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By Root 184 0

echoed in her head: “Don’t pop the clutch, Sophie. Nice and easy.” The horn behind her blasted again—three times—like maybe she couldn’t hear it. Pressing her lips tightly together, she stepped on the clutch and restarted the ignition, taking off more slowly, more carefully this time. “Get a life,” she muttered as she made her way across the intersection. But even as she said it, she knew she was talking to herself as much as to the impatient driver behind her. Seriously, it was time for her not only to get a life but to get a grip, and to just get over it. The sooner the better. That is, unless she wanted to drown in sorrow and guilt, like she’d been doing for more than a week now.

“Dear God,” she began to pray aloud as she turned down the street to her house. “I am so sorry. Okay? I am really, truly, seriously sorry. Please, please forgive me. Please help me to start over again. I really, really need you now, God. And I’m really, really sorry.” She parked the Jeep in front of her house, turned off the engine, leaned her head on the steering wheel, and whispered, “I’m so very, very sorry, God. Amen.”

It was the first time she’d genuinely prayed in more than three weeks—ever since she’d first fallen for Dylan. She just hoped that God understood the reason for this little lapse in communication. She hoped that he was as kind and gracious and forgiving as she had once believed him to be. And she hoped that, as Pastor Vincent liked to say, God was capable of do-overs.

Because right now, more than anything else, Sophie needed a fresh start.

4

“Ew, Sophie!” Kelsey North looked up from her lunch with a sickened expression. “What happened to you?”

“I was run over by a truck.” Sophie sat down and glared across the table at Kelsey. “What does it look like?”

“Seriously?” This came from Jenny Garcia.

“Give her a break,” Carrie Anne said. “She tripped and fell, okay?”

“I thought maybe you just had a huge zit on your chin.” Hannah Johnston smiled so big that her teeth looked straighter and whiter than usual against her bronze complexion.

“Funny.” Sophie stuck a straw in her soda and wished for teeth as nice as Hannah’s . . . and for this day to end. The first day back at school and all her friends were obsessed with how horrible she looked. Why couldn’t they just get over it?

“So, long time no see, Sophie.” Jenny leaned forward. “Tell us, what did you do on your summer vacation?”

“Yeah,” Kelsey said. “I heard you were a counselor at middle school camp. Did you like lose your mind or something?”

These girls were friends from youth group, but it was the first time Sophie had seen any of them since early in the summer. Somehow she’d gotten the mistaken idea she’d missed them.

“Hey, I heard that Dylan Morris was at that same camp,” Jenny said.

“He was,” Carrie Anne said.

“You got to spend a whole month in the same camp as dreamy Dylan?” Kelsey looked suitably impressed.

Jenny just laughed. “Like it would matter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sophie demanded.

“Oh, you know . . .” Jenny got more serious. “It’s not like you and Dylan would, you know, start dating or anything like that.”

“But they did talk,” Carrie Anne pointed out. “Right, Sophie? You said you guys talked.”

Sophie just rolled her eyes and pretended to be totally absorbed in opening a packet of ketchup and slowly squeezing it out onto her fries. Fries that Carrie Anne had already warned her against. Not that Sophie cared as she ate one after another.

“Yeah, well, talking is just talking,” Jenny said. “Now, if I had my chance, I’d do way more than just talk to someone like Dylan Morris.”

“Like you’d ever get the chance.” Carrie Anne’s voice sounded a little sharp. “Dylan wouldn’t give a girl like you a second glance.”

Hannah gave Carrie Anne a nudge with her elbow, like she was warning her not to go there. Sophie had to agree, but she wasn’t going to say anything.

“Meaning?” Jenny looked genuinely offended.

“I know what she means,” Kelsey said quietly.

Jenny made a bored expression. “Fine, let me guess. You’re going to start lecturing me about