The church parking lot was already full by the time we arrived, but I refused Cal’s offer to drop me off out front. Small groups were clustered along the sidewalk, and I didn’t want to stand there alone, have to nod and accept condolences and hugs. I wanted to be whisked inside like a criminal before anyone had time to notice me. Cal sat with me in the car parked a block down the road until everyone else had filtered inside, and we snuck in right as they were closing the doors for the service.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inside a church. My mama had the same opinion of religion that she did of the law—nothing good ever came from either one of them, and they both used fear to persuade fools to follow their rules. If she had indulged an urge to bring us closer to God, this bland Methodist chapel would have been her last choice. She would have taken us to one of the “churches” scattered throughout the holler, instead. The kind of place with dirt floors and snakebit parishioners speaking in tongues. Something with a little fire to it. Something with teeth.

I slid into one of the back pews before Cal could pull me forward, kept my head tilted down into the hymnal I’d opened on my lap. I was scared to look up, scared to see all the people filling the church. Scared of my own reaction. Because in a town this size, the person who’d killed Junie and Izzy was bound to be sitting right there among us. Praying and singing and crying as if they hadn’t wielded the knife themselves. Slowly, I raised my head. Ran my eyes along the rows of mourners. Jack Pearson from the tire store, with the gaze that always followed young girls a little too close. Sally Nickels, who’d hated me since I’d slept with her boyfriend in tenth grade. Dave Colson, whose love affair with the bottle made him mean and unpredictable. It could have been any of them. It could have been none of them.

“Hey,” Cal murmured. “Hey, breathe.” He reached over and rubbed my back, his hand warm and rough through my shirt.

I looked back down, kept my eyes on the hymnal until my vision blurred. When I looked up again, Zach and Jenny were approaching their daughter’s casket. It felt like the entire church was holding its breath, the only sound Jenny’s hoarse sobbing. A mean, hateful part of me wondered if she ever stopped. Her shoulders hunched as she placed a hand on Izzy’s closed (thank God) casket and Zach reached forward, supporting her. He whispered something into her ear and began to guide her gently away. Everyone else averted their eyes, dying to look but not wanting to be caught staring. But I stared, and Zach’s gaze caught mine, his face pulled taut with grief. A bright shock of anger pulsed under my skin. Who was going to hold me up? Who was going to put their arms around me? Cal couldn’t do it forever, that was asking too much of him, but who else was there? I jerked my eyes away.