Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Noah

I walked into the local church building, looking over its white-painted walls. During my past visits over Christmas, I'd come to church but not really participated. I'd always tried to remain invisible, making my mother happy that I was with the family while not actually engaging with anyone.

Today felt different.

I found my family's pew and slipped in next to Jason, Damon's six-year-old. Damon looked surprised and then smiled at us.

Jason solemnly leaned into me. I leaned back. It seemed like the boy wanted to say something.

"Do you have any gum?" he asked.

I cracked a smile. As a child, I'd always wanted gum in church. Luckily, I had some. I pulled out my pack and handed him a mint piece.

There was some shuffling farther down the row, and then little Trent, Damon's four-year-old, was scooting past my mother and toward me. He had his hand out.

This was a fun game. I took another piece and handed it to Trent.

Surprisingly, the boy hugged me. I smiled down at him. He looked just like Sharon, his mother. When Sharon had left almost two years ago, Damon had explained that she didn't want to be a mother and was going to California. Damon had gotten married before doing four years in the Marines and then coming back to Refuge Falls. Recently, he'd been promoted to sheriff. Small towns.

I looked over and saw my mother waving her hand, signaling that she wanted some gum too. I grinned and handed the pack to Damon, who passed it down the row so everyone could take a piece. Maybe it was a simple thing, to share a pack of gum in church with family, but it warmed my heart. Which was nice, because my mind had been a jumbled mess since I'd seen Ella yesterday.

McCrae and Canyon both grinned at me. Kayla wasn't here. Neither was my father. Since Dylan had already gone back to Denver, I wasn't surprised by his absence.

Pastor Jones began his sermon. "The greatest commandment we are given in the Bible is to love thy neighbor as thyself. I want to discuss that today. I want to start with asking you, could you love yourself as God loves you? Because so often I feel that society talks about this concept of self-love, but it doesn't really talk about where the love of self can come from. It's not a thing we have to look for or feel like we don't have. God loves us just like He loved His son, Jesus Christ. That is how we should love ourselves. That is how we should love others. And because of that love, we can forgive others. We can forgive and rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ to make all things new again."

Forgiveness. I thought of Ella. Would she ever forgive me? A dull ache filled my chest, just like it had on and off for the past eight years.

"I promise you that you can have healing in your life." The pastor seemed to be looking right at me, making me straighten. Pastor Jones was about my parents' age. He'd always taken turns with my father before my father had retired from his pastor duties.

I tried to re-settle into the bench and looked around, taking my mind off the topic and off of Ella. I recognized many of the families in attendance, but just as many of these people were strangers to me. And why wouldn't they be? I'd been gone for eight years. It was strange how I could come home and everything felt the same. Maybe I was the one who had changed.

I loved this church. It had a Gothic type of feel, and that always made me smile. It had taken years of growing up for me to realize that most Christian churches didn't have Gothic elements. This one had floor-to-ceiling windows that peered out at the cemetery, currently letting in rays of bright sunshine.

There was a little round staircase at the back of the church that went to the second floor, which hadn't been used since I was a kid. I thought about how Ella, Greg, my brothers, and I had taken every opportunity to sneak up to the second floor. It wasn't that interesting, just dusty old benches. People said it wasn't stable, but despite their worries that the whole thing would collapse, the creaking floors had always made me want to go up there.

Pastor Jones kept speaking, but my mind was in the past. I thought of summer picnics at this church, around the side with the gazebo. Every Easter there would be eggs hidden on the top of the gazebo, and we would always try to figure out how to get them down. This usually consisted of climbing onto each other's shoulders.

I couldn't believe Ella had moved back to this town. That said, I could believe she had inherited her grandmother's lake house. Was she making any changes to it? Her parents had left her and Greg with her grandparents most of the time, so I'd known them well. When her grandfather had passed when we were all twelve, I remembered coming to the funeral and crying.

Of course, thinking about a funeral made me think about Greg.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure moving into the cemetery. I only saw her for a fraction of moment, but my heart skipped a beat.

Ella. She was here.

My thoughts twisted, and then I realized what day it was. I snatched the church program out of Jason's hands; he had folded it into a paper plane.

He elbowed me. "Hey."

Ignoring him, I confirmed the date: June 29th. I usually thought of Greg on this day. Sometimes I would think about this day months in advance. Other times, it would sneak up on me.

I handed the program back and then stood, quietly walking out of the church. I had to find her. It was how I'd always felt about Ella. If she was around, I wanted to be with her, even after all this time.