Today was my third day of class with Professor Ryan. After I was late to his first class, I basically committed the map of campus to memory and vowed not to be late again, whether it was his or any other course.

Being publicly humiliated once was more than enough for me.

At least the last two class sessions have been uneventful compared to that initial one. By "uneventful", I mean that he's successfully managed to avoid making eye contact with me during each class. That's quite a feat since the course only has twenty students enrolled in it.

Intellectually, I know that I shouldn't take it personally. I should develop a thicker skin when it comes to what people think about me – when it comes to what he thinks about me. Maybe he's just weirded out by the fact that he used to know me when I was a kid.

Still, I can't help but wonder exactly what Professor Ryan thinks of me. I can't help but wonder if he actually despises me.

You'd think that would be something I'd be used to. There were certainly enough people in South Hollow who hated my father – and by default, disliked me nearly as much.

I tell myself that I'm only sensitive to what he thinks because he's a connection to my past in South Hollow – and not because of the way I get butterflies in my stomach when I look at him.

He barely made eye contact with me today at the end of class when he handed back our first writing assignments. His face was stony and unrevealing, telling me nothing about what he thought of my work as I took the paper from his hand. I folded it in half and shoved it right into my bag and refused to look at it.

I'm not sure why I resisted the urge to look at it all day today.

The assignment itself wasn't a big deal. It wasn't graded and it wasn't for class feedback. It was designed to be a kind of baseline for our development over the course of the semester, something for us to use as a benchmark. At least, that's the way he put it.

It was simple and easy, or at least it should have been: In two pages or less, write a scene illustrating the psychological complexity of a character. Yet I spent hours obsessing about the task more than any of my other coursework. I rehashed the class discussion about complex fictional characters in my head.

Mostly, I fixated on one thing that Professor Ryan said: "Write damaged characters. Perfect characters aren't interesting characters. Perfect people are boring, and besides, we're all damaged."

I wrote that quote down in my notebook on its own separate page, partly because I wanted to remember it and partly because it took me by surprise. It made me wonder if that's what Professor Ryan thinks about people, too, and not just characters in books.

It's exactly the opposite of the sentiments drilled into my head since I was a child. My father taught me to strive for perfection. He insisted that God demanded perfection in thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

He told me it's why he named me Purity – so that I would remember that's what I was born to strive for. I've always had the nagging suspicion that it was to remind me of how I could never quite measure up, no matter how hard I tried.

So when Professor Ryan casually declares that perfect people are boring and everyone is damaged, tossing the comment offhand like it's a self-evident immutable fact of life, I don't know quite what to do with that. I write it in the notebook and I repeat it in my head, trying to wrap my mind around it.

But none of that has to do with why I haven't read his feedback yet. I waited all day to read what he wrote on my assignment because I wanted space to read it privately. Writing is intimate, and he's the only person who has ever read anything I've written.

That makes it more intimate still.

Turning in an assignment is like writing directly to him, opening myself up and exposing a piece of my soul.

It feels vulnerable in a way that nothing else comes close to feeling.

I'm absolutely certain that's the only reason I haven't read his feedback. It has everything to do with that, and nothing to do with the fact that every time I think about Professor Ryan – how he begins class by slowly undoing the cuffs of his dress shirt and rolling up his sleeves to reveal his sinewy forearms, or about how I can't seem to stop looking at his perfect rear as he turns to write something on the dry erase board – it sends a rush of heat through my body. My breath seems to catch and my heart races, and I get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My desire to keep his feedback to myself, to take it out and read it and savor every word, has nothing to do with any of that.

When I get back to my dorm room, though, I discover that I don't have the room to myself to go over his feedback alone. My heart sinks when I see Luna sitting there wearing headphones, hunched over the laptop on her desk. With one hand, she pecks on her keyboard while the other hand is busy rustling through a bag of potato chips. She's so engrossed in what she's doing and her music is so loud that she doesn't seem to notice I'm in the room.

