Slain (3 page)

“Thanks,” she says. “I just really need to talk to you about something. You always know exactly what to say to make me feel better.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I say.

She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it. I see Paige looking at us from across the room, painfully curious, grabbing her stuff fast and making her way over.

“I really think of you like a sister.” June says “I mean, I know we’re not really sisters. But if I could pick anyone in the world to be a sister, it would be you.”

“Thanks. That’s really sweet of you,” I say, not saying that I don’t really know her that well. Certainly not well enough to say the same of her. “So what’s going on?”

Paige pops in to our conversation. “Hey guys. What’s up?”

“It’s Nicolas,” June says, to both of us now. Nicolas, her boyfriend and my ex. I’m the one who broke up with him, but it was still a little weird for me when they got together. She was the first girl he dated after me.
 

At first I didn’t quite understand what he saw in her, but then it clicked. Looking up at you with those pale-blue eyes, asking you to love her back, love her the best, save her from her loneliness? She’s the epitome of that One Direction song, “That’s What Makes You Beautiful”, which is such a guy fantasy to have. She makes Nicolas feel like a superhero, which is something I could never do. She makes all the guys feel like that.
 

“I just thought, since, you know…you used to date him, maybe you could give me some advice?” June says.

“I don’t know if I’m—,“ I say

“You’re not breaking up, are you?” Paige asks. “You guys are, like, the cutest couple.”

Tears spring to June’s eyes. “I, um—“

“Come on, girls,” Miss Hope says from the doorway. “Time to go.”

“Oh no,” June says, giving us a desperate look. “I don’t have my stuff.”

“Later, okay?” I say. “Find me downstairs. I’m sure it’s nothing. We’ll figure it all out, I promise.”

She nods, then races off to a corner to cram her things into a backpack. She still hasn’t changed from her ballet outfit, and there’s stuff strewn everywhere in her corner. Miss Hope is giving her a stern look from the door.

Paige whispers to me, “Maybe you could get your parents to adopt her. Then you’d really be sisters.”

A laugh spurts out of me before I can draw it back, and I immediately feel guilty for it, so I elbow Paige. “Be nice. She’s harmless.”

J
UNE
AND
I
DON
’
T
get a chance to talk. Pastor Pete and Miss Hope have every minute organized to keep us busy, too busy for idle hands groping in dark corners, or in my case, too busy to talk to June.
 

It feels like I’ve played a million stupid games with the other kids by the time I finally feel the phone buzz in my pocket just before ten. It’s him.

I’m here.
 

Adrenaline spikes through my body, a heady mix of danger and power. My fingertips jitter with it. I type
“I’m crooning”
instead of
“I’m coming
” and send it accidentally. Who cares. He’ll understand. I don’t want to take the time to retype it. I want to see him now.

I run over to where I have my sleeping bag setup and grab my purse. My plan is to tell the chaperone at the door that I’m not feeling well, then disappear farther down the hall when they’re not looking.
 

“Emma?” Nicolas stands in front of me, looking both concerned and confused. “Have you seen June? I can’t find her.”

“No. Sorry,” I say. “But if I do, I’ll tell her to find you.”

“It’s just—I haven’t seen her in a while, and I’m a little worried.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Twenty minutes? A half hour maybe?”

My eyes nearly roll, but I manage to keep them steady. He’s worried about her after twenty minutes? It’s exactly this about Nicolas that makes me glad we broke up. His protective vibe is nice, but he can really smother a girl sometimes. “I’m sure she’ll turn up,” I say. “She’s probably gabbing in the bathroom with Ruth or something.”

“Yeah, probably. Thanks,” he says, looking around the room as I walk away, clearly still uneasy.
 

When I’m nearly to the door, there’s a burst of laughter behind me, and I look. Chuck Rand is bent over, Bic lighter to his butt. A huge burst of flame shoots out. Some girl I don’t know screeches in delight, and Pastor Pete is on them, taking Chuck by the arm and leading him toward Miss Hope. They talk, and Miss Hope scurries over to me.

“Emma, could you do me a favor?”

