On Friday night, Grant appeared in my bedroom doorway. He was twenty-two, confident, handsome, and everything my parents proudly presented to their church friends. But that evening, he looked uncomfortable. He told me he was sorry about everything. I asked what he meant, but he turned and walked away without answering. The following morning, I left at 10:59, just before Ellie arrived. As I drove away, I saw Grant’s red Jeep approaching with a dark-haired girl laughing in the passenger seat. She never saw me. I drove fifty minutes south to a peach farm owned by Hattie Brown, the grandmother of my best friend. Hattie was seventy-four, hardworking, and never one to waste time asking unnecessary questions.

When she saw my duffel bag, she simply handed me work gloves and told me to help in the orchard. That afternoon, she taught me how to thin peaches, removing smaller fruit so the remaining ones could grow stronger. Later, she stopped beside a tree everyone had wanted to cut down after a hard winter freeze. She scraped its bark with her thumbnail, revealing bright green underneath. Then she told me something I would remember for years: “Brown means dead. Green means she’s living.” I drove home Sunday evening carrying those words like a promise. I didn’t know then that I would need them to survive what my family had planned for me.