I stand there awkwardly for a moment, wondering if I should interrupt her to say hello or if I should wait until she sees me. It would be a lot more awkward, I finally decide, if I scared the crap out of her because she didn't notice I was there until later. So I cross to my side of the room and step into her line of vision to give her an exaggerated wave.

"What's up?" She only glances in my direction for a second, licking her crumb-coated fingertips as she continues banging on keys with her other hand.

"Nothing much. I was just at classes," I say loudly, even though she can't possibly hear me. Super loud rock music from a band I'm not familiar with – because I haven't listened to music that originated within the last fifty years, although I make a silent vow to change that as soon as possible – blares through her headphones.

Sinking down onto my bed, I pull my notebooks and my textbooks from my bag. The folded edge of my writing assignment pokes out from the side of my spiral bound notebook and my heart skips a beat as I debate whether or not to take it out and look at it.

It's like a bandage, I tell myself. Rip it off.

"What are you doing?" I'm so engrossed in my thoughts that the sound of Luna's voice makes me jump.

"What?" I yelp.

Luna pushes herself away from her desk and spins around in her chair. She peels off her headphones and lets the headset dangle on its cord around her neck. "You're, like, sitting there just staring at that notebook," she points out. "Want some chips?"

"Oh," I breathe. Oh, crap. I probably look completely crazy sitting here staring at my notebook like it contains something radioactive. "No, thanks."

She raises her eyebrows. "Is that for your writing class?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"Well, the way you doodled 'Creative Writing 207' on the back of the notebook was a little bit of a giveaway."

I flip the notebook to the other side, immediately flushing warm at the realization that I was likely mindlessly doodling during Professor Ryan's class like some kind of immature love-struck teenager mooning over a crush. Thank goodness I didn't doodle his name and a bunch of hearts and flowers.

I almost choke at the thought.

No. I wouldn't do that, because I don't think of Mr. Gabe in the context of a crush.

I don't have a crush on that man.

I can't.

"Oh. Yeah, I was just drawing," I reply lamely.

Luna laughs. "I get so bored during my classes. I mean, not just during them. I get bored during a lot of things, but especially classes because they go so fucking slow. So I usually spend them half-listening while I play games on my laptop."

"Is that what you're doing right now?" I ask. "Playing games?"

"Nah. Right now I'm hacking the State Department website," she says nonchalantly.

My eyes go wide. My roommate is a hacker? "Um..." I let my voice trail off because I have no idea how to respond to Luna's disclosure of criminal behavior.

Luna chortles. "Oh my God. The expression on your face is priceless," she hoots. "Chill out. I'm not hacking anything. I was just playing a game. Holy shit, you were about to drop dead of a heart attack right here in our room because you thought I was literally in the middle of hacking a federal government website!"

My face warms with embarrassment. "Of course not," I scoff. "I wasn't thinking that. I was just thinking that hacking the State Department's website is petty stuff. Any old roommate can do that. Hacking the FBI or CIA websites would be a lot more impressive."

She grins. "Well, looky here. The preacher's daughter has a sense of humor. Maybe we will get along, after all."

"Maybe we will," I reply, pausing to impetuously add: "Marijuana dealer's daughter."

Luna laughs. Then she pulls her headphones from around her neck and tosses them onto the desk before getting out of her chair and depositing herself on the foot of my bed without asking. I wonder if I've passed some kind of roommate initiation test.

She props her bag of chips up on her stomach and rummages around in it as she eyeballs my notebook. "So, is that your writing, or what?"

"Yeah." I set it down on the pillow beside me with a shrug. "It's not a big deal. Just this little piece I wrote for my first assignment for my creative writing class."

"Creative writing," she repeats, sitting still for less than five seconds before pulling herself up and reaching across the foot of the bed to grab something from her nearby desk. Turning around, she holds out a pack of gum. "Want some?"

"I'm okay."

"Suit yourself." She pops a stick into her mouth before balling up the wrapper and shooting it at the trash can across the room as if she's playing basketball. It bounces off the side and rolls behind it toward the wall, but she doesn't stand up to get it. "So, you must be really good."

"At what?" I ask, drawing my knees up to my chest. Luna makes me nervous. She's cool. She's the kind of girl who has lots of life experience and tons of friends.

