Teen Hyde (High School Horror Story #2)(55)

My mind went blank. I still felt as though I was just waking up. And now I was supposed to go chat with Pastor Long? “But … but I don’t want to.” This was a stupid way to object. Childish even. But it felt ridiculous that they thought a church pastor could fix my problems.

“Cassidy.” Mom rubbed her hand between my shoulder blades the way she used to when I was sick. “It’ll be fine.”

“When?” I asked, blinking my eyes rapidly as though I was still adjusting to the light. Everything about the church felt vague and unfamiliar. Like it was a scene happening to someone else.

“Now,” Dad said. The wrinkles around his eyes formed little starbursts. “He’s waiting for you in the elder offices. You shouldn’t keep him waiting, sport.”

“But—”

“Cassidy.” Dad didn’t sigh, but he did look very tired. Almost as tired as I did, I bet. Was that the effect I was having on people? “He only wants to talk. Maybe you’ll even feel better.”

At this very moment, I felt terrible. Worse than I had in my entire life. And I only knew that I didn’t want to make them suffer, too. It seemed that I could only accomplish small things now. And this was one of them.

I felt my parents’ collective gaze on my back as I trudged up the red carpet stairs to the elder offices. Lately my tongue had begun to feel as though it was made of wet cement.

I walked down the hallway lined with office doors. I wasn’t in a hurry. Since we were in church, after all, I didn’t think it was too much to hope for a miracle that would get me out of a heart-to-heart with the head reverend at Hollow Pines Presbyterian.

The desire to get out of the talk continued to grow with each step until a voice began to materialize. Duck into one, something inside me urged. I glanced at the office doors next to me, the lights inside turned off, vacant. Duck into one and skip this charade. My pace slowed and I came to a stop. I looked at the door closest on my left, indecision brewing in me at the same time as temptation drew my hand like a magnet.

“Cassidy!”

I jumped at the sound of my own name. My eyelashes fluttered and it took a second for the man in robes to come into focus. Pastor Long waved at me from the end of the hall.

“I’m in this one down here,” he said.

My cheeks flushed. “Right, sorry.”

I dusted my palms off on my dress, lowered my head, and hurried the rest of the distance to the church’s lead pastor. He ushered me into a small room where I took a seat on a yellow couch and pinned my knees together. Pastor Long pulled up a chair opposite me, crossed his legs one over the other, and leaned back.

“Tell me why you’re here, Cassidy.” Pastor Long was a man old enough to be my grandfather. He had long earlobes and grooves etched into his forehead so deeply they might have been irrigation ditches.

I twisted the hem of my skirt between my fingers and shrugged.

Pastor Long waited. “What I mean is, why did your parents arrange this meeting?” Another long pause. “Do you think … in your own words…” He twirled his hand as if to say, go on.

I chewed the inside of my lip until the skin lifted and I could feel the salty sting underneath. I pressed my tongue into the small gouge. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I told them everything was fine. I’m just tired. I’m not … sleeping very well.”

Pastor Long nodded and folded his hands in his lap. He’d always been a kind man. One time he’d even given Paisley and me bite-sized Butterfingers that he kept in his robe pockets when he caught us sneaking out of Sunday school. I’d, of course, given mine to Paisley, but I had associated the reverend with chocolate and peanut butter ever since and, as far as I was concerned, there were worse things to be reminded of by a person.

“Let’s try another tactic. How’s cheerleading going? What do you kids call yourselves, the Oilerettes?” His patience didn’t waver.

I sighed. “I’m not on the squad anymore.”

I watched for any flicker of surprise. A raise of the eyebrows. But instead, Pastor Long leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His robes and pant legs hiked up so that I could see maroon socks with a pattern of bears marching across. “Cassidy,” he said. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want. I’m not here to make you.” I shifted in my seat. “But there’s one person you can and probably should talk to.” Pastor Long lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “God. He sees everything, Cassidy.” An uncomfortable wad of spit worked its way up my throat at the mention of “everything.” “But he also forgives everything. Do you understand?”

His eyes were gray and comforting. What would Pastor Long say if he knew who I really was? What I’d really done? A thousand truths piled up on my chest and it felt like I was being buried alive. Every choice now twisted around me like a straitjacket. The drinking. The kissing. The flirting. The boys. Dearborn. Sunshine. Teddy Marks. And all the frightening blank spots in my memory too dark for me to see.

I tried to open my mouth, wondering if I did, what might come out, but my tongue stuck to the roof and the words stuck in my saliva like it was a fly trap. Don’t tell him. The voice that had winnowed its way to the surface moments earlier now bubbled up again. My teeth ground into each other. My jaw twitched.

Even if someone would believe me about that night in Dearborn, that it had all happened and that I’d wanted none of it, the truth wouldn’t set me free. It didn’t take a mathematician to know that, if I confided in anyone about the night in Dearborn, it wouldn’t take long for the cops to solve for y—and that y would be me.