April looked about her suddenly, scanning the area. No one was around. Inside, the altar call had ended and the closing song had begun. Paul could just make out the words: “You’re all I want, all I need. You’re my everything.”
April turned to him and put his face in her hands, meeting his eyes. “Thank you, Paul Frazier,” she said. “When you get back to Grover Falls, you need to try to move on with your life. Promise me you’ll try.”
At a loss, he met her gaze and nodded.
April took one more quick glance around. Then, still holding his face in her hands, she kissed him, quickly, forcefully, on the lips. Before he had time to return the kiss, before he had time to pull her closer, she let go of him, threw up the hood of her windbreaker, and walked swiftly away. Paul stood at the edge of the wood, watching her go. He expected to see her return to the rec hall, but at the last moment, she set off in the opposite direction, down toward the cabins. Paul wondered where she was going, but he knew he was not allowed to follow.
Everyone had gathered out on the front field for the midnight game of capture the flag, and the empty dining hall was quiet as a graveyard. Paul began tearing down the instruments and sound equipment. His heart was not beating fast; his breath came slow and steady; he felt an almost unnatural sense of calm.
He was kneeling to unplug the electric guitar from the amp when he heard footsteps behind him. He knew who it was without turning around.
In a weary voice, he said, “Shouldn’t you be outside, DeShawn?”
“What kind of guitar is that?”
“It’s a Yamaha.”
“Is that good?”
“No,” Paul said. He stood up and turned around to look at the boy. “It’s a piece of shit.”
DeShawn smiled, then scrunched up his forehead. “What’s a good electric guitar, then, that’s not, like, mad expensive?” His face lit up. “What did Hendrix play?”
Paul sighed. “Actually, DeShawn, I’m a little busy right now. I have to tear this all down tonight, so you should probably head back outside.”
“I could help you.”
“It’s faster if I just do it myself.” Paul took the guitar and walked past DeShawn, across the stage, to put it in its case.
For a second, DeShawn watched him silently. Then he said, a little uncertainly, “I just wanna get a guitar for our lessons. Mr. Waid gave me his old acoustic to use for now, but they say they’ll help me out buying a new one. Mr. Waid thinks I should get a better acoustic because he says they’re better to learn on, but I really want an electric, and they say it’s my decision, so—”
“Yeah, I don’t know about those lessons, DeShawn,” Paul said, cutting him off.
“Huh?”
“I know I told your dad—I mean, Mr. Waid—that I would, but now I’m thinking it’s probably not such a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t think guitar is a good thing for you to learn, especially from me. You should find another hobby. Don’t you like basketball or something?”
DeShawn’s eyes and voice were hard. “No. I wanna play guitar.”
“Well, aren’t you listening to the Stones by now, DeShawn? You can’t always get what you want. You of all people should know that.”
For a moment, DeShawn looked profoundly confused. Then this turned to anger. “Man, fuck you,” he said.
Paul nodded and began coiling a mike cable—over, then under, over, under. “Yeah, okay.” And he didn’t look up again until he was sure the boy had walked across the hall and he heard the front door slam behind him.
Sunday afternoon, after following the vans of kids from the campsite back to Grover Falls, after parking at New Life and swapping the pickup for his own car, pulling out of the church parking lot, Paul wasn’t certain about very many things, but one thing he knew without a shred of doubt: he would never go camping again. And glancing at the square brick building in his rearview mirror, he made himself another promise: he would never set foot in that church again for the rest of his life—or any church, for that matter. It would be easier now that he no longer worked there.
It had only been a few minutes ago. Paul had been in the parking lot unpacking the instruments and equipment from the truck and putting them on the asphalt to then take them into the church, when Jon approached him.
“Paul, can I talk to you for a second?”
Setting down the amp on the ground and mopping his brow, Paul made no effort to disguise his irritation at being interrupted in his work.
