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Stevie lays her hand against the door, letting her palm press against the grooves in the wood, the crevices carving indentions into her skin.
It’s been a long time since she’s been here. Since she’s done this. Since she’s stepped foot over this threshold and into the space beyond. She’s almost forgotten it, almost feels like it’s forgotten her. It’s like so much of Southport in that way, now, a place that was once so welcoming and familiar now feeling cold and uninviting.
Another place she’s been cast out from.
Stevie presses against the door, the hinges creaking loudly to announce her presence. It would be impossible to sneak into this place, though Stevie imagines most people wouldn’t have cause to go around sneaking into churches. And she isn’t either. She doesn’t mind if her presence is announced, if this place knows she’s coming.
Through the open door, Stevie can see the vestibule, dim from only the faint glow of the sconces on the walls and when she walks inside, her feet make no sound on the thick carpet. One of the doors to the nave is open, a square of light falling across the dark carpet, but it’s too early for the riot of colors, too early for the buttery warmth of the evening sun setting across the crashing waves. The light cascading through the stained glass is surely something, a marvel to behold, but she’s always loved the early evening too, how the church on its spot on the shore felt like the last place the sun would touch before it set beneath the water.
Stevie lets the door close quietly behind her, standing in the vestibule, listening. She can hear the quiet muffled sounds of someone in the nave but there’s no conversation, no noises playing off one another. Judah, alone, she assumes. As he often is, this early in the morning.
Before she goes deeper into the church, Stevie steps toward the collage of photos on the wall, nestled among the bulletins for bake sales and coat drives and Girl Scout meetings every Tuesday at six. There’s pictures from last summer’s mission trip and a fall expedition to build homes in Louisiana and they all feature strangers and smiling teenagers and it feels strange to see them there on the wall, this life that went on without her, without him, how people were posing, shoulder-to-shoulder in the blinding sun and smiling while she was trying to figure out how to rip her heart from her chest using just her clawed fingers.
But he hasn’t been erased or removed. The picture is still there, where Stevie feels like it’s always been, and there is that at least. Neither of them tossed aside or discarded, at least not in photographic form. They’re easy enough to ignore in the day-to-day but Stevie figures there should be some gratitude for this, for the sight of his face, smiling and bright, looking out at her from a moment frozen in time.
Swallowing, Stevie reaches out, letting the tip of her finger press over the glass. Sam smiles back at her, his face so open and warm, and he used to smile just like that, each morning when they would wake up, when he always seemed so happy to be there, to be awake, to be in bed beside her, trying his best to make her a morning person. That other Stevie, the one with her arm around his shoulder, and her own easy smile, who grumbled and pulled blankets over her head, who sometimes even snapped to be left alone, who would ignore the stupid little texts sent throughout the day, who complained over burnt frozen pizza and watching yet another re-run of The Office. That other her, who didn’t understand how good her life was for once, who didn’t appreciate those early morning kisses and cups of coffee or silly texts or the sound of Sam’s laugh as he sat on the couch beside her.
Her finger presses against the glass, skin whitening with the force of her touch, as though she can push through it and to him and that moment. “Don’t worry,” she whispers to Sam, who smiles back at her. “I’m almost done. I’ve almost got them all.”
And Sam looks back at her, frozen in that moment, happy.
Stevie pushes her palm against the door, hesitating, stalling, feeling the wood fit into the grooves of her palm. It’s been a long time since she’s stepped over this threshold, since she’s even considered setting foot into a hallowed hall of God or whatever is floating around above her head but honestly she’s desperate enough to try just about anything these days. Or, not anything. She’s supposed to be trying the opposite, in fact. To avoid desperation, impulse decisions…anything. But she’s still got an hour before the meeting and her stomach is doing that thing where it’s starting to tie itself up in knots, making it harder and harder to breathe as each subsequent knot jams into the bottom of her lungs and her head is so full of trying not to think that it can’t remember any of the tricks that she’s been taught recently and so there’s only one old faithful go to that she can think of and so maybe there’s something to be said about desperate times and desperate measures and, shit, all of this -her life, being here, recovery, everything- is probably just a bad idea.
