Say a Little Prayer(75)

I choke back a laugh, and I don’t know if I’m more surprised at the sound or the fact that Torres, of all people, is the one swearing. Julia sucks in a shaky breath, and then she’s laughing, too, head thrown back as she clutches the sink with her free hand. It’s a wild sound, almost hysterical, like she doesn’t know how to stop.

I step toward her. “Julia…”

“No, it’s fine,” she says, laugher still trembling through the end of every word. “I’m good. Everything’s good; I’m fine.”

She’s not. That couldn’t be more obvious. Her fingers tighten around the edge of the sink, but when she straightens and runs a hand down the front of her dress, she’s almost pulled herself together enough to sell it. If I didn’t know her so well, if I hadn’t also spent the last year suppressing my own pain, I might believe her.

“Thanks for checking on me,” she says, voice unnaturally steady. “But you should go back inside. The sermon isn’t over yet, and it’ll be a lot worse if you stay here.”

Amanda rolls her eyes. “Honestly, Julia, I’d rather spend all day in this bathroom than listen to anything my mother has to say right now.”

I glance over my shoulder. “You don’t think Miss Teen Ohio 1998 would be impressed with your behavior?”

“Miss Teen Ohio 1998 hasn’t had a complex thought in decades.”

“Well, I’m definitely not going back,” Delaney says. “I don’t even go here.”

Torres nods. “Exactly. I mean, I do go here,” she adds. “Obviously. But I’m not walking back into that.”

Julia looks like she wants to protest, but before she can start, there’s a loud knock on the bathroom door. Greer immediately slams herself against it and yells, “We’re busy!” in a way that makes me think she might have been a club bouncer in another life.

“Chill! It’s just me!”

Ben, his voice barely audible through the wall. I motion for Greer to let him in, and when she opens the bathroom door, he looks just as flustered as the rest of us. He’s panting, a thin layer of sweat already forming on his upper lip.

“What’s going on?” Greer demands. “What are they saying?”

It’s comforting to know that Greer Wilson’s intrinsic urge to gather every piece of gossip known to man still works in situations like this. I haven’t thought about the congregation since I walked out the door, but now that she brings it up, I am curious what we left behind.

Ben shakes his head. “It’s nothing, really. He’s still preaching and pretending your walkout was all part of his bigger lesson, but people are wondering where you went.”

I glance down at my phone. It’s almost ten thirty. The service will be ending soon, and I don’t want to be here when the congregation gets out. Maybe the others can go home with their parents, but I’m not sending Julia back to her father now.

Ben looks like he’s reading my mind. “We should probably head out before this is over,” he says, nodding in Julia’s direction. “How did you get here?”

“Hannah,” I say. “We can call her or my mom. Someone will come get us, and then you can hide in my room as long as you need.”

“Thanks.” Ben looks up, past me to where Julia still stands next to the sink. “You good, Jules?”

Julia doesn’t move. She just stands with her feet planted on the cold tile, arms wrapped around herself. Ben takes a careful step forward. “Julia,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”

She does. Her next inhale catches on the tail end of a sob, and I see the exact moment her resolve crumbles. She sags into her brother’s arms, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt as he carefully turns her away from us.

I’ve seen Julia cry, of course, but it’s always been from something visible. When a rogue softball broke her nose during practice. When we saw Little Women in theaters. When her childhood dog died. I knew how to comfort her then, what to say and how to say it, but this is uncharted territory. Ben whispers something into her hair, and even though I can’t make out the words, I see Julia nod ever so slightly. It’s another second before he finally lets her go.

“Okay,” he says, turning to face us. “Why don’t we figure out how to get home? Riley and Julia will meet us outside in a minute.”

I look up. “We will?”

“Yup. See you in a bit.”

He ruffles my hair as he passes, holding open the bathroom door so the others can file outside. Then it falls shut, and it’s just me and Julia, alone in the church bathroom with a very graphic depiction of female sin.

The irony, of course, is not lost on me.

I brace a shoulder against the wall as Julia turns back to the mirror, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Despite everything, her mascara is still perfectly in place, her slightly puffy eyes the only sign she’s been crying at all. There are only a few feet of cold bathroom tile between us, but for some reason, she feels miles away. She feels like a stranger. We’ve never gone this long without speaking, and our last conversation had been more than a little contentious. I’m not sure how to unwind the hurt still tangled between us, so maybe we don’t. Maybe whatever comes next is the beginning of the end.

I tense as Julia turns to face me, mentally preparing for a dismissal. Then she takes a deep breath, looks me dead in the eye, and says, in a practiced, matter-of-fact tone, “So. I’m gay.”