by Sonia Hartl
Paul waited for me outside the chapel, and all the things I’d been feeling the night before came into sharp focus. He always told me sex wasn’t a big deal, so what was I worried about? I just had to ask him. And not because Sarina had gotten to experience something I’d missed out on. Or mostly not because of that anyway. It would be fine. We’d be fine.
He lifted his hand in a casual wave as I approached. “How did it go with the zucchinis last night? Did you make men out of those boys?”
“Do you want to have sex with me?” I pushed the words out before I could think about the consequences of them, or think at all.
His expression froze before melting into amusement. “Right now?”
“Not right now. Tonight.” I waited a beat for him to say something, without really giving him a chance to turn me down. “Never mind. It was a dumb joke.”
“Hold up.” He studied my face. “You’re serious.”
“No, I’m not.” I stared at the cross hanging over the chapel door above his head. “Forget I said anything. Don’t make this weird.”
My face burned hotter than the rising sun. Why couldn’t I have taken one second to think this through before opening my mouth? I should’ve stayed at the cabin with Astrid. She would’ve listened to me and talked me out of this nonsense.
“‘Don’t make this weird’? This whole summer has been weird.” His voice had gotten lower with every word as his expression hardened. He glared at me, and I shriveled against the fire in his gaze. “You wanted to go to Jesus camp, even though I warned you it would be a disaster, and I said fine. Then you wanted to play house to save face in front of Ethan, and I went along with it, but this is beyond fucked-up, even for you.”
A few younger campers looked back at him and scurried into the chapel. I hadn’t seen Paul this pissed at me since that time in seventh grade when I’d accidentally started a rumor he had a third nipple. In my defense, when we played Two Truths and a Lie at Isha Singh’s sleepover, I didn’t know everyone would pick the wrong “truth” and run with it.
“What’s your problem?” My tone matched my temper. “You’re the one who told me I should try having good sex.”
“I didn’t mean with me!”
“Why? What would be so terrible about having sex with me?”
Tears pooled under my lids, and I willed them back as all my fears rose to the surface. Humiliation staved off the edge of whatever temporary jealousy I’d felt toward Sarina. I’d actually started to believe Paul and I weren’t just pretending. I should’ve known better though; I practically had a degree in one-sided feelings.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” His shoulders slumped. “But you just dropped this on me. How did you expect me to react?”
“Maybe how you usually act? You said yourself sex isn’t a big deal.”
He reeled back as if I’d slapped him. “Are you holding that against me?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I had too many feelings in too short a time, and they tumbled over each other, making it impossible for me to find what was true.
“And you threw out the idea of us having sex, because this is what I’m known for, so who the hell cares, right?” He curled his lip, like the very thought disgusted him. “Paul is good for an orgasm, so forget about ten years of friendship? Wow, CeCe. I knew you were impulsive, but I had no idea you could be so goddamned selfish.”
“Do you think I don’t care about our friendship? That it never once crossed my mind? I don’t want to screw that up or ruin what we have, especially if I end up like Lara.” Or Bree or Sydney or a dozen other girls.
“What does she have to do with anything?” He shoved his hands through his hair. “Lara and I are friends. You and Lara are friends.”
I knew in my head Lara was irrelevant, but my heart kept pushing to hear things I didn’t want to know like a jealous, irrational person. “She was pretty hurt when you broke up with her.”
“She’s with Matt now, and she knows we weren’t a good fit.” Paul started pacing and raised a fist to his mouth. “Did she tell you I hurt her? Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because you and I wouldn’t be friends anymore, and you’re so important to me. But I’ve also been having all these other feelings. I’m not sure if it’s the fake-dating or what, and I thought sex could be an alternative to a messy breakup.”
“Wait. Back up. What do you mean by ‘breakup’?” He put his palms out, like I was the one who’d blown up in this argument and he had to approach me with caution. “Are you talking about a relationship here? Or are you talking about sex?”
I couldn’t answer him. Not when he’d made it clear he had no interest in either.
“Don’t worry about it.” I tried to smile, to act like everything was okay, even though I was dying inside. “I was jealous of Sarina and wanted to make myself feel better. I’m sorry. I think our fake-dating got in my head.”
“You asked me to have sex because you were feeling insecure?”
“Yep. That’s all it was.” If he wanted an out, I’d give him an out. “I didn’t think you’d get so mad, or I never would’ve brought it up.”
“Good to know.” Clenching his fists, Paul walked away from me.
“Where are you going?” I ran after him, and grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. “I get you’re irritated with me, but you can’t skip devotions.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. You have no clue. None at all.”
He whirled around, leaving me completely dumbfounded as he stormed away. He clearly didn’t want to have sex, but taking the idea back had pissed him off even more. I couldn’t say anything to make it right. He couldn’t even stand to be around me. I hugged myself as I made my way into the chapel, horrified with the mess I’d created.
I could’ve dealt with him saying he didn’t think of me that way. Maybe I could’ve even dealt with him laughing at me, but I couldn’t deal with him shutting me out. He was my best friend. The person I cared about more than anyone in the world.
And I was losing him.
