Say a Little Prayer(77)
My throat aches. “You thought I hated you?”
“You hate a lot of people, Riley. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion.”
“But this is you,” I say. “I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you. I was angry, sure, but mostly at myself because I don’t want to lose you either.” I hesitate and add, “Did he really think that book was mine?”
Julia winces. “Probably. He didn’t think it was mine, that’s for sure. If he did, we would have handled it privately.”
“Do you think he knows it’s yours now?”
“I don’t know.”
I nod, and even though every aspect of the movement hurts, I take a careful step back. “Then maybe you should give yourself some time. Just to process everything and figure out a way forward that’s not, you know, totally detrimental to your entire life. And if you need me to not be around while that happens, I get it. I won’t be mad.”
Julia chokes out a laugh. “Don’t tell me what I want.”
“I’m not! I’m just trying to—”
“Riley.”
There’s her hand, next to mine on the sink. Last time we touched had felt accidental, like something that was bound to happen sooner or later, but when Julia slides her fingers through mine, firmly lacing them together, I think it’s purposeful. Like this time, she means it.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “I can do it.”
And when she reaches up to cup the side of my face, I know the instant her lips brush mine that she means this, too.
The kiss is soft, a gentle exploration. It feels like a prologue, like there’s a world where I kiss her a million more times just like this and each time means a little bit more. Julia’s fingers slide into my hair. Something about having that first kiss in a chapel and this one in a church bathroom makes me feel powerful. Like if I can do this here, in front of Biblical Tom Hanks, and not burst into flames, how many other rules could I break?
How many other choices could I make for myself, away from the chains of this place?
When we break apart, her cheeks are flushed, eyes wide.
“What?” I ask. “Was that too much?”
Julia shakes her head, fingers brushing lightly over her lips. “No. I just didn’t know it could feel like that.”
And god, if that doesn’t make me feel alive.
She’s right, of course. She always is. There’s a voice echoing in the back of my mind now, a relentless beat of This is how it’s supposed to feel. Like I’ve only just now figured out how to take a real breath. I squeeze her hand and finally, gently, pull her away from the sink.
“Ready to go?”
Julia glances over her shoulder, gaze skimming from the painting to the line of stalls to her own reflection etched in the bathroom mirror. Her expression solidifies. “I think I’ve been ready for a while now.”
And in that moment, I think she’s talking about more than leaving the bathroom. Again, she laces her fingers through mine. Again, I squeeze her hand. Then we finally open the door and walk out of Pleasant Hills Baptist Church together.
XXI
Amen.
T The summer before sixth grade, Ben cleared a patch of grass in the corner of his family’s backyard, tilled the soil until it came up clean and fresh, and planted an obscene number of sunflowers. The first batch died in an early frost. The second perished to a family of rabbits, but eventually he got it right. They grew little by little until they towered above the fence, a few square feet of sunshine in a dreary Ohio suburb. They come back every year, right as summer drapes itself over the city, and that’s where the three of us have taken every group photo of the last four years.
Birthdays, holidays, middle school dances. There’s a picture of Hannah holding her first college acceptance letter, one of Ben posing with a blue-ribbon portrait, and another of freshman year Julia lifting her shirt to show off her appendectomy scar. There’s one of me before a middle school dance, wearing a truly hideous teal chiffon dress with one finger held in the air in an effort to replicate the Hamilton poster, and countless pictures of the four of us tangled together on the lawn.
It was always a group effort, our parents standing together on the Youngs’ back patio snapping photo after photo as Mom called, “Riley, honey, focus! Look at the camera!” every five seconds. It didn’t work. I’m not looking at the camera in most of the pictures, but she still stuck them to the fridge anyway—a scrapbook of sun-soaked memories set against the backdrop of those same familiar flowers.
So it’s strange, I think, for the four of us to be dressed up for one of the most important events of our high school careers and not be picking our way through the Youngs’ backyard toward Ben’s sunflowers. Instead, we’re all standing at the top of Torres’s circular driveway, feet aching in too-tight prom shoes, waiting for the limo her mom ordered to whisk us away.
Torres’s mom is, apparently, always doing things like this. Hosting sleepovers and movie nights in the backyard when the weather turns warm, letting her children deck out the pool house to celebrate their friends’ birthdays, and ordering her daughter a custom prom dress from Milan, just because she can. They live in the same gated community as Greer’s family, but while the Wilsons walk around expecting everyone to know exactly who they are and what they do, Mrs. Torres had welcomed us into her home from the minute she buzzed us through the gate.