Granger, Wyoming 1994

“Livingston, we’ve done all that we can. More surgery would just—”

Francis Livingston tuned out the doctor’s voice. The same conversation on fucking repeat and it always ended the same way. He was stuck with the scars that covered seventy-five percent of his body. He fisted his hands on his thighs and tried not to take a swing at the older man. It wasn’t the guy’s fault. His mind wandered as it always did when he didn’t want to hear the bullshit and it never went anywhere good.

“Go to bed, Francis, I’ll be up to tuck you in,” his mother ordered, her hands in the soapy water.

He’d thought it strange at the time. His mother never tucked him in—she barely acknowledged he existed. He remembered he’d walked through the living room. His siblings and the sister-wives were there, and they didn’t pay attention to him either. Mr. Teller was indisposed with one of the other sister-wives. This one was due to be cursed with another child, but she was the oldest, and she hadn’t given Mr. Teller a child in almost two years. He was born before the man his mother married had that fucked up ceremony. That bastard and his harem of plain, broken women, even at eight, he’d recognized it. Mr. Teller was quick to use his fists and belt to keep order in his house. He swung that leather punctuated with The Word and cowed the brainwashed occupants of the man’s home.

He’d earned his mother’s revenge. For every beating she received, he’d gotten the same, but only more severe. He could still clearly see the crazed look in her eyes and the way her hair came undone from her bun in her fury. Wasn’t that what mothers did? He was evil, and he deserved his punishment. Love came in shades of blue and black, fading to a deceptively pretty purple and a sick greenish-yellow like the infection from his wounds in the early days of his treatment. All she required was him to repent, but for what? What had he done but be born?

When he’d reached his room, he’d changed into his pajamas, simple plaid and crawled into bed. He’d studied the cracks in the ceiling, discerned shapes from the flowing lines then again where they broke at another small fissure. He shared his room with his mother. Two iron beds, nightstands with their ever-present bibles. The unfinished floors with their cracked planks cut into his knees where they bowed as he read to his mother from that book. He never recalled a time he believed in those words—God so loving and kind, but that book told of horrors and people dying for so-called sins. Pretending became second nature, but he no longer feigned faith and never would.

His mother walked into his room that night with a smile, and that should’ve warned him of the hell to come.

“Francis, have you repented for your sins today?”

“Yes, mother.”

“I believe you are lying to me and you know what happens to sinners.”

Her voice so calm and serene, almost happy and apprehension had pooled in the pit of his empty stomach. They had deemed him ungrateful for the scraps they provided him and ordered him to sit at the table to watch the worthy eat. He remained silent. He didn’t beg or move as she secured each ankle and wrist to the bed with the softness of scarves. He could take the pain—he’d survived it his entire life. His mother’s first kind act could’ve been not letting him being born at all, but her selfishness won out. He knew she’d hoped to trap a man she thought was wealthy—who’d take care of her. When she’d left that city, she hadn’t anticipated the other wives and children waiting or the house which practically crumbled around them.

She ranted as she beat him. Placed blame and he could repeat every word from memory—even eight years later.

He’d braced for the first strike, fist or leather—it hadn’t mattered—it was just his life. It was his fault Mr. Teller wouldn’t sleep with her anymore. No matter how many times Mr. Teller tried, Livingston’s mother couldn’t carry another baby.

He hadn’t started begging not even when she turned off the light and disappeared. Minutes or hours could’ve passed, but by the time she returned the house had grown quiet. The click of the light beside her bed drew his attention, and he’d watched her, the laziness of her movements and still with that happy expression on her face. The scent of gasoline thick in the room, the odor burning his nose.

“Do you know why I’m doing this, Francis?”

She’d never called him anything other than his name, no son or cute nickname.

“I was bad.”

It was the last words he spoke before a rag was shoved deep into his mouth, choking him as he tried to breathe. His clothes became soaked as his mother poured the contents of the small red container over him and the bed. After the sulfur and gas stench, everything went fuzzy, and he was all screaming agony as his sheets and clothes ignited. Before he’d passed out, all that was left was that peaceful smile.

He didn’t know how he escaped with only one side completely burned, but it was enough. He had Mr. Teller to thank for his life and his misery. He touched the thick, straight scars hidden within the grotesque landscape of his wrist. The one he’d slit a year ago hoping it would end and it hadn’t, and here he was being told that there was no more to be done.

“The scars will fade over the years, but trying another procedure will only intensify them. I’m truly sorry, Livingston, you’re alive, you can live—”

“I can what, live a normal life, no one fucking looks at me, doc, and when they do they know, know what happened. Will I find someone someday who wants to suck the freak’s cock, all the scarred inches of it? Will they whisper they love me? Will I ever walk down the fucking street and not—”

“Livingston, you survived a horrific act that would’ve killed most, why don’t you accept God’s—”

“Fuck God, was this part of your God’s plan?”

“This was the act of a sick woman, not—”

“Save it, doc.”

He didn’t wait for more pretty, consolatory words that were nothing more than empty promises of a future he didn’t have. He rushed outside and pulled out the crushed pack of smokes, and then he lit one as he let his gaze shift left and right along the nearly empty Main Street. This town loved their secrets and their God, two more years and he could leave this place.

He turned his back to the street as the big, battered Sheriff’s vehicle cruised down the road. That fucker knew what was going on out at that farmhouse and always looked the other way.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, Livingston?”

He spun on his toes, the brim of his cap low over his eyes and studied the brown chaw-stained lips.

“Doc appointment, I got a note and everything.”

“Don’t be a smartass, Livingston, you’re going to end your ugly ass up in my jail one of these days, and I’m going throw away the fucking key.”

“Try your best, old man.”

He turned to head back toward his foster home and the razor that was waiting for him—for the time he wouldn’t fail. By his own hands or the day he turned eighteen, he’d leave this fucking town, but his past was mapped in ridges of hollows of twisted skin. That was one thing he could never leave behind.