close enough that you could smell her, you could count the individual freckles dusted across her collarbones if you wanted to.

"Am I a stranger now?" she asked, and her voice was teasing.

"No," you said. The word came out fast, too fast, desperate in a way you couldn't hide. "Just waiting for you to say hi."

She laughed.

"Right," she said. She glanced down at your dress and her smile shifted, becoming something sharper, something more knowing. "I see you liked my gift."

Her hand moved.

Her fingers found the hem of the babydoll dress, right where it brushed against your mid thigh, and she toyed with the lace, rubbing the fabric between her thumb and forefinger.

The touch was light, but your thighs clenched together involuntarily, and you felt your face go hot, and somewhere deep in your belly, the ache from this morning stirred and stretched and woke up.

"Yeah," you managed. Your voice was steadier than you felt. "Thank you. You didn't have to give it to me."

"I did." Her fingers were still playing with the hem, tracing slow, idle patterns into the lace. "Think of it as an apology, because your mom hit you."

The words hung in the air between you.

The other girls were talking among themselves now, their voices a low, comfortable murmur in the background, giving you space without making it obvious that they were giving you space.

Manon's eyes were still on yours, steady and unblinking, and you couldn't look away, didn't want to look away, would have given anything to keep looking at her for another hour, another day, another forever.

You didn't say anything.

You just stared at her face, at her stupidly, achingly beautiful face, and she tilted her head, her curls shifting, falling across one eye, and she looked at your mouth the way you'd been looking at hers, and then she looked back up at your eyes, and the question in her gaze was so obvious it might as well have been written across her forehead in ink.

"Come," she said.

She was standing now, her hand extended toward you, her fingers long and elegant and slightly sticky with the residue of whatever snacks she'd been carrying. "Let's go somewhere more private."

"Where are we going?"

"By the lake," she said, and jerked her chin toward the wooden bridge, toward the cluster of trees on the other side, toward somewhere you couldn't see yet and already wanted to be.

"Don't fuck her in public, Manon!" Adela yelled from across the clearing. Her voice carried across the water like a bell, and the whole group dissolved into laughter.

Manon rolled her eyes, but the tips of her ears went pink.

She flipped Adela off with the casual, practiced ease of someone who did it regularly, and then she grabbed your hand and pulled.

The wooden bridge was low and flat, just a few planks laid across a narrow spot in the creek, anchored to the bank on each side with rusted iron stakes that had probably been there longer than you'd been alive.

The wood was silver with age, worn smooth by water and weather and the passage of countless bare feet. Moss grew in the cracks.

Manon sat down on the edge of the bridge. Let her bare legs dangle over the side, her toes barely brushing the surface of the creek. You sat beside her.

It was quiet here.

The rush of the water was softer, muffled by the curve of the bank, and the other girls' voices had faded to a distant murmur, and the only sounds were the water and the wind in the leaves and your own heartbeat pounding in your ears.

Manon linked her pinky up with yours.

It was such a small gesture, but your whole body lit up like a struck match, and your cheeks went hot, and your breath caught in your throat.

You didn't say anything.

"Do you like me?" she asked.

The question came out of nowhere.

You stared at her. Your mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Words failed you they always failed you, especially the important ones.

"Have you ever liked a girl?" she asked.

You shook your head. Never admitted, never acknowledged, never named, just pressed down and prayed away and locked behind your teeth where it couldn't hurt anyone.

"What about a boy?"

"Mamá never let me near boys when I was younger," you said. Your voice was barely above a whisper. "So... not really."

She hummed. It was a soft, thoughtful sound, completely unreadable.

"How do you feel when you're around me?" she asked.

The question hit you like a wave.

You could lie, could deflect.

You could do what you'd always done, but what was the point of that? What had safety ever gotten you? A locked door? A bruised cheek?

A rosary that never got warm no matter how many prayers you ran through it.

"Like my heart is gonna explode," you said. The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other. "All I do is think about you. About every interaction we've had. Every time you've ever looked at me. Every time—"

"It's only been two," Manon said, and her voice was almost teasing, almost gentle.

"Exactly." You turned to face her.

The movement brought your knees together, brought your shoulder against hers, brought you close enough to see the individual flecks of gold in her irises. "You make my mind race, and I don't know how to stop it. I don't know if I want to stop it. I don't... I don't know anything anymore, Manon, I just know that when I'm not with you I'm thinking about you, and when I am with you I'm terrified, and I'm also, I'm also not terrified at all, and—"

She kissed you.

Her hand came up to cup your jaw, and her mouth pressed against yours, soft and warm and tasting faintly of the cherry lip gloss Megan had swiped across your lips and something else underneath, something that was just her.

Her lips were fuller than yours, softer, and when she tilted her head and deepened the kiss just slightly, your brain went completely, blissfully blank.

"Was that okay?" she whispered against your lips.

You nodded. Nodded so hard your forehead bumped against hers. "Yes, yes, I—"

She cut you off with another kiss, and this time you kissed her back.

Your hands came up, shaking, clumsy, not knowing where to go, and she guided them to her waist, to the curve of her hips, to the warm skin that was bare between the hem of her tank top and the waistband of her shorts.

She was soft there. Softer than you'd imagined, and you'd imagined it so many times.

She pulled you closer, and you went willingly, eagerly, your body moving before your brain could catch up.

She guided you onto her lap, your thighs straddling hers, the dress riding up dangerously high, your hands braced on her shoulders.

The kiss got messier.

Your noses bumped, and your teeth clicked together, just once, and Manon laughed against your mouth.

You had to break for air.

You were gasping, your chest heaving, your lips wet and swollen and tingling, but you were kissing her again almost immediately, you couldn't stop, didn't want to stop, wanted to keep kissing her until the sun went down and the stars came out and the world ended and started over again.

Her hand slid under the hem of the dress.

You gasped.

The sound was high and sudden and embarrassingly loud, and Manon's fingers stilled on your thigh, her palm warm and slightly rough against your bare skin.

She looked up at you, her pupils blown wide, her mouth pink and kiss swollen, and she didn't say a word.

She didn't need to.

The question was in her eyes, and you answered by rolling your hips.

It was completely involuntary.

Your body moved on its own, grinding down onto her lap, the seam of your underwear pressing against the rough denim of her shorts.

The friction was sharp and sweet and not nearly enough, and you whimpered into her mouth, a sound so small and desperate you barely recognized it as your own.

Manon broke the kiss, her lips parted. She was about to say something,

"Hey! It's almost eight, babe! Your mother said be home before that!"

Sophia's voice cut through the air like a gunshot.

You jerked backward so fast you nearly toppled off the bridge.

