We all leaped to our feet.

  "Oh, no," Lily said. She tugged on her sweater, which caused her highlighted hair to become staticky. She tried to pat down the flyaways. "I think I have a history quiz this morning."

  "That's today?" Talon said. He grabbed his balled-up socks, which he must have taken off in the night, and fumbled into them.

  "Shit," Casey said. He lifted the t-shirt he'd just thrown over his head and swiped on deodorant. "If you're te, Mr. Holt makes you stand in the hallway."

  "Oh my God," Kat said, rolling her eyes. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, and it hung down her back in waves. Mysteriously pulling a bobby pin out of an indiscernible pocket, she started tucking and twisting bits of her hair behind her ears. "It's a single quiz. What can it possibly be worth?"

  Casey, Marty, Rob, and I shared a horrified gnce.

  "You don't want to lose marks on a quiz," I said.

  "Those are basically freebies," Marty said, aghast, "why would you forfeit?"

  "If you get a hundred on the quizzes," Casey said, "Holt adds, like, an extra two percent to your final grade."

  "He did it for me st year," Rob said, "which meant I got—"

  "Guys," Ana said, "shut up and get ready!"

  Save for Kat, we all ran for the bathroom. Ana grabbed Casey's toothpaste and started squirting it on our outstretched toothbrushes. After we hurriedly brushed, we grabbed our bags and ran out the door, squinting against the morning sunshine, groaning about our headaches. Rob cimed to still be drunk. Marty said he'd be surprised if any of us were sober.

  In a fluid motion, we separated along gender lines as we walked: the girls drifted ahead of us, shoulder-to-shoulder, talking in hushed voices. Ana pulled her chestnut hair up in a colorful scrunchie. She wore a vivid green cardigan over her white t-shirt; I recognized the former as Casey's. Ana looped her arms with Kat's. She, Kat, and Lily spoke quickly but quietly. They repeatedly gnced over their shoulders.

  Casey wouldn't stop grinning. He stood taller and looked wide awake despite our short sleep.

  Marty smacked Casey on his shoulder, his arm, his chest—anywhere he could reach.

  "Tell us, dude," Marty said. "Did you get your dick wet or what?"

  "That's a gross phrase, man," I said.

  "Why?" Marty said. "It's scientifically accurate."

  Rob pushed up his gsses. "Is it, though? If Casey wore a condom, his dick wouldn't really bet wet, would it?"

  "Excellent point," I said.

  "Wow, Roberto," Marty said, "thank you for enlightening us about the differences between skin and tex."

  "I'm just saying, I'm with Ryan," Rob said. "It's sort of nasty, so you might as well be factual—"

  "Oh, my sincerest apologies," Marty said. "Would you prefer the word bang? Fuck? Nail?"

  "Not nail," Rob mumbled. "Because—"

  "Too figurative for you?"

  "I mean, yes," Rob said, "is Ana the—the nail? Who's the hammer?"

  "Casey's dick," I said, "unfortunately. And it's the thing doing the nailing. I guess Ana's the wood. But yeah, that's also not a great—"

  "Oh my God," Marty said. "Use your imaginations!"

  Casey ughed. "Yeah, Marty, we had sex. All right?"

  "Hell yeah!" Marty shouted.

  In a flurry, we exchanged a round of fist bumps and high fives. At the sudden noise, the girls looked back; Ana's cheeks reddened but she and Casey shared a knowing look.

  Marty grinned at us, walking backwards. "I knew you'd be second, man!"

  "It was amazing," Casey said. "We did it again this morning. But the rest of the details are for me, got it?" He smiled dreamily at the back of the girls' heads. "Ana's the best. She's perfect. I might marry her."

  "Maybe see how prom goes first," I said.

  "Welcome to manhood, Case!" Marty said, extending his arms. Then he used his pointer finger, thumb, and pinky to gesture between me, Talon, and Rob. "Now you three gotta get on it. Hey, Talon, maybe you've got news to share?" Marty grinned. "Since you disappeared on us for months and all. It's like all you have to do is shower—no offense man, but you weren't showering before, right?—and girls flock to you. I don't get it. Again, no offense, buddy!"

  "Wow, Marty," I said, "you really know how to give a genuine compliment."

  Marty ughed. "So—? Are you still a virgin, Talon? Or did you take down a bunch of chicks in your mysterious absence?"

