20 Million Tiny Particles

5. Bryce

In the days since it happened, I'd developed a nasty habit.

Truthfully I'd developed quite a few of those.

But my favorite was rising early on Sunday mornings and sneaking to the church at the top of Hill Street, burying myself in the back row, and watching for Bryce.

He was short, only 5'7" or so, which was still a few inches on me. Not especially muscular. His dark hair flopped over one eye when he played the acoustic guitar, standing at the front of the church on a big stage. I always went to the early service. It was always packed with young families and old couples, never anyone I'd have known from school. If they were there anyway, they would've been too shrouded by everyone else for us to notice each other.

We used to call him Bryce the Great.

During worship, I stood but didn't sing along. Most times I didn't even mouth the words, just crossed my arms and watched his yellow-tinted teeth peeking out behind his lips as he sang into the microphone.

It was stupid that I came here. It was stupid every week -- and this was the fifth one now. A full month. Plus a little extra.

But when I got to hear his voice on the harmonies, it was like slipping into an old indulgence. Taking one more bite of the chocolate bar after promising yourself the last one was the last one. You knew it wasn't, but it felt better to pretend.

Bryce didn't know that I was here, of course. It was my secret. My affair with myself.

It made me feel good. To see him for fifteen minutes on a Sunday morning.

Sometimes I'd stay for the sermon too, if only to have the time to myself, alone in the back row of the church. I didn't buy into this particular type of cult and never had. My parents weren't church people, a rarity in the Bible belt. When Ava and I were children, they felt the pressure of the community enough to baptize us at this same church. It was one of two in town. But by the time we were old enough to know how boring Sunday school was, our parents had grown up enough themselves not to give a shit what the neighbors said when our car stayed parked on the street outside our house on Sunday morning.

Today I decided I would stay. I was tired from the party last night, still playing over the evening in my head trying to decipher why I'd gone. I knew as soon as I got home and tossed the packets of drink mixers onto my bedroom desk that it was a stupid idea to go. Mariah had harangued me for the whole ride home. It was degrading. It was anti-feminist. It was bad for our economy. I was stupd for doing it, even as a joke.

With all her good qualities, it was easy to forget that Mariah could be mean, even to me.

I knew she was right, though. I knew it, but I still felt empty when I got home. I still caught myself crying as I wiped off the remnants of mascara I'd put on to feel like I belonged with the other girls there.

That was another new habit — the crying. I used to be good at staying stoic. It was a skill cultivated over years and years of knowing there was no use in crying. There still wasn't, as far as I was concerned, but now my eyes didn't give me a choice.

In the church, I closed my un-made-up eyes as the pastor stepped onto the stage. I could see Bryce the Great sitting at the edge of the second pew, his elbow on the armrest. The back of his hair. The side of his chin, the angle of his nose. If I breathed deep, maybe I could smell his cologne, the same way it had filled up every room we'd ever shared before this.

But I opened my eyes. I had to be careful. I knew that I was being reckless flirting with memories of us, back when we used to meet up during free periods and walk the cross country course behind the school. When I'd drive us to the only ice cream place within twenty miles, when we'd sit on the hood of the car and look at stars.

It was stupid to go there. It was stupid then, and it was even stupider now.

I wasn't dumb, I told myself. I was something else -- sad, heartached, lonely. So I let myself be dumb to numb the other things.

Still, it felt a little good to trace the edge of our history with a finger, just enough to lift the dust of us without disrupting too much of reality.

If it was strange to think that it'd been a month since it happened, it was stranger to think it was almost a year since all of this had started with Bryce. Started, ended. Whatever it was.

The pastor's voice was being drowned out by my own thoughts, and I started getting anxious to go home. I stood quietly, gripping my brown leather purse in my fingers, slipping out the aisle and walking quickly toward the back doors.

Was it a coincidence that she was there?

For a second I thought it was a dream. Maybe a hallucination. That had happened once, right after it happened. I was having a hard time sleeping - still am - and found myself seeing Mom's face in a customer at the back of the store. I could've sworn she was staring at me. A ghost. I shook it off and it was a stranger.

That wasn't happening now. Sheridan was standing at the back church door, sunglasses covering her eyes, her blonde hair swept over to one side. She was wearing a blue sundress and sandals. Better church attire than I'd pulled together, my hair unwashed and tied back in a knot, a hangover from last night's hairdo.

Incidentally, I might not have even known it was her if not for the branded Diamondesq bottle in her left hand. She was scrolling through her phone with the other. She looked up at the sound of the church door opening. "Julie?"

I couldn't tell which of us were more surprised to see the other.

I greeted her as pleasantly as I could manage, instantly embarrassed and wondering how I'd get a good explanation out of myself for what I was doing here. I hoped for a millisecond that Sherdian wouldn't ask, but of course she did.

"Church," I said lamely. "I have to leave early -- something came up at home. With my dad."

She nodded and said, "Oh." Then, as I tried to worm away toward the parking lot, she continued, "I was just waiting for someone. I really never go to church." I bit at the inside of my lip. "Do you know Bryce Shepherd?"

The flush already on my face settled deeper in, exacerbated no doubt by the heat of the ten AM sun bouncing off the asphalt beneath my Keds. I told her that I did. What else could I say?

Her mouth twisted a little. For the first time I saw her look a little unsure of herself. Smart girl. "Is that who you're waiting for?" I heard myself asking. The impulsive part of me.

She shrugged. "Yeah, we're supposed to get coffee in between services. We're..." she paused, let out a breath. She seemed embarrassed. "We're, like, talking, you know?"

I knew exactly.

"He's so hard to pin down though. Like, I don't really get all of the God stuff to be honest, but I'm trying." She pushed her hair to the other side. I couldn't quite get a read on her eyes behind her aviators. I just stared back at myself in their mirrored lenses, looking at my peasant blouse and grungy white pants, wondering what Bryce the Great could possibly see in common between both me and Sheridan Highgate.

In the new silence between us she said, with a laugh, "Anyway. It's good to see you. I hope everything is okay at home."

"Hm?"

She paused again. "You know, with your dad. You said you had to get home."

I remembered my lie. "Right -- yeah, all is good. Um, I'll see you later, okay?" I looked down toward her water bottle. "Maybe at the next Diamond Party."

She smiled, her white teeth visible. I noticed the bottom row was crooked, teeth clashing against each other in disarray. "I would love that. I'll text you. Okay?"

I nodded. "Sure. You can text me."

I had a habit of doing that -- of saying "can" instead of "want." Sheridan could do whatever she wanted. Who was I to let her know how I felt about it?

When did it ever matter what I wanted anyway?