Jez chimes in. "Honey, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

I gulp more air. "I… shit, I don't know. I just ran… across campus… and up the stairs."

Jez raises her eyebrows. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"Close." Blood pounds in my ears. "My… father… Justin."

"Who's Justin?" Luna asks, then her expression changes. "Oh. Ohhhh. Justin, as in Justin, your fiancé?"

"You have a fiancé??" Jez asks.

"No," I reply automatically. "I mean yes, I guess technically, I suppose." My stupid fake fiancé is the least of my problems at this point.

"Did you have it out with your father?" Luna asks.

"Oh, honey, if you had a falling out with your father, you're more than welcome to come home for the holidays with us," Jez says.

"Mom, let her talk," Luna snaps. "You don't even know what her Christmas plans are."

"Luna Moon, I know that if she had it out with her father, the poor thing might have nowhere to go."

"Purity isn't a stray cat or an orphaned child, so don't call her a poor little thing, Mom. Let her finish."

Behind me, someone pounds loudly on the door. Luna's eyes go wide. "Is that your dad?"

Jez stands up straight. "Are you feeling threatened or unsafe, Purity? Because if you are, I'll call campus security right now."

"Or the police, Mom," Luna interrupts. "Does he have guns?"

"Stop!" I interrupt, cutting both of them off. "You're talking over me and not even giving me a second to think or answer! He doesn't have guns, and I don't need the police, and I'm going to take care of this right now!"

I spin around and yank open the door, suddenly filled with more anger than I can contain. I'm angry at everyone – Luna and her mom for not letting me speak, my father and Justin for showing up here early and walking in on Gabe and I, and for so many other things I can't even begin to list all of them right now. And I'm angry at Gabe for not telling me he had an ex-wife.

I can't even get a chance to sort through the million thoughts that are swirling around in my head right now.

No one will give me a chance to breathe.

My father storms inside my room without asking, pushing past me while Justin trails behind him like a fucking lapdog and stands beside me. I want to scream at Justin for being so stupid, for blindly following my father around. I want to yell at him because how in the world could he be so dumb to think that showing up with my father at my college would remotely be a good idea?

"Get your things," my father barks. "You're leaving."

He moves toward my bed and picks up my suitcase, unzipping it. It falls open, completely empty because I was putting off packing until the last minute, until tomorrow, because I was totally in denial about going back to South Hollow for the holidays.

"She's not going anywhere with an angry brute," Jez declares. "Step away from her things!"

"Purity, I'm going to get the R.A. right now!" Luna says.

The scene is nearly as chaotic as the scene in Gabe's office a moment ago, with Jez chastising my father for going through my stuff and Luna loudly declaring that no one is going to waltz into her room and order anyone around.

Meanwhile, Justin looks at me with a pained expression that I don't quite understand. The man was expecting to marry me. I want to shake him and tell him to be angry – I'd be angry if I caught my supposed-to-be fiancée screwing someone else.

I'd be livid.

But he's not.

He just looks really uncomfortable. And he keeps looking at my father with a pained expression that just doesn't make any sense.

"I'm sorry." Everyone is talking around us, but I hear Justin as clear as day.

"You're sorry??"

"About showing up like this," he says, shaking his head. "I told your father it was a terrible idea, and I didn't mean – walking in on you like that."

I nod numbly. This entire situation is surreal, and I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience.

"I'm not marrying you," I tell him.

He exhales heavily. But it's not a sigh of upset or disappointment. It's a sigh of relief. He looks like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders. "I know," he says.

"I don't like you," I go on. "I don't even know you."

"I don't like you either, Purity."

This isn't a conversation that should be happening here in the middle of the whirlwind occurring on the other side of the room, all of the raised voices and madness. It strikes me as strangely hilarious, and laughter starts to bubble up in my chest that I try to tamp down.

"You don't like me," I repeat. "But I thought you were the one who was pushing my father for his permission to marry me."

He glances over in my father's direction and that's when I see it for the first time. Why didn't I see it there before?

The expression on his face is longing.

"It was your father's idea," he says.

"Of course it was," I mutter, trying to process what's happening here, but my brain isn't making the connections quickly enough as my father rants about eternal damnation on the other side of the room. "Why would you go along with it? I'm his daughter. That was my excuse – at least, it used to be my excuse. It's not anymore. But you're a grown adult, and –"

I stop talking because Justin is looking at my father, and he's looking back at Justin from the other side of the room, and the room has gone silent.

It's as if someone suddenly turned off the volume on my life.

I recognize the expression on Justin's face because I've looked at Gabe that way.

But that's not possible. Is it?

"Alan, leave Purity's things alone," Justin says, his voice tired.

I stare back and forth between the two of them.

I'm just seeing things that aren't there. Right?? I'm under a lot of stress right now.

"Alan," Justin repeats again. The way he says my father's name, though…there's an intimacy in the word that goes beyond a church leader and a preacher.

My eyes meet Luna's and she sees it too.

"Holy shit," Luna breathes. "Ho-lee Sh-it."

"Are you –?" I start, but I can't finish the question because it doesn't fit with everything I know about my father. My father is one of the most intolerant people on Earth.

Are you screwing my father, Justin? Are you in love with my father?

"Alan," Justin repeats, his eyes on my father's.

"Shut up, Justin," my father bellows.

"Oh my God." My hand flies to my mouth, because everything – everything – starts to make sense. My brain suddenly goes into overdrive, making connections between things that I didn't understand before. Justin has always spent so much time with my father. He's been my father's right-hand man for years, but I thought it was because he was my father's protégé.

My father was trying to marry me off to Justin so he could keep Justin around.

Oh my God.

"Don't say a goddamned word, Justin!" my father exclaims loudly, and even after everything, I'm almost more shocked by hearing my father curse than by any other revelation. "I won't stand here and put up with this nonsense!"

"Tell her, Alan," Justin pleads, and he looks so pained that my heart breaks for him. "Come clean, for once. You’ve been hiding from yourself and everyone else and –"

"Is everything okay in here? It was a little loud and I wanted to check in –" Our resident assistant stands at the door.

"Can't you see we're in the middle of something here?" Luna snaps.

"That's just rude," the RA sniffs.

"I won't listen to this," my father says loudly. "And I won't have you spewing lies to my daughter, Justin!"

"You're not lying, are you?" I ask Justin. "How long have you two been –?"

"Too long," Justin says. "I'm really sorry for everything."

I turn to my father. "Gabe hates you," I say, bewildered. "Gabe hates you because you protested his brother's wedding! Yet you've been with Justin this entire time? And you've been trying to marry me to Justin?!?"

"Whoa," Luna mutters softly. "I really did not see this coming. I mean, at all."

"I did," Jez declares casually. "It's always the most homophobic ones who are actually –"

"I won't hear any of this!" My father sputters, pointing at Justin. "That man is delusional, and –"

"No!" I interrupt, my hands on my hips. "I'm not listening to you spew any more hate. You've kept me locked away from everything good in life, and I'm not letting you decide anything for me anymore!"

"Get in the car, Purity," he yells. "I'm leaving this den of iniquity, and you're coming with me, or you're not welcome home ever again."

I cross my arms. "Then I'm not going to South Hollow at all."