I’m surprised when I see the typing bubble pop up on my screen so quickly. I sit up, my curiosity growing the longer it takes him to type.
Clarity I hope you’ll understand but I don’t think we should talk anymore, at least not right now. It seems like you’re going through some things and questioning your faith and I have been working very hard to not surround myself with sin. I want you to know that I care about you and I love you as my sister but if you’re going to turn away from God then you’re turning away from me too. I want you to be happy and I hope you find your way back to your faith. If you want to talk about it I’m here for you 100%.But if you’re going to continue down the path you’re on, which is an okay choice to make if that’s what you really want for your life, then I don’t think we can be friends. I’m sorry and I hope you understand. And I will always be praying for you and wishing you the best.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes, and my throat runs dry. My thumbs hover over my touch screen.
I want you to be happy…
My instinct is to deny everything, tell him that the Incident is behind me and that I never meant to turn away from my faith… But I also know Jameson deserves better than that. He deserves the truth, and I have nothing to say because I don’t know what that is.
Jamesonknowsme. We colored in pictures of white Jesus together during Sunshine Saints. We are friends. Well, I guess wewerefriends.
I wish you the best too.
I hit send and lie back down, feeling hollow.
Chapter ThreeTHEN
“Clarity, just talk to me,” Hannah pleaded, whispering outside my cabin window. I’d popped the screen back in place; I had vowed not to sneak out anymore.
“Hannah, we can’t do this—”
“Dowhat, Clarity?” The challenge in her tone made my stomach pinch.
I grudgingly popped the screen back out—so much for self-preservation. Hannah held out her hand to steady me, but I ignored her and the biting pain in my ankles when I landed off-balance outside my cabin window.
“What?”I hissed, instantly regretting it when surprise passed over her face. This hostile, standoffish gremlin wasn’t me, at least not with her.
“What do you mean, ‘what’? Are you okay—are we okay?”
“I don’t know. My friends won’t look at me. No one willlookat me, Hannah. It’s like I’m being shunned,” I admitted, hating that my cold resolve easily melted into embarrassment. The same embarrassment I felt earlier when Yasmin iced me out ofour lunch table… and Jameson didn’t do or say anything.
Go sit with your girlfriend,she’d spat at me. Hannah and I weren’t in a relationship—she wasn’t my girlfriend. But we’d talked about it, and for the first time, the word sounded nasty.
“They hate me, Hannah—”
“They don’thateyou.”
I toed some of the loose dirt between us, not convinced. “Why are you here?”
“Maybe I just wanted to see you.” She brushed her hand down my arm, usually a gesture that I’d lean into. When I didn’t move or say anything, she added, “We go home in a few days, and this’ll all be over. I’m excited for us to finally be together, like,together.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, the words coming out sharper than I intended. I met her gaze for the first time since coming outside. Her eyes were as hard as boulders.
“So that’s it, then?”
If it weren’t for the utter sarcasm in her tone, I would’ve just said yes and been done with it. If only ending things and moving on were that easy.
“So, a couple of immaturekidswho can’t think for themselves beyond a book full offantasystories—”
“Hannah—”
“Snitch on you for kissing someone you care about, and our plans just vanish into thin air? Ourrelationshipgets tossed?”
“It’s more than that, and you know it—”
“I know that you and I have something special.Havenothad.It’s not over. This feeling hasn’t gone away. I know that I matter to you as much, if not more than, you matter to me, and denying it makesyoua liar. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. That’s why we agreed to be together in secret. So, all of this”—she gestured wildly, hands flailing in the directions of the lake and the cabins and the camp—“maybe it validates your fears, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’thaveto change anything.”
I leaned back against the wall of the cabin, the wood weathered and smooth against my bare shoulders. Hannah took a step closer to me, ignoring the distance I’d tried to put between us, and waited.