Churchgoers have started funneling into the nave. I nudge him, and we join them. The last time I came to a service here, it was with Alissa, and we sat with her family in the middle of the pews, lost in the crowd. This time we’re right in the front row, practically at the foot of the altar. Behind the altar is another huge cross hanging before a stained-glass window depicting Jesus with the sun halo around his head. It’s beautiful, but the beauty I find in it is entirely separate from the people here and the reason they’re all in this place.
The Whitakers sit at one end of the pew, then Ash, then me, then my mom. Mrs. Whitaker looks more pulled together than she was at the funeral, but Mr. Whitaker seems to have gone entirely gray since Wednesday.
The first half hour of the service is all about song. Thirty minutes of Christian music that doesn’t sound bad but makes me uncomfortable in a weird, cognitive dissonance kind of way. Most of the congregation is singing. Only Mrs. Whitaker, in our group, has joined in. Sometimes I think people who go to church live in an entirely different world than I do, but Ash goes to church, and so did Alissa, and they definitely live in the same world as me. At one point, Ash gets a notification on his phone and tilts it my way to show me—it’s a news story about the features of theupcoming Dreambreaker expansion—but I don’t get to read it because Mrs. Whitaker notices and hisses at him to put the phone away. I appreciate that he tried, though.
After the music portion, there’s some scripture reading. I mostly zone out during this, instead thinking about what items I need to buy and skills I need to upgrade before I run instances today with Ikelos Lair. I also need to check Alissa’s guides for information about boss rotations and map layouts. Instances in CoH are designed for four-player parties—one tank, one healer, two DPS—so I need to make sure I perform my role the best I can. I need everyone in the clan, not just Zookini, to know I’m serious about the game too. And good at it.
Finally it’s time for the sermon. The pastor is a guy in his late forties and has the kind of Christian handsomeness that guarantees he has a pretty blond wife and two point five children. Pastor Mitchell. I made fun of him to Alissa last time I was here, because he seemed so mechanical.
“Heactssuper nice, but it’s weird, right?”
“In what way?”
“He’s, like, not real. It’s like he memorized lines. He looks through everyone instead of at them. It’s weird.”
“You’re so critical of people.”
She was right, I am, and Pastor Mitchell hasn’t gotten any better.
“Good morning, everyone.”
The entire room chants, “Good morning, Pastor Mitchell,” back at him.
“The Spring is on its way. I wish I had something to share with you that might celebrate it, but we’re not here today to celebrate. We’re here today to remember. One of our own, Alissa Whitaker, took her life this past weekend.”
There’s a screen hanging on the wall next to the big stained-glass window. A projector throws up a picture of Alissa. Sophomore year school photo. She still had braces then. Ash’s arm goes stiff next to mine.
“It is an unspeakable tragedy to lose someone so young. Alissa was not in the prime of her life. She had yet to graduate high school, experience college, find love and marriage, have children of her own. She has left behind not only her parents and brother, but all of us.”
Yes,I think,because marriage and children are every woman’s goal in life.
“Alissa was a straight-A honor roll student and a track and cross-country star. She lit up every room she entered. She wanted to go to Ball State for communications. Even if we did not know Alissa personally, we know girls like her. They are beset by pressures from all sides: ads telling them to wear less clothing, eat less food, wear more makeup, buy more things. It ishardto be a teenager in today’s world.”
I don’t think he’s wrong, but he sounds like he’s reciting something someone else told him.
“We cannot know what brought her to the decision she made,” he continues. “No one of us can know what another person is thinking. But what wecanknow—what we can always believe in—is that God has a plan for us. God alone can know our thoughts, and when we are in our darkest moments, God alone can help us. When a tragedy like this happens, it is not because God did not want to help, and it is not because Alissa did not deserve His help. It is because help was not sought.”
Anger flashes up in me at the same time I feel Ash’s, like an electric current raising all the hairs on my body. “What the fuck?” Ash whispers. Only I hear him. Mrs. Whitaker has buried her face in Mr. Whitaker’s shoulder.
“Might things have turned out differently if Alissa had reached out to God? We will never know, but I believe they would have. As we see today’s teens moving away from the church and our Heavenly Father, we see more and more of them taking their own lives. How do we stop this epidemic? How do we convince these children that these worldly pressures are nothing compared to the glory of God’s light? That the greatest sin is to reject the sanctity of human life?”
I think my eyes might bug out of my head. My heart is racing a mile a minute. I feel trapped, like I need to be fighting, I need to be hitting this man to stop him from saying all this.Godis the only one who can help someone who’s suicidal? Is that what this idiot wants us to tell people who want to kill themselves? OnlyGod can help you, and if you don’t get an answer, guess you should go die? But also if you kill yourself, you’re committing the greatest sin and you’ll burn in hell forever?
“This is bullshit,” Ash says beside me. His mom whips toward him, shock written across her face.
“Ashton!”she hisses.
Pastor Mitchell hasn’t heard them and is still talking. “We will all pray for Alissa, because she can no longer pray for herself—”
Ash stands up. “THIS IS BULLSHIT!”
Pastor Mitchell cuts off mid-sentence, staring blankly at Ash, as if he’s not sure what’s happening. Ash’s entire body is shaking. A chilling silence settles over the church. “She didn’t need topray more,” Ash spits. “She prayed every fucking night and it didn’t make a difference. She needed medicine and therapy, but no one gave it to her because they thoughtGodwould make it better. And now you’re turning her into a church PSA so you can trick people into depending on you?” His lips pull back in a feral snarl. He jabs a finger toward Pastor Mitchell.“Fuck you.”
“Ashton!” Mr. Whitaker is up now, trying to force Ash back into his seat, and Mrs. Whitaker is sobbing again. Ash throws his dad off and pushes past both his parents into the aisle. The room erupts as he stalks out.
“Emotions are running high, I understand,” says Pastor Mitchell, not missing a beat, his face impassive, as if Ash’s words hadno impact on him at all. “We all say things we don’t mean in times of great stress—”
“I think he fucking meant it,” I say, only loud enough for the people around me to hear, and then I get up and slide out of the pew after Ash. I don’t care who’s watching me. I don’t want to be here anymore, and at least this time I won’t have to sit on the curb by myself.