Manon's hands caught your hips, steadying you, but you were already scrambling to your feet, your dress falling back into place, your hair coming loose from the elastic, your heart hammering so hard you could feel it in your teeth.

"Shit," you breathed. "Shit, I forgot. Meret, I'm sorry, I gotta—"

She cut you off with a kiss. Soft, this time.

"I heard," she said. "Now go, before you get in trouble."

You ran, and stumbled over the wooden planks, caught yourself on the railing, and ran.

Your sandals slapped against the bridge, against the mossy bank, against the dusty path that wound through the trees.

Your dress fluttered around your thighs.

Your lips were still tingling, heart was still racing. You could still feel the ghost of Manon's hand on your thigh, her mouth on your mouth, the shape of her name in your throat.

Meret.

Manon watched her go.

The Molina girl disappeared into the treeline at a dead sprint, her babydoll dress flickering between the trunks like a ghost, and Manon sat there on the edge of the wooden bridge with her legs dangling over the water and her pulse still beating hard in her ears.

The spot where the girl's thighs had pressed against hers was still warm.

Her lips were still tingling from the kiss, that tasted like cherries and inexperience and something hungrier underneath.

From across the creek, Daniela's voice rang out, bright and mocking and full of delight.

"Manon's got a girlfriend!"

"Stop," Manon groaned, but she was smiling, she couldn't help it, the smile was spreading across her face like a sunrise and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it.

Megan's voice joined in, high and sing song, poking at Manon's ribs from the other side. "Manon's got a girlfriend, Manon's got a girlfriend—"

Manon ran her thumb over her bottom lip, where the Molina girl's mouth had been pressed two minutes ago.

Lord, I am in so much trouble.

The screen door hadn't even slammed shut behind you before your mamá's hand connected with your face.

It wasn't a slap like the ones you saw on television, it was a slap that came from somewhere deeper than anger. 

It came from fear, from shame, from two generations of Molina women who had been taught that a daughter's disobedience was a mother's failure, and a mother's failure was a sin that stained the whole family.

Her palm cracked across your left cheekbone with the flat, hard sound of a screen door hitting its frame in a windstorm, and the force of it spun your head sideways and sent you crashing to the floor before you even understood what had happened.

The sugar bag hit the hardwood. Split five pounds of Domino granulated sugar spilled across the floorboards, crunching under your hip as you tried to push yourself up, grains sticking to your sweaty palms, your cheek blazing like someone had pressed a hot iron to it.

"Mamá—"

"¡Cállate!" Her voice was a whip crack. "¡¿Qué te dije?! ¡Qué te dije sobre esa muchacha!"

She loomed over you, five foot three of righteous fury in her Sunday dress, the one with the faded flowers that she'd worn to Mass that morning and hadn't changed out of.

Her face was blotchy red, her eyes wet and wild, and the hand that had hit you was trembling at her side like a living thing.

Your uncle was frozen in his recliner, the sports page still raised halfway to his face.

Rosalie stood in the kitchen doorway with a wooden spoon dripping red sauce onto the linoleum.

Your brothers stopped their never ending play fighting and were staring with identical expressions of terrified. Amelia had one earbud yanked out and was watching with her mouth slightly open, her phone forgotten in her lap.

Your abuela sat at the kitchen table and said nothing. She just watched.

Her hands were folded on the tablecloth, her dark eyes unblinking, like she'd been waiting for this, like the gift of sight had shown her this moment weeks ago and she'd been patient.

"Mamá, I didn't know she was gonna be there!" You were crying now, the tears hot and immediate, your voice cracking into something that sounded younger than nineteen, something small and desperate.

"I didn't—she was just there, I ran into her by accident, I swear—"

"Don't you talk back to me." Your mother grabbed your face.

Her fingers dug into your jaw, thumb pressing into the bruise that was already blooming under the skin of your cheek, and her nails left tiny crescent moon in your flesh. "I told you. I told you to stay away from that girl. I told you to go straight there and straight back. And you didn't listen."

She wasn't yelling anymore. Her voice had gone low and cold and quiet, and that was worse. 

"Mira." She shook your head in her grip, back and forth, like she was trying to rattle something loose inside your skull.

"Mira lo que hiciste. Mrs. Avanzini saw you with her. Saw her whispering to you like some kind of—" She stopped. Swallowed whatever word she'd been about to say. 

Then she was cursing in Spanish, a low stream of words you'd heard your abuela use but had never heard from your mother's mouth, words that made your uncle finally lower his newspaper and say, "Elena," in a tone that was supposed to be calming and wasn't.

"Up!" She grabbed a fistful of your hair.

You screamed, you couldn't help it.

The sound tore out of your throat before your brain could stop it, and your hands flew up to grab at her wrist, to try to loosen her grip, but she was stronger than she looked, your mamá, who could carry two laundry baskets at once, who could knead bread dough for twenty minutes without stopping, who had buried your father without crying at the funeral and then locked herself in the bathroom for three hours so no one would see her break, your mamá was stronger than you'd ever realized.

"Shut up," she hissed, and dragged you by the hair across the kitchen floor.

The sugar crunched under your knees.

Your brothers were crying now, or maybe it was just Theo, the sensitive one, his little face crumpling as he watched your mamá drag his big sister across the floor like a sack of laundry.

Mateo had gone pale and silent. Amelia had both earbuds out and both hands clamped over her mouth.

No one moved to stop her.

No one ever moved to stop her.

Your bedroom door was open. She threw you through it. Literally threw you—her grip on your hair released and the momentum sent you sprawling onto the hardwood, your elbows hitting first and then your shoulder, and the pain was bright and immediate and humiliating, and you were crying so hard now that your breath was coming in those awful hiccupping gasps that made it impossible to speak, impossible to defend yourself, impossible to do anything except curl up and take it.

"Kneel." She pointed at the floor, her finger was steady. "You are going to kneel on this floor and you are going to pray until I say you can get up. You are going to pray those evil thoughts away. You are going to pray that Bannerman girl out of your mind. ¿Me entiendes?"

She stooped down, scooped the black rosary beads off your nightstand and threw them at you. They hit your chest and clattered to the floor.

"Foolish girl," she muttered.

The words were not for you, they were for herself, for God, for the child she'd raised who had somehow become this thing she didn't recognise.

Then she slammed the door.

The lock clicked from the outside.

You could hear them through the walls.

The murmur of your abuela's voice. Your brothers' sniffles fading as someone ushered them away, the clink of silverware being set back on the table.

Dinner would continue. They would eat, and would pray again, a different prayer this time, a prayer for the sinner locked in her room. Then they would go to bed, and you would still be on the floor.

