FOUR THIRTY THE next morning I threw back the bed covers and sat up, a blast of cold air causing my skin to prickle. My excitement, though, was enough to start a fire in my blood, warming me with each passing minute.

I hurried to the closet. For the millionth time in my life, I yearned for a different wardrobe, for jeans and boots and sweaters and North Face jackets. Instead, I pulled on thick tights, a skirt, and a heavy sweater. Though the days were warm by afternoon, the mornings were damp with a bone-deep chill that made even the heartiest shiver.

I left by the back door, closing it with a soft click. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the nearly nonexistent light. The sliver of moon barely illuminated the sky surrounding it, but I knew this area so well I could walk it blind.

When I made it to the tree line, I glanced at the house. There were no candles suddenly lit, no lights turned on. I looked at Robert’s cabin and it was dark as well. There was no sign anyone had been disturbed. I started toward the cemetery, my feet barely touching the ground.

Wispy, sparse rays of moonlight captured the headstones in the faintest glow, and I shivered. It was too early for Nate to arrive, so I strolled through the cemetery, offering a wide birth to the headstones and the snakes that often coiled around them. I picked a small bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace and placed it on Orpah’s little gravestone.

Then there was a rustling. Even though I knew it was Nate, I still jumped, a flash of fear igniting inside me.

“Hi, beautiful.”

“Hi, yourself.” I smiled, any trace of angst blowing away with the mountain breeze.

He walked toward me, black clad and serious, his eyes darker than midnight. He carried a small flashlight that illuminated small circular patches of ground. When he stopped in front of me, I wove my arms around his neck as he wrapped his around my waist. I pulled. He tugged, trying to get close. Always closer.

He smelled amazing even though he’d just been hiking up a very steep mountain. Or maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was both. Whatever it was infiltrated my nostrils until my head spun. And when his lips parted, mine followed, my body remembering exactly what to do. When I shuddered against him, he paused, then deepened the kiss if that was even possible.

This can’t be wrong. There is no way.

We were so isolated here at the top of the world that I felt like I was shedding layers of skin, seeking the true Marli who had been so suppressed she had started to think she didn’t exist.

But the Marli here today existed, brimming even. I liked this Marli. A lot.

“You’re an amazing kisser,” he whispered.

“I have a good teacher.”

He took the next few minutes to show me exactly how good a kisser he thought I was.

When I regained my breath, the first faint graying of the world colored the sky.

“We don’t have long. Let’s walk.” I tugged on his hand.

Fingers intertwined, we started toward the river, mist swirling up from the water like ghostly hands reaching, wanting.

“Did you have trouble sneaking out?” I asked.

“Nah. No one ever checks on me.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have a lot of freedom, that’s all.”

“When do you turn eighteen?”

“Six months. I’ll graduate next May. Well, I graduate if I have enough credits.” He snorted. “I’ve missed a little bit of school in my time.”

“Can I ask you something personal?”

“More personal than my birthdate?”

“Yeah.”

“Shoot.”

“What did you mean when you said that someone stole your mom? I know you got caught sneaking into that house to find her. But what does it all mean? I’m sorry if this is painful, but it was an odd thing to say.”

“It’s simple. My mom left us. Met another man and moved in with him. She couldn’t take Dad’s drinking. She wanted me to come with her when she left, but I didn’t and said some awful things to her. As I got older, I better understood why she had to leave like she did. He was beating her and had threatened to kill her. I guess she finally thought he’d gotten to the point he might actually do it. When I realized how dire it had been for her, I tried to go and find her.”

“And that was the trespassing?”

“Well, no. She didn’t live there any longer. She’d moved and hadn’t given me her new address.”

My heart shattered.

“I understand why, though.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice ragged with emotion.

“She was afraid. She had to go into a sort of hiding.”

“And you still don’t know where she is?”

He shook his head.

“It doesn’t seem like living with your father is a good idea. I mean, not if he’s that violent.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal. “He’s more talk than action, at least when it comes to me. Plus, I’ll be out of there soon. My PO told me I might be able to become emancipated.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll be considered an adult even though I’m not eighteen.”

“You can do that?”

“Yep. If the judge agrees.”

“And you’ll, like, be in charge of yourself? Live by yourself?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Wow, I wish.”

