In the morning, Beau smiled at me like nothing had changed. 

He must have thought I didn't know him. 

But I knew him.

His sadness was hidden in the slope of his shoulders as he waited for the coffee maker to finish brewing. Rather than let me see it, he went behind the door of the pantry and heaved a sigh that I felt right down to my toes. He didn't notice me behind him in the bathroom until he lifted his bowed head and his eyes refocused from whatever faraway place he'd gone to in his head and I could see the deep worry lines that marred his smooth forehead. Maybe he thought his beard hid his frown. It didn't.

When he saw me there, he kissed me like I hadn't ruined everything last night. 

But I knew. 

"I wish you didn't have to work today," he told me as he grabbed his keys. I had only just tugged my shirt down over my head. Was he hurrying me out the door? "Hope it's not too rough of a day."

"I hope I don't have to yell at too many people today," I said, trying on a smile.

Beau blinked at me and then recognition flooded his eyes. "Yeah me too. Save your voice for tonight." 

He probably thought I didn't notice that, either. That he had forgotten tonight was the open mic night we had signed up for. That hurt settled into my stomach to join the other hurts that were crouching there. "But I don't need to be at work yet?" I came out as a question. Are you trying to get rid of me now? I didn't ask. Because I wasn't certain I'd like the answer. 

"I know." Beau was halfway out the door already. "But Gabe's calling the house in a few minutes."

"Your parents' house?"

"Right. It's tricky with the time zones, so I need to be there right on time and..." He trailed off when he saw my skeptical expression and tried for a big grin. "You'll be bored."

"I don't think I will." I was pushing hard. The same way I had when the Elders had come to me and told me my new mission. "But why?" I had demanded back then. I wanted to hear them say it. I wanted them to admit that I was damaged goods and that's why they were doing what they were doing. Because I had no future with the Chosen. 

Did I have no future with Beau, either? 

I lifted my chin and kept pressing. "I don't even think I have my keys on me," I said, patting my pants and then dramatically pawing through my purse. "We could stop by my house first."

"Yeah, okay." Beau still seemed distracted. My shoulders slumped as the fight went out of me, and I silently followed him to the car. 

The ride back to my house was silent and awkward. My stomach felt heavy like I had eaten something that sat wrong with me. And when he kissed me goodbye, tears came unbidden to my eyes. It was a goodbye kiss, but I no longer felt the promise of 'see you soon.'

Was he giving up? My family had discarded me for being damaged. Was Beau ready to do the same?

I walked into my house, feeling like a zombie. I wandered through, picking up things that had always belonged to me and staring at them like I had no idea how they'd gotten there. I carried things from one room to another and back again, with no idea of what I was trying to accomplish. The windows had been shut the whole time I'd been at Beau's place, and the heat was sticky and oppressive. I yanked open the windows, proud of finding something that had actually needed to be done and then I cursed. "Fuck it."

Being here, alone, was driving me nuts. I needed to go for a walk. I grabbed my keys out of my purse and went to the door.

I locked the door behind me and was just stepping off the porch when I saw the figure, her skirts billowing around her ankles as she stomped toward me with her head down, eyes on her shoes. I squinted, unable to make what I was seeing make sense. My sister? Here? 

"Rebecca?"

She looked up from her boots and sneered. Her face was bright red with exertion and heat. 

"Did you... walk here?" The Chosen compound was—

"Seven miles," she finished for me. And then sat down at the edge of my porch and hiked up her skirts. Then looked at me and remembered I was "secular" now and yanked them back down again. 

I stared at her. The dissonance of having my sister, here, in my space, left me so disoriented that I fell back onto years of training. "Can I get you something to drink?" I asked robotically. 

Rebecca looked like she wanted to decline but thought better of it. "Yes," she said, equally robotically. Then, "Thank you."

I nodded and turned back to go into the house. I knew better than to invite her in. She wouldn't come. I ran some water from the tap and then just paused, staring out the window over the sink out to the creek. Emotions - anger, confusion, a desperate loneliness, a strange hopefulness - all competed for dominance, clawing over one another to be the first to rise to the surface. Leaving me feeling nothing at all. Numbness made my limbs heavy and even the glass of water seemed to weigh too much. I had to use both hands to carry it back out onto the porch. 

My sister took it without saying anything and drank it down. Then she set the glass carefully at the edge of the porch and took a deep breath. She was staring so hard at one place in my driveway that I turned to look at it too. There was nothing there. 

The silence stretched out for so long that my curiosity got the better of me. "I didn't know you knew where I was living." Why was I laughing?

