by John Byrne
“If you are not aware, then, I must break it to you.” The headmaster shifted in her seat uncomfortably, as if she dreaded her next words. Asher dreaded them, too. At the same time, anything was better than the torture of watching Faith lie.
The headmaster took a deep breath. Could she drag it out any more? He thought. Just spit it out, already!
As if she heard him, the headmaster shifted one more time in her seat and said, “There is a rumor that you, Ms. Wilkes, are pregnant and that Mr. Van Der Bos was, um, involved.”
Involved? Asher would burst out laughing if his stomach hadn’t just plummeted to the center of the earth. Taking his vocal cords with it. Faith’s normally tan skin turned pale. It was now the same creamy color as her stomach–Asher recited the alphabet backward in his mind, trying to banish the image that accompanied it. Now was clearly not the time.
Faith shook her head, making her blond waves bounce. “I’m sorry, headmaster, but that’s ridiculous.” As if to prove her point, she giggled stiffly.
The headmaster fixed her with a steely stare. “Are you sure about this? Because I assure you, this is quite serious. That would not be a situation that either one of you are prepared to deal with alone.”
Faith swallowed hard but said in her calm, steady voice, “Really, I think it’s far more likely someone started this rumor to embarrass us. Seeing as how we’re the only two members of the school abstinence club.”
The headmaster turned to Asher, one eyebrow arched sardonically.
“Is that true?”
For a moment, Asher thought the headmaster was making fun of him. Then he realized she didn’t mean the club, she meant Faith’s claim that he hadn’t knocked her up.
Asher didn’t know what to say. Had Faith been wrong? Was the home pregnancy test she took wrong? What had happened at the doctor’s visit? He kicked himself for not asking her when he saw her the other day.
“Well?” the headmaster prompted.
Asher looked to Faith for help but she had turned away from him. Deciding to take his cue from her, he said slowly, awkwardly, “Yes. It’s true. That’s ridiculous”
The headmaster exhaled loudly. “I must say I’m relieved. The last thing I need is the alumni association’s favorite athlete dragged down in a scandal.”
In an unusual show of defiance, Faith stood up abruptly. Her voice shook a little this time as she said, “Yes, that would be a tragedy. Heaven forbid anything tarnish The Boss’s golden image.” She turned and marched out of the office, leaving Asher scrambling in her wake.
He hurried after her. “Wait, Faith!”
She walked faster.
“Faith! Come on, wait up!” Asher broke into a sprint. It didn’t take long to reach her. He grabbed her arm. “Why did you lie? You never lie….unless, is it true? What you said? Are you really not pregnant?”
Faith wrenched her arm away. “Why would I tell you? I can’t trust you! Look at what you did.”
“What did I do?” Asher demanded. “Aside from bringing twenty guys to an abstinence club meeting you never showed up for.”
“You told everyone! Are you insane? The only two people I told were you and my doctor. And she is bound by patient privilege. So you go and brag about it in the locker room like I’m just one more conquest. One more boat beaten. How could you do this to me? All that time, I thought—” She stopped and gasped, clinging to her self-control. “I thought you were different. Special. And it turns out you’re one big jerk.”
Asher wanted to reassure her, but he couldn’t. Because he knew it probably was his fault that the rumor had spread. So he told the truth. “I’m sorry, Faith. I never meant for this to happen. I just—I wanted to do something for you. To win you back. So I got the guys on the rowing team to sign Abstinence Pledges. I was going to surprise you at the meeting last night. But, well, the guys started—” He stopped himself short. He couldn’t tell her that the guys started making fun of him for the pledges. That would hurt her feelings.
But Faith seemed to understand, anyway. “They made fun of you, right? So you told them everything. Is that supposed to make me forgive you? Feel sorry for you? Poor little Asher put up with five minutes of mockery and he surrendered. What do you think the last three years have been like for me, Asher? They’ve been torture. And ha ha, in the end I surrendered too. No one is a bigger hypocrite, a bigger failure than me. Are you satisfied?”
“Satisfied? No.” Her grabbed her wrist as she started to storm away again. “I didn’t know they would say anything! I’m their captain! I thought they would keep this secret!”
Faith’s face crumpled. “I don’t ever want to see you again, Asher. I’m going to pretend this didn’t happen. We never met. We never—,” her voice broke. “And you should do the same.”
Asher started to get angry. Why didn’t she realize that he was trying to help her? That he’d never meant for everyone to find out?
“That’s going to be a little awkward, don’t you think, when we see each other at school?” he countered.
Faith stiffened, her eyes cold. “Goodbye Asher.” Then she turned and stalked away.