You ran your hand through your hair. It was tangled from her grip, and a few strands came loose in your fingers. You pushed the hair back from your face, and your palm came away wet and salty and streaked with tears.

Your cheek throbbed. Your knees ached. Your scalp burned.

But none of it hurt as much as the silence downstairs.

None of it hurt as much as the fact that not one person, not your uncle who smoked cigars on the porch and talked about how important family was, not your aunt who had always been gentle with you, not Amelia who had shared a room with you for six years and knew all your secrets, not one person had said a single word to stop it.

You cried harder then.

Not the gasping, panicked crying from before, but something deeper, heavy and hopeless, the kind of crying that didn't make noise because noise was useless, noise would just make your head hurt on top of everything else.

You picked up the rosary.

The beads were cold. They were always cold, even in August and knelt on the floor, what choice did you have, what choice had you ever had?

Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia...

The words blurred together. Your lips moved, but your mind drifted, to the store, to the sidewalk.

To Manon's breath against your ear, ‘What they don't know won't hurt 'em.’ Except it had. Your cheek was proof of that, the swelling proof of that, the sugar still scattered across the kitchen floor proof of that.

Fuck Manon Bannerman.

The thought came sharp and sudden, a spike of anger that cut through the grief. This was her fault.

She had looked at you with those hazel eyes and that knowing smile and she had known that Mrs. Avanzini was watching through the window.

She'd grown up in this town too, she knew what happened to girls who got too close to the wrong people.

Fuck Manon Bannerman and her stupid white dress and her stupid Swiss accent.

You knelt until your knees went numb.

Then you knelt longer.

The light through your window shifted from afternoon gold to evening orange to twilight purple. No one brought you dinner, no one brought you water. Your stomach growled and then stopped growling and then felt hollow, a scooped out emptiness that matched the way everything else felt.

Your throat was dry from praying. Your voice had faded to a whisper.

Dios te salve, María...

Santa María, Madre de Dios...

Ruega por nosotros pecadores...

You weren't praying anymore. You were just making sounds with your mouth.

Eventually you couldn't hold yourself up. Your legs wouldn't cooperate. Your back screamed from the effort of staying straight.

You slumped sideways, caught yourself on your hands, and crawled, to the door.

"¡Déjenme salir!"

You pounded on the wood. Flat palms, then fists, then the heel of your hand until the bone ached.

"¡MAMÁ! ¡DÉJAME SALIR!"

Silence.

"Please," you said, and your voice cracked on the word, and you didn't know if you were speaking English or Spanish anymore, didn't know if it mattered. "Please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just let me out—"

No one answered.

Who would?

No one was coming.

The rage hit you then. You grabbed the first thing your hand touched, and threw it at the door. It hit with a thud and fell open on the floor, pages bent.

"I hate you!" Your voice came out raw and shredded, barely recognizable. "I hate all of you! You just watched! You just let her do it!"

You grabbed a sneaker. Threw it at the window. It bounced off the glass and hit the floor harmlessly.

“You sat there and DID NOTHING!"

Your hairbrush, your alarm clock, a paperback romance novel with a shirtless man on the cover that Amelia had smuggled to you last summer and that you'd hidden under your mattress.

"And Abuela… Abuela wanted it to happen, she WANTED her to hit me, I saw her face—"

The empty water glass on your nightstand. It shattered against the door frame, and the shards sparkled on the floor in the fading light, and you didn't care, you didn't care about anything anymore.

At some point, your body gave up. The adrenaline burned itself out, the anger guttered, and exhaustion rolled over you like a wave. You didn't make it to your bed, didn't even try.

You just slumped sideways onto the hardwood, your cheek pressed against the cool wood and closed your eyes.

You slept on the floor like a dog, and in your dreams there was nothing. Just the echo of a Swiss accent whispering words you couldn't quite make out.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Wednesday, August 17th, 7:32 AM

You woke up and everything hurt.

Your body had the kind of full system ache that came from sleeping on a surface never meant for sleeping, your neck stiff, your back a collection of knots, your hip bruised where it had pressed against the floor all night.

Your cheek still throbbed with its own private pulse, and when you touched it gingerly with your fingertips, the skin was hot and tight and swollen.

The sun was coming through your window at the wrong angle. You'd slept through the entire night.

You pushed yourself up slowly, every muscle complaining, and looked at the door.

It was open.

The shards of the water glass were still scattered on the floor. You stepped around them carefully, barefoot, and pulled the door open the rest of the way.

You walked into the kitchen.

Rosalie saw you first. Her face did something complicated, and then she smoothed it over and gestured to the table. "Siéntate, mija. Come. Eat."

You sat.

Your plate was already made.

Eggs scrambled dry, the way your abuela always made them, with a side of tortillas and a glass of water.

You didn't look at your mother or didn't look at your abuela, just kept your eyes on the plate and your hands in your lap and you waited.

Your mamá was at the stove. She was serving food to Mateo, who was kicking his legs under his chair like nothing had happened, and Theo, who was staring at his plate with the thousand yard stare of a seven year old who'd seen too much and understood too little.

"After breakfast," she said, and her voice was perfectly flat, perfectly normal, "you'll scrub the porch. Then feed the chickens."

You didn't answer.

"Your mother is speaking to you," your abuela said. Her voice, too, was flat. A warning. The reminder that the lock on your door could be reinstated at any time.

You looked up, and met your abuela's eyes for exactly as long as you could stand and then dropped your gaze back to your plate.

"Yes, Mamá."

The eggs tasted like nothing. The tortillas tasted like ash. You ate them anyway, because your body needed fuel, because you didn't know when you'd next be allowed to eat, because compliance was the only currency you had left.

The rest of the meal passed in silence.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Wednesday, August 17th, 9:15 AM

The porch was covered in black spray paint.

You stood on the front steps and stared at it. Huge looping letters, the kind that teenagers made when they were trying to look tough, sprawling across the white painted floorboards like an accusation.

You couldn't make out what any of it said.

"Your mother forgot to tell you." Rosalie appeared beside you, holding a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush. "Some hooligans got at the porch last night. Spray painted it while we were asleep."

You stared at the black scribbles. Stared at the scrub brush that was identical to the one you'd been using two days ago when you'd been thinking about white babydoll dresses instead of paying attention to your work.

"Of course they did," you said.

It wasn't a question, wasn't even really a complaint. It was just acknowledgment. This was your life now, scrubbing away other people's messes.

Kneeling until your knees bled and getting slapped for things that weren't your fault.

Your aunt hesitated, her hand came up, hovered near your shoulder, almost touched, and then dropped back to her side.

