Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Say something.”
I lifted my gaze to hers and smiled. “It was the most romantic thing you've ever seen.”
“Oh my god, Sarah!” She gasped. Eve wasn’t as much of a pleaser. She used the Lord’s name in vain without feeling guilty. “Where were you? You were with him. Where? You have to tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’m telling Mom and Dad.”
I frowned.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I won’t tell them, but just tell me.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Tell me!” She tossed my shoes aside and twisted my swing so when she let go I spun in fast circles.
“Stop.” I tried to laugh, but my heart wasn’t in it. I loved my sister, but I didn’t want to have that conversation with her. I wanted to tell Heather.
But I couldn’t.
I would never tell Heather anything ever again.
Eve’s excitement faded when I failed to engage with her playfulness. “I’m sorry about Heather and Joanna, but I’m glad you were with Isaac. Otherwise, you’d be …”
I nodded slowly.
As Eve gave up and took a few steps past me toward the house, I mumbled, “We went to Nashville.”
“Are you serious? Did you—”
“That’s it, Eve. That’s all I have in me to give today. I need to be alone now. Okay?”
For the next two days, my parents continued to give me a reprieve from accountability, but I knew after Joanna’s funeral that I wouldn’t be able to keep my whereabouts a secret any longer. Matt called the house, but I didn’t take his calls.
“Three funerals in one week is too much,” Dad said during breakfast the morning of Joanna’s funeral.
“It is,” Mom murmured, giving him a sad smile while setting the pitcher of orange juice on the table.
“Are we going to Brenda’s funeral too?” Eve asked.
My gaze shot up from my plate. “Brenda?”
Dad wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “Brenda Swensen. She graduated three or four years before—”
“I know who she is. She died?”
Everyone else at the table stared at me.
“Yes, honey. Didn’t you know she was the one who hit Heather and Joanna? They think she was intoxicated.”
“What? No.” I shook my head a half dozen times. “Nobody told me.”
That was it. That was the look in Wesley Cory’s eyes at Heather’s funeral. He wasn’t mourning her; he was mourning his mistress.
I thought I hated Brenda before the accident. After all, she was screwing a married man who was old enough to be her father—in his wife’s bed. But I knew I hated her when I found out she killed my friends. And it also made me despise Wesley Cory.
“I hate her,” I mumbled, dropping my chin and stabbing my fork into the pile of pancakes.
“Sarah Elaine Jacobson, we don’t hate anyone because God doesn’t hate people,” Dad said.
“Am I God?” I shot him a scowl.
He drew in a controlled breath.
“That’s what I thought. I’m not God. I’m human, and that means I’m capable of hating her even if God doesn’t want me to hate her. I guess if He really didn’t want me to hate her, He would have kept my friends safe. But He didn’t.” I shoved a huge bite of pancake into my mouth, even though I was no longer hungry. “That means I can hate her, and you don't get to tell me how I’m supposed to feel. I’m going to hate her.” I rammed my fork into the plate like I was stabbing Brenda in the heart.
The plate cracked, startling my mom and sisters.
“Sarah!” Dad warned.
It was a rare moment because I was a people pleaser. But I was coming apart inside, and I no longer had it in me to please anyone.
“And while I’m at it,” I stood, knocking my chair over, “I’m not overjoyed with God at the moment either.”
I hate Him.
“Go to your room until I’m done with breakfast, then we’re going to have a long talk, young lady,” Dad said while setting his fork down with shaky hands like I’d trampled his last bit of control.
He was human, too, no matter how many times a day he talked to God.
I ran up the stairs and grabbed my wrinkled black dress, shoes, and car keys. Then I jogged down the stairs.
“Sarah!” Dad called.
I whipped around when I reached the front door. “I’m an adult now. You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’ll go where I want when I want. I’ll say what I want. I’ll think whatever I want. I’ll have sex with whomever I want. And it will be between me and God. You’re not the father who gets to judge me. Why don’t you practice what you preach?” I flung open the door and stomped to my car.
When I started it and glanced at the house, everyone had gathered on the front porch.
I wasn’t impervious to the guilt, but I was in a predicament with the Cory men because I caved to the fear of rocking the boat. The idea of living my life for anyone but myself no longer felt sustainable.