Has to Be Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

to—”
    â€œGood night, Mr. Kennedy.” Maybe now when I see you at school, it won’t send my stomach into a flurry.
    â€œGood night.”
    I head to the house, go through the back door, and run up the stairs to my attic bedroom. I’m sure he thinks I’m insane, but he probably wouldn’t be the first.
    The second I’m surrounded by my wooden, slanted walls, I grab A Worn Path by Eudora Welty. As I kick my shoes off and flop on my bed, Welty’s words dance in my brain. The words Mom introduced me to the year before she died. One day I will write as perfectly as this story is written.
    The problem is that the words aren’t sticking. I’m reading, but my brain is spinning instead of following the lines.
    I pick up my phone and pause before texting Cecily. She’s four hours ahead, so it’s like 1:00 a.m. in Georgia. Suck. I scroll to Elias’s name.
    You up?
    Yep
    I’m not sure how to shake the story of Mom and the bear, or share what it was like to talk to someone from Columbia.
    Miss you tonight, I type.
    Maybe we should try to find some time to do a real date? Take a drive?
    Immediately I relax into my mattress.
    I’d love that
    Being around Elias almost always seems to reset me. A night together should be perfect. I need to shake off the skittering, frantic feeling of Rhodes.
    You wanna talk? he asks.
    His voice might help me relax more. But then my mind jumps to Rhodes Kennedy, to how I reacted to Rhodes Kennedy, and to the letter in my drawer with my acceptance by an out-of-state school. Nah. See you tomorrow.
    Tomorrow
    I set the alarm on my phone before leaving it on my nightstand. If I can’t talk to Cecily or Elias about all the new uneasiness running around inside me, what do I do about it?

4
    â€œClara!” Dad hollers up the stairs. “Time for seminary!”
    I roll over and wish to live somewhere that I could have my once-a-day religious class during the school day and not before school in Sister McEntyre’s living room with four other students as sleepy as me. I also sometimes wish that Elias and I belonged to the same church so he’d pick me up. I could sleep in his truck for a few extra minutes as we drove to seminary together.
    Some days I’m grateful we have these morning sessions because they help me focus on being a better person than I tend to be, and other mornings I want to stab out Sister McEntyre’s eyes with a spoon. I’m having one of those mornings. Should be an interesting day.
    â€œClara!” Dad calls again. “I’m going to go feed the horses. You need to be walking out the door in five minutes!”
    I let out a sigh as I flip on my hair straightener and grab a pair of jeans from my closet. At least uniforms aren’t part of my private school. After straightening my bangs over my face and double-checking the battery on my phone because my scriptures are there, I head out to my truck.
    The two-lane, bendy highway that runs through Knik is quiet at six fifteen in the morning because all the smart people are still in bed. The river runs fast and muddy on one side, and the mountain stretches up almost as high as I can see on the other.
    I reach the log-cabin-looking mailbox that signals Sister McEntyre’s driveway and turn off, climbing the steep, gravel driveway until it levels off in front of her log home.
    Two other cars I recognize are there, belonging to kids who go to the public school.
    Sister McEntyre is on the porch steps and smiles an even, teacher smile. “Morning, Sister Fielding.”
    I give her a mumble and a nod, trying to force myself to wake up already. I used to think it was so cool when I became a teenager and everyone referred to me as “Sister Fielding” instead of just Clara, but in my church, calling someone Brother or Sister isn’t really a distinction. I’m more and more convinced it’s just a nice way of saying, “We’re