But when she goes to move her hand, the door pushes inward, easing open with a creak that sounds like it belongs in the soundtrack of an old William Castle movie and Stevie stands in the stone entryway with the door still squeaking open in front of her. From where she’s at, she can see directly into the stubby hallway that opens into the heart of the church and though the lights are dim and the dark carpet and heavy wood paneling make the space seem deep and dark, the riot of light that comes bursting through the window at the front of the room makes it hard to focus on anything else. Stevie stares at it, at the cascade of colors falling across the pews and pulpit, the dove and lamb rendered so gently in the glass that it makes the churning sea beyond seem calmer. She swallows, studying the light, feeling one of those little knots in the center of her chest unloop and relieve just a modicum of pressure against the side of her lung.
The dark carpet almost successfully muffles the sound of approaching footsteps, so much so that Stevie has only a moment to prepare herself before someone appears in front of her, though it’s clear that the man has not had the same opportunity. He reaches for the door, a box balanced in one hand and against his chest, but when he sees her, he flinches back dramatically, his shoulder jamming against the open door as he lurches backward.
Even though she knows she shouldn’t, Stevie can’t help but laugh. It’s been a long time since she’s felt like that, like there’s something around her worth this organic bubbling laughter growing in the center of her chest. But she grins and when the guy looks at her, she attempts to swallow it all back down, to cover her mouth with her hand. It helps only to conceal the fact that she’s still smiling behind her palm.
“Oh. Sorry. I…sorry.” The guy looks at her and Stevie gets it, what he sees. She sees it in the mirror, knows people see it when they look at her these days. A skinny, tall, pale girl with long hair that looks wild if she forgets to throw it into a ponytail, lips chapped and raw from where she constantly worries them between her teeth. Just like her nails, which are red and bitten to the quick, her cuticles having a habit of bleeding as she bothers with them. And, the thing is, she knows she looks better than she has as of late, which is quite unfortunate.
“No, I’m sorry,” Stevie says, finally managing to swallow down the rest of her laughter. The giggles are threatening to turn into something bordering on unhinged if she doesn’t get ahold of herself and the last thing she needs right about now is to pair maniacal laughter with the state of her appearance these days. “I…” She glances first behind her, then back toward the guy and the beautiful light behind him, and takes a step back. “I should go. I’m sorry.”
“No, wait.” The guy rebalances the box in his hands, pushing the door open further with his shoulder. “Come in. Don’t let me scare you off.”
Stevie crinkles her nose, glancing back toward the parking lot again. Ray’s old truck is sitting crooked in a space and suddenly she can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be than behind the wheel, driving far away from here. “I…shouldn’t…” She shakes her head. “It’s been a long time since I was…you know…” She gestures toward the church.
But the guy smiles and there’s something so soft and gentle and open about his face that Stevie can feel another one of those knots come undone. She feels herself inhale, deeply, for the first time all day. “Then that probably means you should come on in.”
Stevie fits her thumbnail between her teeth, though it’s already tender and ragged, contemplates the space behind the guy as she works at what’s left of the nail. He doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, it doesn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he’s still smiling at her, and then something between them seems to shift, because he steps back and, on cue, she steps forward to take up the space he’s left behind.
Once she’s far enough from the door, the guy shoves it closed with his elbow and then takes a spot at her side, tipping his head toward the center of the church, toward that room blooming with color. “Isn’t it beautiful? This is my favorite time of day. I’m always trying to find excuses to help Pastor Judah just so I can make sure that I’m here right now.”
Stevie nods, studying the colors, certain that if she were to go deeper into the room she could stand in the squares of light and let the color fall over her unkempt hair, filling her skin with brightness and warmth once more. She tastes blood on her tongue and quickly pulls her hand away, slipping it into her pocket. “Yeah.”
The guy sets the box onto one of the pews, wiping his palms against his jeans before holding one out to her. “I’m Sam.”
