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He wiggles his fingers in my face, and I step back out of instinct.

He laughs, clearly pleased. “See, Lyd? Old dogs can learn new tricks. I bet you didn’t expect that kind of talk coming from me.”

He is right about that. Clyde isn’t the crude type. “Seeing as we’re the same age, if you’re old, then I’m old. And that’s not possible. Not yet, anyway.”

Clyde grins, stepping in just a little closer. “So, what else do you need, Lydia?” He eyes the bags I’ve thrown in the cart. “I didn’t know you had pigs. Want me to swing by and give them an exam?”

His voice is light, but his eyes linger too long. Something about his tone scratches the back of my neck. Not quite curiosity. Something deeper. Sharper. Like he’s testing the ground beneath our words.

“No need,” I say. “I can handle it.”

“Humans and swine aren’t quite the same, you know.”

“Obviously. But I can still tell if something’s wrong. And if there ever is, you’ll be the first to know.” My tone comes out colder than I intended. I try to smile, but it feels wrong on my face, like I barrowed someone else’s.

Clyde watches me for a moment, his head tilting slightly. Then, softly, like he’s commenting on the weather he says, “Just make sure you ask for help… when you need it.”

The words drop like a stone in my gut. Casual enough to pass. Pointed enough to stick.

I don’t answer. I don’t move. I just grip the cart handle tighter, my knuckles blanching.

“Fine,” he says after a beat, voice calm but clipped. “I’ll meet you at the registers.”

I nod, curt. Then turn. My shoulder clips the edge of the shelf, and the bottles rattle in protest.

I don’t look back.

CHAPTER

TWO

I have a love-hate relationship with this town.

Most days, it feels like I’m stuck in a trap, one you don’t even notice until the door clicks shut behind you. I’ve always wanted more, bigger, brighter, louder. The glowing lights of Charleston, or Huntington, and all the other cities pulled at me when I was a kid. Their promise of something better shimmering in the distance intrigued me. But no matter how far I imagined running, I always landed right back here. So much for following my dreams.

My father had other plans. My dreams be damned.

The moment my cells decided to keep me female in my mother’s womb and not turn male, my dreams no longer mattered. Not to a man like my father. I was to become the woman he decided I was destined to be. A pastor’s wife. A doting mother. The kind of woman other women in town admired, someone they’d whisper about with envy in the church pews. My father had no use for rebellion or individuality.

He didn’t give a damn about the things I wanted.

Dreams, he said, were distractions. Dangerous whispers of vanity. “For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities but fear thou God.” That verse from Ecclesiastes was one of his favorites, a weapon he wielded to remind me that wanting more than my lot in life was sinful.

He wanted a daughter who could succeed where my mother had “failed.” Someone who knew her place, followed the rules, and kept her feet firmly planted in the soil of Hurricane. Dreams, he’d say, were for fools, and for women like my mother, who believed they could escape the world God had chosen for them.

The moment I knew he could no longer tell me what to do, I made plans, plans that were the exact opposite of everything he wanted for me. I enrolled in the nursing program at Marshall. He wasn’t around to say anything, to drag me back to the life he wanted for me. It was the first time I left this town every morning and came back on my own terms.

It turns out I became more like my mother than he ever thought I would. To him, my mother’s refusal to change was her downfall, and a man of his stature did not do well when someone didn’t see things his way.

I still remember the Sunday morning he stood at the pulpit, righteous as ever, and told the congregation my mother had “run out on him and his daughter.” I was nine, sitting in the front pew, my best dress stiff against my skin, my hands folded just so. No one questioned his story. Small towns thrived on gossip. Hurricane was no different. Still isn’t. Step wrong off the curb on Main Street, and by lunchtime, you’re a villain in some exaggerated tale. Someone who supposedly yelled at Mr. Childers for parking too close to the flower shop, even if it wasn’t true. But some people are untouchable, their names scrubbed clean no matter what filth they hide.

My father was one of those people.

No one questioned my father and his story. Instead, the women of Hurricane brought their casseroles and their condolences, lining up at our door like mourners. They saw his tragedy as a void to be filled, even if they had husbands of their own.

But my mother didn’t leave me. She would never leave me.

I know this because my father told me the truth. Every time he violated me, he whispered the same threat. “Do as I say, or you’ll end up where your mother is.”