Madison lowers her glasses down the bridge of her nose, revealing puffy red rings around her blue eyes.
Good, she’s been crying. She should feel guilty.
“I… didn’t get to say goodbye.” Her bottom lip wobbles, and if it were any other person in this church right now, I’d lean in, wrap my arms around them, and comfort them through their pain. But it’s the girl who let him die with a broken heart. That lip could fall off from all of its quivering for all I care.
“You said goodbye to him the moment you slipped into someone else’s arms,” I remind her.
A rush of energy jolts through my body. It feels good, liberating even, to stand up to her for the first time.
“Hailey… I…” She tries to touch my arm, like that gesture alone will make me forget her actions. Not just her infidelity but the way she’s dismissedmefor years, pretending I never really existed unless it was important for appearances’ sake to make it known.
“You know, you’re right.” I stop her from finishing whatever pathetic excuse she was about to come up with. “You should be here.”
“Oh, thank you!” She gasps and grins like I just granted her access to Coachella without a pass.
“You should be in a church,” I continue, “asking God for forgiveness.”
I leave her in the foyer. I imagine a pair of glassy eyes watching the back of my head as I sit down next to the crew of guys who she could have gotten to know if she hadn’t screwedthings up with Dean. At least she didn’t come with Ben. I’ve seen him once since we got back. Long enough for him to put in his notice and transfer back home to Arizona. It’s probably for the best.
I hope she’s surprised by me. When someone breaks your best friend’s heart, you remind them of all the reasons why they never deserved a spot in their world in the first place.
The congregation now looks like a sea of black, something I hate the most about funerals.
The only discernible difference in the men sitting in the front row is their hair. Red, black, long, bald. Their shoulders are touching, and they’ve all found what looks to be matching suit jackets, probably from Pinned and Perfect on Third Street—the only place in this small town that rents any kind of formal wear. They look like a brotherhood. One I ran from for a very long time until I lived it for myself this summer. One I’m glad I belong to now.
I slip into the empty seat between my dad and Reed.
Reed places his warm palm on my knee. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just finding my voice,” I say.
The small cleft that I’ve come to love brackets one side of his grin. Then he leans in until his lips are touching the shell of my ear, and he whispers, “You’re really sexy when you’re bossy.”
A man older than the hills in a white dress shirt approaches the podium.
I blush and swat Reed’s knee. “Pay attention.” As I pull away, I lock eyes with the man sitting beside Reed. He’s formally dressed like the last time I saw him, but there’s no phone in sight.
“This is my dad, Emmett Morgan,” he whispers. “Dad, this is Hailey Hart.”
He extends his palm and shakes my hand.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hailey.”
It’s not until Reed smiles at his dad that I see it: warmth and vulnerability in his expression. A silent truce living between them, one that feels a lot like forgiveness.
“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Morgan,” I say as the soft instrumental music quiets and the reverend begins to speak.
“The McCafferty family has been coming to my congregation since the day they moved to town.” He fumbles in the chest pocket of his suit, pulling out a white handkerchief, and barks a gravelly cough into it.
“With five kids, they’ve always sat in the back. As the oldest child in the family, Dean was responsible for making sure his siblings stayed entertained during the service. He’d color with them, fold them paper airplanes they’d launch toward the congregation, and he’d let the littlest one sit on his lap so she could see over old Gladys’s bouncy perm.
“He was a wonderful brother, but he also cared a lot about the world. Four years ago, he came to me with a decision he was deliberating on for his future. He started our conversation with a hundred questions that all asked the same thing: ‘Reverend Michaels, will you please tell me what to do.’ I never said much, I just let him do the talking. And by the time he was finished, Dean had made the decision to become the next wildland firefighter for the United States Forest Service.
“I didn’t have to be a part of his crew”—he looks over at our row—“to know he made a difference in the world. He was loved enough to make an entire row of brawny men cry.”
I look to my right and sure enough, Murphy is weeping into a black cloth and Ramirez is pursing his lips and dabbing at the corners of his eyes with his pinkies.
“He was a devoted son, a loyal friend, a gifted firefighter, and a remarkable son of God. At the gates ofheaven, he is being welcomed home today. I’d like to invite those who wish to pay their respects to please come forward.”