****
Asher was crushed. This hurt a lot. It hurt worse than his mother marrying sleazy Skip. It hurt worse than Vivianne refusing to have sex with him. It hurt worse even than the time he accidentally stabbed himself with a knife while trying to slice the Christmas turkey.
He spent the night in the common room of his dorm, staring off into space with the TV on in the background. All around him, guys were starting to talk about their plans for the three-day weekend coming up. But Asher could do nothing but sit and lay his head against the back of the sofa, aware of a crushing weight settling over him. He had to win Faith back!
His buddy, Michael, drifted over. He hovered a minute over him. “You okay?”
“Nope,” Asher said, closing his eyes.
“Yeah, I thought so. You look like shit.”
“That’s about how I feel. Faith won’t talk to me.”
Michael sunk into the sofa next to Asher. “Why? Aren’t you guys a thing now?”
“She hates me…blames me for telling you guys her secret.”
There was a pause. Then Michael said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Asher asked because, being Asher, he missed the meaning behind Michael’s words.
“I thought you needed help,” Michael said. “I didn’t know it would make it worse.”
Slowly, Asher’s head rolled to the side. He opened his eyes and looked at Michael, the truth sinking in. “You told the headmaster?”
“I’m so sorry. What can I say? I panicked. You weren’t—you didn’t seem to have any kind of plan on how to really deal with this.”
Asher closed his eyes again. After a long moment, he said, “It’s okay, Michael,” even though, really, it wasn’t.
Hours later, the rest of the guys had all gone to bed, leaving Asher alone in the common room with the TV still blaring. The nightly news came on and ended, followed by a really weird night-time soap opera. Finally, about midnight, the station showed a re-run of the previous Sunday’s religious shows. This one was by the Reverend Wilkes.
Asher grabbed the remote and jacked the volume up. Reverend Wilkes stood in the pulpit in one of the South’s megachurches, surrounded by tens of thousands of his adoring flock. Yet he didn’t give Asher the creeps like a lot of southern preachers normally did. He seemed calm and kind, with blonde hair as thick as Faith’s and the same sunny smile she shared.
“Today, we need to talk about something that not a lot of people talk about nowadays. It’s something we really need to remember in today’s turbulent times. And that is forgiveness.”
Forgiveness. That was it.
Asher leapt up and bellowed, “YES!!!!!” before laughing maniacally.
“Jesus, Asher, what’s wrong?” The dorm monitor was in the doorway rubbing his eyes. Clad in his pajamas.
“Nothing!” Asher yelled as he ran ba
ck to his room. He grabbed his laptop and began looking for flights for the long weekend.
Chapter 5
Asher couldn’t get a flight to Atlanta until the following Monday, the last day of their three-day weekend. Part of him had hoped Faith would be either staying at Colebrook or going to Atlanta for the weekend, but according to Markham, who seemed to know everything, she wasn’t in either place. Markham indicated that Faith had gone on some religious retreat in Maine, but he didn’t know exactly where. It left Asher once again wondering where on Earth Markham got his information.
So Asher spent a long weekend alone in the dorms, neurotically going over everything that had happened with Faith. But finally, Monday came and Asher boarded a flight to Atlanta.
The city wasn’t as cold as the Northeast but it wasn’t exactly warm this time of year, either. That surprised Asher as he walked out of the airport and over to the taxi stand. He zipped up his jacket to ward off the unexpected chill while he waited for the taxi. A few minutes later, he was heading down the streets of Atlanta, watching the naked trees lining the streets and nervously contemplating what he was about to do. Was he nuts? he wondered. Probably. But that wouldn’t stop him.
“Where to?” the driver asked as he pulled onto the freeway. Asher glanced at the damp piece of paper he was clutching in his sweaty hands. He read off the address that Markham had given him. The driver nodded and headed south on the freeway.
Absorbed in his own thoughts, Asher didn’t see any of Atlanta until they pulled off the freeway and entered the small, simple suburb that Faith had grown up in. It was so far removed from the penthouse apartment that Asher had grown up in that he stared in wonder. Mid-sized houses with tidy lawns lined the street. Early Christmas lights had been strung up on some of the homes, with a few Santa Clauses and reindeer dotting the lawns. In the middle of the street, a nativity scene decorated the yard of a two-story brick house.
The driver pulled up to the brick house. Normally not one to notice anything that doesn’t come in the shape of a body of water or a rowboat, Asher nevertheless took a long moment to take in the details of the house Faith had grown up in. It seemed to be an older house—well-kept but showing small signs of wear. Tiny strips of paint were missing from two of the window panes and the bricks themselves were looking a little worn around the edges. It only added to the house’s charm.
