I was immune to his theatrics, so I turned my attention to the magnolia wreath hanging on the beam above the altar. Sunshine slipped through the filmy windowpanes and reflected off the waxy leaves. At least it made the worn plank floors and the chipped white paint look intentional, like the antique style was what we were going for. The wreath was one of Charlotte’s creations. I would often catch my sister looking at the giant monstrosity with a big smile on her young face. I looked beside me and caught her doing so now, thinking nothing but happy thoughts, quite the opposite of my own. Instead of seeing the wreath as decor, I couldn’t help viewing it as a monument to a bad memory. The bracket mending the beam was barely noticeable, but my eyes didn’t have to glimpse the tarnished metal to know it was there, holding more than the weight of the broken beam.

The awareness of what was hiding in plain sight had my eyes snapping away and focusing on a head full of blond curls, trimmed to a respectable length and neatly styled. It made me want to dishevel the curls until they resembled the unruliness of better times we’d shared together. The mayor’s son was the only one in this tiny sanctuary who was considered normal, but his being here amongst us misfits, sitting two pews up from me like he owned the place, made him the weirdest of us all.

Before I could look away, he glanced over his shoulder and caught me staring. Instead of offering me the typical dimpled, lopsided grin, Vance Archer Cumberland frowned. The ever-present sparkle in his grass-green eyes was absent.

I shook my head and glared a warning. Not today. He shook his head too, but with resignation. He was too handsome to look so sad and I wanted to live in a world where I was allowed to make him happy, yet his unhappiness was solely my fault. It didn’t matter anymore. There was no point in wasting his or my time on what could never be.

I broke our gaze first when a flash of hot pink got caught in my peripheral vision. Charlotte had started swinging her legs at a rate that was sure to launch her slap off the pew if she kept it up. She was short still, but at age thirteen that would probably soon change. The inevitable growth spurt that accompanied puberty, if it was anything like my experience.

“Get still,” I muttered out the side of my mouth and tapped my Birkenstock to her jelly shoe.

Charlotte huffed but did as she was told, stilling her legs. She picked up the end of her dark braid and began fiddling with it. My sister was my opposite. Prissy, loved dresses and silly shoes that were good for nothing but producing sweaty blisters. Today she’d paired the lacy plastic sandals with a floral sundress.