After a few minutes, she speaks up again. “You’re next. Sing.” Anxiety grips Hallelujah’s chest, squeezing. “I don’t sing,” she says.”C’mon, it doesn’t matter if you’re bad. It’s not like this is a concert hall—”“She’s not bad.” Jonah’s back. “She has a great voice.” Rachel swings around to look from Jonah to Hallelujah. “Really? Now you have to—”“No."“But—”“I don’t sing,” Hallelujah repeats, turning away. Jonah joins them by the fire. The silence stretches out. Except it’s not really silent, not with the birds and wind and fire and how loud Hallelujah’s heart is beating. And then Jonah clears his throat. “You used to sing,” he says. “You were great.” Hallelujah ignores the compliment. She looks into the fire. She feels the last of the day’s happiness fading away, already a memory.“Why’d you quit?” Jonah asks. “Was it ’cause of Luke?” Hallelujah inhales deeply. She feels the familiar spark of anger in her gut. “Yes,” she says. “It was because of Luke. And you. And everyone else. So thanks for that.” Jonah’s face drops. She can see that she’s hit a nerve. Well, he hurt her first. The way he took Luke’s side, shutting her out. The loss of his friendship, when she needed a friend most. The loss of their voices harmonizing, when she needed music most. How she just hurt him can’t begin to compare to all of that.

— Kathryn Holmes

Are you hurt?” the woman asks.“Just my—” Even after the water, her voice comes out as a dry hiss. She clears her throat and tries again. “Just my ankle.”“Can you tell us where the others are? Are they. . . ?” Charlie fades off, but she knows how the question ends.“They’re still out there. Still alive.” Hallelujah will not think about the alternative. But by not trying to not think about it, she’s thinking about it, and it’s making her feel panicky. “I was the only one who could walk, so I—” She gulps. Draws in a shaky breath. Charlie dismounts his bike and squats down next to her. “Go on,” he says. His voice is soft. His accent is southern. But not hillbilly southern. Deep South. He’s not from around here either. She can’t believe her mind is wandering like this. She tries to focus.“We found—Jonah found a trail, and I followed it to this road. They’re at a campsite by the trail. I. . .” Hallelujah falters. “I don’t know how far. I wasn’t walking very fast. We haven’t eaten in. . . A while. And Rachel—she’s sick. She was throwing up. And Jonah cut his leg, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. . . .”“Jesus,” the woman says.

— Kathryn Holmes

Hallelujah can barely breathe through the pain of each step. Rachel is panting from the effort of holding Hallelujah up. Still, when they get closer to the clearing, Rachel manages to call out: “Jonah! Help!” There’s a rustling noise up ahead. Twigs snapping. And then Jonah appears. His face is in shadow, but his voice is worried: “What happened?”“I turned my ankle,” Hallelujah says. “I’m okay.”“She’s not okay,” Rachel gasps. “She can’t put weight on it. Can you carry her?” Jonah doesn’t hesitate. He wraps one arm around Hallelujah’s waist, and then he scoops up her legs with the other. In a single, fluid motion, she’s off the ground. She holds on to his shoulders. For a second, she thinks about how strange this is—to be held like this, to be held by Jonah.

— Kathryn Holmes

He’s looking at her with so much compassion. Like he knows what she’s going through. Like he cares about her. This is what she wanted to see after everything happened with Luke. Instead, she saw Jonah’s back, every time he turned and walked away from her. She blurts, “Why are you being nice to me?” She regrets it immediately. It’s the vulnerability talking. The fear. The adrenaline. For a second, she forgot the aloof, thick-skinned Hallelujah she needs to be. Jonah relaxes his grip. He looks away, out into the wet woods. He waits a long time before speaking. “Luke told me.” Hallelujah is instantly tense. “Luke told you what?” Another long pause. “That he lied. About what happened that night.”“What happened?” Rachel cuts in. “What’d Luke lie about?” Hallelujah ignores her. She stays focused on Jonah, even though he won’t look at her. “What’d he tell you originally?” Jonah flinches. “He made it. . . Worse. Then what he told the adults. He said that that wasn’t the first time. And he said that you—”“Never mind,” Hallelujah cuts in. “I can guess.” She’s heard the rumors. The persistent ones and the surprising, weird, creative ones. She bets there are a lot that she hasn’t heard, too. “None of that happened,” she says softly but firmly, certain without even knowing exactly what Luke said. What Jonah heard. “None of it.”“That’s what he told me yesterday. I wanted to know why he was still—” He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. “I’d heard him and Brad laughing about what they were going to do to you this week, and I was like, enough is enough. Time to let it go. So I asked him what was up. Why he was still messing with you.”“And?” Hallelujah asks.“And he told me the truth: that he’d made most of it up. He said he had to keep you quiet. Plus, um. He said messing with you was fun.” Hallelujah lets that sink in. “You really didn’t know it was a lie? You believed him this whole time?” Jonah suddenly looks right at her. His eyes plead. “I saw you, Hallie. And Luke was the only one of the two of you with a story to explain it.