As the horizon eased from gray to pink, he turned. “Come here. Enough talking.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

He brought his lips to my cheek, jaw, then settled into my neck for several minutes. I had no idea kisses on my neck, soft trails of his tongue over my skin, could alter every chemical in me, but they did, and I knew I would never be the same and that my legs would forever feel this deliciously unsteady.

I wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

We didn’t pull away until the pink sky was cast in yellowish orange, signaling another mountain sunrise.

I WAS RESTLESS in English and asked to be excused. I meandered through the halls for several minutes then made my way to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I regretted my decision immediately. Heather and Janelle were there swiping gloss over their perky lips, overfilled makeup bags spilling out over the long sink.

Janelle’s eyes widened in delight. “Hey, mountain girl. Want to borrow some lipstick? God knows you could use some.”

Heather watched me through the mirror, her expression impassive.

“I gotta run,” Janelle said. “Catch ya at lunch.” She shoved makeup into her hot pink bag, air-kissed Heather, and walked past me. “You know, those skirts are just so rad.” Laughter followed her down the hall.

For a moment I stood still, unsure whether to move farther into the bathroom or leave. Just as I made the decision to return to class, Heather turned.

“Does it bother you when we make fun of you?” Heather’s face wasn’t sarcastic or mocking.

“No, of course not,” I said, my jaw set.

Heather shrugged one slender shoulder, glossy brown hair falling down her back. “It would bother me.”

“Then why would you do it to me if you wouldn’t want someone doing it to you? Or just stand there as someone else does it?”

We studied each other in silence.

“I don’t know,” Heather admitted. “Better you than me, I guess.”

“Why does it have to be either one?”

Heather snorted. “Because that’s life and it’s a dog-eat-dog world.” She studied her makeup in the mirror. “Don’t you think?”

I studied her makeup too. It was more tastefully applied than Janelle’s, with softer tones and less glaring colors. Heather was pretty with perfect hair and a slender, perfect body that looked good in tight jeans and girly blouses. What would my own body look like in tight jeans like that?

I sighed.

Heather gathered the remaining makeup and slid the contents into a small black and white bag with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the side. She walked toward the door and stopped, hand on the knob. “Are you really getting married?”

I did not want to have this conversation, especially with Heather. The memory of mocking laughter, as real as if it was coming through the intercom, filled my ears.

“If it is, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure it can’t be easy.”

“No, it’s not easy.” The words came out more choked than I would’ve preferred.

“Do you at least like the guy?”

I shook my head.

“Is there nothing you can do?”

I thought about the Church on the Mountain, the tight hold it and my family had on the lives of the people on the mountain, especially on me. I thought about the stories of the old punishings and of Mary, about Josiah’s desperation to break free.

The problem was, there wasn’t anything I could do. Could I become emancipated, like Nate? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Nothing that I’ve been able to come up with.”

“I would run away. There’s no way anyone could make me get married. I’m getting out of this hellhole of a town and going to New York as soon as I graduate. No one could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

Was that true?

Heather pulled open the door. “Whatever. I hope you find some way to get out of it. You’re too young to get married.”

I watched her in silence.

“And despite what Janelle keeps saying, you’re pretty. I’m sure there are many guys who would beat down your door if you got out of this marriage.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I already had a guy I wanted.

The door closed, leaving me in the cool quiet of the bathroom. I walked to the mirror and gazed at my reflection, studying my thick brown brows, the slight scattering of freckles across my thin nose, my round, dark eyes. I might be considered pretty. Nate called me beautiful and I believed he meant it. But was I pretty by normal standards?

Maybe. I was swallowed up by the ugly clothes and the hair that could use inches off and a proper style. But I was pretty.

It surprised me to think so. If it weren’t for my lips…

A pop of color caught my attention. I looked down to find Heather’s lip gloss lying on the sink. I pulled off the cap, revealing a pretty shade of pink with a hint of shimmer. There was just a quarter inch left and after a quick glance toward the door, I smoothed it over my lips. I looked at my reflection.

Who was that girl?

The gloss didn’t make my lips look funny, didn’t make the top one stand out in an ugly way. Instead, it brightened my entire face. I looked like the same Marli Meade, but a newer, fresher version.

I pocketed the lipstick and returned to class.