It looked holy.
Or at least, that’s what they told us.
“Do you remember,” Becki says suddenly, softer now, “when you used to meet me behind the chapel before morning prayers?You’d sneak me the candy you stole from the gas station.”
I huff out a humorless breath.“I didn’t steal it.Tucker left the damn box open.”
“You stole it,” she says, bumping my hip with hers.“Gummy worms.And you always gave me the grape ones, so I’d stop crying before breakfast.”
My steps slow despite myself.
“That why you still hate grape?”I ask.
“No.”She shakes her head, eyes fixed on the church.“I hate grape because that was the year Daddy made me fast for two weeks.Only thing I tasted afterward was those stupid candies.”
I'm gritting my teeth.I remember that.I remember seeing her kneel on cold concrete with her hands folded, knuckles white as bone, while her stomach growled loud enough to echo.
“I wanted to kill him,” I say quietly.
“You were a boy,” she says.
“Didn’t matter.”I drag a hand over my face.“You shouldn’t have been crying alone.”
She glances at me then, quick, sharp, too knowing.
“You weren’t alone either,” she says.“Remember the night they made you sleep in the baptismal pool?Too cold to breathe, your lips turning blue while they said water would purify you.”
My throat goes dry.I hadn’t thought about that in years.
She steps a little closer, voice low.“You came to me the next morning shaking so bad you couldn’t button your shirt.I did it for you.You said you were fine.”
“And you said you believed me,” I murmur.
“I lied,” she says.“I always thought you’d freeze to death before you’d admit you were hurting.”
We reach the old church steps, rot-soft wood, overgrown vines, the smell of mildew and memory.
I turn to her.
“You shouldn’t remember all that,” I say.
“Someone has to,” she answers.“Otherwise, it feels like we made it all up.”
“Legend never believed us,” I say.
“Until he learned on his own.”
The wind kicks up the bush of her short hair.Something raw flickers in her eyes, anger, fear, grief, I can’t tell.Maybe all three.
Same cocktail she used to swallow, sitting beside me on the back pew while the Reverend preached fire and damnation and the choir sang loud to drown out the screams from the locked rooms.
Always imagined unruly kids being punished behind those doors.Punished like Becki and me.But what if something more sinister had been going on right under our noses.
She exhales.
“I used to think,” she whispers.“That we’d run away someday.Leave all this behind.”
“You and Legend.”I say, not questioning.Knowing.
