Broken Halo

by Dayo Benson

  He begins to walk faster and I don't have the energy to chase.

  Not today.

  Chapter 21

  I'm broken.

  Completely broken.

  I asked God for a sign and I think this is it. I refuse to beat myself up for falling for Colby and dumping Timothy. I've decided that I need to stay single and not think about guys at all for a long time.

  As I drive home, I tell myself that I need to just forget about Colby now—cut him out of my life. That's what Colby wanted anyway, so it's not like he's going to try to change my mind and make things hard for me. What will be hard is getting him out of my heart.

  When I get home, I tell Gina and Leah all about it. I feel terrible that I'm always dumping my drama on them. I used to be a drama-free kind of girl. But ever since Timothy came into my life, I've been a wreck. And I've been even worse since Colby.

  I need some time alone with God. I need to recommit myself to Him.

  When I'm done dumping on my friends, I go to my room and Google Mr. Big.

  I cannot believe the nature of the images that come up in the search results. I quickly have to close the browser window.

  I hold my breath, wishing I didn't see what I just saw. I have never seen anything like it.

  And I never should—unless I'm married to the dude.

  I'm stunned into dry-eyed silence. No more sobbing. No more tears. Just complete and utter shock.

  I try again, squinting through barely open eyes as I look for a website that will give me some information. I read about Mr. Big on a few dodgy websites and deduce that he's the top of the A-list in this seedy, illicit world. He produces content prolifically and started attracting a wider female audience when he started producing more female-friendly flicks.

  The one he was shooting today wouldn't have been a female-friendly one. It must have been for his rough-handling male audience.

  I find a website that has lots of his videos. There are hundreds of them. And from the crazy number of views and all the comments on each of them, he has millions of raving fans.

  I click on one of the videos and can't get past thirty seconds. I hit 'pause' and hold my breath. The video is ten minutes long. Many of them are much shorter. A few are longer.

  I can't take any more of this. I close my laptop.

  For the rest of the weekend, I don't go anywhere. I don't even go to church on Sunday. I need to be alone.

  I realize that God has never really been God in my life. As Gina told me a few days ago, Mom and Nana have always filled that role. His role. I've served them, thinking that my obedience to them would recommend me to God.

  I still have to honor them but I must now make way for God to be in charge of my life.

  When Mom and Nana are in charge, I end up in the hands of a guy like Timothy.

  When I'm in charge, I end up with a guy like Colby.

  I need God to be in charge now. Not Mom, not Nana, and not me. That's why, when Colby calls me on Sunday evening, I don't answer. I don't want any explanations and I don't want to do this 'let's be together-let's not be together' dance with him. I have to make a clean break.

  I have to begin to live like a Christian instead of just calling myself one. I have to get to know God for myself and begin to let Him guide my decisions.

  But that's just it. I thought God was guiding me when I ran into Colby that day by the ATM.

  I realize that I don't know how to hear from God. I don't recognize His voice yet.

  I need Him to tutor me in voice recognition.

  At nine p.m., on Sunday night, I hear the doorbell. A few moments later, Gina and Leah come to tell me that Colby is at the door with a single yellow rose.

  I refuse to go down to see him and I tell them not to accept the rose on my behalf. No more bad self-directed decisions. All my decisions from now on are going to be directed by God.

  I decide to listen to a sermon that night by my favorite preacher, Rosa Camran. It's about being Spirit-led. Timothy can't stand her, but I love her.

  When you make a decision to surrender to God, Rosa says, you had better fasten your seatbelt because He's going to lead you down a path you don't expect.

  You see, you have all these notions about how God works. But God is saying, 'Your ways are not My ways. My ways and My thoughts are so much higher than what you're thinking. You can't even conceive of My ways.

  People are hollering at her as she climbs down from the platform and walks among the congregation at one of her gospel rallies. She's like seventy years old or something but she still wears kitten heels.

  Stop trying to predict Me! she says into the mic. You can't predict Me. You're just flesh and blood. I'm God Almighty. I do what I like. And if you want to come along for the ride, put aside that box because I ain't going to fit into it.

  That idea is strange to me. Having been brought up in church, I think I know what kind of things God wants and expects. He wants me to attend church. He wants me to be kind to others. He wants me to do anything that can be classified as 'good'.

  That night, I have a pretty bizarre dream. I'm standing outside a manor-style house like the one in which Colby shoots his porn flicks, and I'm looking up at a neon sign that says 'Saints and Sinners'.

  When I wake up, I have no idea what it means.

  I'm willing myself to get out of bed when my bedroom door bangs open and Gina breezes in holding a tray of something that smells delicious. Leah follows, also holding a tray.

  "I made the pancakes," Gina announces, handing me a plate stacked with pancakes and fruit.

  "I sliced the fruit and drizzled the maple syrup," Leah says.

  "Slicing and drizzling isn't cooking," Gina replies.

  They hand me a knife, fork, and paper napkin and then sit at my table to eat, too.

  Tears sting my eyes as they talk and try to distract me from my misery.

