Dear Diary...

by L. M. Reed

  Chapter 28

  Dear Diary,

  I know what I need to do now.

  CeeCee

  Mark had never actually driven to the church building where Nick’s parents worshipped, the church he attended was close to the campus, so Nick volunteered to meet us at the apartment to make sure we didn’t get lost.

  I was dressed and sitting on the couch—everything but my toothbrush already packed into the suitcase on the floor next to me—nervously wondering what his mood would be, when the front door of the apartment opened and Nick entered carrying a duffel bag. Shutting the door, he tossed the bag on the floor and started toward the kitchen before he noticed me.

  “You’re up early,” he said in surprise.

  “Someone made me take a nap yesterday,” I reminded him.

  “Must be a highly intelligent person,” he decided, “Because you’re in much better shape this morning.”

  “Gee, thanks for reminding me how hideous I looked yesterday morning,” I retorted sharply.

  I definitely didn’t want him to remember.

  “Wouldn’t want to forget that,” I added acidly.

  “No problem,” he grinned.

  He seemed to be in a much better mood, and I decided to risk his anger.

  “So what happened to you last night?”

  “I was around,” he answered casually. “Did you miss me?”

  I shrugged, not about to touch that one.

  “I’m sure Daniel more than made up for my absence,” he continued. I frowned, puzzled by his tone. “You two seemed to be hitting it off at supper.”

  “He’s…okay,” I said carefully, not wanting to set Nick off, “I don’t really understand him,” I confessed.

  “His intentions seemed very clear to me,” Nick frowned then changed the subject. “Where’s everyone?” he asked glancing into his obviously empty room.

  “Mom’s getting ready in Mark’s room,” I replied, “and Mark decided to make a donut run.

  “Ah, gotta love those apple fritters and cinnamon rolls,” Nick said, practically licking his lips.

  “You know all that sugar and fat will kill you,” I pointed out disdainfully.

  “But what a way to go,” he responded. “You could use a little sugar, maybe it would sweeten your disposition.”

  Thankfully, Mom chose that moment to emerge from the bedroom. If I had let any of the things I was thinking slip out, it would only have proven his point.

  Nick made himself comfortable on the couch next to me while Mom took the armchair. I leaned back and allowed their conversation to float over me. Predictably, it was about Nick’s family. Tuning them out, not wanting to watch the easy way they talked and laughed together, I focused on what Nick could have possibly meant about Daniel.

  I realized that Daniel possessed a wicked sense of humor, possibly even more warped than mine, and that trying to antagonize Nick seemed to be a favorite pastime of his, but what I didn’t understand was why he was using me to bait him…or why it was working. Daniel gave every appearance of being interested in me, chasing me, but I knew it was just a front; he had admitted as much to me. The only thing I could come up with was that Daniel was too old for me, and Nick felt protective because of his feelings for Mom. I didn’t like that idea at all.

  The arrival of the donuts interrupted my unpleasant thoughts. I used that as an excuse to escape to Mark’s bathroom to brush my teeth. I heard Mom explaining to Nick that I wasn’t much of a donut eater and had fixed myself some scrambled eggs and toast earlier. Closing the bathroom door firmly, I stalled as long as I could.

  Nick was in his bedroom getting ready, Mark was waiting to get into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and Mom was in Mark’s bedroom packing up her suitcase when I finally emerged.

  We were planning to eat with the Barretts after church, drop Mark and Nick off at their apartment after that, and then head home. I put my toothbrush in one of the outside zipper compartments and sat down to wait for the others.

  Once everyone was ready, Mom asked Nick if we could take our car—it was a gas saver as well as easier to climb into for those of us in skirts—and handed him the keys, seeing as he was the only one who knew where we were going. He took the keys and got into the car as I made myself comfortable in the back seat directly behind him. If Mom decided to sit in the front with him, I didn’t want to be able to see his face every time he looked at her.

  Mom insisted on Mark taking the front passenger seat as usual, which relieved me greatly, however, my relief was short-lived and only lasted until I looked up and met Nick’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  The shock in my eyes was so apparent I could see Nick having trouble suppressing his laughter. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about that stinkin’ mirror. Knowing his vision of my face was limited, and that sticking out my tongue would have accomplished nothing, I narrowed my eyes at him instead and then turned my head to look out the window, pointedly ignoring him.

  The trip took a little over thirty minutes and I resolutely kept my gaze fixed out the window. The result was a major crick in my neck, but that couldn’t be helped. I wondered desperately why God had sent Nick to torment me so.

  David and Josh were waiting in the parking lot for us to arrive. They yanked open my door, much as they had the previous day, and attempted to haul me out of the car.

  “I don’t think CeeCee would appreciate two dislocated shoulders,” Nick said irritably. “Let her get out of the car by herself.”

  “Sorry CeeCee,” they said simultaneously releasing my arms and standing back grinning while I swung my legs out and stood up. “We’re here to take you to class.”

