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We walked down the hallway, past the children’s ministry rooms lining one side and the Fellowship hall on the other.

Trevor stopped at a bulletin board covered in Bible verses. “You grew up here?”

“Basically.”

“That explains a lot.”

I looked at him. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He smirked as we entered the sanctuary.

Moonlight pushed through the stained-glass windows while the rows of wooden pews stretched towards the pulpit.

Trevor whispered automatically. “Whoa.”

“Why are we whispering?”

He looked around. “It feels like you should. I dunno.”

“That’s how they get you.” I walked down the center aisle.

My sneakers squeaked against the floor as Daddy’s pulpit waited at the front. Stupid polished wood and gold cross. Too many memories and mistakes hidden on the little shelf where he kept his Bible. I stepped onto the platform while Trevor stayed below.

“This where he preaches?” Trevor asked.

“Every Sunday.”

“What’d he say when you told him?”

I stared at the pulpit. “He cried.”

Trevor appeared surprised.

I ran my fingers over the wood. “Not because he was happy.”

“Oh.”

“He asked God where he’d failed. He said he loved me.” I smiled in that way you do when something is more sad than it is funny. “Then he spent two hours explaining why the person I was would destroy my soul and hit me until I told him I misunderstood what I felt.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“It was,” I agreed.

“What did you say?”

“I told him I didn’t think God hated me and I was sorry that he did.”

Trevor’s eyes stayed on mine. “What did he say to that?”

“That I was confusing acceptance with love, and hatred is my consequence.” I swallowed. That sentence still lived somewhere inside me. Not as loudly. But it lived.

Trevor leaned against a pew. “So you left?”

“Eventually.” I stepped down off the platform. “But first, I did something much more embarrassing.”

“What?”

“I tried even harder.”