The Misfit Rebellion

Chapter Two

As soon as my fingers have stopped playing the same hymn that I've been playing for years, and the “Thanks be to God!” have stopped bouncing off the walls of the church, I'm up out of my seat and ducking out the back door, and taking the steps two at a time.

I race out into the stiff summer air, wondering how Devon could handle being in a sweater and dress pants in this heat. This is the only part of the morning I've been looking forward to – The Tree. I can see it, in the yard behind the church, sprawled out beside the parking lot. The sunlight streaming between the leaves and the twisted branches welcome me home as I run toward it, at full speed, knowing that Devon is probably only shortly behind me. My hands grasp for the first branch, and my fingers close around it so much easier than they did when I was younger, and my feet scale the trunk like I'd been doing it every day all summer. I climb into the web of branches and plant myself in my usual spot, shielded from the sun and comfortable.

I peer through the leaves at the ground below, expecting to see Devon running up to climb in with me. But he's not. My eyes shoot toward the exit of the church, but he's not loitering there, talking to any of the “girls.” I can't think of anybody he'd be talking to inside – Jess and Victoria are the only two sophomores that go to our church. This is strange.

Maybe I should have told him earlier that I would meet him here. Maybe he didn't expect me to do this even though we'd been doing it every day up until the week that I left. He couldn't have forgotten, right? No way. We've been doing this since we were six.

Finally I see him, checking his phone as he pushes through the big red exit door of the church. His eyes wander from the screen to the tree, and he gives me a sad smile as he walks toward it.

Walking. He's walking. Why is he not running, humiliated that it's taken him this long to get out here?

“Hey,” I call out to him as he nears the trunk. “What are you doing? Did you forget?”

His face distorts into a pained expression as he pockets his phone. “You didn't get my text this morning?”

I shake my head. “My phone was dead this morning. I left it home charging. Why?”

He shrugs. “Well, uh... I kinda have plans for today. Like, for right now.”

“Oh?” I say, trying to sound as questioning as possible. “Plans?”

He nods quickly. “Yes. Plans.”

We both stay where we are, silent for a moment.

“Look,” I say. “If you don't want to meet in the tree anymore, if you think it's stupid or something, we could just, like, I don't know, go to my house and hang out. That's usually what ends up happening anyway.”

Devon scratches the back of his head, in what I've learned to be the universal sign for uncertainty and discomfort. “It's really not that. I actually have plans.”

“What kinds of plans?” I ask.

“Ooh, getting pushy,” Devon tries to joke, but I didn't find my question strange. “It's just this thing that I've been going to on Sundays, okay? It's this like....” He sighs. “It's this gym thing.”

“Gym?” I ask. That would explain the lost weight. “Oh.”

He still looks uncomfortable. He must be lying. He's being too secretive. There's something wrong. Something I don't know about. Something that happened over the summer.

“Devon, if it's a girl, I'm not going to make fun of you,” I say.

“What?” he asks, looking genuinely confused.