  Talon looked uncomfortable. He adjusted his backpack over his shoulder. "Well, I guess that… I don't know, um—"

  "Spill!" Casey said. "Who?"

  "What's with the interrogation?" I said.

  Marty stopped walking. "Hold on."

  "No holding on," I said, "we're going to be te."

  "No, look," Marty pointed at Talon. "Whoa, those are gnarly hickeys."

  We stopped on the sidewalk. The girls kept walking.

  Casey peered at Talon's neck. "Shit," he said. "You got full on attacked."

  I was standing closest to Talon, and he and I locked eyes. The June morning felt charged. Birds chirped. Cars drove by on their morning commute. Talon started to smile at me but caught himself. Last night welled up in me: us in that dark upstairs room, amidst boxes and dust. The feel of Talon's hips beneath my hands. His soft lips. Our breath and hearts speeding up, matching the other's. Could life get any better than that?

  Talon's hand went up to his neck, but his fingers found the wrong spot. He must not have noticed when we were crammed in the bathroom.

  "Nice," Marty said, ughing. "Was it Georgia?"

  "Um, yeah," Talon said absently.

  Marty went back to asking Casey questions about st night (and this morning), even though Casey jovially deflected each one. Rob occasionally joined in but was mostly on his phone. He walked with us but would be holing up at Beans for the morning before his csses; he was working on an online campaign. They were all preoccupied. I didn't know if it was the lingering THC in my system, but the morning was beautiful, and it seemed wrong not to acknowledge what Talon and I had shared st night.

  I reached over—our hands were only an inch apart—and wrapped my left pinky finger around Talon's right pinky. Talon looked up at me, surprised. I smiled at him. He bit his lip and smiled back and squeezed my finger. The tension from st night dissipated. The moment seemed euphoric, like we were both buzzing and could it feel the shared current through our hands.

  When Marty turned to us, I let go.

  "Too te," Marty said, waving his hand towards our school, "we didn't make it."

  The school entranceway was indeed far too silent; clearly the final morning bell had already rung. Save for two stoner kids vaping on the picnic table (Drew Costigan and Connor Graff, both sporting greasy hair and oversized sweaters), and a shame-faced teenage girl, the area out front was vacant. We caught up with the girls, who were waiting for us by the front doors. Ana immediately pulled Casey in for a kiss. He tugged on her cardigan.

  "We're doomed," Lily said. "Holt started css. No quiz for us."

  "Maybe it's for the best," Talon said. "I didn't study."

  "Dude," Casey said, pulling away from Ana's mouth, "do you ever study?"

  "Well, no," Talon said.

  "You've been studying bio tely," I said.

  "That's true," Talon said, "I'm evolving."

  I ughed. We looked at each other. Sunshine caught Talon's hair. His hoodie folded awkwardly around his neck. Should I lean over and readjust it?

  "Good luck with—chemistry, right?" Talon said.

  "Right," I said. "Enjoy history."

  We shared a smile.

  Marty put his palms against my back and shoved me forward.

  "Let's go, Cloud," he said, "are you still high? Remember: coconut water!"

  At the lunch break, Talon made it to our lockers first. I spotted him—dark hair falling into his eyes, flicking through his English novel—and my stomach flipped. Maybe this was the beginning of some other way for us to be. I'd have to find the courage to talk about it, then.

  I leaned my right shoulder against the locker. I found Talon's eyes and we both smiled at the same time. He shoved Great Expectations into his locker and ran a hand through his hair. It took a moment before he turned to face me. He leaned his shoulder against his locker, mimicking my stance.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Hey."

  "I liked st night," I said.

  "Oh, really? Which part?"

  Maybe I'd tease a little. "The game was a bst," I said.

  Talon's eyes crinkled. "It was really close."

  "Good hotdogs, too," I said.

  "Veggie dog."

  "Right, right. My mistake. And the gummies were nice."

  "They taste great, don't they?"

  "Oh, delicious," I said.

  "And what about—" Talon gnced around. "—what about upstairs?"

  "Mixed bag," I said. "Some pros and cons for sure."

  "Hm," Talon said, pretending to think. "Remind me."

  "Room was dusty, which was a con. But dark and mysterious."

  "Pro?"

  "Pro."

  "Window wouldn't open," Talon said.

