Say a Little Prayer(7)

Ben closes his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I was asking what kind of food she likes.”

“Still a weird thing to ask someone you’ve known since the third grade, but okay.” Julia nudges him into my room, then freezes as she takes in the mess. “Whoa. What’s all this?”

I wince. Until now, I hadn’t realized it looked this bad. Without Hannah’s help, I have no idea what the different piles on my bed are for or where we left off. “It’s not my fault,” I say. “I’ve never packed for church camp before.”

“Hannah has,” Julia points out. “Multiple times.”

“She doesn’t count. Her suitcase is, like, two inches wide. I don’t know how she does it.”

“Well, she doesn’t bring this many shoes, for starters.” Julia reaches inside my suitcase and pulls out a lone sandal. “Why are you packing three pairs of Birkenstocks?”

I hesitate. “Options?”

Ben peers over my shoulder. “Why do you own three pairs of Birkenstocks?”

“I’m bisexual, Ben. It’s basically a requirement.”

He laughs and plops into my perpetually deflating beanbag chair as Julia starts rummaging through my suitcase. The two of them actually are twins, but it’s hard to tell by looking at them. Ben’s solid and tall, built like a linebacker, despite his distinct lack of athletic ability, and Julia is almost shorter than me. They both have their mother’s auburn hair, but Julia’s is smooth and wavy while Ben’s tight curls add a few extra inches to his height. The first day we met, I told them they didn’t look anything alike, and seven-year-old Julia had launched into a very thorough explanation of fraternal twins where she used the word “dizygotic” no less than five times. She’s always been like that—precocious, talkative, smart. I think she’d make an excellent addition to our drama department if her parents sent her to Madison instead of the Christian prep school across town.

“You don’t need five sweatshirts,” Julia says, dumping an armful of clothes onto the bed. “It’s not even supposed to be cold.”

“It could be!” I cry. “We can’t control the weather, Julia.”

“We’re not sleeping outside. You’ll be fine.”

I scowl as she drops another sweatshirt to the floor. I’ve never once felt like Julia judges me—not when I came out last year, not when I stopped going to church, not when Hannah told her and Ben about her abortion. It is, however, hard not to take her disregard for my graphic T-shirt collection personally.

“I just want to be prepared,” I say. “The pamphlet says to ‘expect anything.’?”

Ben snorts. “The pamphlet also says we have a full working kitchen, and that’s optimistic at best.”

Oh. My stomach sinks. I hadn’t even thought about food. Will there be enough? Should I bring snacks? Could I Uber Eats a veggie burger in a pinch? I glance around my room, taking in everything from the clothes dripping out of my dresser to the toiletries piled at the foot of the bed. My pulse hammers against my throat the way it always does when I feel underprepared, but I don’t think it’s the packing list I’m worried about. Not really. It’s more the thought of returning to Pleasant Hills when everyone has already made it abundantly clear that my family doesn’t belong.

It’s the memory of Hannah going to church the week she got back from Cleveland and coming home in tears because someone told Pastor Young she went to get an abortion. He’d singled her out in front of the entire congregation, told her to repent right there in front of everyone, and he’s spent the last several months leaving graphic pro-life brochures on our porch.

“Riley.” Julia’s hand lands on my arm, and I realize I’ve gone silent, glaring at my suitcase with a rejected sweater clutched in my fist. “It’s fine,” she says. “No one’s going to, like, make you memorize the book of Psalms.”

“Mostly because they made us memorize Psalms last year,” Ben offers. “It’ll probably be Corinthians this time.”

Julia shoots him a glare. “Not helpful.”

“What? It’s true!” He sinks further into the beanbag, arms folded behind his head. “But she’s right, Riley. We’ll have sermons, of course, but most people go to camp because they like seeing their friends. It’s chill. Except for capture the flag,” he adds. “That gets really intense.”

I hesitate. “How intense?”

“Last year, Mary Ann Thorton tripped and knocked out a tooth?”

I laugh. When I left Pleasant Hills, Mary Ann Thorton told everyone it was because I was “doing weed,” then cried in the bathroom when I said that gossip wasn’t very Christian.

“See?” Julia gives my arm another squeeze. “It’s fun. Dad will get super preachy, of course, but no one’s going to force you back to church.”

She flashes me a quick, furtive grin, and I don’t have the heart to say that I think her father would love nothing more than to permanently glue me to a pew. I never told him why I left. I didn’t have a choice, really. I just remember sitting in church the week after I came out, listening to Pastor Young preach about the dangers of homosexuality, and realizing with a sudden, terrible clarity that he was talking about me. I told Mom and Dad when we got home, and that was it. They let me stay behind while they occasionally attended church with Hannah, and when Pastor Young turned on her, too, we started spending Sundays together, making brunch and watching bad Hallmark movies.