As Dan held out a hand to him, Nate thought about the conversations he’d had with the other man. He hadn’t held back his opinion that church was a waste of time at best and a fraud at worst. He felt suddenly awkward around this man he had come to see as a friend.
But Dan didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, Nate, glad you could make it.”
Before Nate could come up with a reply, a panicked looking teen ran up to Dan and whispered something. Dan turned to his friends. “Sorry. Problems with the sound system. I’ll see you after the concert.”
At the front of the church, the band members began to warm up.
The sharp chords pulled Nate back to the life he’d had before. He’d been so full of himself then, thinking he was someone special. That God had big plans for him. That the Big Guy had his back.
Look how wrong he’d been.
The pianist played a short riff, and Nate found himself leaning forward, eyes fixed on the guy’s fingers. They were sure on the keys, just as his had once been.
Nate’s gaze moved to the guy’s face. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be feeling the music, living it. Nate knew exactly what that was like. Playing was the only time he had really felt alive in those days―like he was doing what he was put on this earth to do.
“Nate?” A soft hand landed on his arm.
Nate ripped his eyes off the pianist and looked toward Violet, who was clearly waiting for him to say something. He gave her a blank stare, his thoughts still on the feel of piano keys beneath his fingers.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Are you angry that I dragged you here?”
“What?” Nate forced his attention to her.
“You look kind of . . .” Violet trailed off. “Tense.”
Nate glanced at his hands, which were fisted in his lap. His clenched jaw ached, too. He concentrated on loosening his muscles. How could he be angry when she looked at him with that soft gaze?
“No.” He gave her what he hoped was a gentle smile. “I’m not upset.”
Violet’s features relaxed. A second later, the lights in the sanctuary dimmed, and the crowd grew silent.
Nate’s stomach lurched. He wasn’t sure he could handle this after all.
A spotlight flashed onto the band as the first chord rang across the auditorium. The gathered worshipers cheered and rose to their feet as the band broke into a familiar praise song.
Violet leaned toward Nate and pointed to a large screen behind the band, which showed the words of the song so the audience could sing along. But Nate didn’t need the words. He’d sung this song more times than he could count, first as a child in church and then as his band grew large enough to tour.
But Nate’s throat was too full to sing. He simply gave Violet a tight nod.
She smiled and closed her eyes, swaying as she sang along to the music.
Nate closed his eyes, too.
But instead of being lifted to the heights of worship, he sank into the past.
As song after song rolled by, Nate saw his band playing in venues just like this one, his hands on the piano keys, a microphone at his mouth.
He’d loved the energy of these events, the communion of worshiping together with so many people who believed in the same God, believed that he was all-powerful and the very definition of love. He’d wanted to dedicate his life to that God.
Of course, that was before he’d discovered it was all a lie. Maybe there was a God; he wasn’t ready to go so far as to say there wasn’t. But that God was not all-powerful. And he certainly wasn’t all-loving.
Nate had learned that the hard way.
No matter how much he fought to resist the memories, they forced their way through. That last night, Nate and his band had played to a packed crowd at his hometown church. They had heard rumors that someone from a Christian record label would be in the audience. The added pressure spurred them on, and they played a flawless set. Afterward, the producer approached them and offered to set up a meeting for the next week.
The offer seemed to prove once and for all that Nate was on the right track with his life, that his father had been wrong about business school, and now he could drop out and do what he was really meant to do.
The producer insisted on taking them out to celebrate. Nate almost said no. He rarely partied, and he was exhausted after the grueling schedule they’d been keeping. But finally making it big felt like a milestone that needed to be celebrated. He didn’t want to look back at this moment and realize he’d failed to appreciate it as it happened. Plus, he worried that declining would seem ungrateful. This guy had the chance to make or break his career.
The producer took them to an upscale bar and offered them all a round of drinks.
Nate said no at first.
But he was parched. And he’d turned twenty-one two months before. It was no big deal for him to have a drink.
Only there’d been another round after that. And then another.
Being out had felt good. Finally, he could let go of all the pressure and tension that had been building up for the past several years. For his whole life, maybe, with his dad’s constant demand for success.
There was no more need for pressure.
He had made it.
The alcohol went down easier and easier the longer the night went on.
Around midnight, his phone rang. It was Kayla, calling from her own party, begging him to drive her home because she was too drunk to drive, and she was going to miss her curfew.
Nate had lectured Kayla a thousand times about not drinking. She was only sixteen. But he was also realistic. He knew his little sister wasn’t a saint. So he’d made her promise that she’d never drive drunk. He’d promised he’d always come pick her up.
So he had downed his last drink, shaken the producer’s hand, and congratulated his bandmates again.
Then he’d pulled out his keys and gone to pick Kayla up.
He never gave a thought to the fact that maybe he didn’t belong behind the wheel of a car.
