Page 108

I know the secret word.

Lots of secret words, actually.

Visible. Highlight. Shone a light.

I grab the flashlight on my nightstand and shine it on the letter. There, beneath the fake words Kappy sent me, is a different note entirely, with her phone number underneath it.

I miss you! And I was wrong. I thought Ford set the whole thing up, but he didn't. He told Leila months ago that he was messing with you because she was upset that you'd been seen together, but he says it was all real. He was the first one to go to the police. His mom went too. He said to tell you that he loves you, and he's going to wait however long it takes for you to get back—he even told Leila the truth. Please come home if you can. We can still figure this out.

Love,

Kap

I cry for a long time after I read it, but they’re happy tears. He loves me. He’s waiting for me.

I think I knew these things. I think I knew, even as my father was driving me away, that it couldn’t be the way it appeared. The whole thing just fell so neatly into that horror story I'd been told about kids in the normal world—that they trick you, that they're cruel and manipulative in ways you can't imagine—that I didn't give myself a chance to really consider all the pieces that didn't fit the story. Like Ford racing upstairs with my shoes, as if me leaving without them was the biggest problem ahead of me. Like the horror on his face when Larabeth and Kendall said the things they did. It wasn't the gloating, triumphant smile of someone who'd pulled off the biggest prank of his life. Like the way he reminded me a million times I could back out and said he loved me after it was over.

I wish he’d told me the things my dad did, the things he told Leila, but I get why he didn't. He was trying to protect me, and it all went sideways, but that no longer matters.

The only question at this point is how the fuck I get out of Bolivia.

31

Igo into the admin office the next morning.

“Hungry?” asks Tommy. “You barely ate last night.”

“Famished,” I reply brightly.

“I’m glad your mood has improved,” he says, rising. “I’ll let you into the kitchen.”

“Awesome. Hey, you mind if I grab a highlighter? My parents gave me this book before I left, and I want to note the passages that really speak to me.”

He hesitates for a half second. I’ve oversold my sudden turnaround. “Sure,” he says. I guess he can’t imagine how I’ll use a highlighter to escape the compound. Little does he know.

I force myself to eat a bowl of cereal while Tommy asks me about the book I’m reading. My parents did send God's Words for the Teenage Years along with me. I still haven’t opened it, so I give him a Rilke quote when he asks, and that tiny frown of his appears once more.

“Are you struggling to forgive?” he asks.

“I am,” I say. “I’m sure you’ve heard that I was dating someone in Penhallow? Ford?”

He chews on his lip and averts his gaze for a moment. “Yeah.”

“I’m trying to forgive him for what he did.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure you should. Some actions aren’t worthy of your forgiveness.”

I stiffen. I figured the elders would tell Tommy a bit of what happened, but it appears he knows all of it. “I guess you know what I did?”

He gives me a small, tight nod. “The church elders were able to get the video taken down.”

“Is anything happening to the girls who filmed it?”

He shakes his head, no.

I'm not even surprised. The elders probably told themselves they were simply being kind when they were just trying to bury what happened. Bright Covenant isn’t nearly as kind or loving as it pretends to be. Their god is one who punishes weakness and desire and almost every natural impulse, then punishes you for even asking if what you want is wrong…but does not punish a rapist, or a bunch of girls who filmed you having sex.

Kappy would say their god, the one who will smite you just for wondering about things, can go suck a bag of dicks, and I agree.