  I returned their grin, reaching a hand out to each of them and said, “Take me to your leader.”

  Predictably, they roared with laughter as they grabbed my hands and whisked me away.

  Also predictably, Nick called after them, “Slow down!”

  The twins slowed their steps imperceptibly, looked at each other, and then took off again. It encouraged me to realize that I could keep up with them without being exhausted. Hope rose up in me for the first time in months; maybe I could get back to normal. I was feeling a little better every day.

  Suddenly, I had the urge to run. I wondered how long it would be before I would be able to start building myself up again. Realizing I would have to begin slowly, I decided that I would try to work out a schedule as soon as possible.

  My doctor appointment was the following Thursday and I hoped that he would okay me to start working out if I had a reasonable plan in place and could show him how much improved I was. I was determined to get back to normal as soon as possible. I felt restless and needed to run.

  The high school class met in what they called the Activity Center, which was not connected to the main building. There looked to be about forty high school students already there standing around eating donuts and drinking hot chocolate.

  Not donuts again, I groaned to myself.

  I was introduced so many times I couldn’t possibly remember everyone’s names. The twins were apparently quite popular.

  Politely, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, I refused the donuts generously offered by quite a few different teenagers, but accepted the hot chocolate David handed me. I had to admit, it was good stuff.

  The youth minister, a man in his early thirties who was about my height, but quite a bit heavier, had moved to the middle of the circle of chairs motioning for everyone to take a seat. The twins pulled me over to the chairs and sat me down between them. I tried not to squirm in my chair at the youth minister’s first words.

  “We have a visitor today, I see,” he began as all heads swiveled around to look at me. “David, Josh, would you like to introduce your guest?”

  David and Josh stood up, pulling me with them.

  “This is CeeCee Wilson. She’s a senior from the Dallas area,” David announced
proudly.

  “Her family is visiting us,” Josh added not to be outdone.

  The whole group said “Welcome” in unison and I made an embarrassed, little waving motion with my hand.

  “We’re glad you’re here CeeCee, my name is Randy and I’m the youth minister here,” he introduced himself as I sat down. The twins quickly followed suit. “We’ve been studying in First Corinthians the last couple of weeks so if all of you will open your Bibles to the thirteenth chapter, we’ll begin there.”

  I was a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t thought to pack my Bible, but David and Josh were more than happy to share with me. Each of them kept shoving theirs over toward me while trying to push the other’s book out of the way. Once again, I hid a smile; they were so young.

  As Randy read from his Bible, I ignored the twins and closed my eyes in concentration. I remembered Eric, our youth minister back home, calling it the love chapter.

  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong…It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

  Those words hit me hard. I claimed to love Mom, Mark, and Nick but I had failed them. I was none of those things; in fact, I was the exact opposite of most of them.

  “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

  I was eighteen years old, considered an adult, but I wasn’t acting like it. Instead, I was being a selfish, self-centered spoiled rotten kid. The whole world didn’t revolve around me, even though I frequently acted like it did, and Mom, Mark, and even Daniel blamed themselves for things that were totally my fault, that I should have never allowed to happen on top of the fact I had been unforgivably rude to the one person who had tried his hardest to help me. It was a wonder that Nick hadn’t given up on me a long time ago.

  “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

  I suddenly thought of Dad. He had embodied the whole spirit of love. Even at the end, his pain had been the pain of loving all of us and being unable to protect us from the hurt his disease caused us.

  In sudden inspiration, I wondered if that was how God felt about all of us, His children; knowing better than anyone how much pain we lived with on a daily basis, but unable to do anything for us unless we let Him. He had to know what it felt like to have to deal with unbearable pain; after all, He had given Jesus for a sewer rat like me.

  I had shut Dad out of my life until the end—not realizing how much it would have helped the whole family if I hadn’t—how much he could have helped me…how much he had helped me the last couple days of his life once I let him.

  Not for the first time, I wished fervently that I hadn’t been so wrapped up in what I was going through, completely ignoring the rest of the world, and my family in particular. Shutting everyone out had been my way of trying to protect myself from life and the pain that inevitably accompanied it.

  The problem was that it hadn’t worked. Hiding from the world hadn’t mitigated any of the pain, and was obviously not the answer.

  Thoughts swirled around in my head, too many to deal with all at one time. Should I go away to college? Was that too cowardly? How would Mom and Mark react? Was that being selfish? Could I stay and watch Mom and Nick together? Was I strong enough? Would I ever be able to find anyone to replace Nick in my heart?

  Maybe I was destined to be alone.

  But I wanted someone, and not just anyone, I wanted Nick.

  Stop it, I told myself firmly.

  Nick was offering friendship; that would have to be enough. It was better than nothing.

  With a start, I realized that class was over. I quickly shoved all of the confusing questions to the back of my mind, determined to pull them out later when I was alone.