"We're leaving for Mass soon," she said instead, her voice gentle in a way that almost made you start crying again. "Usually we'd take you, but your mother said..."

"I know what she said."

"She doesn't want to deal with you today."

You nodded.

Ten minutes later, the whole family filed out of the house in their Sunday best, your abuela in her black lace mantilla, your mamá in the flowered dress she'd been wearing yesterday when she hit you, your tío in a button down shirt that strained across his belly, your tía in a blue skirt and blouse, Mateo and Theo in matching polo shirts they'd probably complained about putting on, Amelia in a dress that was longer than she liked and a martyred expression that said she'd rather be anywhere else.

You stood on the porch with the scrub brush in your hand and watched them go.

Your mother was the last one down the steps. She paused and turned to you.

Her face was still blank, her eyes were red rimmed, and the skin around them was puffy, and you realised with a jolt that she had been crying.

Maybe while you were passed out on your bedroom floor, your mother had been in her own room, crying her own tears for reasons you couldn't begin to understand.

"Don't go anywhere." Her voice was quiet. "Stay here. Finish the porch."

She leaned in. Her fingers brushed your hair back from your forehead, gently, so gently, the same hand that had slapped you yesterday now touching you like you were made of glass, and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

Then she walked away, and you were alone.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Wednesday, August 17th, 10:04 AM

Mrs. Bannerman was on her porch across the street.

She was always on her porch. It was like her natural habitat, the white wicker swing with the floral cushions, the glass of lemonade sweating onto the side table, the folding fan she waved in front of her face when the heat got too aggressive.

Today she was joined by her eldest daughter, a young woman you only vaguely recognised because she'd left Magnolia Creek at eighteen for college somewhere up north and only came back for summers.

She had her mother's posture and her mother's ease, lounging in a sundress the color of sunflowers with a book open on her lap that she wasn't reading.

The way they sat on their porch and drank their lemonade and didn't worry about what the neighbors thought or what the women at church would say or whether their souls were stained with sin.

You knelt down and started scrubbing.

The sweat came almost immediately.

The August sun was already brutal at ten in the morning, beating down on the back of your neck, making the black spray paint glisten wetly as you worked.

The scrub brush was stiff and unyielding, and the paint didn't want to come off, it had soaked into the wood overnight, staining it deep, and you had to press down with your full body weight to make any progress.

Your arms ached. Your bruised cheek throbbed with every heartbeat.

"Hey! Girl!"

You looked up.

The eldest Bannerman daughter was leaning forward in her chair, her hand cupped around her mouth like a megaphone.

Her voice carried easily across the street, bright and careless, the kind of voice that had never been punished for speaking out of turn.

"You want some lemonade? It's hotter than hellfire out here and you look like you're about to melt right into those floorboards."

You didn't answer. Just stared at her, frozen with the scrub brush in your hand. Your mother's voice echoed in your head, ‘don't go near that family, don't talk to that family, straight there and straight back,’ but your mother wasn't here. Your mother was at Mass.

Your mother was praying for your soul while you scrubbed paint off her porch like a medieval penitent.

"See?" The eldest Bannerman turned to her mother, jerking her thumb in your direction. "Told you. Manon was right about her. Girl doesn't answer questions."

Manon had talked about you.

The thought hit you somewhere in the solar plexus, hard enough that you had to look down at your scrub brush to hide whatever expression had just crossed your face.

Manon had talked about you to her sister, had said something, had described you. She doesn't answer, which meant Manon had tried to talk to you before, or had noticed that you didn't respond when people called out, or had been paying enough attention to you to notice anything at all.

Mrs. Bannerman waved her daughter off.

The motion was easy and dismissive, the kind of gesture that came naturally to a woman who was used to being listened to, but then she leaned forward, and you saw her expression shift.

"One of the ladies at the store yesterday," she said to her daughter, her voice carrying across the street without any apparent effort, "saw her talking to Manon. Told her mother about it. They were gossiping about it at Mass this morning before we left."

The eldest Bannerman sat up straighter. "What? Why would they—"

"Apparently her mother gave her a mean beating."

Mrs. Bannerman said it plainly. The way another woman might have remarked on the weather or the price of eggs, but her eyes were not matter of fact at all.

They were looking at you. Looking at your swollen cheek, the way you were kneeling on the porch at ten in the morning instead of being at church with your family.

Mrs. Bannerman pushed herself up from the swing with a soft grunt. Her hand pressed against her lower back, and she started walking toward the porch steps.

"Mama, what are you doing?" Her daughter's voice was sharp with alarm.

"Going to give the poor girl some lemonade."

"Mama, don't you walk over there." The eldest Bannerman was on her feet now too, her book forgotten on the cushion. "Those people do not like us. You know that. Mrs. Molina has been giving us dirty looks in church since before I was born."

Mrs. Bannerman didn't slow down. She descended her porch steps with the deliberate care of a woman who knew her body's limits and refused to let them stop her.

Her sandals slapped against the hot asphalt as she crossed the street. "Then Mrs. Molina can give me a dirty look tomorrow," she called over her shoulder.

"She's going to do it anyway," the eldest Bannerman muttered, loud enough for you to hear but quiet enough that she probably thought you couldn't. "That woman is either the bravest person I know or the stupidest."

You kept scrubbing. The brush moved back and forth, back and forth, the black paint was barely fading. Your arms were trembling with exhaustion.

And then Mrs. Bannerman was standing at the bottom of your porch steps.

Up close, she was younger than you'd expected, or maybe just better preserved.

Her skin was pale, lighter than Manon's, smooth except for fine lines around her eyes and mouth that suggested a lifetime of smiling. Her hair was cut short and practical.

She was wearing a loose cotton dress printed with sunflowers, and her feet were bare in her sandals, the toenails painted a cheerful coral pink.

In one hand, she held a tall glass of lemonade. Ice cubes clinked against the sides. Condensation dripped down the glass and onto her fingers.

"Sweetie." Her voice was low and warm, the kind of voice that could soothe a crying child or calm a spooked horse or make a scared girl feel like maybe the world wasn't entirely made of sharp edges. "Here. Drink this."

She set the glass down on the porch railing beside you, close enough to reach, far enough away that you wouldn't feel pressured to take it from her hand.

Then she turned around and walked back across the street without another word.

You stared at the glass.

The ice cubes clinked softly as they melted. A wedge of lemon floated on top, studded with tiny seeds.

You kept scrubbing.

But your eyes kept drifting back to the glass. Back to the condensation that told you exactly how cold it was, how good it would feel going down your dry throat.

The ice cubes melted. The lemon wedge sank to the bottom.

