Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,33

her would be a black stain on his reputation here. He would say it didn’t matter, but she knew it did, and she couldn’t do that to him. He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to be associated with her, to have her reputation hung around his neck. No, he didn’t deserve that. Of that, she was perfectly sure.

Keeping his mind and fingers on the music instead of letting it jump across the ocean of students between them was more difficult than Greg could reliably handle. She was here. It was her in the back. But he knew by the look on her face and the downcast of her eyes that right now, she could use a friend, and he wasn’t there for her. “Please, God,” he prayed with every note he played, “please, don’t let Satan get a hold of her. Please.”

Chapter 6

“Taylor?”

Her plan to escape would have worked if there hadn’t been so many people jammed into the back aisle when the service was over. It might have even worked then if she just wouldn’t have reacted to the voice, but she did. The second she looked up and her gaze met Clara’s, it was game over.

“Taylor,” Clara said, coming through the others like she didn’t see them at all. When she got to Taylor, she put her hands on Taylor’s arms. “It is you. Oh, my gosh.” And with that, Clara pulled her into a hug.

Taylor wasn’t prepared for this, and before she thought about it, her gaze slipped over Clara’s back to Paige and Lauren who hadn’t moved from where Clara had left them. They were standing there, staring at her with disgust and unmitigated hatred.

“Hey,” Taylor said to Clara softly, barely getting the word out through the tangled mess of emotions inside her as she laid her hand on the young woman’s back.

Pushing back but not letting go, Clara’s eyes danced with joy. “I can’t believe it, you’re actually here.”

Taylor let her gaze fall to the carpet. “Yep, I’m here all right.”

Others were filtering out around them, jostling them to and fro.

“Come on, you’ve got to come, say hello.” Clara’s hand fell and gripped onto Taylor’s, and Taylor fought not to yank hers back.

“Oh.” Taylor glanced over, and one look told her she was definitely not welcome here. Her feet didn’t move, but Clara was three steps away before she realized it. “It’s…”

Turning back for her, their arms now stretched between them, Clara’s face fell into concern. “Taylor, come on. You have to…”

Clara didn’t know, but Taylor did. She smiled sadly at the girl who at one time could have been her friend, knowing this bridge, the one Clara wanted her to try to go back over had been burned to cinders long before.

“I think it’s better if I just go,” Taylor said. Her hand slipped out of Clara’s grasp, and she put her head down, crossed her arms, and started for the door. The tears that stung her eyes were ridiculous in the extreme. They were stupid for thinking they had any cause to be there. She didn’t deserve tears.

“What?” Clara asked in confusion. “Taylor, come on, you can’t just leave.”

But leaving was the only thing that made any sense. They didn’t want her here, and she didn’t belong here. So why had she come anyway? Because Greg was delusional and thought it was a good idea? It wasn’t. It wouldn’t have been three years ago, and it sure wasn’t now.

Behind her, when she got to the chapel door, she heard Greg call to her from the side aisle, “Taylor! Hey, Tay, wait! Hold up! Taylor!”

Pretending she didn’t hear him was best for everyone. He needed to let her go before she destroyed his reputation with these people. He might not know that, but she did.

“Greg,” she heard Paige say from the other side of the pews just as she went through the door, but she heard no more.

In the lobby, Taylor quickly wound her way through the students, not seeing a single one of them. She didn’t know anyone, and they didn’t know her, so it wasn’t like anyone was paying any attention.

“Taylor!” Greg called from behind her. “Tay! Taylor!”

Just before she got to the outside doors, he was right there next to her.

“Taylor, wait, stop.”

The grip of his hand on her arm did, in fact, stop her, but when she turned to him, she couldn’t get her gaze to come up off the floor. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“What?” he asked as if