“Umm—“

“The pizza will be here any minute. I just need you to go up to the cafe and bring down a few more cases of soda from the pantry. Maybe another two hundred cans? We’re running low down here. There’s a dolly in there that you can use to bring it down. Can you do that?”

“I, ah—“ My mind is scrambling for a reason to tell her no, but I’m going blank. I can’t think of a single thing other than the truth: I have to meet a boy.

“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” she says.

And with that, she hustles to the door where Pastor Pete and Chuck are waiting.

Paige walks up to me. “What was that about?”

“Could you do me a favor?” I ask.

“Sure.”

I dart out into the hall and see Pastor Pete, Miss Hope, and Chuck going into the stairwell up ahead. I catch up fast. When we get out of the stairwell on the main level, I head toward the South Wing, opposite of where I want to go, just in case they’re watching.
 

Our church is built on the top of a hill and laid out sort of like a compass, with the sanctuary in a circle at the center and wings at every point: north, south, east, and the overpass to the church’s school on the west. The West overpass is technically a little more northwest. They made it that way so the school’s three large buildings (elementary, middle, high) wouldn’t obstruct the mountain views from the back wall of the sanctuary, which is all windows. During church, you can see them through the glass, majestic and purple, towering over the athletic fields at school. Some people come to the Sunday evening service just to see the sun set.

Pastor Pete, Miss Hope, and Chuck are headed toward the North Wing of the church, the top two floors of which make up the administrative halls where the pastors’ offices are. It’s also exactly in the way of where I need to go. I get to the Connections Café but I don’t go to the pantry. I wait there, in the dark, until I hear their footsteps disappear, then race back the other way.

I look, but I don’t see anyone. It’s dark. I open the door a crack. They have all the lights off outside because the youth group are the only ones here, and we’re supposed to be confined to the Youth Center. My eyes adjust. There’s nobody there.

“Jackson?” I whisper. Then I see movement. He peeks out from behind the wall, guitar case strapped on his back, those big dark eyes and wry smile shining out beneath his hoodie. He has the best smile. If a birthday present could be a smile, his would be the one wrapped like the thing you want most, its shape so distinct you’re 90 percent sure what’s inside, but still have to open it to see.

He saunters up to me, tall and broad chested and so handsome it makes the breath catch in my throat.

“Hey gorgeous,” he says, then wraps one hand around my waist and the other behind my head to pull me closer. He kisses me like he doesn’t care who’s watching, like he doesn’t care about getting caught.
Oh. My. God.

They always tell us that you can’t use kisses to judge a relationship, because everyone can kiss. Maybe everyone
can
kiss, but not everyone can kiss like him. When he finally pulls his lips from mine I have to stifle a giggle, stuck between giddy and scared and, well…
excited
.
 

He twirls a finger through my hair, slowly twining me closer to his face. “God, I missed you,” he says. It’s been eight days since I’ve seen him. Too long.
 

“Me too.” I kiss him back.

I think I see someone in the parking lot then. A dark movement among the cars. I tug him away from the glass doors.
 

“Come on,” I say. “We better hurry. I have to be back before the midnight service starts.” I grab Jackson’s hand and pull him with me as I run.

We race down the South Wing and into to the south stairwell. We go up two flights. This floor is used for our theater and media teams. Half of it is dedicated to theater practice space and storage. The other half is all film and sound production. We have a full recording studio where we record choir music and inspirational spoken word. We also have a small sound stage that produces weekly video content for the website. It’s mostly just the pastors speaking, or promo videos for whatever they’re going to be preaching about next.

I take him to the recording studio. It’s locked, there’s a lot of expensive equipment in there, but I nabbed my dad’s master key for this very purpose. Inside, Jackson’s eyes go wide.

“I can’t believe this. In a church? Holy shit.” Jackson pulls out his guitar.
 

“Told you.”

“You sure this is chill? You’re not gonna get in trouble, are you?”

