Say a Little Prayer(44)
“I know.” I start scrubbing the table again, harder this time. “He’s an asshole. And you’re all still friends with him.”
It’s not a question. I know how the world works. Pleasant Hills will always protect people like Greer and Collin—beautiful, talented, promising kids to mold in their image. Hannah and I were two of those kids once. I wonder if everyone knows it’s only a matter of time before the tide turns on them, too.
“Was that really your problem?” I ask. “Do you think she’s, like, going to hell for what she did?”
Greer shakes her head. “No, that’s not…I don’t care that she got an abortion.”
“Then what is it?”
I hear the plea in my voice, tremulous and desperate. I might regret this later. I might look back on this entire interaction through a haze of shame, but I need to know. Greer hesitates. She’s still staring at the ground, cleaning supplies forgotten on the table between us. Her fingers twist in the hem of her shirt, and when she speaks again, the words are so quiet I almost miss them.
“I didn’t know you could get kicked out of church.”
My hand falters, paper towels squeaking across the surface of the table. I throw a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure the others are still preoccupied. “What?”
“I didn’t know you could get kicked out of church,” Greer repeats. “I didn’t know that was something he would do, and I didn’t know it could happen so…publicly.”
“Yes, you did. He’s done it before.”
“Not to someone like Hannah. Not to someone like—”
She stops, the rest of her sentence hanging unfinished between us. Not to someone like me.
And that’s the crux of it all, I think. That’s why no one questions Pastor Young’s authority. I don’t remember the names of the other people he’d cast out. I hardly remember their faces, but I do remember the way the rest of the congregation talked about them—with soft, lowered voices and deliberately pitying expressions. A woman who’d filed a complaint about one of the board members. Another who was raising two small kids out of wedlock. People who already lived on the outskirts of the Pleasant Hills community, who didn’t have the time or resources to fight back.
Pastor Young had built an entire congregation around the single intoxicating belief that they were better than everyone else. That they were different, chosen, blessed. He can shun whomever he wants in the name of protecting his flock, and there’s absolutely no reason for the others to pretend to care. It’s not an excuse. It doesn’t change the fact that Greer and Amanda have spent the last four months making Hannah’s life miserable, but I wonder if they would have been so quick to push her away if they didn’t think there was a very real chance they’d be next.
I look up, forcing Greer to meet my eye across the table. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know. He’s not God. We don’t have to watch him hurt people.”
In the faint glow of the refrigerator, the words feel dangerous. A betrayal to talk like this with Julia only a few feet away. Greer sucks in a breath. The sound is loud enough to carry, sudden enough for the others to look up from their tasks, but before anyone can speak, a beam of light cuts through the kitchen window.
I freeze. Greer’s head snaps up, and there’s a single second of silence as we all watch the unmistakable beam of a flashlight sweep lazily across the opposite wall. Delaney leaps forward, slamming the refrigerator shut. Darkness swallows us whole, and for a minute, the only thing I hear is the rapid, uneven rhythm of my own heart.
And the sound of footsteps steadily approaching the cafeteria.
“Oh my god.” Torres’s voice turns breathy with fear. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my—”
“Shut up!” Greer hisses. “Follow me.”
With one swift motion, she sweeps all our cleaning supplies into the trash and herds us from the kitchen. Delaney shifts from foot to foot as we huddle against the back door. Julia’s hand closes like a vise around my arm, but the only thought running through my head is how completely screwed I am. Pastor Young already gave me a warning. If one of the counselors finds me here, hiding with his daughter no less, I can forget about my essay. I’ll be lucky if he ever lets me speak to Julia again.
Greer peers out the window, then ducks as the beam sweeps back through the glass. I press my back against the wall, directly underneath a painting titled Jesus Feeds the Hungry, and try not to think about the irony. When Greer glances back over the sill, her jaw is set.
“It’s a counselor,” she whispers. “I can’t tell who, but I think they’re alone. Do you still have the key, Julia?”
Julia nods, nails digging into my forearm as gravel crunches directly outside our open window. The figure stops, turns in a circle, and then, after what feels like ten of the world’s longest seconds, they head around the corner instead, toward the front door and away from us. The air leaves my lungs in a shaky exhale. I sag against Julia, but Greer doesn’t look remotely finished.
“Come on.” She pushes her way between us and grabs the doorknob. “Time to go.”
We slip outside one by one. Delaney keeps an eye on the forest as Julia relocks the door and tucks the key back under the mat. I peer around the corner, listening to the footsteps pacing the perimeter of the cafeteria. They’ll come back eventually. They’ll retrace their steps and find us here, huddled outside with no valid excuse.