The sun climbed higher and the temperature climbed with it, and your dress was soaked with sweat, clinging to your back and your stomach and your thighs.

You weren't even halfway done with the porch.

Finally, your body overruled your brain. You dropped the scrub brush, crawled over to the railing, and grabbed the glass with both hands. The glass was cool against your palms, not cold anymore, the ice had melted too long ago for that, but cool enough to be a relief. You lifted it to your lips and drank.

The lemonade was sweet and tart and cold, or what passed for cold after forty minutes in the Georgia sun. It spilled down your chin.

Spilled down the front of your dress, leaving wet streaks on the faded cotton.

You drank until the glass was empty, and then you tipped it back to catch the last drops, and then you set it down and sat there gasping for breath like a drowning woman who had just broken the surface.

It didn't help, not really. Your body was too far gone for one glass of lukewarm lemonade to fix, dehydrated and exhausted and still bruised from the night before.

It was a small mercy in a day that had been entirely devoid of them.

You leaned back against the porch railing and closed your eyes.

Somewhere in the distance, you heard it: the tinny, cheerful jingle of an ice cream truck.

The song got louder.

You opened your eyes just in time to see it pull up in front of the Bannerman house, a white van with a faded decal of a smiling ice cream cone on the side, the kind of truck that had been patrolling Magnolia Creek's streets since before you were born.

Kids materialised out of nowhere. Little ones dragging their mothers by the hand, older ones clutching crumpled dollar bills, a cluster of teenage girls who were definitely too old for the ice cream truck but had found reasons to be interested in it anyway.

The ice cream man was visible through the serving window, young, maybe twenty five, with sandy hair and a jawline that explained why the teenage girls were suddenly so enthusiastic about frozen treats.

One of them leaned against the side of the truck, twirling her hair around her finger, giggling at something he'd said.

Whatever. You closed your eyes again.

And then opened them.

Because one of the teenage girls clustered around the ice cream truck was Manon.

She was wearing another white dress and her hair was pulled back. She was holding up two fingers to the ice cream man, saying something you couldn't hear, laughing at whatever response he gave.

And then she turned her head.

And looked directly at you.

You were a mess. Hair wild and unbrushed, face sweat streaked and swollen, dressed in yesterday's clothes, slumped against the porch railing like a rag doll. The bucket of soapy water sat beside you. 

Manon tilted her head.

The ice cream man handed her two cones. and she paid him with a crumpled bill from the pocket of her dress. The other girls dispersed, licking their own ice cream, calling farewells to each other. 

Manon crossed the street.

"You look like shit," she said, by way of greeting.

You scrambled backward, your spine pressing hard against the porch railing. "What are you—you can't be here—"

"Relax." She stepped up onto the porch like she owned it. Like the Molina porch and the Bannerman porch were exactly the same thing, and the feud between your families was something that existed only in your mother's head. "Your family's at Mass. I saw them drive by ten minutes ago. They're not coming back for at least an hour."

She held out one of the ice cream cones.

"Here. Bought this for you. Would be rude not to take it, especially since I spent my own money on your pretty self."

Your pretty self.

The words landed somewhere in your chest and burst into flame.

You stared at the cone. Vanilla was already melting, trickling down the waffle cone and onto her fingers.

Rainbow sprinkles clung to the soft white surface. Your hand moved before your brain could stop it, reaching out, closing around the cone.

Manon smiled.

And in that moment, you noticed it, the mole.

Just above her lip on the right side. Small and dark and perfectly round, the kind of beauty mark that old Hollywood actresses used to draw on with eyeliner because they knew exactly what it did to the people looking at them.

You couldn't stop staring at it and couldn't make yourself look away.

She noticed you noticing. 

Manon's smile widened.

She reached out and gathered your hair back from your face. Her fingers were sticky from the ice cream, and cool from the cone, and they brushed against the shell of your ear as she twisted your hair into a loose knot at the nape of your neck.

She pulled an elastic band off her own wrist and used it to secure your hair in place.

"Your family's not here," she said quietly. "So take the ice cream. And keep the hair tie, okay?"

She pressed the cone into your hand. The waffle was going soft, the vanilla dripping onto your fingers, onto your wrist, onto the cotton of your dress.

Manon sat down on the porch beside you, right beside you, close enough that her bare knee almost touched your thigh, and started eating her own ice cream like this was the most normal thing in the world.

You stared at the cone.

Lifted it to your mouth, and licked.

The vanilla was sweet and cold and perfect, and it melted on your tongue, and you couldn't remember the last time you'd eaten ice cream.

Your family didn't believe in treats. Your abuela said sugar was a temptation, a doorway to sin.

"Why's your mom got you out here cleaning her porch on a Wednesday?" Manon asked around a mouthful of ice cream. "Isn't there Mass today?"

You nodded. The ice cream was running down your hand now, sticky between your fingers, but you couldn't look away from Manon's face.

From the way her tongue darted out to catch a drip of vanilla before it reached her chin.

"Mamá didn't want to deal with me. Not after..." You hesitated. "Mrs. Avanzini told her about yesterday at the store. She locked me in my room all night. Didn't let me eat."

Manon stopped eating, her hazel eyes went very still.

"I'm sorry," she said and she sounded like she meant it.

Your throat tightened and didn't know why.

You'd been slapped and thrown and locked up and starved, and you'd cried and screamed and thrown things, but somehow this one soft apology from a girl you weren't supposed to talk to was what nearly broke you open all over again.

"Why does she hate you?" you asked. The question came out before you could stop it. "My mamá. Why does she hate your family so much?"

Manon didn't answer instead she looked down at her ice cream.

Looked down at the ice cream melting all over your hand and then, very deliberately, she took your wrist.

Her fingers were cool and sticky. Her grip was gentle but certain, she lifted your hand to her mouth, and you froze, every muscle locking up, every thought in your head going silent, and then her tongue touched your skin.

She licked the melted vanilla off the back of your hand in one long, slow stroke.

Maintained eye contact the whole time.

Your heart stopped, or maybe it started beating so fast you couldn't distinguish individual beats anymore.

You didn't know, didn't know anything except that Manon Bannerman's tongue was on your skin and her eyes were locked on yours and your thighs were clenching together in a way that had nothing to do with anything your brain had authorised.

She stopped and pulled back.

A thin strand of saliva stretched between her bottom lip and your hand, glistening in the sun.

"Do I creep you out?" she asked.

The smile was still there but, there was something else underneath it, almost vulnerable, like your answer mattered, and that she actually wanted to know.

You shook your head. 

No.

You couldn't speak, your voice was gone, your whole body was tingling, awake in a way it had never been before.

