First Chapter Friday: Heartland
Chapter One
Chastity
“Please be careful, Chastity. Don’t drink anything that doesn’t come from a sealed bottle—unless Dylan is the one who pours it for you.”
“I’ll be careful, Leah,” I reply. But at the same time I roll my eyes in the mirror where I’m giving myself a last-minute once-over before I leave for my first college party.
The dormitory phone has a long curly cord that stretches just far enough into the bathroom. So I can listen to all Leah’s worries and check my look at the same time.
Squinting at my reflection, I button the second button on my blouse. But then I unbutton it again. I want to look attractive, but I don’t need my top to shout: HERE ARE MY BOOBS FOR YOUR PERUSAL.
It’s a fine line.
“Don’t go into the basement,” Leah says. “That’s where all the bad ideas happen.”
“What kind of bad ideas?” I ask, perking up. I don’t remember Dylan’s house on Spruce Street even having a finished basement. But if it did, I’d probably go into it, in spite of Leah’s warning. I’m more interested in bad ideas than anyone seems to understand. And I always have been. It’s just that my life hasn’t afforded much opportunity to try them out.
“Just be careful. Trust your gut. There are men who would get you drunk or high just to take advantage of you.”
“I’ll be very careful,” I promise, just because it’s the fastest way to end this conversation.
Leah means well. She’s only nine years older than I am, but she considers herself my guardian. Two years ago—when I was nineteen—I ran away from the cult where we both grew up.
I owe her a lot. She took me in, no questions asked, even though we’re only distant cousins. Leah cares about me and my future, which is a lot more than I can say about my actual parents. If I’d stayed on the Paradise Ranch I’d be married by now to a fifty-year-old man with four other wives.
Sometimes when people hear this story they say we have a “colorful history.” But it’s just the opposite. It wasn’t colorful at all; it was really drab. And that’s why I’m standing here in a burgundy silk blouse I bought secondhand and a pair of tight jeans that would have earned me a beating at the compound.
Leah bought me my first pair of jeans two years ago. I’d put them on immediately, feeling very defiant. Then I’d looked in the mirror and thought: whore. Because that’s what they used to call me.
I still hear their voices in my head sometimes. I was a whore to them. And all because I kissed a boy.
“Are you coming home this weekend?” Leah asks. By home she means her farm in Tuxbury, which is about an hour’s drive from the university in Burlington.
“I think so?” I uncap my only tube of tinted lip gloss and touch up my lips in the mirror.
“Did you tell Dylan your idea?”
“Not yet.” And that’s one of the reasons I’m going to this party at his house.
It’s Wednesday, when we have a standing tutoring date. But today he didn’t show. I don’t have a cell phone, which is probably why I didn’t hear from him. He must have called the land line while I was out.
Dylan is a little flighty, but he’s a good friend. He hasn’t missed a Wednesday yet. That hour of the week is a double-edged sword for me. I love spending time with Dylan. But algebra. Oof. It’s not my forte. I spend the whole time trying not to look either stupid or heartsick, with varying degrees of success.
I’m probably failing at the first thing, but Dylan has no idea how I feel about him, and I plan to keep it that way.
“I hope Dylan likes your idea,” Leah says. “It’s got a lot of potential. And the kitchen is wide open on Friday and Saturday nights. Nobody ever wants to claim those hours.” Leah makes fancy cheeses, but it’s a seasonal business. So she rents out the commercial kitchen in her creamery to other businesses during the winter months.
“If Dylan wants in, he’ll pick Saturday,” I tell her. “Fridays are reserved for his awful girlfriend.”
“Shhh!” Leah hisses. “Won’t she hear you?”
“No. She’s not here.” The biggest mistake of my college career—all four weeks of it—was asking Dylan to help me carry my things into the dormitory on move-in day.
I hadn’t even asked, come to think of it. He’d volunteered. He’d driven me to school in his old truck and brought me to the housing office to pick up my keys.
And I’d been so, so grateful. Right up until Dylan carried my one box into the dormitory. I’d been so nervous I’d felt like throwing up, but Dylan had whistled a happy tune as he led me down the hallway to suite 302.
“Open ’er up,” he’d said kindly. “Let’s see if the housing gods were kind.”
They weren’t. I mean—the suite is fine. My twin bed is in a separate room from Kaitlyn’s twin bed. We share a bathroom that’s just ours. I have a desk and a dresser and a window. I can’t complain.
I’d been hoping to be paired with a roommate who would also be a friend, but Kaitlyn had been instantly chilly to me. She’d barely glanced in my direction.
She had not, however, dismissed Dylan. You know that expression—“her eyes lit up”? Well, I’ve never seen anyone so obviously and instantly in lust. She was like a cartoon character with hearts in her eyes.
“Is this your brother?” she’d asked.
“Just about,” Dylan had said with a chuckle. “We live on neighboring farms.”
“That’s so sweet,” she’d gushed.
And then, as I’d put my meager possessions away, she’d chatted him up. I learned all about her life in Manhattan and her troubles at Barnard College, wherever that is. “There was a dalliance with a professor,” she’d said with a sigh. “It didn’t end well. My family is horrified.” She’d given him a sexy grin. “So here I am, banished to the hinterlands to finish school.”
“Welcome to Moo U,” Dylan had said with a slow smile. “It’s not New York City, but we have other kinds of fun.”
The very next day she’d asked me for his phone number. “I had a question about which dry cleaner to use. He said to ask him anything.”
“I’d be stunned if Dylan ever had anything dry cleaned,” I’d said. But I gave her the number, anyway.
Big mistake.