  "Con," we both said at the same time.

  "Being super high," I said.

  "That was a pro for me to witness. Not sure how you felt about it."

  "I think next time I'll take your advice and start with half."

  There was a beat. Now Talon looked uncertain. Maybe I'd pyed too long.

  "I did like the company though," I said softly. "That's squarely on the pro side."

  The hallway was packed with students rummaging through their lockers for food, grabbing their wallets and purses and bags, reapplying makeup and pulling on baseball caps. Simon King limped down the hallway, desperately trying to secure Mi-yeun Kang's attention. Aaron McIntyre and Dhruv Bhandari recounted a pitch. Kat and Ana waved at us as they passed (well, mostly Ana—Kat texted passionately, thumbs flying). Mr. Rathert-Hill, harried and muttering to himself, pushed his way through students and meekly reminded guys not to wear so much cologne ("we are scent-free! Our pamphlets promise this!"), told kids to put their cellphones away, and, most importantly, to think of the hallway like a highway. "As in," he said to no one and everyone, "right side goes one way, left goes the other. It's really very simple, I trust that you can conceive of this—" Mr. Rathert-Hill's voice got lost as he moved on. Amidst all of this though, it was only Talon and I in our bubble, almost touching, taking the other in.

  "The biggest pro, of course," I said, "was kissing you."

  There. No joke. Sober. Daytime. Beneath fluorescent hallway lights. Nowhere to hide.

  Talon looked relieved. He brought his middle finger up to his mouth but before he could start chewing on the cuticle, he moved his hand back down and gripped it with his other hand.

  "You liked it?" he said.

  I nodded.

  He smiled broadly at me. "I liked it, too."

  Now I felt flustered and tried not to trip over my words. "I wouldn't mind—ah—wouldn't mind doing that again. You know, sometime. If you're up for it. Or whatever. But I'd also like to take you on—you know—a, well, we could go on a date, too."

  Oh, no. That had snuck out of me, unprepared and unpnned. Maybe he only wanted to kiss or hook up but not actually make it—what? Make it romantic.

  "A date?" he said.

  "Yeah," I said, "but maybe dates are, like, outdated?" (Was that a pun?) "Or for twenty-five-year-olds or whatever. Yeah, now that I think about it, dates are kind of dumb—"

  "I don't think they're dumb," Talon said. "And I don't think it would be dumb to go on a date with you. I think it would be nice."

  "I think it'd be nice, too," I said, and we ughed at my immediate backtracking.

  Suddenly, though, Talon's face looked guarded. He turned back to his locker. "Aren't you already dating someone?"

  "Lily? We—"

  "I saw her neck. The other day, when I asked, you didn't have to—you could have just said."

  "No, I… look, maybe we can talk. After school?"

  "I can't after school," he said. His hands shook.

  "Hey, what's up?" I said gently. "What's wrong?"

  "I spent st css trying to figure out how I can go home today," he said. His words were coming out choppy now. He tugged at the neckline of his t-shirt.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He's going to be so mad," Talon said. His deep voice broke on mad.

  "Your dad?"

  He nodded and closed his locker.

  I saw the guys making their way down the hall toward us.

  "Why?" I said, thinking, how much time before they get here? Twenty seconds? "I thought you were allowed to be out st night."

  Without looking up, he gestured at his neck. "These." His breathing was growing erratic.

  "Tal," I said, "want to go outside? Just us two?"

  When he nodded, I pulled him by the wrist, and we disappeared into the throng of students. We went out one of the two side entrances. Outside, the sky was cloudless and vividly blue, the sunshine warm. I steered Talon towards the field. Kids sometimes ate lunch out here. A few people dotted grassy areas—eating hunched over near the goal posts, far in the distance; a trio studying beneath the singur maple tree; and a handful of kids crowded together near one of the portables. I moved us to the middle of the field, where we'd be unheard and unnoticed. We sat down cross-legged, facing each other. Talon rubbed his chest.

  I leaned forward to grab his hand.

  "Breathe," I said softly.

  It took us a few minutes, but we managed to breathe in unison—long, deep breaths. I pulled off my bag and took out two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My phone was blowing up from the guys, asking where we were. I ignored the string of texts. We ate half a sandwich each before Talon spoke.