"Everyone knows." She stared harder at that point in the driveway and I realized with a start that she was looking at it so she wouldn't have to look at me. 

Anger finally rose to the surface, pushing down the other emotions and taking control. I jumped down off the porch and moved right into her line of sight.

"Everyone knows?" I repeated. "Seriously? Everyone knows, but I've been left to fend for myself for two years now? Completely alone?"

"You don't make it easy!" Rebecca shouted. She forgot herself and glared at me, then reddened and looked down. 

I gaped at her. "I don't make it easy? What the fuck are you talking about?"

I cursed to rattle her, and it worked. She jerked like I'd held a match to her foot and leaped from the porch to stand before me. "The way you carry on," she hissed. "With your secular friends and that... that... man you're carrying on with. In public."

"What do you care?" I threw up my hands, and Rebecca flinched, which only made me angrier that she thought I'd ever hurt her. "You cut me off!"

"You were to go out into the world and bring souls back to us! That was the mission the Elders charged you with!"

"Oh please. They were trying to get rid of me. There was no mission! That's bullshit and you know it!" 

Rebecca reddened. She leaned in close enough that I could see the faint lines around her eyes. They hadn't been there two years ago. When I last saw her this close. "There was a mission and you failed," she hissed, enunciating each word like a stab to my heart. "And I don't care what you do with your life, I can only pray for your soul." The corner of her lip curled in disgust. Then twitched as her eyes filled with tears. "But what you're doing is ruining the lives of your family. Don't you care about that at all?"

I folded my arms, closing myself off to her words, but not quickly enough. "How the fuck do you figure?" I snarled through the wrenching pain in my chest.

"You're Fallen."

I inhaled sharply and took a step back. "I am not," I whispered in a high, reedy voice I didn't recognize as my own. "I was sent away, I never left on my—"

"The Elders have declared you Fallen and you know what that means."

"No."

Rebecca shook her head. "We're shunned. Mom risked everything to get you medical treatment." Her voice broke. "You owe her. You owe all of us. Because now that you're Fallen, none of the kids will play with Lydia and she cries every night. None of the women will bake with Mother or help with the washing. None of the men will consider me." She blinked hard and looked away and I had to resist the urge to reach out to her, to comfort my sister whose main goal in life was to be a wife and a mother. "Father was shamed at last service," she continued once she'd collected herself. "It was the smallest thing, something that would have been overlooked before you started carrying on this way. But because of you, he was called up."

"No." My hand was over my mouth. I shut my eyes as tight as I could, but I could still see it, my proud father, the grandnephew of the prophet, called before the congregation and flogged... I shook my head. It was too horrible to even consider. 

But Rebecca nodded. "Yes. At Meeting yesterday. And I knew..." She took a deep breath and stepped forward. 

I looked down in shock when I saw her hands slip over mine. My sister squeezed my hand, just like she'd always done. Whenever we'd shared a secret or made a pact. I blinked, but the tears fell anyway. It had been so long.  She glanced up at my face and I found myself looking into eyes the same shade of brown as mine. "You belong with us, Rachel."

I looked down and away. Rebecca let go of my hand and stepped back. "You know that Joel's birthday is coming up."

I blinked up at her. There had always been talk of my older brother stepping in as spiritual leader. Once he was of age. "I didn't forget. He's going to be twenty-five finally."

Rebecca shook her head and glared at me like she was trying to reduce me to ashes. "How can the Chosen be led by a spiritual leader whose own sister has Fallen?"

I gasped. "They can't. No. Joel's been groomed for that since he was a child."

"He has a challenger now." She blinked slowly. "Because of you."

I tried to take a breath, but panic was stealing it away. Rebecca lunged forward, grabbing me by the shoulders. "You belong with us," she repeated. And then turned and started back up the driveway without a word. 

As she trudged away, I wanted to call out to her. To yell that I wasn't a Chosen woman anymore. I was Beau's woman. 

But the words tripped on my tongue. I wanted a future with Beau.  He was a good man, he'd stay for a while even in spite of my infertility.  But eventually, there would be someone else. Someone who could have his babies and give him everything he ever wanted. 

"Rebecca!" I shouted. 

My sister stopped and turned, those heavy skirts flowing around her ankles like currents in the water. Did I want to go with her? It would be so easy. There was no future for me out here. I'd been discarded by the Chosen. But that had already happened, and I had survived. 

If Beau discarded me, I wasn't sure I'd make it. 

I needed to think. "Here," I called to my sister. "At least let me give you bus fare."