My Sister's Tears Stole My First Life, Not My Second novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Church Photo

The diner had gone quiet.

Every booth was looking from the TV to me.

On the screen, Easton put his arm around Tinsley's shoulders.

"Winnie's been under a lot of strain," he told the host. "The family is asking for privacy while she gets the help she needs."

The host nodded with her sad face on and went to a commercial for mattresses.

Gage put his fork down very slowly.

"I'm gonna drive back up there," he said, "and I'm gonna..."

"No, you're not."

"Win, she just went on television and called you crazy."

"I know."

A man at the counter turned around on his stool. He'd sold Mama her riding mower.

"Honey," he said, "that girl's lying. You can tell. She cries pretty."

"Thank you," I said.

"Real pretty," his wife agreed. "Nobody cries like that unless they practice."

The waitress refilled my coffee without asking.

I looked down at my plate.

In my first life, I would have sat in a dark room and read every comment under that clip until morning.

I put two dollars under my mug for the waitress and stood up.

"Where are we going?" Gage asked.

"Church."

"It's Wednesday."

"The pastor still lives next door, doesn't he?"

Gage looked at me for a second, then grabbed his cap.

Liberty First Baptist sat on the hill at the edge of town, red brick and a white steeple, with the old church bus still parked out back on flat tires.

The pastor had been the youth pastor that summer.

Now he was nearly eighty, white-haired and bent, and he came to his door in slippers.

He knew me before Gage said a word.

"Winnie Honeycutt," he said. "I saw you on the computer, in that trash bin. My granddaughter showed me."

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