  "I couldn't focus in English." Talon pulled up tufts of grass. "I was imagining running away. Maybe going to Vancouver tonight. Would it even count as running away at my age?"

  I watched his face. "You think the hickeys are bad enough that you need to leave your house?"

  Agree with him, I thought. Get him to move in with you, away from his dad.

  Talon didn't directly answer. He let the grass fall between his fingers back to the earth.

  "I tried to run away when I was eleven," he said.

  "You did?"

  He nodded. "This was when Griffin first moved to Vancouver Isnd—in, um, Nanaimo, yeah—and he was saving up money for school. Before he got a pce in Vancouver. Dean had just moved out and it was only me and Dad. I wasn't sure how I'd get to Griff. Hitchhike, maybe? I knew all you did was stick out your thumb and I had this vague idea that I was young enough that people would take pity on me, you know? Like they wouldn't ask questions, they'd just want to get me to point B or something. I left you a note."

  My heart ached.

  "Like, it said I'd get in contact with you when I had a stable pce or something. I mean, I'm sure I didn't use the word stable." He smiled a bit. "In the note, I told you to pretend like you didn't know I left. Say you hadn't heard from me. I climbed the tree and put it on your sill. It was raining that night, I remember. I had my backpack and nothing else. Stuffed with some clothes and a few books. I just walked and walked and made it downtown. I was standing on the side of the road with my thumb out. On the corner of Birch. You know, kind of by Beans? There was an awning, but I couldn't stand beneath it because I was worried the cars wouldn't see me if I was too far away from the road. So I was all cold and wet. Anyways. A car slowed down. The headlights were bright. I couldn't make out what kind of vehicle it was. I ran to the door, thinking, like: holy crap, it worked! That it was fast, you know? I opened the passenger door." Talon swallowed. "And it was him. It was Dad. He said, what the fuck are you doing out here all alone? Like, he acted like he was worried at first. But the next day…" Talon tugged another clump of grass. "Yeah, the next day was rough. I tried another couple times, despite what happened. But I'd lose the courage, or I imagined myself on the fucking news and that made it worse somehow. Like, the idea that it all might… that it all might come out. What we do together."

  My body felt bright and jumpy when he spoke about this. I tried to hold still, be calm. He told me he only wanted me to listen, right? Characters I admired in stories were decisive. There was no question that they'd forego a friendship for the safety of their friend. But sitting with Talon in the grass beneath the hot sun, nothing seemed simple.

  "I wish I knew about this back then," I said. But Talon didn't seem to notice I'd said anything.

  "I guess in my mind," Talon said, "I thought if I could just endure it, just get through it, I could make a clean break once I got older. I'd have the money or a better excuse or something. and now I have that, with graduating and—he can't make me stay." He briefly closed his eyes. "But there's a part of me that… feels bad, I guess. I mean, what's he going to do? All his kids will be gone. My mom—his wife—she's gone. Griffin and Dean left. He's completely alone."

  "Don't worry about that," I said, bewildered. "Why does it matter what's on your neck? Why would he be mad about that? Of all the stupid shit he's probably been mad about."

  Talon rubbed his neck. "Because he says it's just… that's just for us."

  "What is? I don't get any of this."

  Talon waved his hand. He looked frustrated now. "My point is, I can't go home like this. He'll fucking lose it. I promised him." He held his right hand up to his own throat and wrapped his fingers around his neck—not tightly, though. Almost like he was testing it. "How hard do you think I'd have to push until it looks like I have a ring of bruises? Until the hickeys kind of disappear?"

  What the fuck?

  "You're not going to choke yourself until you're bruised," I said. "For one, it takes a lot of force. But two, I'm not going to let you. Tal, there are other options."

  "There aren't."

  "So you think he'd be less angry with you if you showed up with bruises from—what? a fight?—than he would be if you made out with someone?"

  He looked at me like I was stupid. "Uh, yeah."

  I went silent for a moment. "Let me think."

  I understood that if I pushed too hard, if I demanded too much from him, that he'd pull away, or worse. (The long and uneven scars on his forearms, faded but visible if you looked closely, particurly in this light.) If I didn't do enough, though—well, that could go terribly wrong, too. How good was Talon at assessing his own safety?