  I feel so touched. They're really great friends. They're always there for me. Even when I'm bull-headedly making terrible decisions, they have my back. And when my terrible decisions backfire, they're still there for me anyway.

  As I listen to them chat, I realize that this is what I want from Mom and Nana. I don't want them to control me out of fear that I'll make the wrong choice. I want them to give me their advice and be there to pick up the pieces if I don't follow their advice and things go wrong.

  But maybe that's too much to ask from a parent who loves you too much to sit back and let you make your own choices.

  "Are you coming to college today?" Leah asks me when we finish eating.

  I shake my head.

  She comes and sits beside me on the bed. "I don't think it's a good idea to isolate yourself."

  "It's not isolation," Gina says. "It's incubation. I had to have a time of incubation too, one time when I almost lost my faith in God. Incubation is good."

  "I'm not isolating or incubating," I tell them. "I'm filming."

  They both look relieved.

  I think of Colby as I drive to the College Life studios. I don't want to think about him. I'm forever scarred by the things I saw online on Friday night when I Googled 'Mr. Big'.

  But I wonder why he showed up yesterday with a flower. Did he want to apologize?

  I can't imagine that he wanted to ask if I still like him, now that I know one of his secrets.

  I wonder what his other secret is. Then I decide I don't want to know. The one that I do know is bad enough.

  Property developer? Ha! The only thing that has in common with what he really does is the 'P' that it begins with.

  I knew there was something up with Colby, but there's no way I could have pieced together the clues because I would just never have guessed that he could possibly be involved in such a thing.

  He lied that it wasn't him dressed in a knight costume, the night he saved me from Dumbo.

  He had issues with me seeing him on Quin's computer screen.

  I remember how he told me he didn't want to sleep with me. That he und
erstood the kind of relationship I would expect and that he wanted to connect in other ways. More like he's so exhausted with sex in his secret life as Mr. Big to give it in a real relationship.

  I can't get his glassy eyes out of my head. He must have been totally stoned on Friday. I should have worked out that he takes drugs. That middle-of-the-night meltdown a few days ago was bizarre. He didn't sound right. I'm willing to bet he was high at the time.

  I think of how he refused to look at me when he first entered the room on Friday. He must not like to look at his co-stars. Maybe he hates what he does.

  If he hated it, he wouldn't be doing it, I tell myself before I can start making excuses for him.

  When I get to the College Life studios, I push aside my personal drama and act happy and thrilled to be there.

  I am thrilled to be here, I tell myself.

  I'm not going to let my discovery about Colby put a damper on the rest of my life.

  I'm reconnecting with God. That's my life mission now: To truly be a Christian and be able to hear God's voice and sense His leading.

  Obviously, what I thought was an answer to my prayer at the ATM last week Friday wasn't. Colby is not at all the right man for me.

  On a break from filming, I sit with members of the cast and they ask me about myself. The other blond who got the role I wanted is there too. She's really chatty and bubbly. A total extrovert. I'm more of an ambivert. Neither extroverted nor introverted. Just somewhere in the middle.

  I go through phases of being really outgoing and phases of wanting my own space. I'm in the 'I want my own space' phase right now.

  I tell them about some of the acting work I've done in the past, and the girl who got my role talks about her past work, too. She has more experience than I do. And it's very varied experience. She's had more opportunities than I have. It figures. She's from New York.

  Everyone at the table is vegan and they look horrified when I add chicken to my plate. But today, I don't care what anyone thinks of me. I eat my chicken and even help myself to some more when I finish. I'm hungry.

  After the break, we get back to filming and I find that being in a terrible mood is really good for acting a humorous, sarcastic character. We're filming a date that goes wrong. This is the moment when the guy who's interested in me finds out that I have a couple of screws loose.

  I deliver my lines so comically and act so zany that members of the cast and the camera crew keep bursting into laughter. We keep having to stop filming and redo them. The director begins to lose patience with us, but even he is chuckling.

  I'm exhausted when we finish. Absolutely drained.

  So when I get outside and see Colby leaning against my car, I almost scream with fright.

  Chapter 22

  I consider my options. I could run. I could hide behind another car and hope he'll go away if I refuse to stop hiding. I could go back inside and stay there until he leaves. I could have one of the security men in the building come out and shout at him to go away.

  I'm still standing there considering my options when he comes over and stands before me.

  I hate that, with one look into his velvet brown eyes, I'm rattled to my bones. And I hate that the tentative smile he gives me is like an electric shock to my system.

  "I have a proposition for you, Chloe."

  I'm shocked. How dare he?

  "If it includes sex and cameras, I'm going to slap you."

  Colby's gaze is steady as he looks at me. "There's a coffee shop around the corner. Can we go there to discuss it?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm in a hurry."

  "It's about a TV show that I think you would be perfect for," he says. "The title is 'Saints and Sinners'."

  I remember my dream. "Saints and Sinners?"

  "Yes."

  "What is it about?"

  "It's cold out here. Let's go someplace where we can sit down and talk about it."

  Are you trying to tell me something? I ask God as I follow Colby down the street and we enter a coffee shop.

