As we stood on the sidewalk, Flame’s feet were firmly planted on the ground. Slowly, I coaxed him forward. He panicked, and admitted, “I don’t think I can go in.”

My heart clenched at the lost look on his face. Pulling him gently, I nodded my head. “Yes you can. This is not a bad place. You need to see that for yourself, Flame. You need to see that the places, the atrocities we endured growing up, were not the norm.” Flame’s expressionless face never moved. I reiterated with emphasis, “Trust me.”

Then Flame’s feet began to step forward. He followed me up the steep white steps, hand gripping mine iron-tight. Then we reached the top.  The wooden doors were open.

Looking up at Flame’s tight jaw, I asked, “Are you ready?”

Flame’s teeth gritted, and he shook his head. “No,” he rasped, his eyes darting all around the church looking for what, I did not know?

“But will you follow me?” I prompted.

Flame, this time, did meet my eyes and he replied, “Anywhere.”

Releasing a sigh, I led Flame forward into the main body of the church. When I looked up, I saw him scanning the large building. We were alone in the church. For that, I was glad. Flame needed to see that this church was nothing like the one that had tied him down, and mistook his unique ways and look on life, as evil.

Guiding Flame to the pews, I sat down. My eyes caught sight of a picture of Pastor James hanging in the altar surrounded by candles and flowers, and my body washed with sadness. I knew that Styx had organized for her family to be told of her death, though anonymously. I didn’t know the details, but Mae had told me the conversation had transpired. And I knew they had been sent money. But seeing her kind face smiling from the picture, I did not think I would ever purge her death from my mind. And at the hands of a child, no less.

Flame sat beside me, as still as night. I could hear the heaviness of his breaths, and felt the rigidness of his hands. I was so unbelievably proud of him for coming here. Because he would do anything for me.

Flame’s head twitched as he absorbed the inside of the church. Then sighing, he looked to me and asked, “There are no snakes? No people writhing on the floor?”

“No,” I replied with the minimum of fuss, and laid my head upon his shoulder. “It is not the place you believe it to be.” I looked over to the statue of Jesus I used to hide behind, and said, “All those weeks ago, when you came here for me, fearing I was hurt. I was not.”

I pointed our joined hands toward the tall white marble statue of Jesus and confided, “I used to come here when you were receiving treatment for your neck. I would hide away behind that statue and watch the world go by. I would stay unseen, in the shadows, listening to the choir singing their songs from above, in the balcony, mouthing the words I was too afraid to speak. I was too afraid to sing because I had been told my entire life that it was wrong.  Although it was no longer my life, I still held on to those thoughts. Deep down, I feared letting them go.”

Flame exhaled, and asked, “Why didn’t you let them go?”

I closed my eyes, feeling my throat clog with emotion for the girl I had been back then—alive but not living. “I think… I think I kept hold of the old beliefs, because… because I did not know who I was without them. My whole life I had served the disciples. I had been a slave to my fears. Then, when I was free, I would sit in the darkness, watching others embrace the light… watching them sing. And I would mouth the words, wanting so badly to feel the freedom I could hear filling the air. But I just could not. I could not bring myself to let go. I feared the person I was.”

Flame’s finger played along the skin on the back of my hand, and he inquired in a hushed whisper, “And who are you?”

Tears filled my eyes and a smile graced my lips. “Yours,” I confessed, from the deepest recesses of my heart. “I am yours. It took you falling into darkness to make me see the truth and light.”

Flame stilled, and then lifting my head with his finger under my chin, he groaned, “Maddie…” and he briefly closed his eyes.

Holding his wrist, I continued, “It is true. Yours, is who I am. You gave me a purpose, Flame. You gave me a reason to live… you gave me your love… you gave me you.”

Flame’s forehead dropped to mine and his hands threaded into the sides of my hair. “Maddie,” he rasped. “I… I don’t believe in this shit. Church, God, none of it. I fucking hate all of it. Hate how people get so fucking sucked into it and let it change them, rule them. I can’t be around it no more.”