Run by Kody Keplinger

cancer.”
    “I’m so sorry to hear that, Eli. We’ll all pray for her. Anyone else?”
    A few others requested prayers for friends and family members going through hard times. Then, I felt Christy’s hand brush my shoulder as she raised it.
    “Miss Kelly,” she said, using her sweet, candy-covered voice. “I have a prayer request, too.”
    The weight pressed harder on my chest as dread piled onto the anxiety.
    “Of course, Christy. Go ahead.”
    “I know there are some among us who might be struggling,” she said. “Who’ve lost their way. Aligned themselves with sinners. I just pray for those people. I hope they can find their path again.”
    My cheeks burned. She hadn’t said my name, and I couldn’t see anyone’s faces just then, but I was sure everyone was looking at me. Sure they knew Christy meant I was the one aligning myself with sinners. And she was right. Bo Dickinson was a sinner if ever there was one. Between the fights and the boys and—after what she’d told me last night—the girls, too. Maybe I needed their prayers.
    But, God help me, I didn’t want them.
    I took a deep breath, knowing I should just stay quiet. Bite my tongue.
    “Well, all right,” Miss Kelly said, sounding a little confused. “Sure. If that’s everyone, let’s join hands and—”
    “Wait.”
    I knew I ought to be quiet, but I was tired of doing what I ought to.
    “Yes, Agnes?”
    “I have a prayer request, too,” I said.
    “Oh. Okay. We have an awful lot today, it seems. Who do you want us to pray for?”
    “I want to pray for people who eat shellfish,” I said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Shellfish. According to the Bible, that’s a sin.” I turned to face Christy. She was staring right at me, so close that even I could tell she was scowling. “Christy, didn’t you say you and your boyfriend went to Red Lobster on a date not too long ago?”
    “That’s enough, Agnes,” Miss Kelly said.
    But I was feeling mean now. I’d never been mean before, and it felt better than it ought to have.
    “And didn’t you get a haircut, too, Christy? I think that’s also a sin, if I recall,” I said.
    “Agnes!”
    “And we’ve talked a whole lot about premarital sex being a sin, but just the other day, you—”
    “That’s it. Agnes Atwood, get out of my classroom,” Miss Kelly demanded.
    “I’m just pointing out what the Bible says. If we’re gonna talk about sinners …”
    I glanced back at Christy, and I was surprised to realize that she wasn’t scowling anymore. Her head was down, and I couldn’t see her face. I did, however, hear a soft sniff.
    “Go sit in the sanctuary until services start,” Miss Kelly said.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    I stood up, unfolded my cane, and headed for the door, regret and guilt already starting to seep through and put a damper on that meanness I’d reveled in a second before.
    “You know, Agnes,” Christy said, and I thought I heard tears in her voice. “You have fun with Bo Dickinson. Y’all might be perfect for each other.”

“I think maybe I’m starting to like it,” Agnes says, running her fingers through her short hair.
    I rinse my toothbrush and put it back in the plastic bag I’d packed it in. I move aside and Agnes steps in front of the sink, wetting the washrag she’d been given to wash her face. In the next room, I can hear Colt on the phone, but with the water running, I can’t make out a word he’s saying.
    I pour some dog food into a bowl Colt had lent me and set it on the floor. Utah lunges at it, tail wagging. She don’t know that it’s the last of the food. That I’d been too anxious about getting out of the trailer the other night to think about how much I was packing.
    “I think maybe it makes me look kinda badass.” She scrubs the rag along her nose and forehead. “Like a rebel. Don’t you think so?”
    “Sure.”
    She frowns in the mirror. “You okay, Bo?”
    I nod. Then, because I ain’t sure she saw, I say, “Fine. Just … tired.