He introduced SonRise, and the four of us took our spots at the center of the stage.
Dad once told me our music was just as important as his sermons, and we should always choose them the same way. “Think about the people you’re performing for,” he’d said. “You know the lyrics backward and forward, but the people in the audience are hearing it sung this way for the first time, and they’re hanging on your every word. Think about what people in the congregation need to hear.”
Now we smiled out at the audience, meeting eyes with a few people, trying to make a link before we even began. Aaron stood at the bottom of the stairs, arms extended, ready to direct us.
Under her breath, Alyssa said, “Four, three, two, one…”
Logan kicked us off:
“We’re a million lonely people, all together on this needle in the sky, afraid of heights.”
Alyssa had the next verse, and I had the one after that. And then Jack took the first lines of the chorus, with all of us harmonizing with him.
“I dare you to love, I dare you to cry.
“I dare you to feel, I dare you to be here now.”
Dad had picked this song because he thought it would make people feel connected to us and to this room, to give them that sense of inclusiveness that made our school so special. But as I sang the words, I didn’t hear them the same way he had.
This song had nothing to do with being in a room that made you feel like you belonged. It was more personal than that. It had to do with being brave and taking chances, falling and failing, and feeling everything—love and sadness and pain and joy—simply because it was all part of the human experience. It all felt very Zen. Like meditation, it was all about being present in the moment and appreciating everything about it, the good, the bad, the everything. It was about finding your own truth and letting everyone else find theirs. It was about being in the world without hating and judging, just being and letting everyone else be, too.
And as I listened to Logan sing the lines, “Let your heart be your religion, let it break you out of this prison you became,” I felt the lyrics deep in my soul, as if he were talking directly to me.
I remembered the words Emory said to me that day three months ago, about blindly following my faith and never asking questions. And I thought about what Luke said that morning on TV, about living in the moment and soaking up every second.
When we reached the last line, we sang it in four-part harmony.
“I dare you to be here now.”
The three of them let their heads fall backward, looking up at the sky. But I rested my hand on my chest, and let my head fall forward instead. Dare accepted, I thought.
Ms. Martin stuck her head in the dressing room to tell me there was someone asking for me at the backstage door. I hadn’t even had time to change out of my costume.
I opened the door and found Luke standing there. He was wearing the same gray button-down shirt and black chinos he’d been wearing when I saw him on TV that morning. I threw my arms around his shoulders. “You came.”
Everyone was still bustling around backstage, but it was quiet on the other side of the door. I stepped into the hallway where we could be alone.
“I couldn’t miss this.” He kissed me. “You were incredible up there.”
I fluffed out my frilly white dress. “Hardly my style, I know. I tried to get Ms. Martin to let me alter it a bit, but you know…1901.” I smiled.
Luke smiled back.
“You skipped it,” I said.
“Yeah.” He locked his eyes on me, and I could tell there was something else he wanted to say.
“Why?” I asked.
He shook his head and bit hard on his lip. I could tell he was angry about something, but it didn’t feel like he was angry at me. More like he was angry for me. I stared at him, but he didn’t answer my question. And then he didn’t have to. I already knew the answer.
“She told you.”
My heart started racing and my chest felt heavy. The hallway walls seemed to be closing in on me.
“Em. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I wanted to punch something, but I pulled myself together instead. “Because it’s no big deal. It happened. It’s over.”
“It is a big deal,” he whispered. “It’s a really big deal.”
I piled my hair on top of my head for something to do with my hands. I knew it. I knew she’d cave. I knew I should have done more to keep the two of them apart.
“Hannah had no right to tell you.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
“I didn’t give her much of a choice,” he said. “I knew something wasn’t right when we hung up last night, and when I mentioned it to Hannah, her face gave it away. Don’t be mad at her.”
“Don’t be mad?” My hands balled into fists by my sides as I stepped away from him. “How can you say that?”
“She’s trying to help and so am I.” He took a step forward. I took a step back. “Emory, you have to tell your mom.”
He took another step forward. I backed away from him faster that time.
“See,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s the whole reason I never told you. Because I knew you’d say that, and you don’t understand. I can’t tell her. Not ever.”
I turned the doorknob, eager to get back inside, but it had locked behind me. I panicked, feeling like I had two choices: fight or flight. I picked flight.
I took off running down the hall, out the theater door, and into the parking lot, weaving around lines of cars leaving after the show. I caught a glimpse of my white patent leather shoe, and I realized how ridiculous I must have looked, tearing through campus in my Emily Webb costume. But I didn’t care. I picked up the pace, running past the tennis courts and the swimming pool, until I was near the classrooms, away from the cars and the crowds.
“Emory!” Luke was right on my heels. “Please. Stop and talk to me.”
I reached the restrooms and pulled hard on the door, hoping it was unlocked, but it wasn’t. Luke caught up to me.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I am not going to talk to you about this.”
“You’re going to ignore the whole thing and pretend it never happened?”
