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“Text me when you get home,” he says. “So I know you made it.”

“I will.” My voice comes out rough. I don’t bother fixing it.

I get in. He shuts the door with a soft click, taps the roof twice, and walks back toward the warm loud house, toward the whole life I got to sit inside of for one evening.

I sit in the driveway a second longer than I need to. Then I let it out, the breath I’ve apparently been holding since his eyes dropped to my mouth, long and slow, both hands loose in my lap because I don’t trust them yet.

Then I drive home, one hand drifting up to my cheek, to the exact spot his thumb was, thinking about the thing that almost happened. The one we both wanted. The one he was decent enough not to take.

I don’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed.

I decide I’m a little of both.

Chapter 11

Olivia

I find Dottie in the third row.

This morning it’s just her, holding the seat next to her with her purse the way generals hold territory.

“There you are.” She pats the seat beside her like it was always mine. “Sit.”

I sit.

Bo isn’t with her. I feel his absence before I think to ask about it, which is a strange thing to feel about a kid I’ve met twice.

“He’s in his class,” Dottie says, reading my face. “He only comes to big church when Luke’s here. Sits right next to him the whole service. But when Luke’s on shift...” She shrugs. “Big church is a lot without his dad in it. His class is simpler. Same room, same people every week. He likes knowing what’s coming.”

I nod. It makes sense.

The lights dim. The band comes up.

And I notice, before I can stop myself, that I’m looking for Luke.

He isn’t here. I know he isn’t here. He’s at the station, probably halfway through somebody’s worst day, and last night he stood in his driveway with his hand on my face and decided, out loud, not to kiss me. I’ve thought about it roughly every twenty minutes since.

I make myself face the stage.

The music is good. It’s always good. But the songs are ones I’m still learning, and if I’m honest, they don’t land on me the way the last two Sundays did.

Those cracked something open. These just pass through.

Pastor Jack does not walk on stage after the music ends. It’s a guest.

He is a missionary home for a season, and he talks about a village I’ll never see and a well that took three years to dig. It’s a good message.

It just doesn’t have my name on it.

But somewhere in the middle of the message, I look around.

Two rows up, a woman is crying without bothering to wipe her face. A man near the aisle has his eyes closed and one hand open on his knee. A teenager who slouched through the entire worship set is suddenly paying attention.

It’s landing. Just not on me. On them.

I spent a lot of years believing church was a transaction. You show up, you feel something, you leave changed, and if you don’t feel something, it didn’t work. Me at the center of it. Me, keeping score.

But maybe the point was never that every service is for me.