I'm the kind of girl who has none of those things.

Growing up, my father was very particular about who I could and could not spend time with - and someone like Luna would never have met with his approval. I was never really allowed to just "hang out" with anyone either (my father would quote that old phrase about idle hands and the devil's work) so just sitting here hanging out with Luna makes me a little anxious. I haven't exactly gotten comfortable with social situations to begin with, but roommate-hanging-out situations are somehow even more stressful than other ones.

"Writing," she replies, as if it should be obvious. "You're taking Gabriel Ryan's class, aren't you?"

I nod. "I don't know if I'm good. I mean, maybe I am, I guess. I'm not sure, honestly. I sent in a writing sample when I applied to get into the class, but no one has ever read anything I've written before, so I truly don't know."

Luna raises her eyebrows. "How does that happen?"

"Um, I just never showed anyone my writing."

"So how do you get into that class if no one's ever read your writing and you're not even sure you're good?"

The way she's asking the question sounds accusatory, and a flood of guilty thoughts fill my head, even though I have nothing to feel guilty for.

Because I knew Gabriel Ryan when I was a kid.

Because he grew up with my father.

But Mr. Gabe read the writing applications blind, didn't he? He said as much when my father and I showed up at his office. Besides, he seemed genuinely surprised to see me. Actually, shocked was more like it. And upset. Definitely upset.

None of that was an act. It couldn't have been. Mr. Gabe didn't want me in his class and he hasn't warmed up to me at all. In fact, he seems annoyed that I haven't dropped out of his class yet. I wonder if he expects me to.

When I look up, Luna is staring at me, clearly waiting for a response. "Oh. Um, I'm not sure how I got into the class. I just applied."

I leave out the part about knowing him.

It's a little white lie, a lie of omission. My father would be appalled. "God hates a liar," he would say.

But it can't really be a lie, I tell myself. The fact that I used to know Professor Ryan is completely irrelevant.

"I'd never heard of him before. Apparently he's a famous writer or something?" Luna pauses for all of a split second before going on without my answer. "I just overheard some girls talking about you when I was getting out of the shower this morning."

I'm confused. "Talking about me?"

Who would be talking about me??

I've hardly spoken more than two words, mostly "hello" and "good morning", to anyone on my dorm room floor over the past week. Learning where my classes are and navigating the dining hall and the bookstore and signing up for the work-study program have been my only priorities. Socializing has not been on my agenda.

That would undoubtedly please my father.

"Yeah, you," Luna says with a grin. "Do I look like I know anything about writers or who's a famous writer? I heard these bitches talking shit about the Amish girl on our floor who was in Gabriel Ryan's class."

She says it all so casually that I don't even know what part of that to process first. "Talking sh—" I pause. The curse word is on the tip of my tongue, and I almost dare to repeat it but I can't quite bring myself to. "Talking crap about the Amish girl? Who's the Amish girl?"

Luna looks at me meaningfully.

"Me?" I blurt. "I'm the Amish girl?"

Luna rolls her eyes. "Don’t worry about those girls. They're legacies. Big boobs, no brains, family money. Doing the dorm thing for the experience of living like the rest of us plebes for a year." She emphasizes the part about experience with a breathy tone and another roll of her eyes.

"Legacies?" I ask. Luna talks so fast that I have a hard time keeping up with her train of thought. She doesn't stop moving either, her foot jostling my mattress as she talks. She's a tiny bundle of energy.

"You know," she sighs. "Kids whose parents went to this school and their parents went to this school and their grandparents went here, back for generations and blah blah. Legacies. They're not like us."

They're not like us.

I'm so blindsided by the fact that Luna just put both of us in the same category that I don't know how to respond.

She doesn't seem to notice my shock, though. She just continues talking.

"Anyway, you know the type," she goes on, waving her hand dismissively. "They're all spoiled and shit."

I nod sagely as if I do know the type. The reality is that I know nothing about anyone spoiled. I've never met a spoiled rich girl before. A town like South Hollow didn't have a single wealthy person in it. That was reserved for the next city over, a half an hour away. I think I'd been there once.