Stevie remembers her nails, bloody and raw, and doesn’t pull her hands from her pockets. “I…nice to meet you.”
There’s something that feels too much about giving her name. Too serious. Like she’s here on purpose and not just because the door opened on its own and the room with full of light.
Once again, this doesn’t seem to bother Sam, this unfriendly weirdness. For so long, she’d been lost in a sort of fugue state where she didn’t care what people thought about her. Where giving her name or making pleasantries felt like it belonged to a world she wasn’t a part of. Now she’s trying to get back to that world, Stevie knows she should do better, be normal and smile and shake hands and tell all the bright, shiny people of the world who she is like that’s some sort of thing to be proud of. But this guy, this Sam, lets her get away with it, just nodding and smiling. “Were you looking for Pastor Judah? He’s working on a sermon but I can-”
“No, no,” Stevie says quickly, shaking her head. “No, that’s…I wasn’t actually looking for anything.” She shrugs, looking toward the door again. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
The words come out quiet, so embarrassingly, pathetically quiet, that they can’t be anything but true.
“I do.” When Stevie looks up at Sam, he’s smiling at her, self-assured. Off her expression, his smile only seems to grow. “It’s to help me put out all these Bibles.”
It isn’t until he points toward the box that Stevie has any idea what he’s talking about. The box he’d been carrying, full of worn and creased Bibles with weathered crosses embossed on the covers, the covers a merlot color. Sam takes one from the box, handing it to her. “You can just put them in rack like this.” He demonstrates with one book, sliding it among folded pamphlets and stubby wooden pencils into the rack on the back of the pew. “Think you can handle it?”
Stevie twists her mouth, quirking an eyebrow at him as she drops her own Bible into the rack. Sam grins, nodding. “See. Totally why you’re here.”
The nave smells of incense, of the old weathered wood of the pews, the cushioned seats worn from decades of penitents. The building has always smelt of people to her, of the reassurance that came from not being alone, of whispered prayers and hands clasped firmly together, skin to skin, as though the white knuckled grip would send their hopes faster to God’s ears. Stevie moves down the center of the aisle, letting her fingers brush against the edges of the pews, falling briefly into empty air before settling against the wood once more.
Judah is in front of the room, kneeling and rummaging for something in one of the heavy wooden cabinets kept stocked with extra Bibles and hymnals and collection plates and adornments for the pulpit. He hasn’t realized he’s not alone, oblivious to her moving closer, which is so fittingly Judah that Stevie would’ve been more surprised if he actually had noticed what was going on beyond the end of his own nose. If he could focus on something other than himself.
It isn’t until Stevie is standing in the middle of the first row of pews, her hand still resting against the curved end of the one to her right, that Judah stands, holding a book in his hands, and turns. “God!” He yelps when he sees her standing there, jumping and dropping the book to the carpet, and Stevie isn’t sure if the word is a prayer or a curse.
Judah attempts to recover himself quickly, pressing a hand to his chest. “Oh. Stevie.” He clears his throat, eyeing her closely. “It’s…it’s been a while. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Why would you be?” Stevie asks, tilting her head as she studies him. “It has been a while since I’ve been here. Probably…” She considers and then lifts an eyebrow. “A year, don’t you think?”
Once again, Judah clears his throat. “I…suppose so.” He bends to retrieve the book, tapping the spine against his palm. “We’ve been praying for you, you know. Of course.”
“And for Sam?”
Judah winces, and this time Stevie thinks it might be real pain in his expression, not just the barbs of her presence that prompts that reaction. “Of course,” he says softly.
Stevie nods, pleased. She moves to the first pew, sitting down. The cushion is soft beneath her but even more welcoming is the way Judah is watching her, the unease so clear on his face. For someone who makes a profession out of helping others through difficult situations, he doesn’t seem to know how to handle her. Or, at least, how to disguise his emotions, his uncertainty.
Without turning her head from the view of the ocean, Stevie asks, “What do you pray for? For Sam?”