Jon looked around the crowded parking lot. Children were reuniting with their parents, who had just come out from the church. “Maybe we should go somewhere private,” he said.
“Just say what you gotta say, man,” said Paul.
Jon winced, and then his expression turned hard. “You were drinking this weekend, Paul.”
Paul blinked. “Yeah?” Not quite a question, not quite an admission.
Jon nodded. He took the bag off his back, set it on the pavement, and unzipped it, pulling out Paul’s aluminum bottle. He unscrewed the cap and took a quick whiff, scrunching up his nose, before offering it to Paul. “You were drinking out of this all weekend.”
“Circumstantial evidence.”
Jon sighed and dug into his bag again, this time pulling out the empty Jack Daniel’s bottle.
“You went through my stuff,” said Paul.
“I had to be sure. This is serious, Paul. I don’t know how you could think it’s okay to be drinking hard liquor while supervising children on a church camping trip.”
“What else would you suggest?”
“I’m going to have to talk to Pastor Eric about this. I’m sorry, but this is just too serious to ignore. But I wanted you to know first.”
“That’s really big of you, Jon,” Paul said, and began to walk away, leaving the instruments sitting on the pavement. “Oh,” he said over his shoulder, “and when you talk to your pastor, give him a message from me, will you? Tell him I quit.”
It was around two in the afternoon when Paul pulled into his mother’s driveway, prepared to walk into that kitchen and field his mom’s questions. She had just gotten home from church and would be extra chipper and interested in his life. He would dodge her words as best he could, walk up the stairs, go into the bathroom and down his medication, and stare into the mirror until he felt numb. Then he would go into his room, look slowly around at the physical manifestation of the waste that was his life—the dirty laundry, the unmade bed, the untouched guitars—before walking over to his bed and collapsing. He would lie on his back and stare up at the ceiling that he knew so well by now, all its stains and contours long since memorized, and wait while the sunlight through the slits in the shades slowly faded and the room went dark. If he was lucky, a few hours of sleep would come to him.
He sat in his car, working up the nerve, when something occurred to him. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and opened it. A couple of crisp twenty-dollar bills looked back at him. At the bar in Lake George, he’d had to use the ATM, and this was all that remained. He put the wallet back in his pocket and pulled out of the driveway.
Fifteen minutes later, when Paul stood at the door of the apartment and knocked, he had taken it for granted that Nicki’s little brother, Tommy, would be happy to see him. He’d taken it for granted that Tommy would invite him enthusiastically in. And he’d taken it for granted that when Paul told him why he had come, Tommy would be delighted to help him out. But when Tommy opened the door, his expression was one of surprise, quickly turning to hard mistrust.
“Hey,” Paul said.
“Hey.” The door did not open any wider.
Paul hesitated. “Can I come in for a minute?”
Without answering, Tommy turned around and walked into the apartment, leaving the door open. After a moment, Paul followed. The place was sligh
tly cleaner than the last time he was there—at least, the empty beer bottles had been cleaned up.
Tommy stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, glaring at him. Paul was a little surprised. He knew that Nicki was upset with him, but he hadn’t expected that anger to extend to her little brother, certainly not to this degree.
Since small talk seemed pointless, Paul got straight to it. “So, I was wondering if you could hook me up with some of that stuff we had the other weekend—the pot, I mean.”
Tommy blinked. “That’s seriously why you’re here? Weed?”
“Um … yeah? Or if you could at least point me in the right direction? I have money.”
Tommy stood looking at him for a moment, as if deciding something, then walked into the next room and came back with a small plastic bag of pot. He tossed it at Paul. “Now, get the fuck out of my apartment,” he said.
Too taken aback to speak, Paul caught the bag, noting its pleasant heft, and turned to go. Tommy leaned against the door frame and watched him walk to his car. Paul opened the door, then looked back at Tommy. “You know, I’m sorry about your sister. I was an asshole, I know. But believe me, she’s better off without me.”
