Page 74 of Plain Sight

“When did you figure that out? Because if you knew I was the Messiah the whole time, I feel like there should have been some preferential treatment.”

My dad’s eyebrows go up. I forgot—how did I forget?—that Gabriel does the same faux-stunned look.

“Jamie.” His voice trembles. “I gave you my name.”

My mom nudges him. “We.”

“We gave you my name. What could be more preferential than that?”

I let out a weird snort-laugh. “I really don’t want to be Jesus.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Oh—you’re right. That’s some other guy. You’re our Jamie.”

Every time I blink, there’s another shade of green. It looks like a T-shirt. The wide green field with its dome of blue sky and its trees and river and daisies is fading away. I squeeze my parents as tight as I can, but I think they’re fading too.

My mom goes up on tiptoe and kisses my cheek again. My dad kisses my temple.

“I love you,” Mom says. “You have my teacup.”

“Go in peace.” My dad’s arm around me is real. Solid. I try to memorize it. “You’re the bread of the world. Whoever follows you will have the rye of life.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad.”

“That’s the idea.” He ruffles my hair. It’s barely anything. Like a breeze. One last glancing kiss to my temple. “Love you, Jamie.”

“I think I’m waking up.”

Daisy grabs my hand and pulls. “Zee,” she says. “Zee. Zee. Look. Look. I wub it.”

“Daisy,” Zeus says. “We shouldn’t bother people who are sleeping. Let go of Jameson’s hand.”

Daisy squeals.

And then my eyes really are open.

I’m about an inch away from a forest-green T-shirt that has a dancing pattern on it, like the surface of a lake, and I’m—laughing? It’s a weird, sore-sounding laugh, more of a huff. Waking up laughing is new.

“Jameson,” Mason says.

From somewhere above me.

Like I might be lying in his lap.

“Jamie,” I say. I sound like shit.

Mason’s chest hitches. “Jamie. Are you awake?”

I turn, sort of—everything hurts like I got beat up again—and there’s Mason, and Gabriel, and Remy, and Lily, all gathered around, looking brave and teary-eyed and hopeful.

“Yeah,” I tell them. “I’m awake.”

18

LILY

“Oh, no.”

Jameson leans over on the oversized poolside lounger we’ve commandeered and wipes the tears off my cheeks with his knuckle. “Shh, angel. It’s okay.”