The silence stretches between them for so long that Stevie thinks Judah isn’t going to answer. If she couldn’t feel his gaze on her, couldn’t see him out of the corner of her eye, she might even think he’s left completely. Which would also be shocking: the first smart thing he’s done likely all year.
But he hasn’t left. He’s just staring. Finally, Judah seems to recover himself, moving stiffly across the room, setting the book onto the pulpit. “I pray for his eternal soul, of course. That he’s found rest.”
Another nod, as Stevie watches the waves. “Will you pray with me now, Pastor?”
“Hey. Hannah said I would find you in here.”
Stevie can’t look up, her head pillowed against her knees, her back pressed firmly against the wall. Sam sounds like he’s miles away from where she’s sitting on the floor in one of the meeting rooms, her mouth thick and cottony, her head feeling like it’s going to split into a dozen pieces.
“Are you okay?” When he gets no response, Sam presses, “Stevie?”
“I’m fine.” The words feel like they take everything inside her to drudge up, past her lips. Stevie squeezes her eyes shut tighter but it does little to help the pulse of pain in the center of her forehead.
Sam steps closer into the room, the sound of his footsteps falling on the carpet like bombs, the door closing behind him a gunshot. Stevie winces, bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds. She can hear Sam sit down, can sense the movement of his body, but he’s not close enough to her to risk touching and for that she’s embarrassingly grateful.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asks, his voice quieter, tone measured. “Do you need water or-”
“It’s fine,” Stevie says and she can hear how strained her tone is, how brittle it feels. Just like the rest of her. Her exhales feel like they might shatter her and the inhales feel like an intake of fire. “Just a bad day.”
It had started out that way, the minute she’d woken up. If it hadn’t been Thursday, hadn’t been the morning Bible study she’d grown to look forward to with an almost concerningly desperate anticipation, then she thinks she never would’ve gotten out of bed. Not with her body feeling too tender and raw and sharp. Not with her head pounding like this. But what good has it done her anyway? She’d never even made it into the nave, never even opened her Bible.
Sam is quiet and Stevie listens to the sound of his breathing. The smell of him, his aftershave and shampoo and soap, washes over her, strong, but it doesn’t add to the headache, to the flayed edges of her. It just is: here, now, the smell of him. Something else she can take into her along with the fire.
“I still have those sometimes,” Sam says softly. “The bad days. Like this. When you feel like you’re just going to break apart.”
Slowly, Stevie turns her head, looking at him over the crook of her elbow, through one cracked eye. “What?”
Sam nods, his smile soft, subdued. She’s not used to that, to seeing him like that, quiet and contained. No, she’s used to Sam and his loud laugh, his eagerness to share, to speculate on a verse or teaching, to grin at everyone and especially her. “I haven’t really been sure how to talk about it, because you seemed like you really didn’t want to talk about everything,” he tells her. “Which is understandable. Totally your right. But…I get it, Stevie. I see you. I understand those bad days.”
Stevie closes her eyes, mostly because he’s begun to blur in her vision and she isn’t sure she wants him to see her like that, huddled on the ground and brought to tears by his words. By his presence. By the idea that Sam with his open smile and loud laugh might actually understand her and the past years of her life.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Shaking her head, Stevie rests her forehead back against her knees, even though she wishes she could look at him, could study him, could find more traces of herself within him. “No,” she croaks into the fabric of her jeans. “You can stay.”
So he does.
The request clearly throws him and Stevie can feel the unease rolling off Judah like a tangible thing. Fear, like grief, has a smell, a warning for others to stay away so they aren’t contaminated. Stevie imagines Judah thinks he’s playing it off well, that he seems in control and unbothered, just like he always has. The man who can command a congregation and be so ungodly is surely well versed in hiding his many faces.
Judah nods and Stevie watches his throat tighten, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple. “O-of course, Stevie.” He lays his hands flat against his thighs, fixing his expression into a compassionate one. “What’s on your heart?”