Manon's smile widened.

She released your wrist and stood up, brushing off the back of her dress like she'd just been sitting on an ordinary porch instead of completely dismantling everything you thought you knew about yourself.

She picked up the empty lemonade glass and held it up in a little salute.

"Hope you enjoyed it," she said.

And then she walked down the porch steps, crossed the street, and disappeared into her own house like nothing had happened.

You sat there.

The ice cream was melting faster than you could eat it, dripping down your arm and onto the porch.

You looked at the porch, and the porch looked back at you, and you realised you hadn't thought about your mother or your abuela or the rosary or the locked door for the past ten minutes.

You'd only thought about Manon.

The only thought in your head, looping endlessly, was the memory of her tongue on your skin and her eyes holding yours and her voice asking, ‘Do I creep you out?’ and the way your body had answered before your mouth could.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Wednesday, August 17th, 5:47 PM

Your family came home from Mass without speaking to you.

Your mother walked past you on the porch, you'd managed to get most of the paint off, she paused just long enough to inspect your work. She nodded once, a short sharp jerk of her chin, and went inside.

Your abuela didn't even nod. Just looked at you, her dark eyes unreadable, and followed your mother into the house.

Your brothers ran past you, chasing each other. Amelia gave you a look that was half apologetic and half relieved, and then hurried inside before your mother could catch her lingering.

Only your tía stopped. She stood in the doorway, framed by the screen, her hand resting on the loose hinge. 

"Come inside, mija," she said softly. "Your abuela is cooking. And I have something for you."

You got to your feet. You walked into the house, and the smell of your abuela's cooking hit you like a wall: onions and garlic and cumin, chicken simmering in a tomato sauce, the eternal pot of beans on the back burner.

Tía Rosalie pressed a bag into your hands. It was a simple brown paper bag, the kind you got from the drugstore, with something soft and light inside that rustled when you moved it.

"What is this for?" you asked.

Your tía smiled. It was a small smile, her eyes flicked toward the kitchen, where your abuela was banging pots around with more force than strictly necessary, and then back to you.

"Go to your room. Try it on. I think you'll like it."

You looked down at the bag, then ooked back up at her. She was already shooing you toward the stairs, her hands flapping at you like you were a chicken that needed herding.

"Go, go. Before your mother sees."

You went.

Your bedroom was exactly as you'd left it.

You stepped over the mess and closed the door behind you. Your fingers trembled slightly as you opened the bag.

White lace.

Your breath caught in your throat.

You pulled the dress out carefully, like it might dissolve if you moved too fast. It was... perfect. A babydoll dress, just like Manon's.

Just like the one you'd been staring at for years, the one you'd wanted for yourself, the one that your mother said was too short for a girl who was supposed to be a virgin.

This one was slightly different, but it was unmistakably the same kind of dress. The kind of dress you'd never been allowed to wear. The kind of dress you'd dreamed about.

You took off your sweaty, stained sundress and let it fall to the floor. Then you pulled the white babydoll over your head.

The fabric was cool against your sunburnt skin. It fell just past mid thigh. The puffed sleeves sat perfectly on your shoulders. 

You turned to the mirror on the back of your door, and looked at yourself.

You didn't recognize the girl in the mirror.

She was wearing a white lace babydoll dress. Her hair was still tied back with a black elastic band that wasn't hers.

Her left cheek was bruised, a faint purplish shadow that no amount of wishing would make disappear.

Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes were wide, and on her face was a smile that was growing wider by the second.

I look like her.

The thought came unbidden, and you didn't push it away. You twirled, and skirt flared out around your thighs, the lace caught the light.

You felt pretty, felt like the kind of girl who sat on a wraparound porch drinking sweet tea and didn't care what the neighbours thought.

I look like I could be hers.

You stopped twirling. The thought hung in the air, dangerous and delicious. Then you remembered the envelope.

It was still in the bag. You'd been so distracted by the dress that you hadn't noticed it, a small white envelope, the kind you bought in packs of twenty at the post office. Your name was written on the front, but it wasn't your tía's handwriting.

It was neater than that. The handwriting of someone who had been taught penmanship properly, probably at a school you couldn't afford.

The return address said Mrs. Avanzini.

Your stomach dropped.

But something didn't add up. Mrs. Avanzini hated you. Mrs. Avanzini had been the one who'd seen you at the store, the one who'd told your mother, the one whose gossip had gotten you locked in your room and starved and slapped.

Why would Mrs. Avanzini be giving you gifts?

Hand trembling slightly, you opened the envelope.

The paper inside was cream, colored and thick, the kind of stationery you'd see in a movie about rich people who wrote letters to each other from their summer estates. It smelled faintly of something, honey, you realised. Honey and cigarettes.

Hey, pretty girl, I had to pretend to be Mrs. Avanzini to get this letter to you. I saw you staring at my dress even before I spoke to you in the store. Ever since we were six, all you did was stare at them. Said the gift was from Mrs. Avanzini as well, so your tía wouldn't get suspicious. I hope you enjoy the gift, baby. Expect more in the future. Or maybe tomorrow. Who knows? Signed, Your Meret

You read the letter three times.

Then you read it again.

Meret.

That wasn't her name. Her name was Manon. 

Manon Bannerman. 

You'd been hearing it your whole life, your mother muttering it under her breath, the women at church gossiping about it, your abuela warning you away from it.

Manon Bannerman, the Swiss girl across the street, the girl in the white babydoll dress. Except apparently she had another name. A private name, a name she'd shared with you and no one else.

Your Meret.

The possessiveness of it hit you like a wave. Not just her name, your Meret. Like you owned her.

Like she wanted to be owned by you, its like she'd been watching you stare at her dresses since you were both six years old and had known, somehow, exactly what you wanted before you'd even figured it out for yourself.

You looked up at the mirror.

The girl in the mirror was still wearing the white babydoll dress. Her thighs were still pressed together, because somewhere between the first sentence and the last sentence of the letter, something had coiled tight and hot low in your belly and refused to unclench.

You pressed the letter to your chest. The paper was cool and smooth against the lace. Somewhere across the street, a light flicked on in the Bannerman house, a second floor window, the window you'd always assumed was a bedroom.

A shadow moved behind the curtain.

You watched it for a long time.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Sunday, August 14th

The heat didn't just sit on Magnolia Creek. It had weight like, a wet palm between your shoulder blades that pushed down and said stay put, don't move, don't even breathe too deep or you'll drown standing still.

August was the cruelest month, and today the thermometer nailed read ninety four in the shade, but the humidity made it feel like a hundred and something.