Mr. Gabe is the only famous person that South Hollow ever birthed, and he only became famous after he left the town, which can't be a coincidence. Even when I was a kid, I knew that staying in South Hollow would inevitably suck every bit of creativity or desire for something more right out of anyone who lived there. I used to wonder if that's what happened with my mother, if the town got to her and she just couldn't take it anymore and that's why she left.

The older I got, the more I realized that it probably wasn't the town that drove her to it.

"I'm not Amish, you know," I blurt out.

I feel silly explaining myself.

I also feel even more self-conscious than ever in my long dress. But it's not like I have tons of extra money to spring for a new wardrobe. I barely had any savings in my bank account when I left South Hollow, and the money I did have was because I'd been stashing all of my babysitting cash in the bank for years, saving up for a rainy day. My work-study money will help some – when I start getting paid – but still, it's not like I can just go out and start shopping for new clothes the way most of the students here can.

"No shit, Purity," Luna says. She hesitates for a second. "Do you have a nickname? It's kind of weird calling you Purity."

If anyone else in the world had said that, it would be offensive. But Luna looks at me like she just asked about the weather instead of telling me my name was weird.

I think the girl might be missing the part of her brain that has to do with filtering things. She just blurts out whatever pops into her head and then looks at you like it shouldn't be offensive.

In the span of two minutes, she's said my clothes make me look Amish, told me a bunch of girls were talking crap about me, and proclaimed my name weird. I'm not entirely certain whether she totally hates me or if she thinks we're friends.

"Weirder than Luna Moon?" I ask.

Luna just laughs. "When I was thirteen, I told everyone my name was Jane. It drove my mother up the fucking wall. She said no kid of hers was going to be Plain Jane anything. When I started wearing khakis and polo shirts to school, I thought she'd have a stroke. You'd have thought by her reaction that I killed her cat or something. My big act of teenage rebellion was being the same as everyone else. Oh – and coming to this school. My mom is terrified that I'm going to get indoctrinated here and go work for Wall Street."

"My father thinks this school is the work of the Devil, too."

"Well, that's something our parents have in common, then," Luna says, pausing as she appraises me. "So should I just call you Amish girl now?"

I look down at my dress again. "Are my clothes that bad?"

"Oh, please," Luna scoffs. "I was only teasing, Purity. In case you haven't noticed, my sense of humor is a little…"

"Off?" I ask.

"See? You get it," she says. "I'm a little sarcastic. And your clothes are totally fine. Your dresses are cute in a retro, fifties kind of way."

I groan. "I look like a fifties housewife?"

Luna's hand goes to her mouth as she evaluates me. "Yeah, definitely fifties housewife. If you shortened the skirt a little bit and added some makeup, you could definitely have a sexy pinup vibe going, though."

I groan again. "I need new clothes."

"Oh, please. Fuck those bitches," Luna says. "Who cares what anyone thinks? If you like your style, then rock it."

"I'm not sure this is the kind of style you 'rock'," I say, letting out an exasperated sigh. "And I don't think this is really my style, exactly. This is what I was allowed to wear back home."

"Allowed?" Luna screws up her face.

"My father is pretty strict," I admit. My face begins to feel warm again. "He's a preacher. I wasn't really allowed to wear anything immodest or, well, do anything much. I mean, um, that sounds worse than it was –"

I stop short in the middle of reflexively justifying my upbringing. Why am I trying to defend it? Honestly, it kind of sucked in a lot of ways. And I don't even know how to explain any of it to a girl who was raised by a mother who let her wear what she wanted and cut her hair how she wanted and get piercings and tattoos and express herself.

"Duuuude," Luna says, drawing out the word. "Is your dad, like, some kind of cult leader? I mean, no offense, I know he's your dad and everything."

