Chapter 20
Silas
I didn’t see her until Abel was on his way out the door...but when I did, I knew I hadn’t imagined her that night at the clinic.
Amelia was here. Watching.
And I had no idea what she wanted.
I kept my eyes trained on the doorway to the sanctuary as everyone else seemed to go back to normal…eager to chat, to mingle, to forget about the extremist who’d tried to ruin our little party. Me, though? I was entirely focused on my dead fiancée’s apparent interest in us.
Why was she here now?
…and why had she never shown herself before, when I was at my lowest? When I needed her?
I stood there too long, the rest of the world fading into the background. I needed…I needed to be out of here. I needed space. I needed my damn church empty, to go back to the parsonage and crack open a few books and figure out how to talk to her.
She was here.
What had happened to her? Could she tell me? Did it work that way?
“Silas?”
I turned to find June beside me, her hand sliding into mine. She looked worried…probably because I looked like I’d just seen a ghost.
Which…well, I had.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find the words—but how could you tell the woman you loved that you were being haunted by the girl you loved before? That you still loved, because your heart got all twisted up when you saw her in the doorway, looking just like she did on the day she left?
So I wasn’t planning on saying it when all I could articulate was, “Did you see her too?”
June’s brows pulled together, but she didn’t look scared; she looked…relieved. She glanced around briefly before pulling me into the sanctuary, right through the space where Amelia had stood minutes earlier.
And she looked excited—excited of all things—when she replied.
“Yes,” she said. “I saw the angel.”
The angel...what? I could hardly speak, couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. But June was still talking, the words rushing out.
“I’ve always wondered if she was real,” June was saying. “My angel…but you saw her too? She was actually there—a woman in white, right there in the doorway?”
She pointed at the doorway, smiling like we were talking about a shared miracle, but I started shaking my head before I could stop myself. Her face fell, and she stepped closer, grasping both hands now.
“What?” she asked.
“June,” I started. “That…that wasn’t an angel. That was Amelia.”
June froze, her mouth parting slightly like she’d been struck. Her grip tightened on my hands, her breath catching in her throat.
“That…” she paused, frowning and shaking her head. “That’s impossible, Silas. She’s been with me for over a decade—I saw her for the first time the night I overdosed.”
Her words hit me like a fucking sledgehammer. I stepped back without meaning to, dropping her hands.
“What do you mean you saw her?” I asked.
“June, that was Amelia—her face, her body, her hair. You…you didn’t know her, but I did, and I would have recognized her anywhere.
” I pointed toward the threshold to the fellowship hall.
“The woman in that doorway was going to be my wife, and you…no, there’s no fuckin’ way. ”
June took a shaky breath. “Are you sure—”
“Yes, I am sure.”
We stared at each other for another few seconds. I didn’t know how June was feeling…but I was reeling, unable to get my head on straight. I felt…shockingly angry. Betrayed, even.
Because why had she saved June?
Why not me?
“Silas,” June said, reaching out carefully—like she was afraid I might break. “I don’t understand what…tell me what you need from me.”
I looked back toward the doorway where Amelia’s ghost had stood, then I closed my eyes. “I don’t…it’s not what I need from you. It’s what I needed from her…and what she gave you instead.”
June didn’t reply.
And she wasn’t a woman who was often speechless…but she was speechless now.
“You don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head…
because maybe I didn’t understand either.
“She never came. Not once. Not when I cried or fuckin’ screamed or…
not when I stayed in this crumblin’ church, praying she’d show her face and tell me she was okay.
Not when I nearly drank myself to death. Not when I…”
I paused, reaching up to squeeze the bridge of my nose.
“When did you see her the first time?”
June answered instantly, like the date was always living in her head rent-free.
“April 19th, 2013.”
I let out a bitter laugh, unable to stop myself. “The day she died. Jesus…”
June took a step back, like the words had physically struck her.