“Yes.” I leaned against the lockers. “It’s what I’ve been doing for months. Until tonight, it’s worked perfectly fine.”
“Emory…” Luke wouldn’t let up. “Tell me what happened.”
“You know what happened!” I yelled.
“I know Hannah’s version. I want to hear yours.”
I stared at him. I was only three blocks from home. I could take off running and be there before he could get in his car and catch up to me. If I wanted it to, this whole conversation, this whole night, could end right now. But I didn’t want to run away. I wanted to tell him. I needed someone other than Hannah to hear me say it. I pressed my back against the cold metal locker bank.
“I don’t know where to start,” I whispered.
The ground felt like it was wavering under my feet. I tried to steady my breathing like I did onstage when I got nervous, but I couldn’t stop my chin from trembling.
Luke rested one hip against the lockers, facing me. “Start with something easy. What day of the week was it?” he asked.
He got that from Hannah. That was how she always got me to tell her my secrets.
“It was a Sunday morning.” I heard the words come out of my mouth, but it didn’t sound like my voice. I closed my eyes and pictured my bedroom. Opening the door. Stepping into the hallway.
“The football game was blaring.” I twisted my dress around my finger for something to do with my hands. “I walked into the kitchen and went straight for the coffeepot. D-bag was standing at the stove making breakfast, and I asked him where my mom was. He told me she just left for the gym. He said he would have gone with her, but he had more important things to do…and then he pointed at the TV with the spatula.”
I sucked in
a breath, but my chest felt so tight, like it had shrunk and there was no longer enough room for air.
“There was a pile of mail on the kitchen table. Charlotte and I had both applied to Tisch for early acceptance. She had just received her early acceptance letter, so I’d been checking the mail every day, hoping to get one, too. I picked up the stack and started thumbing through it. And…and…” I stammered. “I didn’t hear him come up behind me.”
The memory made me squeeze my eyelids tighter.
I remembered the way he put his palms on the kitchen table on either side of my hips and pressed his chest against my back.
“He leaned into me and I felt his breath on the back of my neck. He kissed me here.” I pointed to a spot behind my right ear. “And then he slid his hands over my chest and said, ‘You shouldn’t walk around wearing stuff like this. You know I can’t control myself….I can’t be responsible for what I’ll do to you.’”
I looked up at Luke. “He said I walked around like that on purpose, just to tease him.” I shook my head. “I started to tell him that was total bullshit, but I didn’t.” I forced out a breath. “I didn’t say anything.”
Luke looked furious. I’d never seen him so angry.
“He had me trapped against the kitchen table. I couldn’t move. Or, I don’t know, maybe I could have moved. I’ve played it over in my head a million times, but…I…I didn’t move. I didn’t even try to move.”
Luke took my hands in his. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.
I shook my head because it wasn’t true. I should have moved that day. It was the easiest thing in the world to do, and instead I’d stood there, frozen. I’d always pictured myself as someone who’d throw elbows and punches and knees, but I hadn’t. I’d stood there.
“I didn’t get it,” I continued. “I was wearing a tank top and sport shorts. It was what I’d slept in. You’d been there the night before. You snuck out my window, and when you left, I changed into something I probably picked up off the floor before I crawled into bed. My shirt was probably kind of sheer…I honestly didn’t think about it.” I felt a tear slide down my cheek, and then another one followed. I brushed them away quickly. “He was my mom’s boyfriend. He was going to be my stepdad. I liked him. I was happy for them.”
Luke kissed my forehead and it made me feel safe. Safe enough to keep talking.
“David was still behind me with his hands on the table, and I could feel him pressed against me. It’s funny…I remember staring at his watch, like I needed to focus on something while I figured out what to do,” I continued. “But then he lifted his hands away, and the watch suddenly disappeared, and I was so relieved, because I thought that was the end of it. But before I could move, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into him. I stepped backward and lost my balance, and sort of fell into him, and I guess he thought I’d meant to do it because—” My voice was shaking so hard, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish the sentence. “He started kissing my neck, and I felt his hand on my stomach, pulling me into him again, and I felt his fingers between my legs and—”
“Stop.” Luke squeezed his eyes shut, like he could stop the progression of events that way.
“It’s okay,” I said. “That was it. I twisted away from him, and he let go. He didn’t fight me.” I wrapped a chunk of hair around my finger. “That’s the part I’ve played back in my head over and over again. He let me go.”
I tried to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t. They were hot and fat and streaming down my face, and I couldn’t control them, as hard as I tried.
“I don’t know why I didn’t walk away earlier. I stayed there. I let him—”
Luke took my face in his hands. “No. You didn’t ‘let him.’ You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? Not by what you were wearing. Not because it took you a few minutes to figure out what was happening. He did this. You did nothing wrong. Okay?”
I nodded. I couldn’t stop those damn tears from falling. And for some reason, I couldn’t stop talking.
“I started backing down the hall, never taking my eyes off him. I was waiting for him to come after me, or say something, but he didn’t. I went into my room, locked my door, and sat on my floor for the longest time, trying to figure out what to do. And how to tell Mom. And then I realized, I couldn’t tell her. Not ever.
