And there’s this weird feeling stirring in my gut. Like, I don’t know, jealousy? But not quite. Feeling left out, maybe? Which is stupid because I could not care less about this church or any church.

But then James is getting up and he’s got the mic and he’s telling the story about Andrew and Candace, and before I know it, I’m sitting again. Frozen in place, barely breathing, as he talks about being on the cliff at Dead River Falls and Brian’s role in saving his life.

I’ve never heard this part of the story. I had no idea. I knew they were close, but not this. Not “You jump, I jump.”

You jump, I jump.

Holy fuck.

My breath starts panting out of me, and I can feel heat behind my eyelids. The edges of my vision get darker, and my stomach clenches.

You jump, I jump.

I’m taken back to the day when I stood with Meg on the edge of the cliff. When I jumped off first and she followed right behind me. Her expression determined, trusting.

It’s too much. This story and the implications, all of it. And James is talking about how God sends exactly the right person at the right time in our lives, and I’m thinking about where the fuck would I have been if my dad hadn’t gotten caught? Would I be following him blindly? Would I still worship the ground he walked on? I always think about how our family would still be involved, beloved, respected, but that’s all bullshit, isn’t it?

What would that kid have done if faced with Duke? Would he have treated him any better than Duke’s dad, demanding a label of him in one breath and condemning it in the next? How would that kid have reacted to Meg, the result of a one-night stand? Neither was something they could control, but would that have mattered to Old Micah?

Did my dad’s fuckery save me? Did his getting caught change my life for the better? My mom’s life? Because then she could marry Brian and know a real marriage? Was Meg sent here to find her family, but also to find me?

It’s too much. I can’t process it all. This right here is why I don’t go to church. It’s a spiritual mind fuck every time.

I watch James and Brian tearfully embrace and James look down at Meg in the congregation with nothing short of familial affection, and I have to go. I have to get out of here.

If what James says is true, and bad things are part of God’s blessings in our lives, that means God planned on my dad hurting my mom. On hurting me. He planned on everyone turning their backs on us and for all those people to get hurt by my father. And for what?