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Dedication

This is dedicated to all the church kids.

No matter what you might’ve heard,

I hope you carry only this:

You deserve love, are worthy of love,

and are commissioned to love.

That’s it. No caveats, conditions, or stipulations.

You. Are. Loved. Just as you are.

Please be advised,
this novel contains discussions of self-harm and suicide.

AUGUST

1

Meg

I was four the first time I accepted Jesus into my heart. I say first time because I did it at least twelve times before I turned sixteen. Better to be absolutely sure, you know? Like, what if I wasn’t really feeling it the initial eleven times? Or maybe I was answering the wrong altar call? What if my heart wasn’t prepared and I forgot to forgive someone who’d wronged me earlier in the day? Did those ones count? Who can be sure? We live in such conflicting times.

Better to answer at every opportunity just in case. Don’t want to mess around when your eternal salvation is on the line.

All of this is to say, I’m like super saved. Like, if there is a punch card for gold star Christians, mine’s been well earned and is ready to be cashed in. There’s this billboard on the way to my nana Knudson’s in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, that reads: IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’D WAKE UP? And yeah. I know. I made sure of it. I’m nothing if not a planner. Hope for the best, plan for the rest. Salvation? Check. Eternity? Double-check times six.

My best friend, Vada, calls it my neurosis. That by confirming my salvation every ten months, I’m basically negating the whole thing. If I can’t trust it worked the first time, who am I dealing with here? Surely, the Creator of the Universe can keep track of such things.

I told her if she’s not going to accept Jesus, I’ll have to share half of my salvations with her, so she should be grateful.

It’s what I know. Salvation. It’s the only certainty in my life. A week ago, that was okay with me. A week ago, I looked at my blank slate of a future and felt the giddy flip in my stomach that spoke of Possibility and Discovery. I was armed with my relentless faith and the proverbial bucketful of joy, ready to take on the world and answer the call.

Unfortunately, just like my mom and dad, last week was a liar.