Chapter 22
I entered the chapel, numb and confused, and took a seat in the back pew I usually occupied with Paul. As much as I’d wanted to chase him down and fix us, I had no idea what to say. Sorry I asked you to have sex? Even thinking those words made me want to vomit.
Pastor Dean took the stage to give his sermon. “Today I’ll be sharing the Apostle Paul’s message of love. Turn to Corinthians 13:4: ‘Love is patient, love is kind.’”
Welp. I picked a terrible day to stay awake for devotions. As Pastor Dean droned on, I couldn’t sit still. I picked at my nails and shifted in my seat. I tapped my foot against the pew leg and pulled out a hymn book. The pages made a lot of noise as I flicked through them, and a few people turned around to look at me. I folded a loose piece of paper I’d found in the Bible holder into a paper airplane and threw it toward Astrid. It hit another kid in the back of the head.
Why had Paul gotten so mad at me? If he had asked me to have sex, I would’ve … felt like a convenience, an acceptable option. Like I meant nothing more than that.
Oh God.
I’d screwed up so bad, but I still didn’t have a clue how to proceed, or what I wanted. After my last experience, I wasn’t exactly eager to put myself out there again. Though Paul didn’t make me feel bad about myself. With Ethan, I’d felt like I needed his approval, as if how I felt about me depended on how he felt about me. And I never measured up, was never good enough. It made me miserable.
Paul knew me, all my worst parts, which he had no trouble calling out, and all my best parts too. I didn’t seek his approval, because I never needed it. I didn’t have an arbitrary line to measure up to, because he never treated me as if I’d fallen short. I could just be me.
Things had changed between us this summer, even before I’d brought up sex, leaving me stuck in the middle of what was and what could be. I thought I might’ve started to manufacture feelings from the fake
-dating. Or I didn’t want to admit otherwise, in case he didn’t feel the same way. And okay, I found him appealing, but was I actually in love with him? My heart sped up as I tested the weight of that word. Attraction was one thing, but love was something different. Something unexpected.
“I thought it would be simpler to just have sex,” I whispered to myself. “Without all those other complicated feelings screwing up our friendship.”
A kid in the row ahead of me turned around to give me the stink-eye. I recognized him as the ear-pimple sophomore from the bonfire, and really, he had no room to judge.
“Let us bow our heads to pray,” Pastor Dean said.
If only I could go back in time and work through some of this stuff first. I should’ve gone to Paul honestly, before I asked him to have sex, the way he always came to me. I should’ve talked to him about all my warm and soft feelings, instead of letting my worst ones guide me. Insecurity would forever be my worst enemy. Because I couldn’t deal with falling for my best friend. Because I was in love with my best friend.
“I’m in love with Paul.” I let it out in a rush, like, if I didn’t say it fast enough, I’d lose my nerve. Several people turned around to shush me, and I waved them off.
There. I said it. No going back. But what was I supposed to do now? He wasn’t talking to me. Maybe he would if I told him the truth. At least he’d be understanding, even if he didn’t return my feelings. I gulped. I wasn’t the most well versed in the truth, all things considered, but if I wanted to make us right again, I had to come to Jesus.
So to speak.
After breakfast and the morning workshop, I took the overgrown path behind the chapel, somehow knowing I’d find him on the flat rock. He had his back to the camp, with his head bowed, and I wondered if he might’ve been praying. Not wanting to pry into his private moment, I stayed back until he raised his head and turned to me. There was a sadness that hadn’t been there before, and it was all my fault. In order to fix this, I had to be cautious. Slow down. I’d already made a giant mess, and I wouldn’t get another chance.
“I thought you’d get the hint when I didn’t go to breakfast,” he said.
“I owe you a huge apology.” I sat next to him and laid my head against his shoulder. He tensed, but he didn’t push me off him. I could do this. “I messed up, and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you did.” He scooted away from me and stood, and for a second I thought he was going to walk away from me. “How could you, of all people, try to use me for sex?”
“I thought if we did the no-strings-attached thing, we could keep feelings out of it. No one would get hurt.”
“Be real, CeCe.” His gaze went flat, like I was a stranger to him. “You meant you. You wouldn’t get hurt. You didn’t give a damn about my feelings.”
“What feelings?” My voice sounded as small as I felt. “I’m the one who makes a big deal about everything, right? You’re the one who doesn’t commit.”
“You know why. You know better than anyone what my father walking out did to me. If a pastor who swore in front of God to always be there couldn’t even stay, what’s to stop anyone else from …” His voice had gone thick. He sat again, but turned away from me. Not soon enough to hide the tears clinging to his lower lashes, threatening to spill over.
My stomach bottomed out as the gravity of what I’d done hit me full force. I’d been so caught up in my own emotions, I had no clue how bad I’d hurt my best friend. I’d always been jealous of Paul. The way he could go through relationships without seeming to care, while I felt everything with so much intensity, I thought it might kill me. In some ways, he had it worse. Sure, I got hurt, but at least I hadn’t been afraid to try.
“I’m so sorry.” I hugged his arm. “So incredibly sorry.”