So this is where Faith grew up, Asher thought. It fit her—solid, unpretentious, elegant without really trying. And yet very much just a regular house.
Asher handed the driver the fare and got out. The warm glow he’d gotten thinking of Faith disappeared as he contemplated his next move. His nerves turned his stomach into knots. They rose as he passed the nativity scene and stepped up to the front porch. He rapped quickly on the door and waited.
And waited.
No, seriously? he thought. Not after I’ve come all this way. He rapped again, longer and louder this time. To his relief, he heard a loud crash and the unmistakable thud of footsteps plodding toward the door.
Asher recognized Reverend Wilkes at once. He looked the same as he did on tv, only instead of wearing a tasteful suit, he wore a cardigan and khakis. The look he gave Asher was polite but puzzled. “Can I help you?”
Asher cleared his throat. “Y—yes, sir. I hope so. My name is Asher Van Der Bos. I’m—a—a friend of your daughter’s. From school. From Colebrook, I mean.”
The reverend’s face cleared instantly. He smiled and held the door open. “Of course. Come in. Are you visiting family or friends in Atlanta for the long weekend?”
“Not exactly,” Asher said as he stepped through the door. The reverend made small talk as he led Asher down a brightly lit hallway to a study.
The room seemed to consist entirely of books. There were books crammed haphazardly into shelves, books stacked into piles on the floor, books covering the desk and two armchairs in the corner of the study. Most of the books were religious, including several versions of the Bible. But there were fiction books as well—mysteries, literary masterpieces, even some children’s books.
The reverend caught Asher’s eyes. “I know…my wife always tells me what a disgrace it is to leave all my books lying around like this. Maybe I should take better care of them but it’s hard to do when I’m constantly switching from book to book. I never know what I want to read or what I feel like until I rummage through them. Do you like to read, Asher?”
And just like that, Asher’s nervous energy calmed. He smiled a little. “I like to read books about rowing. I just finished a book on rowing in the Atlantic.”
Reverend Wilkes picked up a stack of books lying on the two armchairs. He placed them gently on the floor and gestured to Asher to take a seat. Then he fixed Asher with a thoughtful stare, taking in Asher’s tall frame and lean physique. “You row crew?”
Asher nodded. “I do. I have—had—an excellent chance of getting to the Olympics.”
“Why do you say had? You’re young…I can’t believe your chances are over.”
“I’m older than I think,” Asher said, wincing since even he realized that sounded stupid. “I mean, I think my life is more like an older person’s. I mean, I think it is about to—to take a different turn.”
The reverend glanced at him, surprised, and, to Asher, it seemed, his eyes narrowed in the first glimmer of suspicion. He said slowly, “So what brought you to Atlanta, Asher?”
“Your daughter. I want to marry her.”
Reverend Wilkes shifted in his chair. “Marry?”
“Yes, sir. I’m in love with your daughter and I this is the best way I can think of to show her.” To Asher’s mind, this sounded completely logical. In fact, he had spent the entire flight trying to figure out how to express his feelings to Faith’s father and had agonizingly put that sentence together. But it took hearing himself out loud to realize he sounded like a deranged stalker.
Shit.
“Asher, I’m afraid I need you to back up a little. Because, in my experience, marriage is a commitment once love is established. Exactly what is your relationship with my daughter. Because I’ve never heard your name before.” There was a bite to his final words.
Asher blushed and ducked his head. “I love your daughter. We met in an abstinenance club meeting.” If anything could please an angry father, that sentence was it.
But the reverend just stared at him impassively.
“I was seeing this other girl a few months ago. Vivianne. That’s what send me to the club meeting. I thought Vivianne was abstinent and I wanted to respect that.”
The reverend interjected, “She wanted to wait until marriage?”
Asher made a face. “Nah, turns out she’s gay. She wanted to have sex, just not with a guy.”
Reverend Wilkes’s face went rigid. Like someone hand hit pause on this scene.
Asher said, “So, anyway, I didn’t know Vivianne was a lesbian then. I only knew she wouldn’t sleep with me. I really liked her, though. Like, I was obsessed with her. So I needed to figure out how to be patient and wait. I saw that Faith had restarted the Abstinence Club.” With a look at the Reverend, Asher said, “You know, it means a lot to Faith to live up to your expectations. So, please don’t be too pi—angry at her.”
“Why would I be mad at my daughter?”
No doubt about it, Reverend Wilkes’s demeanor was not quite as inviting as it had been ten minutes ago. He sat up straighter in his chair. His face turned steadily graver. Asher’s gaze flicked to the door of the study as he wondered if the good reverend would thrash his ass for what he was about to reveal.