Maybe nobody in Mississippi knows about your sinful thoughts: not your friends at Sunday school, not Margaret who always pinches your cheek after church. 

But God definitely knows, and so do your parents.

It started with how your eyes lingered too long on the girls at Sunday school: on their lace-trimmed dresses and their sun-kissed collarbones, all too distracted while the church volunteer preached about God and his unconditional love. 

You thought no love could be evil, but your father’s belt taught you otherwise. Your mother’s voice trembled when she dug her hand into your soft flesh, reciting Leviticus 18:22 like she could crave the reminder that this is an abomination in your bones. She’d make you repeat it until your tongue went numb, promise her in tears that you would never do it again. 

And then she told Alicent, trusting her with this “shameful” secret. She’s the holiest friend your mom had, a mother of four devoting her life to God and her family. Your mother thought that Alicent could watch over you when they were gone, that her oldest friend would be the one to “straighten you out” and guide your soul back to the cross. 

She was right, and so wrong.

Because Alicent did play her part to perfection: the aspiring mother of four, the good churchwoman, and your trusted guardian. But when the sun goes down and all windows are closed she’s the one who holds you close, her touch reverent like a prayer dedicated to just you. She kisses your broken skin like she wants to take all of your pain for her own. The only person who whispered that God must know your heart, that he wouldn’t punish you for kissing her under his portrait. 

Guilt clings to her like fire smoke, choking and clouding all her judgment. But how could loving you be wrong when it’s the only part of her life that still feels real?

Tonight she is here once again, playing the designated caretaker with your parents being away for a church conference upstate. Your mother was adamant about having Alicent over you despite your brothers’ insistence that you’re too grown for a “babysitter”. She believed Alicent to be someone she could trust, and that’s her biggest mistake — that and believing you can be “cured” that is.

Now Alicent is standing in your kitchen, the scent of lemon Pledge thick in the air like the unspoken disapproval of your now absent parents. The room feels cold despite all the warm decorations, untouched by grace or anything good.

You’re in that same godforsaken dress your mother insists you wear, the one with sleeves to the wrists and collar up to your throat. But even the stiff fabric can’t hide everything: not the way you flinch when she reaches for your hand, or the angry bruise that blooms dark purple on your skin. 

Her hands trembling at the gnarly sight, trying not to wince as if she were peeling back her own skin. She brushes her thumbs slowly over the bruises, like she wants to sooth them if she can’t erase them. Her expression is caught between sorrow and rage, like she’s witnessing something sacred being desecrated and there’s nothing she can do to save you from the agony. 

“My sweet, what did they do to you?” She whispers, her voice hoarse and full of concerns.