Say a Little Prayer(25)

Some things are better left unsaid. There’s not a way to take them back.

“Yeah.” I tip my head up toward the cloudless sky. “We’ll see. How are you?” I add before Hannah can press me further. “Do you still have rehearsal this week?”

If she notices the sudden change in subject, she doesn’t comment. Fabric rustles on the other end of the line, like she’s falling back against her pillow. “Sure do. I have, like, three private lessons tomorrow for that adagio. The turn sequence at the end is still a bit shaky.”

I grin, momentarily forgetting my own problems. I would bet anything that Hannah’s adagio is flawless. Her Snow Queen solo in last year’s Nutcracker was so good I momentarily considered signing up for ballet classes myself.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say. “Didn’t Bruno say you looked ‘angelic’ last week?”

“Sure, but he also said he didn’t cast me as Aurora to have a subpar adagio.”

“Did he really?”

“No,” Hannah admits. “But he might as well have.”

I picture Hannah in her room back home, sprawled across her bed with the sun spilling over her lavender duvet. She always gets like this before a big show—quiet, withdrawn, intense—but today it feels different. Heavier. Eventually, she heaves a sigh.

“I don’t know. It’s probably fine, but it’s my last show. Most of the girls in my class are dancing somewhere after graduation, but I’m not. I went through a lot to make sure I could still have this, and I want it to be perfect.”

My throat tightens instinctively. “I know,” I say. “I want that, too. I’m so proud of you, Hannah.”

“Thanks.” I hear her smile through the phone as some of the tension finally leaves her voice. “But enough about me. Are you having fun out there? Making memories? Making friends?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. I used to love camp.”

“You used to love the Communion bread, too. No one’s accusing you of having good taste.”

Hannah laughs. “Well, try to have fun today at least. I know you’re still mad, but maybe you could let it go? Just for this week?”

I drag my toe back and forth until a small trench opens in the dirt before me. She knows as well as I do that I’ve never let anything go in my life. Liam Robertson stole my lunch money in third grade, and I still think about it every time I pass him in the hallway.

“I don’t know,” I say. “That’s pretty unrealistic.”

Another laugh floats down the line, and I relax, ever so slightly. “Fine,” Hannah says. “But don’t let it get to you. Don’t let them win.”

I glance down to where my tote bag still sits against the base of the pine tree, the creased corner of my prayer book just peeking out over the top. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I won’t.”

And I mean it. Pastor Young can threaten me all he wants. He can corner me alone and smile until his face aches, but I’m not going to stop. It was one thing to plan his downfall with my reputation on the line, but if this is how I keep Julia, I’ll do whatever it takes. Because why would she believe I’m a bad influence if I show her evidence of the dozens of things her father has lied about? Why wouldn’t she trust me instead? I might have to be careful now, more subtle with my plan now that Pastor Young noticed my little stunt with the picnic table, but it’s still doable. I can still win.

“Riley!”

I look up to find Torres waving at me from the parking lot. In the time I’ve been talking, everyone else has boarded the bus, leaving me alone on the sidewalk. I grab my tote from the ground and push myself off the tree.

“Sorry, Hannah, I have to go. See you this weekend.”

“Of course,” she says. “Good luck!”

I hang up and half walk, half jog onto the bus. Amanda is sitting in the front row, headphones on, face determinedly turned toward the window. Her fingers tap a staccato rhythm against her thigh, and for a minute, I wonder if she’s reviewing the same choreography as Hannah. She doesn’t look up when I pass, but Greer’s gaze lingers on me a second longer than usual. The two of us haven’t spoken since yesterday’s diligence activity, not even when our entire cabin tried in vain to pry Mike Fratt’s criminally offensive CD from our alarm last night. We aren’t friends anymore. I don’t really want to be, but I have the strangest urge to justify myself to her now. To prove I’m not the terrible person she somehow believes me to be.

Instead, I drop into the open seat next to Julia and let my head fall back against the cracked leather. “Hi.”

She raises an eyebrow in my direction. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”

“If your dad wanted everyone to be on time, he shouldn’t have let me come this week.”

Ben lets out a rough snort from the row in front of us. “Oh, he was always going to let you come,” he says. “The elusive Riley Ackerman returning to Pleasant Hills after a year of living in sin? No one could resist that. I’m pretty sure he still thinks Jules and I can Save you or something.”

He says it like it’s a joke, the words accompanied by a single eye roll and a wave of his hand, but an uneasy thrill crawls down my spine. Back home, I might have laughed it off, but here, surrounded by people who probably view me the same way, I have to wonder how much truth lives in the core of that statement. If maybe Pastor Young explicitly told Ben and Julia to watch out for me in the same warm, vaguely threatening tone he’d used when he told me to be careful.