  Talon finished his sandwich. Between our legs, we dug into trail mix. Wind pushed Talon's hair around. I rolled up my sweater sleeves; the warmth had caught up to me. Talon pulled off his bck hoodie. Two girls were now kicking a soccer ball back and forth, shouting. But Marty, Rob, and Casey must be eating lunch inside. Or maybe they picked up fast food. I gnced at Talon, who seemed lost in his thoughts. I hated that I was the cause of Talon's anxiety; why had I kissed his neck so much?

  "Hickeys are technically bruises," I said. "If you lean forward, I'll try to massage the area a bit. It might disperse the pools of blood."

  Talon came closer to me, and I gently held his neck with my hands. Using my thumb, I massaged the hickeys, trying to get them to break up a little.

  "I'm sorry about all of this," I said.

  "I'm not," Talon said. "I'm still gd we—you know."

  Because of the way we were positioned, our faces were close. I saw that his cheeks were slightly red.

  "Me, too," I said, smiling. "Okay, sit back. Let me see. That helped a bit. I mean, you can still see them but they're lighter. Kinda. Do that tonight and tomorrow. But not so hard that you make another bruise. Use the same amount of pressure I was using."

  "Let's see," Talon said. He opened his phone to his camera so he could see his neck. "Fuck. Ry, yeah, it's better I guess… but they're so noticeable."

  I watched him for a moment as he rubbed his neck, exasperated.

  "I have a pn B," I said.

  Rachel looked fbbergasted. "So, you think I just carry around bags of concealer—"

  "Concealer?" I said.

  "Yes, what you're asking about is called concealer," Rachel said. "You think I have bags of makeup at school? Well, okay—I do have some makeup here. For touch-ups. Not what we'll need for this kind of operation."

  Talon bit his lip. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, anyway, Rach."

  In that four-minute gap between the first and second bell for our next css, we stood in the busy hallway in front of Rachel's locker. I figured she'd have some kind of makeup option that would allow Talon to at least temporarily cover up the hickeys while we waited for them to fade. Surely, Stephen wasn't well-versed enough in makeup to look closely at Talon's neck and realize what was going on, right? What about when Talon showered, though? (An image popped up in my mind: Talon sitting on the couch with his bowl of ramen and Stephen standing in the kitchen, both of their hair damp.) I wasn't sure if he'd be able to apply it the same way Rachel could. But it seemed now that maybe my pn wouldn't come to fruition. Perhaps we could enlist one of the girls. Go to the mall with Kat and Lily and Ana, ask them to point out which products we needed.

  But Rachel sighed and nodded to herself. "Okay, I can help. It's just that—you and I, we don't have the same skin tone. See?" She held her arm up to Talon's. "I'll need to mix a couple of different colors so I can match yours." She thought about this for a moment. "Meet me here after school. I have the supplies at home."

  "Just cover your neck," I whispered.

  Talon, Rachel, and I crept up to our front door. I tried to peer past our kitchen window curtains so I could see if Mom was in the kitchen.

  "How?" Talon whispered back. "It's completely unnatural."

  "If your hair was longer, it would hide them," Rachel said.

  "Oh, okay, brilliant," I said, "he'll just rapidly grow his hair to his shoulders." I turned back to Talon. "Got that?"

  "On it," Talon said.

  "Well, God, I don't know!" Rachel said. "You roped me into this, then you make fun of my suggestions—"

  "—I'm just saying, if he can't do it right now, then what's the point—"

  "I'll just hold my neck," Talon said. "Like it's sore. Like I pulled it in gym or something."

  "You're not taking P.E. this year," I said.

  "But your parents don't know that," Talon said.

  "Right."

  "Now who's the idiot," Rachel muttered.

  "So, who'd you kiss?" Rachel's voice was light and casual, but I heard the intrigue. She mixed yellowy-beige and green products on the back of her hand and gnced up at.

  Talon gnced at me.

  In the mirror, I saw my cheeks turning pink. We were crowded in my bathroom. We got by Mom easily, shouting about homework and that we'd be down once we finished.

  Rachel looked between us. She frowned. "Big secret?"

  "No secret," Talon said quickly.

  "It's, uh, it was—a girl."

  "A girl," Talon agreed.

  Rachel looked down and I realized she wasn't thinking anything happened between me and Talon; she was likely remembering Talon telling her he considered her a little sister. But she quickly readjusted her expression. She finished mixing products in a small pstic container. She'd combined pink, green, and yellow tones and somehow the combination looked amazingly skin-like.