Cicadas screamed from the oaks. Always screaming. You'd been looking for them since you were six years old, convinced you could spot one if you just stared hard enough at the bark, but they were liars, all of them.

The porch rail was warm under your palm. You'd been scrubbing it since after Mass; dust and pollen and the sticky residue of something that might've been sap.

Your knees ached from kneeling on the boards.

The scrub brush had worn a blister on your thumb, and the lemon scented cleaner your abuela made you use, stung the raw skin every time you dipped the brush back in.

From inside the house, through the screen door with its one loose hinge that buzzed every time the wind caught it, you could feel your mamá watching.

Watching meant her eyes were on you but her mind was on something else, something she was looking for, something she expected to find if she stared long enough.

"Mija."

The screen door creaked open; your mamá never just opened it, she pushed it with her hip like she was shouldering her way into a fight.

Elena Molina was forty three years old and looked younger, her black hair streaked with grey at the temples, her hands rough from the laundromat where she worked six days a week folding other people's underwear.

She had your abuela's bone scructure and your abuela's God, and neither one of them ever let you forget it.

"Come inside and eat. Your grandmother didn't stand over that stove for an hour so you could let her arroz con pollo get cold."

You set the brush down, wiped your hands on the front of your dress, and turned to follow her inside. As you did, your eyes flicked across the street. You couldn't help it.

The Bannerman house sat there like it had every right to. White clapboard, black shutters, a wraparound porch with a ceiling fan that actually worked and a swing that Mrs. Bannerman sat on every evening with a glass of sweet tea that she never offered to anyone walking by.

Two stories tall, and every window was open, the white curtains billowing out like lungs breathing.

She wasn't outside today.

Manon.

You didn't know where she was, but you knew she wasn't on the porch, because you always knew. You'd developed a kind of radar for it. The same way you knew when a storm was coming by the pressure in your sinuses, you knew when Manon Bannerman was nearby by the pressure in your chest.

The kitchen was small and yellow and smelled like cumin and sofrito and the smell, of bananas going brown on the counter. Your abuela, was already seated at the head of the table, she always took the head, her hands folded over her plate like she was posing for a painting called Patience or Judgment or maybe both.

Your tía, Rosalie was spooning rice onto plates, her face blank and tired.

Your little brothers, were kicking each other under the table, and your cousin, Amelia was staring at her phone under her napkin, which meant she was texting that boy from the gas station again and hoping Jesus wouldn't notice.

"Siéntate," your mamá said, and you sat.

The prayer was long. It was always long. Your abuela led it tonight, her voice a low, grinding murmur in Spanish that rose and fell like waves, asking God for things you weren't sure God was listening to.

Protection from las malas influencias, strength against las tentaciones del mundo, mercy for los pecadores que no saben lo que hacen.

You kept your eyes closed and your hands folded and your knees pressed together under the table, and you tried very hard not to think about white babydoll dresses.

After the Amen, your abuela fixed her eyes on you. They were dark, and didn't blink as often as normal eyes should. People in town said Sofia Molina had el don de ver, the gift of sight, that she could look at a person and see the stain of sin on their soul like a watermark.

You didn't know if you believed that. You did know that when she looked at you, you felt seen in a way that made your stomach clench.

"She's having thoughts she shouldn't have," your abuela said. She spoke in Spanish, quiet and flat, not to you but to your mamá, as if you weren't sitting twelve inches away, as if you were a dog that couldn't understand the language it had been raised in.

"She is nineteen," your mamá said.

"Nineteen is old enough." Your abuela's spoon scraped against her plate. "Eva was Nineteen when she let that boy put his hands on her. You remember Eva Ruiz? Now she has two babies and no husband and her mother won't let her in the house."

"Manon Bannerman is not a boy."

The table went quiet. Amelia looked up from her phone. The boys stopped kicking each other. Rosalie's hand paused over the rice pot.

Mamá knew.

Of course she knew. Mothers always knew. They had a different kind of radar, tuned to a different frequency of guilt.

Your abuela laid her spoon down. "After dinner," she said, still not looking at you, "you will pray with your mother, kneeling, and repeat the prayer three time."

"Yes, Abuela."

You didn't argue, you'd learned not to argue.

Arguing meant extra prayers, and extra prayers meant more time on the hardwood floor, and more time on the hardwood floor meant bruised knees and the feeling that you were being pressed into the shape of something acceptable, something smaller, something that didn't have the kinds of thoughts your abuela could see just by looking at you.

The rosary beads were cold in your hands. Black wooden beads, worn smooth by three generations of Molina women praying on them, the silver crucifix tarnished to a dull grey. You knelt on the floor of the living room with your mamá beside you, her shoulder brushing yours, her voice a steady murmur of Dios te salve,

María, llena eres de gracia,

while the candle on the coffee table flickered and spat wax onto a saucer. The flame made shadows climb the walls.

The floor hurt your knees through the thin fabric of your dress. Your mamá smelled like laundry detergent and the menthol rub she put on her wrists when her arthritis acted up, and her voice was hypnotic and sad, and you followed along because not following along wasn't an option.

Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.

Amen.

The candle burned down. Your knees went numb. Your mamá put her hand on the back of your head when it was over, and then she sent you to bed.

Magnolia Creek, Georgia — Tuesday, August 16th, 

Two days later, your mamá ran out of sugar.

She never ran out of sugar. Elena Molina kept a pantry stocked like the apocalypse was coming, but the sugar had run out, and she needed it for the sweet tea, and the sweet tea had to be made fresh every morning or your uncle, would sulk all through breakfast like a child denied a toy.

"Mija, go to Piggly's and get me the five pound bag," she said, pressing a crumpled twenty into your palm. She said it like she hated saying it.

Like sending you into town alone was a risk she had to calculate and didn't like the odds of. "Straight there and straight back. Don't stop to talk to anyone."

"Yes, Mamá."

"Especially not—" She stopped herself. Pressed her lips together. The lipstick she'd put on that morning, Revlon's Certainly Red, the same shade she'd worn since before you were born, bought at the same drugstore and applied with the same small mirror, had bled into the fine lines around her mouth. "Just straight back."

You didn't ask who she meant. You knew.

The walk into town was three quarters of a mile, past the Baptist church and the Methodist church and the little white AME church where the Bannermans went, past the cemetery with its iron gates and its angel statues covered in lichen, past Miss Claudette's house where the old woman sat on her porch every morning and watched the street like it was television.

The sun was already mean by ten thirty, beating down on the back of your neck, and your sandals slapped against the hot sidewalk, and the air smelled like mown grass and gasoline.

Magnolia blossoms that had fallen and been crushed in the road.

Piggly's General Store had been there since before the war. Which war, nobody could agree on.