My face warms with embarrassment. "No," I say slowly. "I mean, I don't think so." But the truth is, this isn't the first time I've heard the words "cult leader" and my father's name spoken in the same sentence. I once overheard Mrs. Cooper, the town librarian who sneaked me books to read that she knew my father wouldn't allow, calling my father's church a cult. She thought I was on the other side of the library stacks reading, but I had wandered back over to give her a book and she was deep in the middle of a heated conversation with Mr. Adams, who owned the town's only convenience store.

My father didn't like Mrs. Cooper or Mr. Adams. He called Mr. Adams a reprobate and insisted that his churchgoers never patronize the store because they shouldn't do business with non-believers. I was never really quite sure why Mr. Adams' beliefs about God would have anything to do with whether he could run a convenience store, but to my father and his church members, they were apparently crucial.

"He's a preacher," I explain lamely.

"So he's, like, a Methodist or a Baptist or something?"

"Um, no," I reply. "He – His church isn't really a mainstream church or anything. He always said that the mainstream denominations had become too liberal, so he made his own church, one with a greater sense of patriarchy –"

I stop short in the middle of my explanation, because it sounds really sketchy now that I speak the words aloud.

"Holy shit," Luna breathes, her eyes wide. "One with more patriarchy?"

I think I might vomit. My face is warm and I can't breathe. This was a lot less humiliating before I started talking about it.

"Damn, I've never known anyone who was a cult member," Luna says.

"I wasn't in a cult," I protest weakly. The term sounds crazy and fanatical, so it can't possibly apply to me. Most of the people I grew up with were pretty normal, right?

I mean, normal is relative, I guess.

Oh, my gosh. Maybe it was a cult.

It couldn't be. Cults don't let you leave, and my father drove me to college himself. So he can't be that bad.

Luna is still looking at me like I have three heads, so it might be that bad.

"It would be kind of cool if you were," Luna admits, shrugging. "I mean, you know – in a completely fucked up, totally weird way."

I can't help but laugh. "You're totally weird."

She nods. "Yeah, I am," she says, matter-of-fact. "In case you haven't noticed, we both are. This here is the freak show dorm room. Maybe we should have a sign made for the door."

She says it deadpan and, for a second, I think she's actually serious. Fear clutches at my chest at the thought of her advertising to the world that we're a pair of weirdoes.

"Embrace it, Purity," she says, laughing as she pulls herself up off my bed.

"Embrace what?"

"Your weirdness," she declares. "Hey, I'm going to hit the vending machine. You want something?"

I shake my head.

Embrace your weirdness, she declares nonchalantly – the same way Professor Ryan says that perfect is boring.

That's easy for her to say.

Easy for them both to say.

I wait until she's gone before I pull my assignment from my notebook. My heart sinks when I see the phrases in red pen scattered throughout the paper:

Stilted and stiff.

Dull.

Yawn.

Is this really how you think people act?

No passion.

Flat characters – where is the fire?

At the end, nothing more than a final declaration: Give me three-dimensional characters, Purity. Write something that's not boring.

I can't help but hear his voice in my head as I read his words, as if he's standing right here speaking them directly to me. Each phrase hits me like a punch to the gut, one blow after another.

There's not a single piece of positive feedback on the paper.

I wasn't expecting to be lauded for my fantastic writing skills, but there is not one thing that's redeemable about what I wrote?

His feedback shouldn't affect me the way it does. I should be detached, objective, and reasonable about it. It's only an ungraded piece of writing for a class.

Yet I find myself sitting here staring at it while tears begin to form in my eyes.

When Luna bursts back into the room, a bag of candy in her hands, she stops short. "Oh, God. Is it that bad?"

"It's constructive criticism," I mumble, although I'm not sure about the constructive part. "I shouldn't care –"

I stop talking because if I say anything else I'm going to cry, and I refuse to cry in front of my new roommate.

She holds out the bag. "Want some candy? Sugar makes everything better."

"I'm not sure it makes this better," I tell her, reading from the page: "Unexciting, unconvincing, naïve, and immature. Lacks any depth of character."

Luna grimaces and tosses the bag of candy onto her bed. "Yeesh. Yeah, sugar isn't the right response in this situation."

"What is?"

"Get up and put your shoes on," she orders. "Obviously, pizza is the answer."