  Colby offers to buy me a drink, but I decline. He hands me a document as we sit at a table.

  I scan it. The show is meant to turn good girls bad and nice boys nasty. I take it that by 'saints' they don't mean Christians. They just mean normal, upstanding people. They need ten good people—both men and women—and they need six bad people. Again, both men and women.

  "The bad people will be outnumbered," Colby says, "but the show bosses think the bad team will win anyway. The aim is for the 'sinners' to influence the 'saints'. But the saints will also be trying to influence the sinners to become good like them. When they said they needed more good girls, I instantly thought of you."

  The show sounds interesting. I begin to read from the paper again. It's a reality show, obviously. The saints and sinners will be locked in a house together for a month.

  I have college so I don't know how that's going to work.

  I look at Colby. "I take it you're one of the 'sinners'?"

  He nods matter-of-factly.

  "Is this what you were talking about when you said the whole country would soon know one of your secrets?"

  He nods again.

  "Why do you want the whole country to know?"

  "I've been trying to get away from my manager. You met him on Friday."

  "The director?" I ask.

  "He's my manager and he directs most of my…flicks." Suddenly, Colby looks uncomfortable and I feel sorry for him, although I don't want to.

  "So he's a managing director," I quip.

  Colby's face seems to relax. I don't know if it's just me or if there's really a spark of hope in his eyes. Like he thinks my joke means he still has a chance with me.

  I quickly look down at the paper about 'Saints and Sinners'. "Why are you willing to let the mainstream media know that you're a…?" For some reason, I can't say the words.

  "My manager is blackmailing me. I no longer want to do it, but he won't let me go. He says he'll tell anywhere I go to work about my history and he's threatening to sell a story about me to the papers."

  "Why would anyone care to read it?" I ask.

  If I saw a random story in the news about a porn star, I wouldn't really care. It would probably be juicy but it wouldn't matter much.

  "I'm Pastor Jeremiah Carter's son."

  I can't believe my ears.

  "Is that a joke?" I ask.

  The serious look in Colby's eyes tells me it isn't.

  It's shocking enough that Colby is a pastor's son, but Jeremiah Carter? He's one of the biggest preachers in the country. I attended his church when I first got to Washington, wanting to try it out. It's a famous mega-church with a lot always going on, but I settled for Leah's church because it's smaller and I like the relaxed nature of it. I felt like the people in Jeremiah Carter's church were the super-rigid, unbending type like in the church I grew up in—maybe even worse.

  "I take it you've heard of Jeremiah Carter," Colby says dryly.

  So that's the church that damaged Gina. Gina has never said which church it is, and I've never asked because I didn't expect it to be a famous church.

  "It would ruin my parents if this story released. It could even ruin Dad's 'ministry'." Colby rolls his eyes.

  "So you do have a heart?"

  "I don't. Since I'm being blackmailed, I've decided to unleash the information my way and take that power away from my manager. I'm going to do this reality TV show and let it become common knowledge that I'm a porn star. If I'm going to ruin my reputation, I might as well profit from it rather than letting my manager profit."

  I feel bad for him. It must have taken a lot for him to decide to do this. Being blackmailed can't be much fun.

  "Besides," Colby says. "Remember I told you I made a bargain with God about something I would stop doing if I see you on three separate days?"

  I nod slowly.

  "It was about my job. I told God that if He wanted me to stop, He should make me see you on three separate days
. This is something I have to do."

  I fold the information document about Saints and Sinners and slip it into my purse. The show sounds interesting, but I don't want to be a reality TV star. That's not the kind of actress I want to be. I want to do real acting, not participate in sleazy reality shows.

  I don't even know what the aim of the show is. I read something about being evicted but it doesn't say what could lead to you getting evicted nor how they'll judge whether the good people have become bad or the bad people have become good.

  However, as I drive home, I think about my dream. And I think about the sermon I listened to last night about how, when you ask God to lead you, He might take you down a path that you're not expecting so you had better fasten your seatbelt.

  The dream could have been a warning, I tell myself. God could have been giving me the heads-up so that I don't give in.

  When I get home, I tell Gina and Leah. They're both as intrigued as I am, but they agree with me that I need to set my sights on Hollywood, not the reality TV scene.

  I call Quin to get his take on it and he agrees with me, too. Saints and Sinners is not the type of image he wants for me.

  I scan the show information again over dinner with Leah and Gina. I could pay off the rest of my tuition and then some if I managed to win the show. But I'd rather do real acting work.

  Yet, the more I think about my dream, the more I realize that, if I'm asking God to direct me, I need to take a step. Even if it seems ridiculous and feels like the last thing I expect God to ask me to do.

  There is absolutely no explanation for the fact that I saw the words 'Saints and Sinners' in a dream before Colby told me about it.

  Does that mean You want me to do it? I ask God over and over again all evening.

  I hear nothing. A still small voice would be nice. Or maybe the angel Gabriel fluttering into my room to deliver a message.

  Actually, no. That would freak me out.

  I sigh as I prepare for bed later that night. This whole hearing from God thing is really hard.