You always hear about fate and finding your soulmate, then ridding off into the sunset together to live a life of pure bliss. I can't say things happened to me in that ordered or any of it really. Mama always told me to keep my legs crossed and my skirts long. To wait for the right suitor to come trotting up to our front porch. That's all she had to say as she scrubbed the kitchen floor. That was my welcome to womanhood intro the day the blood showed up. But Mama never warned me about the woods.