Nate’s thoughts snapped to the present as someone tugged on his arm. He opened his eyes to find Violet pulling him gently down as all around them people sat. The band had stopped playing, and the lead singer was taking a long swig of water as Dan approached the front of the church. He wore a headset microphone and looked totally at ease in front of the packed church. The same way Nate had felt once.
“How’s everyone doing tonight?” Dan called out.
The crowd roared its approval.
Nate swiped a hand over his damp forehead, trying to relax. Violet leaned closer to him, and he tried to use the contact to anchor himself to the present.
“You know,” Dan was saying from the front of the sanctuary. “I’m not going to talk long because I want to hear some more of this incredible music. But I wanted to take a minute to talk to you about what an awesome God we have. Maybe you know him already, maybe you don’t. Or maybe you knew him once, but you’ve decided you don’t want to know him anymore.” Dan wasn’t looking anywhere near him, and yet Nate felt as if the words had been directed right at him. His shoulders tensed.
“The thing is, whatever you might know or think you know about God, he knows everything about you.”
Nate’s insides churned. What business did God have knowing everything about him? Some things were too horrible for anyone―even God―to know.
“But―and here’s the important thing,” Dan went on. “He loves you anyway.” A few people clapped at that, and at least one person whistled. “No matter who you are. No matter what you’ve done. God loves you. He forgives you.”
The weight of Dan’s words throbbed against Nate’s temples.
“Do you hear me?” Dan turned toward the other side of the church, but Nate could still feel the sear of his openness. “There is nothing―nothing―God cannot forgive. Nothing―not one single sin―Jesus did not die for. So whatever you’re holding onto tonight, whatever burden you’re carrying, leave it at the cross.”
<
br /> Dan directed one more look Nate’s way, then walked to his seat at the front of the church as the band broke into another song.
Nate tried to inhale and focus on the music, but the room had gone airless. He stumbled to his feet, tripping over the end of the row, barely seeing what was in front of him. He charged down the aisle, through the sanctuary doors, and across the lobby.
As he slammed his body through the church doors, the clean night air pulled him up short, and he stood heaving, trying not to choke on the memories that swirled around him, an angry current fighting to pull him under, to drag him to where he couldn’t breathe. To where he deserved to be.
The too-sweet scent of lilacs in the air when he picked up Kayla.
The too-loud click of his blinker against the pounding that had started in his head.
The too-wavy center line.
The too-bright lights coming straight toward them.
His too-slow reaction.
The too-high screech of metal on metal, followed by the grinding silence.
The empty seat, where Kayla had been. The broken window. The scramble from the car to find her crumpled in the road, blood spreading around her like watercolor paint.
Collapsing next to her as his own injuries overtook him. A final plea to God: “Take me. Please, take me, not her.”
The strength of the memory dropped him to his knees.
He didn’t want to hear that God was good, that he could forgive anything.
He didn’t deserve to be forgiven for this.
Chapter 23
Violet told herself not to follow Nate, to give him some space.
She managed to listen to herself for all of ten seconds.
As she walked deliberately toward the doors, she tried to work out what she would say when she got to him, how she would apologize. She had known how he felt about church, and yet she’d roped him into coming―by deceiving him, no less.
It was just that he’d obviously known the love of God once, if he knew those songs on the Christian radio station and had been in a band that played them. She’d wanted so badly for him to know God again that she’d thought it wouldn’t matter how she’d gotten him here; she figured once he heard God’s word again, his heart would be mended.
She’d been naive. Clearly, his issues with God ran deeper than she’d been willing to see. Which meant that whatever feelings she’d been developing for him―and she had to admit they were there―would have to be reined in. She could never be in a relationship that didn’t have God at its center. She knew God was the reason her relationship with Cade had worked; and he was the only way a relationship between her and Nate would work as well.
Not that he’d come out and said he’d like to have a relationship with her. But she couldn’t deny the spark between them anymore, the desire to spend every waking moment with him. She’d finally accepted―started to hope, even―that it could be leading to something more.
She pushed down her rising sorrow that it couldn’t. That wasn’t what this was about right now. It was about apologizing for dragging him here.
When she reached the glass doors that led outside, she stopped short.
Nate was kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk, his head in his hands.
Violet raised a hand to cover her mouth. He was obviously still fighting with whatever it was that had driven him out here. She should leave him. Let him have the space he so obviously craved.
But he’d been there for her so many times. When she’d broken her arm. When she’d needed someone to talk to about Cade. And when she’d needed help saving her store. Without Nate, she wouldn’t be halfway to paying off her back rent already.
She owed it to him to help him through this―whatever it was.
Steeling her shoulders, Violet slipped quietly through the door and hurried over to Nate, dropping to the ground next to him. She let her fingers graze his back lightly. He trembled slightly, and she planted her hand more firmly on his back. “Nate?”
