“James didn’t say, ‘Don’t speak.’ Or ‘Don’t get angry.’ He said, ‘Be slow to speak. Be slow to anger.’ See the difference?”

“Take a chill pill.”

I laugh outright and ask Becca, who’d been silent this entire time, “Who taught you that?”

She lifts a shoulder. “Saw it on a T-shirt, maybe?”

“That’s it. Next week, we’re making matching tees that say that.”

This gets their attention. If there’s one thing eighth graders love, it’s making tees.

There’s a knock at the door, and it’s James. I glance at the clock. “Oh! We’re out of time.”

The girls groan, and I smile, secretly pleased. We collect our things, and I stack the Bibles up on the end table, snatching one off the top. “Becca! Hold up a sec!”

James leads the rest of the girls upstairs to the lobby, where their rides await them, but I hold the Bible out to Becca. “Do you have one of these yet?”

She shakes her head. I grab a yellow marker from a coffee can on the floor and highlight the verse in James we talked about. Then I pass it to her. “Yours. To read, to mark up, to study, to hold. Whatever. Humans will fail you. Church will fail you. I will inevitably fail you. This, though? It won’t. God won’t. Bring it to him. All of it. The messy, angry, disgusting things, even. He won’t mind. Deal?”

Becca smiles shyly, tucking it under her arm. “Is it really okay to write in it?”

I nod. “The biggest mistake we make is trying to keep God tidy. He created the skunk, for goodness’ sake. He doesn’t mind a mess. He finds messiness beautiful.”

Becca impulsively reaches out to hug me, and I squeeze her for a moment longer. “Now, hurry upstairs before your mom thinks I kidnapped you.”

I’m only half kidding. Becca’s mom is the one who asked about Micah. She’s also the one who wanted to know if my hair color was permanent or if I could dye it back.

I told her technically I could.

“Knock, knock,” my uncle says. I finish clearing the room and smile at him to come in.

“What is it this time, boss?”

He rolls his eyes and plops on the couch. “Mrs. Sanderson.”

I plop across from him, even as my phone buzzes with a text. Micah, letting me know he’s in the parking lot. It’s not that he’s afraid to come in, but after I told him about Becca’s mom, he got all quiet and told me he’d wait in the car from now on.

Which is stupid.

“Apparently, the high school is holding a safe-sex talk for incoming freshmen, and she wants to know when we will be covering abstinence in youth group.”

My breath catches. “How about never?”

“Meg.”

“James. No. I’m not doing that.”