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.

Someone else out there?” Luke squints in Hallelujah’s direction. He stands. He steps over his log bench and pushes past Rachel. Hallelujah can’t move, can’t breathe, and in four more steps, Luke has her by the arm. He’s marching her into the light.
When he sees who it is, he drops her arm quickly, looking disgusted. “Hallie. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Behind him, Brad’s on his feet. “Well, glory, Hallelujah!” he whoops. The girl next to him shushes him, and he lowers his voice. But he keeps talking, giving his words a preacher-at-a-revival ebb and flow. “I never thought, Hallelujah, I’d see the day, Hallelujah, where you’d have the guts to show up here, Hallelujah,praise Jesus—”
“Give it a rest,” Luke says.
“What, it’s only funny when you do it?”
“Nah, she’s always funny,” Luke says, looking back at Hallelujah, dismissing her with a roll of his eyes. “You just aren’t. You never do that joke right.” He walks back to his seat. He glances at Rachel. “Turns out, there’s a seat for you right here, next to me.” He pats the unclaimed bit of log to his right.

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.

Hal—come sit!” Rachel is looking back. She motions toward a sliver of space between Jonah and Madison. “There’s room.”
“No. There’s not.” Luke says it without even turning around. “How do you and Hallie know each other, anyway?”
“We met in the bathroom. Earlier tonight. She seems cool.” Rachel smiles at Hallelujah. Hallelujah can’t bring herself to smile back.
“Sure, if you like the strong, silent type. I don’t. No offense.” Luke laughs, and Brad laughs, and the girls from Knoxville take that as their cue to laugh too. Like it was actually funny.
Rachel doesn’t laugh. She’s still smiling, but now it’s like she’s not sure whether she should be. “Come on, Hal,” she says. “We’ll make room.”
But Luke’s shaking his head. “Sorry. Guess I’m not being clear. There might be room for someone. But there’s not room for Hallie. Hal. Whatever you wanna call her. Besides. She has to get back. Curfew.”
Rachel looks from Luke to Hallelujah, confused. “We’re all breaking curfew.”
“Yeah, but it’s Hallie’s fault we have early curfew in the first place. And it’s her fault we have so many chaperones to deal with.” Luke’s counting on his fingers, holding them in the air. “Plus, they’ll probably be checking up on her. So she can’t stay.”
“How is all of that her fault?” Rachel asks. “What’d she do?”
“Yeah, Luke. What’d she do?” It’s Jonah. Hallelujah is kind of shocked to hear his voice. It’s low, with a dark undercurrent that’s unfamiliar to her. Then again, it’s been months since they talked. And a lot has changed. “If I remember it right,” Jonah goes on, still staring into the fire, “she wasn’t the only one.”
Luke looks over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Jonah says. “Just making an observation.”
“An observation,” Luke repeats.
“Yeah.”
There’s a moment of silence. It’s uncomfortable. Hallelujah feels like the night sounds get louder to compensate. The wind rustling tree branches. The hum of cicadas. Birdcalls. They’re suffocating her.
Then Luke shakes his head and laughs. “Whatever. Hallie still has to go.” He swings around to look at her directly. “What are you waiting for?”
Hallelujah blinks, wishing that small movement could make her vanish. Everyone in the circle is staring. Waiting for her to leave. Their eyes cut into her. She takes two steps backward, tears clouding her vision.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
She turns and starts walking away. Walking, not running. She doesn’t want to give Luke that satisfaction.

So what was Jonah like before high school? As a kid?”
“As a kid?” Hallelujah brings up the picture in her mind. “He was . . . sweet, I guess. Dorky. He’d wear these outfits his mom picked out—pleated khaki pants and polo shirts, with his hair slicked down with gel. And he would get really enthusiastic about things. Too enthusiastic. He went through this cowboy phase where he wore a cowboy hat and boots to school every day. Didn’t care what anyone thought.” The mental image makes her smile.
“And he and Luke were best friends?”
“Starting in middle school, yeah. They played soccer together.”
“Huh.” Rachel pauses. “So when did Jonah get cute?”
“He was still pretty short in middle school. And skinny. But he did start dressing better.”
“No more pleated khakis?”
“No more pleated khakis. And then the summer before ninth grade, he had this growth spurt. And he started to, uh, fill out. So I guess ninth grade is when I noticed . . .” Hallelujah fades off. “This is embarrassing.”
“No, it’s not. This is what girls talk about.” Rachel grins. “Besides. I wanted to see if you were paying as close attention to him as he was to you.”
“I didn’t realize I was. We were just friends.”
“You can be friends and still objectively notice someone’s cuteness.

And you and me, we’re . . . ?” He doesn’t finish the question. He doesn’t have to.
“Yeah,” Hallelujah repeats. “You and me.”
Jonah tilts his head so it meets hers on the pillow. They lie there, side by side, with him under the sheets and her on top of them, holding hands and touching foreheads. Jonah’s eyes are closed. Just when she thinks he must have fallen asleep, he murmurs, “Stay.”
“Okay.”
Outside the window, clouds are rolling in over the mountains. A storm. But beyond the band of rain clouds, the sky is blue again. Bright, shining blue. The storm won’t last long. And, Hallelujah realizes, sometimes you need the storm to really appreciate the sun and the blue sky.
Jonah is breathing evenly. She can feel each exhale on the side of her neck.
She smiles, and she stays.