“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “Silas…I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t.” I ran a hand through my hair, dragging my palm down the back of my neck like I could wipe away the grief. Of course, I couldn’t; it stayed there, clinging to me. “I know it’s not your fault. I just…fuck, I don’t understand.”
Silence stretched between us again. My thoughts were racing, each new revelation more painful. She’d gone to June instead of me. She’d left me here in this hollowed out house of worship, left me to waste away, to die…and she’d saved June.
Why?
Why the fuck hadn’t I been good enough?
June hovered a step away, like she didn’t know if she should touch me again or give me room to fall apart. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I didn’t blame her for not knowing what to do, but I still wanted her to do something, anything—
I scrubbed my hands down my face again. My skin felt too tight…my ribs too hollow.
“She died alone,” I said. “Maybe thinkin’ I should have been there. Maybe thinkin’ I didn’t love her right. Maybe that’s why she didn’t come back for me.”
“Silas,” June finally said, voice quiet and tight. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
But I couldn’t stop the thought, digging this grave deeper, wanting to crawl into the soft earth and rot.
“She came to you because…fuck, of course she did, June. How could anyone see you and not think you’ve got good to do in this world? You’re gonna do things to actually help people, and I’ve just been sulking in this goddamn—”
“Silas, stop,” June interrupted, stepping into my space more forcefully now.
I stopped.
Looked at her.
“Silas,” she said, repeating my name as if she was trying to haul me back to reality. “What if she knew that I would get here someday…and I just took longer than I was supposed to?”
I stared at her, trying to make sense of everything—of Amelia’s ghost where June’s angel should have been, of the bitterness in my throat, of the fact that June’s salvation had been my grief. But June…God, June—she stepped into the space between us, forcing me to confront this.
She wasn’t going to let me go.
Not without a fight.
“Silas,” she said. “I am so, so sorry that she didn’t come to you…
but I won’t apologize for her coming to me, because she was my angel.
She told me to come back when I was ready to leave.
I don’t know why…maybe because we both came up in the same kind of cult, because we both wanted to find God even though we were told over and over again that we weren’t worthy.
She came to me and told me I was worthy… and now I’m here.”
She paused. I waited. I needed to hear more, for this wound to stop aching.
“And I saw her again the night the snake bit me,” June said. “She told me to come back then, too…to come back to you.”
My whole body was stiff, my heart pounding. I didn’t realize I’d stopped breathing until she said those last words—and I remembered seeing Amelia in that hallway, just on the other side of the double doors in the clinic.
“She told you that?” I asked.
“Not out loud,” June said. “It wasn’t like that, but I just…I felt it deep, even when I was out of it and hurting so bad. The light you said I was muttering about? It was her. She was in that truck with us, at the clinic with us in Perry.”
I swallowed hard, closing my eyes…then I let myself sink into one of the pews.
“I saw her that night, too,” I said. “Figured I imagined it or that it was a bad omen, not…well, whatever the fuck is happening right now.”
I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt June sit down next to me and take my hand. When I was ready, I didn’t look at her—I found myself looking up at the altar instead.
The altar I’d made with my own two hands…the altar where I’d fucked June for the first time, not that anyone in town would ever, ever know that. There was a hexafoil carved into that altar, and I knew then…Amelia wasn’t evil. She wasn’t a warning.
She was a revelation.
“Girls in these churches have to look out for each other,” June said, reaching for my hand again and squeezing it gently. “Maybe she just…knew that.”
I stared at the altar—our altar—and I didn’t look away. Not even when my eyes burned or my throat started to ache.
“I’m glad she was there for you,” I said. “She was a…fuck, she was a really good person.”
June smiled at me. “I can tell.”
We sat there a while longer, the voices in the fellowship hall blending into a soft, comforting chorus. Here, we were alone…safe, maybe with our guardian angel looking on. Finally, I looked down at June, exhaling.
“So what the hell do we do now?” I asked.
June hummed. “We go back into the fellowship hall,” she said. “We eat some good food and talk good church. And then…” She paused. “Then we make sure Amelia gets justice.”