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her.
    The moment I take a seat, Rachel and Tim come in from the opposite direction, gradually making their way down until they reach me. I’m spared from sitting next to Tim as Rachel takes the closest seat next to me. A cursory glance around prompts her to ask where Sarah disappeared to.
    “She’s sitting with her friends,” I whisper, tilting my head a bit toward her to point at the trio of girls seated at the front right side of the service room. She gives a brief nod before turning to Tim to relay the information. There’s no more exchange between us after that as the band walks up the stage to start the customary fifteen minutes of worship. Soon after, the pastor glides onto the stage and I tune him out. The hour of service crawls by but soon we’re filing out of the service room and split up for hour two and three of Sunday classes. Everyone has a place to be, even the toddlers, who are shephered downstairs to the nursery. The rest of us are broken up by age and gender. The men remain in the service room for elder meetings, while the younger population, ages thirteen to seventeen, are led to one of the classrooms on the first floor for deacon preaching. With the women of the church outnumbering the men two to one, we’re given the entire second floor for classrooms for our meetings. The women’s devotional is Rachel’s group, the eighteen and older crowd, and while I’ll be there in a few months, I’m grateful I don’t have to join her today. My class is the young women’s devotional, and I head upstairs with the herd, though I purposely linger behind. Watching Rachel turn the corner and head inside the first room to the right of the staircase, I proceed down the carpeted hallway, but rather than follow the rest of the girls my age into the last room to the left, I continue forward, tension making my muscles tight as I silently hope that no one stops me.
    “Aylee, sweetheart, where are you going?”
    My abrupt stop causes my heart to lurch against my chest, crashing against my breastbone. Closing my eyes, I silently curse. I clutch the beige double handles of my bag as though they’ll keep me in place when all I want to do is ignore the inquiry and keep going. But propriety forces me to turn around. Janet Leeson is the church gossip, she talks about everyone, minds everyone’s business but her own. And the irony is her own home life is in complete shambles. Her husband is a known adulterer in the community, her son’s a crossdresser who left home when he was fifteen because her intolerant bigotry chased him away, and I once overheard Rachel tell Tim people suspected her of dipping a hand or two in the tithe and offerings. Everyone in the church community is good at pretending here, so they smile and laugh with her when in actuality, they hate her guts. With all that going on you would think she’d have the sense to feel a little bit of shame and not pry into people’s lives. But that doesn’t seem at all likely.
    “Just need to go to the bathroom, Sister Leeson.”
    She smiles with a nod, “Oh, all right, sweetheart. I’d hurry if I were you, I wouldn’t want to miss devotional.”
    “No, of course not. I’m just going to head in and come back.” That’s a lie. I have no plans of returning until church is good and over. I’m sure she’ll mention this interaction to Rachel, but I count on the fact that Rachel can’t stand her so she won’t take anything Janet says seriously. She rarely ever does. “I’ll see you later, Sister Leeson.”
    “Bye, sweetheart.”
    I’m down the third step before she calls her goodbye out to me. I make it out of the back exit without any more interruption and step out into the sunlight. The midmorning sun beams down on me. Fall is in the cool breeze that sweeps against my skin, rustling leaves around me, and tousling the short tendrils of hair that manage to escape my two braids. I brush them behind my ears as I follow the beaten path into the forest behind