Sunday service is theater with a pipe organ. I take my usual place between my parents in the third pew—my mother’s perfume like lilies under ice, my father’s shoulder a wall I’m meant to lean on. I’ve perfected the choreography: rise on cue, sit on cue, bow my head on cue. Sing with my mouth while my mind slips through side doors and emergency exits.
“Crown Him with many crowns,” we chant, and the congregation swells like one obedient lung.
Across the aisle, the Ellisons array themselves like a glossy ad for righteousness. Emma’s pearls gleam, Mr. Ellison’s tie is the exact red of pomegranate seeds, and Grant—Grant looks almost unruly in a navy suit, the second button undone like a private joke. He catches my eye over the prayer book the same moment I catch his. There’s a beat where the hymn blurs and all I can hear is the hush of cloth and breath.
The sermon, as always, is a lesson about order disguised as love. Pastor Fields talks about the narrow path, how it keeps a person safe from the precipice on either side.
Twice more, Grant and I cross looks, and both times something inside me steadies in response. It’s absurd.
“Amen,” the room says in a wave. Bulletins rustle. The organ sighs us into benediction. Hands extend; hands are shaken. Community enacted with precision.
In the fellowship hall, everything smells like percolated coffee and powdered creamer, sugar cookies and waxed linoleum.
Grant approaches with two foam cups and a question in his eyes.
“How are you holding up?” he asks, quiet enough to be a secret.
“Performing,” I say, and his mouth tilts. He understands the verb.
“Later,” he murmurs. “If you need me.”
“I will,” I say, and then my father’s voice leaps over the heads like a thrown stone: “Maya,” and I’m obedient again, crossing to his side for introductions I’ve done a hundred times. I pour coffee for Mrs. Tanner, I carry napkins to the children’s table, I laugh on the fourth beat.
When I finally look up, Jordan is across the room with my father.
The sight hits like a chord I can’t ignore. He’s in a dark suit that fits like it was made for him, black hair smoothed back enough to reveal the silver at his temples, hands in his pockets like he’s resisting the urge to touch anything. He’s listening to Dad with that attentive, dry half-smile that says he already knows the punchline and will laugh anyway. Something in my body tightens and uncoils at once. My mouth remembers the rough scrape of his stubble, my spine remembers the wall, my ears remember the sound he made when I kissed him as if the sound was a door he couldn’t shut quickly enough.
He turns as if he felt me think him. Our eyes catch and hold. The space between us goes bright and narrow, like a hallway of light.
I set my cup down with too-careful precision. “Bathroom,” I say to no one, to everyone, and slip away.
The corridor off the fellowship hall is cooler. I lock myself in the single-stall bathroom and brace my hands on the sink, breath sawed thin like I’ve been running. The mirror gives me back a flushed girl with hazel eyes. I turn on the faucet and let water run over my wrists until the pulse there slows.
I grab my phone from my bag, thumb trembling as I unlock it. The signal flickers but holds. Claire’s name sits at the top of our thread like a lifeline.
Me: He’s here.
Claire: Jordan?
Me: Who else? Talking to my dad like he’s auditioning for sainthood.
Claire: You sound jealous.
Me: I hate him.
Claire: You don’t hate him. You hate that he made you feel something you can’t have. Big difference.
I stare at the screen until her last message stops trembling in my hand. Then I lock the phone, breathe once, twice, steadying the wreckage inside me.
By the time I unlock the door and step into the empty hallway, I’m composed again on the surface. Inside, every wire hums.
Jordan is there.
For a heartbeat I think I conjured him. He’s leaning against the far wall, one heel braced, as if the building put him there on purpose. The light from the exit sign makes a soft red halo at his shoulder.
He straightens, takes one step. I don’t move.
Another step, slow, deliberate. He stops an arm’s length away, close enough that I can see the pulse beating in his throat.
“I received your message,” I say before he can speak. My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
His jaw tightens. “And?”
“And what?”
“Are you ready to talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I fold my arms like armor.
“Maya, please—”
“Don’t.” My voice softens but doesn’t break.
The word lands sharper than I intend, cutting the air clean between us.
He flinches almost imperceptibly, then steadies. “Listen—”
I don’t listen.
I’m already moving. Past him. Away.
I want to run because if I stop, I’ll hear everything I’m trying to bury—the regret in his voice, the apology I don’t want, the ache that sounds too much like mine.
My heels click too loud in the empty corridor. The air feels thick, every breath like dragging something invisible behind me. My pulse hasn’t caught up with my body—it’s still back there with him, beating against his silence.
The fellowship hall swallows me. Sound expands, bright and flat. I adjust my dress. I remember to smile.
Conversations overlap again: talk of casseroles, committee minutes, vacation Bible school. The sound of normal life rushing back, filling every empty corner before I can breathe.
I’ve barely crossed the threshold when a hand lights on my forearm like a claim. “There you are,” Mrs. Ellison trills, materializing from a cluster of pearls and praise. Her smile is polished, her lipstick fresh even after a hymnbook’s worth of words. She leans in as if we are conspirators, which I suppose is the point.
“Your mother tells me you and Grant are getting close,” she says, voice pitched for sweetness with an iron core. “We should start thinking about wedding timelines, don’t you think, dear?”