He drew in a shuddering breath, then dropped his hands to his knees and pushed himself into a more upright position. She let her hand fall from his back.
“Sorry about that,” he rasped, not looking at her.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Violet rubbed at the pale spot on her ring finger. “I tricked you into coming here even though I knew how you felt about church. I should have told you the truth.”
A muscle in Nate’s jaw twitched as he stared out over the parking lot. “I appreciate that. But I think I’ll wait out the rest of the concert in the car.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Give me the keys and go inside. I don’t want to ruin your evening.”
Violet shook her head. She was the one who had ruined the evening.
“I’m not going back in there without you, and you’re definitely not going back, so how about we call it a night?”
Nate ran a hand through his hair, making the top stick up in funny tufts that Violet had an urge to run her fingers through. Finally, he nodded, and she took his elbow, leading him across the parking lot to her car.
Violet left Nate to his thoughts during the short drive home, but when they reached their building, each standing outside their own apartment doors, she turned to him. “You seemed to enjoy the concert at first. Was it something Dan said?”
Nate’s eyes darted around the landing, as if trying to find anywhere to look but at her. “Let’s just say I disagree with his assessment that everything can be forgiven.”
Violet waited for him to add more. When he didn’t, she said, “It might help to talk about it. I could make some coffee.” She ached to take whatever this burden was from him. Or at least to help him carry it.
His eyes finally came to rest on hers, filled with an anguish she recognized only too well. “I can’t.”
“That’s what I thought, too, for a long time.” What she’d thought until only a few weeks ago, when she’d found herself opening up to Nate. The least she could do was offer him the opportunity to do the same.
For a second, she thought he was going to say yes. She watched the warring desires in his eyes, praying that for once openness would win out.
But the moment passed, and his guarded look fell back into place. The one she thought he had dropped as they’d grown closer.
“It’s too much,” he said finally, opening his door.
But Violet wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Part of friendship is sharing.” She took a step closer to his door. She tried to keep her voice steady, but it hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to open up. “But I feel like I’m the only one who’s sharing all the time. Every time I ask you anything, you put me off with vague half answers. I don’t know why you left your band or why you’re so angry with God or what you dream about for the future. None of it.”
Nate’s face contorted, and she took an involuntary step back.
“You want to know about my past?” His voice was laced with a hopelessness she’d never heard from him before. “My past is dead. You want to know what I dream for the future? Fine. I dream of―” He stopped abruptly and clamped his mouth shut.
“You dream of what?” Violet asked softly. In her heart, he said you.
But his eyes traveled from her face to her feet, then to the stairway. “I don’t dream of anything for the future. My future is dead, too.”
He turned and disappeared into his apartment, the click of the door ricocheting around the landing.
Violet stood staring at the closed door, feeling as if her future had somehow died as well.
Chapter 24
Monday morning, Violet rolled over with her eyes clamped shut when the alarm went off. She’d been finding it easier to get out of bed lately, finding herself actually looking forward to the days. But after last night, she had to face the fact that today held no promise.
She scooted closer to what had been Cade’s side of the bed and hugged his pillow to her body, inhaling deeply. But only the clean scent of laundry detergent reached he
r nose. Cade’s sea-spray scent had long since faded.
The fabric grew damp under her cheek as the ache that had been starting to fade reared again in all its brutal glory. Her insides burned with it. She needed Cade here. Needed his arms around her. Needed his hand cupped against the back of her head, stroking her hair and telling her it would all be okay. More than anything, she needed to talk to him, needed the closeness of having someone to share everything with.
She’d almost thought she was finding that again.
With Nate.
But it turned out that had been an illusion, wishful thinking.
What she’d had with Cade was a once-in-a-lifetime intimacy.
She wouldn’t find it again with anyone else. So she would stop looking. Focus on the store, maybe get more involved in church, and forget she had almost dreamed of more.
As the alarm blared for a second time, Violet groaned but pushed the pillow away from her face and dried her eyes.
After dressing in sweats and pulling her hair into a messy ponytail, she sent Sophie a quick text asking if they could meet for breakfast. She’d been trying to let Sophie and Spencer adjust to married life without too many interruptions, but she really needed her best friend right now.
She tried not to dwell on the irony that she had always been the one to dispense relationship advice, not the one needing it.
Sophie replied with an immediate yes, and twenty minutes later, Violet was seated at their usual table at the Hidden Cafe, nursing a cup of coffee. The restaurant was bustling today, and every few minutes, someone stopped at the table to say hello. Violet thought she’d done a pretty good job of keeping up the happy pretense so far, but if one more person asked her how she was doing, she was going to bolt.
Fortunately, Sophie breezed through the door just as one of the older ladies from church spotted Violet. Violet gave the woman a quick wave, then got up to hug Sophie.
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