Into the Light
They were doomed from the start.
x.x.x
i. PAST
Someone's leaving as Bella enters the church, and she doesn't look up as she slides by him to sit at her regular pew.
When she notices the worn bible on the seat, she picks it up. "Hey, wait," she says, turning. "I think you left your—"
She breaks off when she looks up at his face, and she swallows hard.
She doesn't know what he was doing on her side of the church, because he's obviously one of them. Her kind never mixes with his. But she can't help noticing with a flare of guilt that he's really cute, and that's somehow confusing and fascinating and totally unexpected.
He looks down at the bible and holds out his hand, flashing her a wide smile. "Thanks," he says.
His fingers slide over hers as he takes the book and she suddenly feels a little too warm. When their eyes meet for a brief moment, her breath catches involuntarily.
The spell breaks when he looks away and she turns to sit down, putting her hands in her pockets to hide how they're trembling.
"Hey," he says, making her turn back. He arches an eyebrow. "You come here often?"
She's startled into smiling. It's so thoroughly inappropriate that it puts her at ease — suddenly he's not the enemy, he's just a guy. "Only when I'm bad," she says boldly, flashing him a teasing smile.
He looks surprised, then grins suggestively. "Yeah? Me, too." He raises that eyebrow again. "Next week? I'll probably be very bad." He leans toward her and whispers, "I'll have to come back next Wednesday and atone. Probably around three o'clock." Then he adds, casually, "How 'bout you?"
She feels her mouth gape open at his audacity and she laughs, shaking her head a little bit and refusing to answer. Butterflies flutter in her stomach.
He just shrugs again, with a grin that she already finds infectious. "Guess I'll see you around, then."
She shrugs too, trying to keep her face straight. "Yeah. See you around."
Bella watches him leave, admiring the smooth way he moves.
She knows it's a terrible idea to come back next week, but she's going to do it anyway.
x.x.x
ii. PRESENT
She's leaning forward in a semblance of prayer.
He's in the pew in front of her, leaning back with his head next to hers, ready to lean forward if anyone from the family comes by.
"So," she breathes at him, teasing quietly. "What were you doing over here last week? Are the hymnals newer or something?"
"I thought I'd see if there was anything new and interesting in your bibles," he says, flashing her a wide grin.
"Looking for the lost Songs of Solomon?" she asks archly.
His expression is suddenly distant and haunted. "Actually, I was wondering if they were missing a commandment or two."
She feels a twinge of unease and then his trademark grin is back, wide and suggestive. "And I wanted to see if I was missing anything about that fox, Mary Magdalene," he confides, lifting an eyebrow.
Bella smiles faintly, wondering if she imagined the dark change in him a moment ago.
He shifts in his seat to face her and changes the subject abruptly. "Hey, you wanna get out of here?"
She looks around the empty church nervously, expecting someone to step out of the shadows any minute. "I don't think that would be a good idea," she says quietly.
He looks around and spreads his hands. "No one's here to tell on us." He stands, nodding his head toward the door. "Come on. Live a little! I promise I won't bite." He leans over and snaps his teeth at her playfully, then vaults into the aisle and pulls her out of her pew, twirling her once before letting her go. He jogs backward down the aisle, beckoning to her, and then he turns and throws open the imposing doors of wood and wrought iron.
The world outside is impossibly bright, gleaming with endless possibilities.
She contemplates staying at the church, playing it safe. Then she shrugs.
You only live once.
She takes a deep breath and follows him into the light.
x.x.x
iii. FUTURE
She learns about his death on the news. Her cousins are jeering and sharing high-fives around her, glad that five rival gang members were confirmed dead by their drive-by shooting.
She makes her way to the bathroom blindly. Bella loses her mother's corned beef in the toilet and then sits there retching acid for another five minutes, the tiles cold beneath her. She stares down dully, thinking that her heart is down there somewhere, mixed with bits of meat and green beans.
The tears that track down her cheeks aren't grief, she tells herself numbly. They're just a side effect of the violent purge.
When her mother knocks on the door, asking if she's alright, she lifts her head. Her voice is surprisingly steady, the vague tremble easy to attribute to illness. "I'm okay," she assures quietly. "Must have caught a virus." She hears her mother's footsteps recede on the other side of the door and she curls up on the floor, crossing her arms across her chest and squeezing painfully hard to keep herself from falling apart.
The only way she can keep herself from screaming at her family's obscene joy is to remind herself that it's not what he would have wanted.
He hadn't wanted anyone to know, and the last favor she can do for him is to be silent.
She stays home from school for two days with the mysterious virus of her grief, nursing herself with ginger ale until she can bear to see her friends smiling, bear to see his friends mourning.
Her pain is quiet and unobtrusive after that. A candle lit every Sunday, a prayer said every night, and a stolen glance at a hidden photograph as often as she can manage without crying.
She gets through, day by day, speaking the same mantra, waiting for some of the hurt to fade away, waiting for the gaping hole in her heart to scab over — trying to keep on living without him.
There's one thought that keeps her moving, keeps her alive, keeps her sane — It's what he would have wanted.