When I was twelve and my body was changing in sudden and unpleasant ways, they still pointed and stared. They said it would be any minute until the teenage boys got their hands on me, that they'd know what I was about, that I'd ruin families looking the way I did. I didn't understand that either but it terrified me. I was afraid all the time, looked over my shoulder constantly. I avoided my male cousins and their friends at all costs and refused to ride alone with any of my uncles. When I was fifteen and in possession of what could only be referred to as tits—for they were not breasts, they
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