  "Lean forward, please," Rachel said. With her ring finger, she carefully dabbed the creamy makeup over Talon's rgest hickey, the one directly under his jawline. After about thirty seconds, the hickey was nearly invisible.

  "Whoa," I said, "you're a miracle worker."

  "I know." Rachel. She dipped her finger in the concoction again and patted it against Talon's other hickeys.

  Talon inspected himself in the mirror. "What do you think, Ry?"

  Even beneath the harsh lights of our bathroom, the concealer covered the hickeys and blended well with his skin tone.

  "Looks great," I said, "No one would notice."

  "You're sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  Talon looked relieved. "Thanks so much, Rach. I owe you."

  "It's no problem," Rachel said. "I'll make you a little container so you can apply it yourself. Did it make sense, how I did it?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  While Rachel finished creating Talon's custom concealer, she said, "So your dad's just as strict as ours, hey? If we showed up with hickeys, Mom and Dad would ground us for forty-five years."

  "Plus a three-hour lecture on the sanctity of our bodies, and God's intentions for intimacy," I said.

  Rachel and I ughed. Talon joined in reluctantly.

  I convinced Talon to study bio with me for an hour. Rachel brought up chips and salsa and sparkling water. (Dad found it ridiculous to pay for carbonation and aluminum, but Mom bought Bubly when it went on sale.) Rachel organized my fshcards and we both quizzed Talon. He performed markedly better than he did when we first began, and I told him I was proud of him. But after that, I couldn't keep his attention; he repeatedly checked his text messages. Talon thanked us for helping him but said he had to head home. I walked him over.

  Dad looked up when I took off my sneakers. He sat at the kitchen table, readers on, his favorite annotated Bible in front of him. "Everything okay, son? How was st night?"

  "Great," I said. "We studied a lot."

  Talon's face fshed before me. The way he'd shyly closed his eyes before saying that was cringy. His gentle smile, barely visible in the muted grey light, after we kissed. Nothing in the world made more sense than kissing him. Nothing. The Bible said—but what the hell did the Bible know, really? Or was my simmering distaste for anything Biblical simply proof of the power of lust and desire? Was the devil making me turn my back on God? Maybe Satan so easily corrupted because of his ability to hijack your nervous system, or something. According to Dad, same-sex attraction was one of Satan's most insidious tricks.

  But that no longer seemed right to me. What was so fundamentally and powerfully different about my lips on Lily Beaumont's than my lips pressed against Talon's? In the grand scheme of terrible tragedies in the world, was us kissing really something God spent any time disapproving? I imagined the God I'd grown up with. Calm. Generally trustworthy. Quick to anger but forgiving if you confessed and self-fgelted and promised, above all, to do better. How could God allow Stephen to harm Talon, but punish us for kissing? If that was God's view, then maybe I didn't know him after all. Maybe I didn't believe in an entity like that.

  "How about a brownie and a chat?" Dad said. "Your mother made them this afternoon. Delicious, as always."

  I grabbed one from the counter and bit into it. I raised my voice slightly so she could hear: "Wow, Mom—your best yet."

  "Thanks, honey!" Mom called from the living room.

  "Let's discuss Winnipeg," Dad said when I sat across from him. "We'll be gone Friday—the twentieth—through Monday, like st year. You remember your duties at the church?"

  "Get there early, sweep the entrance, make sure coffee's on and water's boiling. Help Pastor Hugh if he needs anything. Stand at the back and greet the parishioners on their way in."

  "You got it," Dad said. "I appreciate your reliability, Ryan."

  "Huh? Oh, yeah."

  Next, Dad started talking about my move to California. I told him I'd started the VISA application. He prattled on about which courses I'd take, how to find a decent church, insisted I join a Christian club on campus.

  "We'll discuss a budget, too," Dad said, "Our dolr is terrible right now. But I have ideas for fundraising this summer. Mrs. Birkenstein is a remarkable resource. She considers you something of a grandson, and you'll recall that she helped Cire organize for—"

  While Dad spoke, I eyed the highlighted passages of the Bible on the table. I couldn't see God's words from where I sat, but guilt still burned in my chest. For kissing Talon. For lying to Lily—or myself, maybe. For not knowing how to tell my parents about Stephen. For all of it.