Chapter Five
Coy
July 1988 – Carthage, Texas – Whisper Ranch
Lila and I laid on a pallet on the ground beneath a blanket of stars in one of the back pastures of the ranch. No one came out here, as the cattle had been moved to another pasture to let this one recover for a few months.
We’d seen each other every day since the night we met at my graduation party. And we’d both found that neither one of our families wanted us together. Both her father and mine had f*******n it.
Dad had this archaic notion that our family was better than others in the small town. “When your last name is Gentry, you’re expected to live your life a certain way,” he’d said, “and you only fraternize with people within your class. And you only date the best young ladies.”
My mother wasn’t even standing up for m