Stevie almost laughs in his face. Almost pulls out her knife right then and there to bury it into the furrow between his brow. What’s on her heart? Sam and how they’d fished is body out from rocks and waves. Danica, shiny and happy, her best friend, who was always so grateful to have Stevie there with her, to talk to, to sit with on the deck as the sun went down and bounce ideas off of about wedding colors and table decorations, happy in a way Stevie would never be, not now, not thanks to you, diva. Wyatt and how he’d looked at her right before she died, when she’d let him see her face, so he would know and feel the betrayal that she woke up with curled beside her every morning. Ava, clinging to her as she sobbed over that idiot podcast girl who learned the hard way the rot that clung to Ava Brucks and spread to everyone around her. Milo, dying in her arms, the last embrace he would ever feel, stolen from Ava and strangled just out of her reach, his breath panting in her ear instead. Teddy and Grant, Ray standing beside her as they watched their blood darken the grass, the thrill of knowing what would come next. What’s still to come.
Judah has no idea what’s on her heart.
But he will soon.
Stevie turns her head to look at him, her eyes settling on his. “Deuteronomy 16:19.”
Judah’s face pales, his throat tightening.
“Do you know it, pastor?”
Clearing his throat, Judah nods, once. “I know it, Stevie.”
Stevie closes her eyes, pressing her cheek against Sam’s palm, breathing slowly, trying to quiet the world around her, to push everything else aside, anything beyond Sam and his hand against her face, his body beneath hers.
“Do you want to watch the fireworks tonight?”
Stevie opens her eyes, looking down at him. He’s still rumpled and soft from sleep, his shirt loose around the shoulders, face creased from the pillow. “I can’t,” she says softly, turning her face so that she can kiss his palm. “I have to work.”
She almost explains. Almost tells him what she’s doing. Who she’s working for. But, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want to worry him. And besides, it’s Ray that’s taking the job, Ray who’s actually going to be working the event. She shouldn’t even have to see Danica. Or Teddy. Or any of them. And they shouldn’t have to see her. Stevie knows that’s exactly how they prefer it.
“No,” Sam groans playfully, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back down against him. “No. No work. Stay with me.”
Stevie laughs, resting her forehead against his chest. His hand settles against the small of her back, between her shoulders. “I can’t,” she laughs, though she makes no move to twist away. “Ray needs me there.”
Sam pulls her to him, kissing the top of her head. “What if I don’t let you?”
“Then I’ll probably get fired.”
Sam doesn’t call her out on this, doesn’t point out that Ray would never fire her, his derelict almost-daughter, the future of Ray’s Bar and therefore Southport itself. Instead, he just grins. “Worth it.”
Stevie nods, reassured. Judah is looking at her clearly now, can see her clearly now. It’s the way Wyatt had looked at her, when he’d realized the truth of who she was. The serpent in the garden. The avenging angel. It’s a relief to let it all fall away, even if it’s just for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Stevie says, reaching into her coat pocket. It’s not the hook, it wouldn’t have been so easy to conceal, but it’ll do the job anyway. The blade is small but sharp enough. When Judah just continues staring at her, Stevie nods. “Say it.”
Judah looks almost resigned, his shoulders slackening, throat bobbing. “Hannah is just in the back-”
“No she’s not,” Stevie says simply. “And it’s not like I would hurt Hannah. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Judah’s brow knits together, his eyes rounded. Fear. Stevie doesn’t hold it against him. “What choice did I have, Stevie? Grant Spencer is the most powerful man in Southport. Who knows what would’ve happened if I had refused him, refused to go along with-”
“‘Do not accept a bribe,’” Stevie begins, reciting the words that have curled themselves around her heart for months, waiting and keeping her warm, coiled and tensed, “‘for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.’ Isn’t that right?”
When Judah doesn’t answer, Stevie withdraws the knife, holding it so that he can see it clearly. “Isn’t it?”
Judah nods. “Yes,” he says softly. “That’s right.”
Stevie nods. “I know.”
When she lifts the knife, Judah’s eyes follow it, glued to the movement, locked on the blade as though Stevie is no longer there, attached at the handle. It’s fine, she doesn’t mind. It’ll be the last thing he sees anyway.