Say a Little Prayer(53)

“Nice try.”

Her face reddens. “This was a bad idea. I can’t—”

“No!” I grab the back of her shirt as she starts toward the stairs. “It’s fine! I’ll go again. I’m still mad they didn’t feed us yesterday.”

I hurl another ornament across the clearing and bite back a satisfied grin when it disintegrates against the ground. Amanda squares her shoulders. “Fine,” she says. “I’m mad about that, too, I guess.”

She tears another bird from its string, and this time, her aim is true. Glass falls to the ground in a glittering shower, and the locked doors in my chest swing wider. “There you go!” I cry. “I’m mad no one understands autonomy in this town!”

Amanda’s gaze narrows across the clearing. “I’m mad at my parents for assuming they know what I want.”

“I hate that I’m missing rehearsal this week!”

“I can’t believe I lost capture the flag!”

“I’m mad no one else seems to hate Pastor Young as much as I do!”

The instant my ornament shatters on the grass, I wish I could take it back. It’s one thing to be angry about the tangible way Pastor Young treated Hannah, but that last confession feels too personal. I shake my head as Amanda turns to look at me. “I’m kidding. That’s not…I don’t hate him.”

“Yes, you do,” she says. “Everyone does, a little bit.”

I snap a faceless angel off its string and take aim. “You don’t.”

“And how could you possibly know that?”

“Because I don’t think you’d spend the last four months actively terrorizing your best friend based on the whim of someone you hate.”

I hurl the angel as hard as I can into the woods. Its broken pieces catch in the sun like fallen stars, but when I look back over my shoulder, Amanda’s still watching me.

“You weren’t there that day,” she says, voice lowered like she’s afraid someone might be listening. “The way he talked to Hannah…It was like a warning. Like he could do that to anyone at any time. No one wanted to be next.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I know. That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

“What are you saying, then?” I snap. “Please, enlighten me, Amanda, because I’ve been trying to figure it out for months, and I can’t think of a single acceptable reason why you’d treat her like that.”

“There’s not!” Amanda turns in a frustrated circle. “Of course there’s not! You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t wish I could go back and do something different? I’m sorry!”

She lets out a choked, guttural scream and smashes her last ornament on the ground at our feet. I jump as glass sprays over the balcony. The woods fall silent, and when I look up again, Amanda’s eyes are a shade too bright, shoulders heaving like she’s still playing capture the flag.

I’m sorry.

A week ago, I would have tossed the apology back in her face. I would have shredded the words before they left her mouth, but Amanda is the second person to look me in the eye this week and talk about Pastor Young in a way that’s not wholly devout. She and Greer both said they didn’t feel like they had a choice, and even though my first instinct is to scoff and ask how neither of them saw this coming, there’s another part of me that remembers what it feels like to believe in something so desperately. I’d listened to Pastor Young preach about sinners and consequences for years without putting a face to the victims he condemned. Maybe I’m just as terrible and selfish for not noticing the flaws in his sermons until they started ripping me apart, too.

I swallow over the sudden lump in my throat. “Thanks. But that’s not my apology to accept.”

Amanda nods, gaze dropping to the floor. “Yeah. I know.”

For a minute, the only sound is the breeze wafting through the remaining ornaments overhead. I take a deep breath, and to my surprise, the pressure in my chest is gone. It’s like the anger unlocked something inside me, like putting a voice to the things that haunt me has somehow robbed them of their power. I wonder if Amanda feels the same way, if maybe she’d just needed someone to give her permission.

I turn to face her and, before I can second-guess myself, blurt, “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“Oh.” Amanda blinks, like she’d somehow forgotten the whole reason I’m here. “Thanks. I’m sorry you had to.”

In that moment, I think she actually might be. There’s a wary truce forming between us, made of broken glass and shouted secrets. Not enough to bridge the gap these last few months have carved, but enough to make me wonder what could be waiting on the other side.

This is what wrath can do, I think. This is what everyone is so afraid of.

“Come on,” I say, waving her toward the stairs. “Let’s go to lunch.”

And as we walk back through the woods together, I desperately wish Mr. Rider could see me now. I think he’d probably give me an A.





XIV


    Anyway, Here’s “Wonderwall” (the Lord’s Version)


“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Patrick Davies has a guitar.”