I pulled over because I saw something small moving on the shoulder. Thought it was an animal. When my headlight hit her, she didn’t run. She walked straight toward my bike like she’d been waiting for it.
“Sweetheart, what are you doing out here?”
She didn’t answer that. Just looked up at me with eyes that had already given up on life before she’d had a chance to live it.
“What’s your name?” I asked, pulling off my leather jacket and wrapping it around her. She disappeared inside it.
“Lily,” she whispered. “But daddy calls me ‘mistake.'”
Then she showed me why she was running.
She lifted her nightgown. The cigarette burns were fresh. A pattern on her ribs. Deliberate. On her back, carved into her skin with something sharp, were three words.
NOBODY WANTS YOU.
I dropped to my knees on that wet highway. Not because I chose to. Because my legs stopped working.
“Daddy got mad because I cried for mommy,” she said. “Mommy went to heaven ten sleeps ago. Daddy said I killed her. Tonight he did the burning and the writing. Said tomorrow he’d finish making me perfect for heaven.”