“I had to get out of there, and all I wanted to do was talk to Hannah, but she was still at church, so I used our ladder to climb out my bedroom window, and I ran across the grass. I snuck into her house using the hide-a-key her mom always keeps under the planter by the back door.”
I thought back to that morning. I spent the first fifteen minutes walking around their house, checking every door and window to be sure they were locked. I went into Hannah’s room and shoved her desk chair under the doorknob, just in case. And then I stood to the side of her window, peeking between the curtains, watching my house, feeling for the first time in my life that it didn’t belong to me anymore. I’d never felt unsafe in that house. Not once. Of all the things D-bag stole from me that day, that might have been the one that hurt the most.
“When Hannah finally got home, I told her what he did, and she freaked out, like I expected she would. She said she was going to get her mom, and I tried to stop her, but deep down, I kind of wanted her to.” I paused to take a breath. “But then I heard her dad’s voice in the hallway instead. Hannah’s always been so close to her dad—she tells him everything—so I don’t know, maybe she thought the two of them were interchangeable, but they weren’t to me. I hid in her closet. I heard everything…” I trailed off.
Luke hugged me tight.
“She didn’t defend me,” I said into his neck.
“She should have.”
We didn’t say anything after that. I was all talked out, so we both stood there, staring at the lockers. After a while, we walked to his Jetta.
He opened the passenger door and closed it behind me, and I let my head fall against the window. The glass was cold against my cheek.
I closed my eyes as the car started up, and we backed out of the lot. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t care.
My phone chirped and I checked the screen. “My mom keeps texting me.”
“Tell her you’re not coming home tonight,” Luke said matter-of-factly.
We wound up his hill, through the trees, past the lights, and pulled up next to his mom’s car. Inside, the house was dark and quiet.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as we climbed the stairs.
“They’re at dinner with your mom and…him.” It made me grin. I liked that he refused to say D-bag’s name, like he was Voldemort or something.
Luke opened his bedroom door and closed it behind us. And then he went straight to his dresser. He took out a pair of sweats and one of his lacrosse sweatshirts, and handed them to me. I felt a lot more comfortable once I was out of my costume.
He walked over to his bed and pulled back the covers, motioning for me to climb inside. When I did, he pulled the comforter up to my chin, walked around to the other side of the bed, and climbed in next to me, still wearing his clothes. I curled up in the crook of his arm, rested my head on his shoulder, and tucked my legs between his.
We were quiet for a long time. My eyelids felt heavy and my whole body was weak. I was exhausted from all the drama of the night, onstage and otherwise.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.
“Why did you go to Hannah’s house that day? Why didn’t you call me? Or Tyler, or Charlotte? Any of us would have been there in ten minutes or less. Why Hannah?”
“I needed to get out of there. Her house was closest.”
Luke kissed the top of my head. “I don’t believe you.”
I propped myself up on my elbow, preparing to argue with him, but then I stopped. I felt my chest tighten and a huge lump form in my throat. I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, especially not myself, but I knew exactly why I w
ent over there that morning.
“I act without thinking. I always have. But Hannah never does. She thinks everything through, sometimes to a fault. I’m impulsive, but she’s thoughtful. She’s wise. She always used to say I made her brave, but she makes me smart.”
He smoothed my hair off my head.
“We used to joke about this yin/yang thing we have, but it’s true. We complement each other in ways people don’t understand. She’s always totally honest with me. She doesn’t let me get away with stuff, and that can be annoying sometimes, but it’s good, you know? Because she challenges me. She makes me want to be a better person. And she knows about all my flaws, and she loves me, not in spite of them, but because of them. And I love her the same way.”
Luke twisted my hair around his finger and never took his eyes off me.
“I didn’t come to you that day because Hannah was the one I needed. I knew she’d tell me what to do. She’d make it all okay. Deep down, I was still wondering if I’d done something wrong, and I knew she’d tell me I hadn’t. She’d get mad for me and protect me…”
“…but she didn’t,” Luke said, finishing my sentence.
I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes.
“I didn’t know what to do after that. I felt insecure and…broken for a little while there, and I didn’t want you to see me that way. I’m supposed to be the fun one, right? I’m supposed to surprise you. I never want to show you my flaws, but I don’t mind showing them to Hannah. She’s seen every single one. And she loves me no matter what.”
“I love you no matter what.”
“Not like she does.” I shook my head slowly. “No one loves me like she does.”
That was the last thing I remembered before I fell into a deep sleep.
After Dad led everyone in the final prayer, I was supposed to walk back into the audience and work the room like I had every other year, proudly introducing myself as Pastor J’s daughter, chatting with parents and prospective students, talking up Covenant. That’s what Aaron and the rest of SonRise were doing. But I didn’t have it in me. I was still all buzzy from the performance and I just needed to be alone, away from it all, where I could concentrate on what really mattered: Emory.