  I had some tough decisions to make, and I wanted plenty of time to think them through before making any major changes in my life, realizing that I needed to consider how they would affect everyone, not just me.

  That’s a start, I thought nodding to myself, trying to put others first.

  I knew God would approve.

  After class, I allowed David and Josh to drag me to the auditorium. Their exuberance was contagious. I found it hard not to smile whenever I was with them. It was nice.

  Nick was in the foyer when we arrived there and, frowning at the twins, he commanded, “I order you to release your prisoner into my safekeeping.”

  The twins were hard put to keep their laughter under control—after all, we were in a church building—as they literally put my wrists into Nick’s out-stretched hands. Nick rolled his eyes at me and chuckled. I shook my head at him, returning his smile as I took my wrists back.

  “You survived?”

  “There was only a little torture involved,” I assured him. “Don’t worry; I gave them my name, rank and serial number…nothing else.”

  His chuckle turned to a scowl as I felt two hands encircle my waist from behind.

  “Hmm, you smell good,” Daniel said softly in my ear. “Come sit with me,” he urged as he pulled me with him toward the auditorium.

  I only caught a glimpse of Nick’s face as I was hauled off, but I could tell Daniel had managed to anger him again. I sighed.

  “Why so glum?” Daniel asked knowingly, dragging me down the center aisle. “Have no fear; Nick doesn’t give up that easily.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied in exasperation, trying to remove his arm from around my waist, “but I wish you would stop trying to infuriate him.”

  “Making him insanely jealous is just too hard to resist,” Daniel laughed as he allowed me to get rid of one of his arms. “I’ve never seen him like this, and I plan on enjoying every minute of it.”

  “He’s not jealous,” I contradicted. “He’s just being a little overprotective.”

  I wish, I thought to myself dully.

  “If you say so,” he said agreeably, as we arrived at the pew where his parents were sitting.

  The twins were at the end of the row closest to us, Mr. Barrett was next to them with his arm around his wife’s shoulders, and Mom was sitting next to Mrs. Barrett engaged in an animated discussion with her, both gesticulating with their hands. I smiled; they were a lot alike.

  Mark was on the other side of Mom watching us curiously. Deciding that I wanted to sit by Mark, I turned to tell Daniel and felt myself being torn gently from his grasp.

  “I’m sure you’ll understand if CeeCee wants to sit by Mark,” Nick said smoothly to a surprised Daniel as he put his arm around my waist and led me through the empty pew in front of his family’s row to the other aisle.

  Gesturing that I should go first, we entered the family pew and I sat down next to Mark with Nick sitting on the other side of me. Daniel took the spot on the other side of Nick.

  “Smooth move, bro,” he congratulated Nick as he winked at me.

  Frowningly, I shook my head at him and turned to talk to Mark who was wearing a bemused look on his face.

  “I think you’ve made a hit with all of the Barrett brothers,” he whispered in my ear.

  “I guess they figure since they don’t have a sister of their own, they’ll have to make do with yours,” I whispered back in exasperation. “I need protection and you’re falling down on the job.”

  “Sorry,” he replied unrepentantly, “With you, I need all the help I can get.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs as the service started, and as he attempted to disguise his laughter as a cough, Mom pulled a cough drop out of her purse and offered it to him. He shook his head, coughing harder. I grinned at his discomfort; served him right. Nick and Daniel were eyeing us curiously, but I ignored them both; trying to decipher Daniel’s actions
and Nick’s reactions were making my head hurt.

  The singing was great, and I enjoyed hearing Mark’s tenor next to me; it had been so long. I hadn’t heard Nick sing before, he had always been on the other side of Mom and Mark, and I was shocked to hear a deep bass voice that reminded me of Dad’s. Perhaps his singing voice had triggered something for Mom starting the whole thing between them.

  I wondered if Nick’s mom knew or suspected anything. She loved Nick enough to want him to be happy, but I couldn’t help thinking she would be a little disappointed in him marrying an older woman, no matter how much they had in common and how well they got along. Maybe I wasn’t the only reason Mom and Nick were keeping their feelings for each other a secret.

  Selfless love, selfless love, selfless love, I kept repeating over and over in my head, I can do this.

  I would have to pray hard and give myself a good talking to every once in a while, but I knew I wasn’t alone. I had alternately yelled at God, questioned his existence, blamed him for everything, and questioned his existence again—that was quite the contradiction, accusing a non-existent being—but I had never truly been able to convince myself that God didn’t exist.

  I needed Him to exist, needed to know there was some order in the universe, something that made sense, some all-powerful being in control. I was just beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to figure everything out, that sometimes there would be things that made no sense to me no matter how many lists I made. However, if I grasped tightly to the belief that there was someone, somewhere, who understood what was going on, who was in control, things would be alright in the end. God had to be there. Otherwise, I might as well give up.

  “Faith, hope, and love,” I would hold onto all three of those, realizing how important they were, knowing I had almost lost them.

  “And the greatest of these is love.”