“I trusted you. I thought you were the only person who understood me.” His frame shook as I wrapped my arms around him. The tears he’d tried so hard to hold back soaked into my T-shirt. He didn’t need my sloppy declarations of love right now. He needed his best friend.
I held him tighter, until the shaking stopped and my shirt began to dry. “You can trust me. I’ll never bring up sex again, I promise. We can talk about cheese and make fun of Pastor Dean’s stupid ties, and do a few pranks to give him hell while we’re here.”
“Is that what you want?” He moved back and looked at me with clear eyes. “For this to be that one time you asked me to have sex? Something we can laugh about years later?”
No. “Yes.” I’d tell him whatever he needed to hear. “We’re friends.” Even if I’d go on wanting him so bad that every time he’d get a new girlfriend, a little piece of me would die inside. “I just want us to stay that way.” No, I didn’t. “Isn’t that what you want?”
“I want to tell you a story.”
“Now?” What the hell? I was not in the mood for a story. I wanted something real from him. No more second-guessing and tripping over my feelings and saying the wrong things.
“It starts a long time ago, with a boy who grew up in the church. He loved his father, who claimed he spoke the word of God. But one day the boy discovered his father was a deceiver, and because his father’s word meant nothing, he also believed God’s word meant nothing.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. Paul had lost a lot more than his faith in God when his father walked out. The lonely boy too good for this earth deserved someone better. Someone who didn’t have to learn how to swim, because she already knew how.
“He was angry with his father, but he also felt a hole in his heart where love used to be,” Paul said. “So he attempted to fill that hole in other ways.”
“Filling the hole? Way to knock that metaphor out of the park.”
He cracked a smile, the first one I’d seen from him since our fight this morning. “You know what I mean. He looked for ways not to love.”
“Is he still?” I swallowed hard. “Not interested in love?”
“The boy tried not to love, but he wasn’t very successful. Because he’d known love since he was seven, when a girl stole his new bike and crashed it into a ditch, and he wasn’t mad. This girl was fearless. She could do anything, and the boy couldn’t help but fall in love.”
My breath caught. Every feeling I’d ever had tumbled around inside me in a free fall, but for once I didn’t speak. I didn’t have the words.
“But he didn’t think she returned his love, so he was content to be her friend and confidant. Because he loved her, he wanted her to be happy. Do you want me to keep going?”
“Yes.” It came out as more of a harsh gasp than an actual word.
“One day the inevitable happened. The girl found what she thought was love, and it tore the boy in two, but he pretended to be supportive. And when the other boy broke her heart, it took everything in him not to tear that boy in two for being dumb enough to let the girl go.”
“Paul.” My heart ached. For him. For me. For all the years we’d been friends, with neither of us crossing that line. Until we went to camp, and I pushed him into pretending to be my boyfriend for superficial reasons.
“And when the girl, known for her impulsiveness, a quality the boy long admired, still wanted the one who’d broken her heart, the boy offered to help. Not because he wanted her to get the other back, but because he’d sworn he’d always be there.”
“Even through the girl’s many, many mistakes?”
“The girl had to make those mistakes to see the truth about the other,” Paul said. “But it didn’t make the boy happy like he thought it would. Because the other had to hurt the girl for her to see he was no good, and the boy hated seeing the girl hurt. Worse, she questioned herself, when the boy who had always loved her wished she could see what he’s always seen.”
All the signs had been there. His irrational—which turned out to be rational—hatred for Ethan. He’d volunteered to come to camp with me, even though it opened all his old wounds from his father. All the little ways we’d touched or flirted in our own
weird way.
“Then one day the girl came to the boy and asked him to have sex with her, out of the blue. And almost immediately said it was a joke, but the boy loved the girl, and knew when the girl was lying to him.”
“This story just got really awful,” I said.
“The boy was angry with her request. Maybe a little flattered, because the boy has an ego, but mostly pissed. Because the boy thought the girl would never use him. Maybe it’s the boy’s fault too, for never telling the girl how he felt.”
“I didn’t know.” I grabbed his hands. “I swear, if I’d known, this whole thing would’ve gone differently. I would’ve—”
“You would’ve what? Lied to me? Told me you loved me because you felt guilty?”
“That’s not what I said. You’re making assumptions.”
“Based on what you told me.” He stood. “I can’t do this right now. I have to pack.”
“What do you mean?” Panic clogged my throat. “Are you leaving?”
“I talked to Pastor Dean. This farce has gone on long enough. I’m calling my mom to come pick me up.” He walked away from me, his long legs taking him halfway down the hill before I could process what had happened.
Chapter 23
Paul wasn’t at lunch, but I didn’t expect to find him in the dining hall. He needed a minute to cool off before I approached him again. No way would he leave without settling things with us. Even if he wasn’t that far off on why I’d rushed to ask him to have sex. Ugh. The mortification of it all sat like a rock in my stomach.
Astrid set her tray next to me at our bench. “You look terrible.”
I poked at my sandwich, not having the stomach to actually eat it. “Paul loves me.”
“Wow. You’re just now figuring that out?” Astrid shook her head. “You’re supposed to be the most aware one among all of us.”
“You knew?” I grabbed her arm. “Did he tell you? What did he say?”