Cover

OTHER NOVELS BY CHRIS FABRY

• Overcomer
  (based on the motion picture
  by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick)
• War Room
  (based on the motion picture
  by Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick)
• A Piece of the Moon
• Under a Cloudless Sky
• The Promise of Jesse Woods
• Every Waking Moment
• Looking into You
• Dogwood
• June Bug
• Almost Heaven
• Not in the Heart
• Borders of the Heart
• A Marriage Carol (with Dr. Gary Chapman)
• The Song
  (based on the screenplay by Richard L. Ramsey)

Dedication

Dedicated to Melissa Coles, whose courage and selfless act brought inspiration to this beautiful story. May your life, faith, and example bring hope and healing to millions. God sees you and loves you!

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

The lake sat at the end of a winding dirt road on the outskirts of Columbus, Indiana, forty miles south of Indianapolis. Water rippled muddy brown this time of year because of spring rain runoff that collected and funneled into the lake from three directions. The deepest end of the lake was best for fishing and on this late afternoon, two teenage girls sat on the rock ledge looking down at their lines in the water.

Kelly White was doing more talking than fishing, as usual. She had long blonde hair and stood barely an inch over five feet tall. She’d weigh a hundred pounds if she jumped in the river and got weighed as soon as she climbed out. Because of her height and the way she moved, walking with the confidence of a top-level athlete, most boys in high school thought she was a gymnast or maybe a dancer. She was neither. She just liked boys and liked to walk as if they were watching every step. And the reason she’d agreed to meet her friend Melissa at the lake was not to fish but to talk about a boy she was interested in who was a year older.

Melissa Long, eighteen and a senior at Fleetwood High, stood on the rocks and cast her line about halfway across the lake. She was six inches taller than Kelly and nobody thought she was a dancer or a gymnast. In fact, most people didn’t notice Melissa, or so she thought. She was the kind of girl you might miss in a yearbook, just pass her picture and keep turning pages. And her face had a quality to it that made her look different in each photo, like she was able to morph and change with whatever group was around her.