The sign above the door said PIGGLY'S in faded red letters that had been repainted so many times the edges were blurry, and the screen door had a rusty spring that made it slam shut behind you with a sound like a gunshot.

Inside, the store was cool and dim and smelled like old wood and floor wax and the pickled eggs that Mr. Piggly kept in a jar on the counter, a jar nobody had ever seen anyone eat from.

Mr. Piggly himself was behind the register. He was sixty something, barrel chested, with a white apron stretched tight over his stomach and a mustache the color of tobacco stains.

When the bell above the door rang, he looked up, and his eyes did what they always did, a slow slide from your face down to your chest and back up again, like he was reading a paragraph he'd read a hundred times before and still found interesting.

"Afternoon, Miss Molina." His voice was a gravel road.

"Mornin', Mr. Piggly." You smiled. The smile was currency. You'd figured that out at thirteen, a girl's smile could buy her a lot of things, discounts and leniency and the benefit of the doubt, and that none of it was free even if no money changed hands.

His mustache twitched. You looked away before he could see anything else in your face.

The sugar was on the back shelf, next to the flour, cornmeal and the big tins of Crisco.

You were reaching for it, fingers barely grazing the paper bag, the shelf just a little too high, Mr. Piggly's eyes still on your back like two warm pennies, when the screen door slammed open and a group of women came in.

You recognized the voices before you turned around: Mrs. Avanzini from the Baptist auxiliary, Mrs. Skiendiel whose husband owned the hardware store, and Miss Laforteza who worked at the post office and knew everything about everyone because she steamed open letters when the inspector wasn't looking.

"—well I never in my life," Mrs. Avanzini was saying, her voice pitched to carry, "the way that woman carries on in church, you'd think she was the Virgin Mary herself—"

"With those dresses her girls wear?" Mrs. Skiendiel snorted. "The younger one especially. A disgrace."

Your hand closed on the sugar. You didn't turn around. The voices faded into the back of the store, toward the canned goods, still buzzing with righteous indignation.

You carried the sugar to the register, and Mr. Piggly rang it up, two dollars and forty seven cents, the usual price, no discount today because the women were watching now and Mr. Piggly was a coward in the ways that mattered, you took your change and turned to leave.

You didn't see her until you hit her.

One moment you were walking, eyes on the floor, counting the coins in your palm. The next moment your shoulder struck something solid and warm and moving, and the sugar bag slipped from your fingers, and you were falling, except you weren't falling, because something caught you.

Arms, an arm around your waist, an arm bracing your shoulder, a chest against your cheek for one half second that felt like an hour, a chest that was soft in some places and firm in others and smelled like, what was that smell?

Like honey and cigarettes and something green, something alive, like crushed leaves or fresh cut grass or the way the air smelled right before a thunderstorm.

"You alright there?"

The voice was soft. Swiss. That was the accent all the girls who hang out at the fire hydrant tried to imitate and couldn't, the way her vowels rounded and her consonants clipped, with a drawl underneath it that wasn't Southern exactly, but had soaked into her words anyway, like tea left steeping too long in a cup of cream.

She'd been here long enough to catch the edges of it, but not long enough to lose where she came from.

You looked up.

Manon Bannerman looked down.

Shit.

She was taller than you by two inches. She was always taller than you. Her hair was a dark, chaotic tumble of curls that her mother called "radiant" and the girls at school called "exotic" and you called—well, you didn't call it anything out loud, but in your head you called it beautiful, you called it a stormcloud, you called it the color of coffee with too much cream and you wanted to know if it felt as soft as it looked.

Her skin was brown, brown like the wooden rosary beads your abuela had worn smooth with decades of prayer. And her eyes were hazel, green and gold and brown all at once, like something you could fall into and never find your way out of.

She was wearing the white babydoll dress. Of course she was. It was short, your mamá was right about that, it was too short for a girl in church, for a girl anywhere, the hem hitting her mid thigh, and the neckline was square and showed the delicate architecture of her collarbones, and the thin straps left her shoulders bare, shoulders that were dusted with freckles so faint they looked like cinnamon sprinkled on brown sugar.

You jumped back from her like she'd burned you.

"I asked you a question." Her eyebrow lifted. "Didn't your mama teach you it's rude to ignore someone when they're speaking to you?"

Her accent. God. It was, you couldn't think, you couldn't make your mouth work.

The sugar bag was on the floor between you, and you bent to pick it up because you didn't know what else to do, because looking at her face was too much and not looking at her face was also too much, because every option was the wrong option and every breath was too shallow and your heart was beating in your throat like a trapped bird.

"I'm—I'm sorry, I—" You couldn't find the words.

They were in Spanish first, always in Spanish first, and you had to translate them before they came out of your mouth, but the translation was getting stuck somewhere between your brain and your tongue. "I'm not s'pposed to talk to you. My mama says."

The words came out in a rush, a confession you hadn't meant to make, and the moment they left your mouth you wanted to claw them out of the air and stuff them back in.

Your face went hot and your palms damp against the paper bag.

Manon tilted her head. Her curls shifted, fell across one eye, and she didn't push them back.

"Your mama..." she said slowly, "must be Mrs. Molina, then."

It wasn't a question. The way she said it wasn't quite a scoff, wasn't quite a laugh, but was somewhere in between, a sound that said of course and figures and those people all at once.

You said nothing. Your jaw was locked and your cheeks were burning.

Inside the store, you could hear the women still talking, short dress, no shame, what kind of mother lets her daughter walk around like that, and the sound of it made your stomach twist, because they were talking about Manon, about the dress you'd wanted for yourself, about the girl standing in front of you with her hazel eyes and her honey skin and her mouth that was starting to curve into a smile that you didn't understand.

Manon glanced toward the store window, then she glanced back at you. Her smile widened, just slightly, just at the corners.

"What they don't know," she said softly, leaning in, "won't hurt 'em."

Her breath was warm against your ear. It smelled like peppermint and tobacco, she smoked, Manon Bannerman smoked, your abuela would have fainted, and the nearness of her made your skin prickle, made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, made something low in your belly tighten and then loosen like a fist unclenching.

Then she was gone.

She pulled back, stepped around you, walked into the store with her head high and her shoulders straight and her short white dress fluttering at the backs of her thighs, and the bell above the door chimed her arrival, and the women inside went quiet as a grave.

You stood there on the sidewalk with the sugar bag clutched to your chest and your heart hammering and the echo of her whisper still ghosting over the shell of your ear.

Then you looked through the store window, and you saw Mrs. Avanzini staring at you.

She'd seen everything.

Your mamá was going to beat your ass.