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“Why?”
She kept dancing. “I just can’t, Nicholas. I can’t. I don’t even want to be here.”
She dropped her hands, fiddling with the bracelet now.
I grabbed her hands, willingly touching her. She looked into my eyes. “What’s going on with you tonight? You don’t want to be here? It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks.”
Kyrie stalked away, and I followed. She walked past Nicole and Jessica to an empty spot on the bleachers. I sat with her, glancing around the room to see if anyone was watching us.
When I was close enough that no one could hear us, Kyrie turned to me. “It’s all I’ve been talking about because I don’t want to think about everything else. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen to me.”
“You said the dreams stopped, Kyrie,” I said. “Has something happened?”He doesn’t want her.I’d found solace in Sorina’s words, a strange comfort. I thought Kyrie would be safe, and her assertions that she wasn’t having dreams anymore had strengthened that comfort. It never occurred to me they might lie to me.
Kyrie ignored my question. “The worst part about wondering if I would be taken, and if my parents would think I ran away, is that … I’ve wanted to. I’ve wanted to for years. I’ve written these notes, only to throw them away. I want to be a runaway sometimes. Start over, new town, new name. Somewhere where it wouldn’t be so hard to love … just to love. They think I don’t know what Jesus would think of my yearning. But I do. He would love me anyway. Because that’s what he is. But them?” She looked at her parents again. “They wouldn’t. They would think I was a failure. They would disown me. I would tarnish their beautiful image. I would lose my parents.”
“Is that worse than losing yourself?” I asked.
Kyrie looked into my eyes. “I don’t know. But—” She pulled her hand from my chest and placed her palms in her lap. I reached for her wrist and grabbed the friendship bracelet. I’d lost mine, though I couldn’t figure out where.
Kyrie looked at me again with a smile on her face that was almost sad. “When I’m with you and Nicole, and Billy, and even Jessica … I feel like I can be myself. Not the self everyone here knows, but the real me. I was so judgmental in the beginning, and I regret it. I’ve known them my whole life, and it took you bringing us together for me to really see them. It’s important to be around people who see you.”
I nodded, running a hand through my hair.
Kyrie leaned in, bumping my shoulder. “She sees you,” she whispered.
I turned to my friend, and her eyes were trained past me.
My heart stilled when I saw Sorina walk into the gym.
Her long red hair was up, and her eyes were rimmed in black, shimmering eyeshadow that made her blue eyes shine. Her pale skin was luminous, and I almost ran to her. My body reacting to her, desperate for her.
Kyrie squeezed my arm. “Go talk to her,” she said.
Before I could respond, Kyrie was gone. And I didn’t have to decide. Sorina walked to me, her body liquid, her white dress trailing behind her.
When she reached me, I stood, holding out my hand. She took it and I spun her, resting my hand on her hip, the other in her hand.
We didn’t speak for a moment, and I saw the Deacon watching us before I could open my mouth.
I moved so he couldn’t read my lips, but I doubted that mattered.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“Hiding,” Sorina said, looking up at me. She looked small, almost grey up close. I wondered what her attempt to save Amber had cost her. “I found the envelope you left at my house.”
“Who have you been hiding from?” I asked, ignoring her mention of the money.
“From you.”
I gripped her waist, dropping my mouth to her ear. “Why?”
Sorina brought our clasped hands between us, holding mine tight. “I won’t give you poetry, nor bedtime stories. No letters to long-dead loved ones. I’ll give you the truth, but nothing will be the same when I do. The night will break open. And someone will get hurt.”
“I don’t mind being hurt,” I said. I thought she meant my heart, something mendable, something inside I could pretend wasn’t broken. But that wasn’t what she meant.
Still, she spoke. “I know Diana talked to you about me.”
“She said some crazy things.” I cleared my throat, remembering her teeth, the way her hand felt around my throat. “But maybe the craziest part is I know it’s true, everything she said.”