— Kathryn Holmes

I hate him.” She repeats it louder. “I hate him!” She shouts it at the sky, even though it’s hard to shout lying down: “I! Hate! Luke! Willis!” Rachel asks, “But what did he do?” Hallelujah can hear Jonah waiting for her answer. She knows he’s waiting because he’s stopped making fire-building noises. He’s silent. Completely. She takes a deep breath. “He told a lie about me. Actually, a lot of lies. And people believed him. The grown-ups, because he’s the preacher’s son and he’d never do something bad. And everyone our age—because he’s popular, and you don’t question the popular guy, because if you do, you’ll stop being popular yourself. Or you’ll never get the chance. And because of what he said, my parents stopped trusting me. I lost friends. I was just this loser who—” She breaks off. Now she’s talking to Jonah. Even though he’s behind her and she can’t see him. “It doesn’t matter what you saw that night, or what he told you happened. Luke treated me like I was nothing, and you let him do it.” Jonah doesn’t answer.“But that’s not what makes me the maddest,” Hallelujah continues, pushing up to sit. “What makes me the maddest is that I let it happen too. I didn’t stand up for myself. And when someone did tell me to stand up for myself, I got so mad—” Sarah. She feels the emotion of their argument wash over her, fresh.“I pushed her away. I told her she didn’t understand anything. But she was right. I became this girl who wouldn’t stand up for herself. The quiet girl. The nothing girl. I just wanted it all to stop, but from the outside, without me having to make it stop. And I wanted to get away, but I figured, hey, college will get here eventually, and then I’ll be away, I just have to get there, and all the while I’m miserable, and I’m letting you guys make me miserable, letting you make me think I’m supposed to be miserable, that I’m supposed to be quiet, and I’m shutting people out, people who maybe actually care, and I hate myself for it.” An abrupt stop. The train of thought hits a wall. She’s never said that before. Never thought it before. Not consciously. But she knows, deeper than she’s ever known anything, that it’s true. Hallelujah has spent six months hating herself for being weak and silent and for letting bad things happen and for not fighting.

— Kathryn Holmes

Jonah is something. Jonah’s opinion matters. And she doesn’t want him to hurt because of her. She and Jonah will never be what they were. Too much has happened. But maybe they could become something else. She decides to take the first step. “Jonah,” she says. He looks over at her. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice low.”Don’t be. I forgive you,” she tells him. It sounds so formal. I forgive you. But it helps to say it out loud.“Thanks. I don’t know if I deserve that. But thanks.”“You do. Of course, you do.” Hallelujah says it firmly. “And—I want to.” I’ve missed you, she adds silently. She’s not ready to say that part. Not yet.

— Kathryn Holmes

Jonah’s hair sprays water each time he flips around, in search of another fish. Droplets shimmer on his skin. He’s really cute. And Hallelujah can’t help but think about last night. About him liking her. He flashes her a smile, and something inside her swoons.

— Kathryn Holmes

Jonah shifts to lean back a little farther, moaning as he does. “Holy heck, my leg hurts,” he says, still with that strained, forced lightness. Again, Hallelujah mimics his tone. “‘Holy heck’? That’s cutting it close.”“I have a gash in my leg the size of the Mississippi. I can say whatever I want.

— Kathryn Holmes

Luke said that he was surprised when I showed up at his room. That he hadn’t meant to give me the wrong idea. That he would never have taken it beyond just kissing. And he looked so genuine. So trustworthy. So sorry about what had happened. He almost convinced me that I’d misread his signals.” Hallelujah pauses. “The whole time, I kept my mouth shut. I wish I hadn’t. But I was still so humiliated. And I felt guilty. I made out with him. I liked it. And no one made me go to his room.” Her voice breaks. She has to swallow past a lump in her throat.“I know Luke’s not a good guy. I know what he did isn’t my fault. It’s his. But still, none of it would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone to his room.” She’s almost there. Almost done. Almost heard. Something deep inside her hurts like it hasn’t hurt in a long time. But she knows that this gash had to reopen in order to heal. That’s how wounds work. They need air.“I knew I’d get punished, and I did. My parents grounded me. I was put on youth group probation. But I honestly thought Luke’s lies would just fade away if I kept a low profile. There’s always gossip about someone. This time it was me.”...“Luke is still telling people about what supposedly happened that night,” Hallelujah says. “And he makes fun of me. All the time. What I look like, what I say, my name. And he does this thing at church: whenever we sing a hymn with my name in it, he sings it like he’s hooking up with me. He sings the word ‘hallelujah’ at me. He moans it. And I hate it.” That’s one of the reasons she stopped singing: his voice, his fake grunts of satisfaction, ruining the music she loved so much.“You said,” she says to Jonah, “he wanted to keep me upset. To keep me from telling anyone what really happened. Well, it worked.” She pauses. “Until now.”“Until now,” Rachel repeats. Then she curses. “I can’t believe him. I can’t believe he got away with it.”“I let him get away with it,” Hallelujah says softly.“No. He’s the one who crossed the line. And okay, maybe you could’ve spoken up sooner. But if no one pushed you for your side of the story, that’s on them.” Rachel yawns and stretches. “And when we get home, we’re going to set the record straight.

— Kathryn Holmes

She used to think alone was the answer. Alone would stop the whispers and the taunts. Alone couldn't get her into any more trouble. Alone meant not getting hurt. Now, she'd give anything to see another human being. To hear someone call her name

— Kathryn Holmes