“It’s good.” I smile. I’ve been counting the minutes. He will play his guitar to moaning, and I will sing lyrics that have nothing to do with Jesus, and we’ll bring the demo with us out to New York, where we’ve both been accepted at NYU. We will live in a city full of music, full of art and energy and little bars where we can make our own kind of famous. Me a softer, indie version of Katy Perry and he a modern James Dean.

And tonight—maybe, hopefully, oh god—will be the night that I finally give myself to him. If, of course, I have the guts to go through with it.

S
O
HOW
DID
A
girl like me get involved with a boy like Jackson? A boy who’s not in my church? A boy who doesn’t even believe in God?

The truth? It was like magic.
 

I know everyone says that, but for me it was true. It was like he materialized out of thin air once all my questions about God turned into answers, like he was waiting for me all along.

We met last October, at a football game.

“Go, Warriors!

Go, Go,

Go, Warriors!

We’re num-ber one,

And we know it!”

I force the cheer out with the other girls, but my heart’s not in it. I’m sitting on Katie’s shoulders, holding up the left side of the banner. It reads
If God is for us, who can be against us? — Romans 8:31.
Homecoming is against a public school this year, Arvada High. This message is for them. Apparently, God takes sides in high school sports now.

My fellow cheerleaders seem to think so. But it feels like a taunt to me, a jeer, not a cheer. It’s mean spirited and unsportsmanlike, even though we pride ourselves on our morality.

I’ve been noticing a lot of that lately. Not just with the cheerleaders, but at school, at church. How, even in stuff like this, we create ways to make ourselves believe we’re better than everyone else. It’s different than holier than thou. It’s my house is bigger than your house, my car is better than your car, my God is better than your God. For winners to exist, there have to be losers, and we love having the losers around. We don’t actually care about saving souls, we want people beneath us, a crowd of them, the bigger the better, like a pretty girl who only wants ugly friends.

I’m ashamed to think I’ve been standing right alongside them for so long. Last year at this time, I was the one making the banners.

The boys barrel through, ripping it to pieces. The remnant left in my hand only says,
If God
, which seems like the whole question lately, not just a piece of it. If God loved me… If God is omnipotent… If God exists at all…
 

They’re private questions, not ones I can talk to anyone about. And honestly? They’re not even really questions anymore.

Katie launches me off her shoulders, and it’s time to scream and kick. Finally. This is the part I can do. I jump and race along the field, hands up, waving at the crowd, revving them up. It gets me going too. I feel better, glad to give my body over to the movement of it.

Then I see him, or feel him maybe, because I turn to the opposing side. And he’s looking at me, helmet in hand. Only me.

His gaze frightens me it’s so intense. Dark eyes like mirrors, reflecting the arena lights straight back toward me. I feel locked in his crosshairs, afraid to turn my back. I only realize I’m standing still when Katie yanks my elbow to get moving. Another cheer has already started. We race to the sidelines, late.

I don’t see him again until halftime, when he’s heading toward the locker rooms and I’m lined up just off the field for the homecoming court presentation, Mike on my arm in his football uniform.

“Good luck, gorgeous,” the boy says as he passes, a cocky grin plastered on his face.

I can’t help but grin back, even though Mike is standing right there. My face blossoms red.

“Excuse me?” Mike says.

But the boy just keeps walking.

“Jerk.” Mike says, then turns to me. “Don’t worry, he’s just trying to get in my head.”

I wasn’t worried.

On the field they announce I’m homecoming queen and Mike is king. Of course we are. I’m probably the only girl in the universe who wishes she wasn’t homecoming queen. It feels like a burden to smile and wave and pretend I’m surprised and demurely accept Mike’s cheek peck so the crowd can roar.
 

I resolve again to break up with him, maybe after his birthday next week. Or is it the week after? Either way, I’ll do it. I will.

The other cheerleaders and I do our halftime routine with the band. I swear, as I fly up and spin through the air, I think I catch his eye again. But when I land and turn around to look, I don’t see him anywhere.

It’s me, not him, who, after the game is over, finds a place near their bus to hang out. I check my phone, as if I’m there by accident. It’s forever I’m standing here. The girls are texting me, trying to find me, but I don’t text back. I have to see him again. I have to give him a chance to see me.