The following week she didn’t come home at all on two different nights. At first I thought this was a terrific development. I loved having our suite to myself. But then, just as I was crossing the center of campus and congratulating myself on figuring out a shortcut to the math department, I’d seen them. Kaitlyn had been standing under a tree with Dylan. And then he’d leaned in and kissed her.
No—that isn’t even an accurate description. He practically devoured her right there between classes in broad daylight. I’ve never walked away from anything faster in my life.
Three weeks later, and I’m still not over it. I already knew Dylan had a lot of sex. His twin sister refers to him as “the family slut.” There are always girls from his high school class hanging around the Shipley farm, riding shotgun in his truck. I’m always jealous of those girls.
But Kaitlyn? Just the idea of her with Dylan makes me insane. It doesn’t matter if I express that aloud, either. Kaitlyn is almost certainly at Dylan’s house right now. If it turns out that he spent our tutoring hours with her instead of me, that will sting.
But Dylan will make it up to me. He really is a good friend.
“Let me know how it goes,” Leah says. “I’d better go and put Maeve to bed. I can hear her begging Isaac for another story.”
“Kiss her goodnight for me,” I say. “I’ll call you about the weekend. I’ll let you know if we need to use the kitchen Saturday night.”
“Have fun tonight, Chass. Just be—”
“—careful. I know, Leah. I will.”
We hang up. I give myself one more glance in the mirror, then I grab my backpack and leave the little suite behind.
I hurry down two flights of stairs, heading for the dormitory exit. It’s already dark outside, and I can see my reflection in the glass door. My backpack strap has tugged the silk blouse aside, revealing a tiny glimpse of my bra.
I stop suddenly to fix it, and that’s when somebody plows into my back.
We let out twin shrieks.
“Sorry!” I yelp, turning around.
“No, that was totally my fault,” the other girl babbles. Her name is Ellie, I think. We’re in the same English class. She holds the door open for me. “Your outfit looks fine, by the way. Stop fussing with that collar.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Going on a date? Kinda fancy for a Wednesday night.” We’re heading in the same direction down the sidewalk. “I’m going to the library, because I’m fun like that.”
“Oh, I already spent four hours there,” I assure her. I don’t tell her that I spent all that time waiting for Dylan Shipley to show up for tutoring. “I’m going to a party off campus.”
“Really,” Ellie says, grinning. She has a mouth full of braces. Aren’t those just for kids? It’s been two years since I left the cult where I grew up, but there are still a lot of things that baffle me. Twenty-four months isn’t a long time to learn how the entire world works. “You have fun. I’ll be trying to understand Aristotle.”
“Cool.” I don’t know what Aristotle is, either.
She reaches for my hand and tugs it away from the second button of my blouse, which I’m fingering. “Don’t fidget. That’s how buttons come off.”
“Right. But—” I hesitate. “Is this too much?” I wave a hand in front of my chest.
“Too much what? Too much hotness? No. If I had boobs, I’d wear them proudly. Whoever it is you’re trying to impress is going to love it.” She gives me a wave and trots away toward the library. “Have fun!” she calls over her shoulder.
I keep walking, still feeling uncertain. Going to Dylan’s house right now is probably a mistake. I don’t know why he blew off our tutoring session today. It isn’t like him. On the other hand, he has a lot on his plate. And I’m the one who doesn’t have a cell phone.
It’s not Dylan’s fault that I sat there in the library from four until seven thirty, missing dinner like a dummy. But I’ve always been a little dumb when it comes to Dylan.
My stomach had been rumbling by the time I’d given up on him. On my way home, I’d paused outside the convenience store, wondering what a girl could buy for two dollars. Only candy, really. I hadn’t bought anything, but I had bumped into Dylan’s roommate, a character named Rickie.
“Chastity!” he’d exclaimed, coming out of the store with a bag full of various kinds of chips in one hand and a bag of ice in the other. “What’s up, lady? You coming over later?”
“For…?” I’d only been to their house once before. It’s out of the way, which is why Dylan always meets me on campus.
“The party! Didn’t Dylan tell you?”
He did not. But I hadn’t let it show on my face. “I didn’t catch Dylan today,” I’d told him. “Do you happen to know where he went?”
“Home to Tuxbury,” Rickie had said. “Shit, Chastity. He said he was going to call you. The goats got loose and ate something they weren’t supposed to.”
“Oh no!”
“Yeah. He got a call and there was yelling, and then Dylan got in the truck and went home. But he’s back at nine for the party. Come over. I’m making mulled cider and guacamole.”
My stomach had gurgled, and the decision had seemed easy.
But now, as I trudge uphill toward the old Victorian house where Dylan lives with Rickie and another guy named Keith, I’m questioning all my life choices. I’ll probably have to make conversation with strangers, which isn’t my strong suit.
Or they’ll just ignore me, which also sounds bleak.
And then there’s my algebra homework which is in my backpack still incomplete. If I turn up now, Dylan is only going to feel guilty for missing our session.
There are two things powering me uphill, though. The first is guacamole. I’d never seen an avocado until I became a nineteen-year-old runaway to Vermont, and I’d been seriously missing out. The second thing is morbid curiosity. In the four weeks since I came to Burlington U, I’ve had only glimpses of College Dylan. And I want to know more.
The Dylan I know from Tuxbury is Family Dylan. He milks goats and cows. He whistles in the orchard while picking apples. He takes off his shirt to stack hay. He eats third helpings at the dinner table. He spars with his siblings and takes his mother to church.
And? He’s a good friend to me.
College Dylan is different, though. And—fine—even more intoxicating. College Dylan drinks and smokes pot and has (from what I can guess) a lot of sex. Some of it with my evil roommate.
None of it with me.