I scanned the page. He’d outlined some of the words in yellow, but I didn’t see those. Somehow, the first words I read were these:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

“Nothing,” I said, feeling dizzy, drained. Rather be with you. Those two pills were like putting a bandage on cancer.

I took them anyway. When he leaned over to give them to me, he touched my forehead and brought back blood on the pad of his finger. “What the…”

I grabbed a tissue, blotting the sore, which didn’t even hurt compared to everything else that was wrong with me. I replied lifelessly, “Nothing.”

“Wow,” he said, sitting down on the antique rocking chair in the corner of the room, far away from me. “You are stressed out.”

Stress. Right. If that was all it was, I’d have been happy. But I hadn’t even had a chance to think about college. I couldn’t, not with my social life going to pot. My mother had strategically placed brochures for Penn State in places around the house where I’d find them, but all I could think was that as much as he promised we were forever, Declan had started moving away from me. In another year, he’d be in Philadelphia, and I’d be at home. Everything I’d done to draw him toward me had only succeeded in pushing him further away.

We didn’t kiss again after that. Didn’t even touch. I felt like a diversion, like someone he was passing time with when he really wanted to be with someone else. He only talked about UPenn and how acceptances should be coming in another month or so. Where before I’d imagined walking the tree-lined campus with him, hand in hand, now I imagined him walking with Luisa. The more he talked, the sicker I felt, as though I was no longer a part of his future. As if my future, once so set in stone, had become a big, terrifying question mark.

If I couldn’t trust Declan to be honest with me, who could I trust?

When he excused himself to use the bathroom, I found a purple highlighter in my backpack and marked those sentences, thickly and angrily. Then I stuck the red ribbon bookmark in the page and laid the Bible on his pillow, so that he wouldn’t be able to escape those damning words, no matter how hard he tried.

Tuesday, March 5

I haven’t slept in days. Not since I discovered what a cheating liar I was. I can’t help thinking that Luisa was right: I am responsible for Declan’s death.