Tommy snorted. “That’s about what any useless douchebag in your position would say.”
“In my position? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tommy studied him, and the hard look on his face changed to wondering curiosity. “You don’t know, do you?” he said. “She didn’t tell you.”
Paul felt something sinking inside him. “Didn’t tell me what?”
“I guess it makes sense, seeing as I only found out by accident,” Tommy said. He paused for a moment and then said, “My sister’s pregnant, Paul. It’s yours.”
LAURA
It had been over a month since I called Nola Sternson a bitch in front of half the kids at VBS. But when I joined the rest of my church youth group for the trip to Albany, the first Saturday of September, I knew that nobody had forgotten my little outburst that day by the lake. On a cool, gray day threatening rain, sitting in one of two fifteen-passenger vans heading down the highway, I felt like a stranger even though I was surrounded by kids I had known all my life. Not that anybody was rude to me. Nobody ignored me or gave me dirty looks or said things under their breath—at New Life, no one would be so obvious. But no one went out of their way to include me in their conversations. No one offered to sit with me in the back seat or offered me a water bottle. They treated me as something precarious and dangerous, like some feral creature that might go off at any moment, biting and snarling and spitting out horrible obscenities into their wholesome ears.
If Bethany had been with me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. We would have been too caught up in talking to each other, trading jokes and comments, to bother with what was going on around us. Ultimately, these other kids had never really meant anything to us. Sure, as the pastor’s daughter, Bethany was obliged to be nice to everyone, but what they thought about us mattered little. Bethany wasn’t here, though. I hadn’t seen her in weeks. It was just me in the back seat of the church van, alone.
As I sat with my head resting against the window—headphones in my ears to block out the chatter and laughter of everybody in front of me, watching cars in the opposite lane speed through the gray morning—I felt like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. At one end, the end this van was speeding toward, was Martin, waiting in Albany to meet me tonight. He had lately become my only real point of contact. These past weeks, we had spent hours talking online. And the fact that I would meet him in person in less than twenty-four hours still hadn’t fully sunk in. On the other end, trying to pull me back the way I’d come, was Bethany—or, at least, my thoughts of Bethany, which, since earlier in the week, had become heavy and conflicted. I was annoyed with myself. On this day, all I should be thinking about was Martin, but I’d gotten the letter a few days ago, and since then I hadn’t been able to keep Bethany out of my head.
When my mom came into the kitchen with the mail Wednesday morning and told me I had a letter, I was surprised. I never got mail—physical mail, anyway—unless it was my birthday. My first thought was that it was from Martin, and my heart lurched, but in that same moment I remembered that I’d never given him my address and he didn’t know my real name, so there was no way he could know where I lived. Still, I didn’t completely calm down until I took the envelope from my mom and saw that it was from Bethany. Her name and address were printed in her neat, pretty handwriting in the top left corner.
I took the letter up to my room, sat on my bed, and opened it.
Dearest Laura,
It feels so weird writing a letter like this, like with a pen and paper and everything, and I’m sure when you get this you’re going to wonder if I’ve gone completely crazy. Has she lost her mind?? Sometimes these days, I feel like I have. But the reason I’m writing to you like this, in this long-forgotten form, is that I’m pretty sure my mom is checking my phone these days on the sly, and I don’t want her to ever find this.
First, I want to say that I miss you. I miss you SO much, Laura, I can’t even say. You hurt me a lot when you stopped talking to me, but I think now I understand at least a little why you did. I wasn’t being a good friend. I’d been keeping things from you, and we never keep things from each other. So I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But my reasons weren’t because I didn’t want to share things with you. I was scared that if I did share this part of myself with you, I might lose you, and I didn’t want that to happen. But seeing how things are now that we’re not talking at all, I realize I should have told you from the beginning, that it wasn’t fair not to trust you, that it was my fault.
SO here it goes … I like Nola. In a way that’s different from friendship. You’re my best friend, Laura. But the way I feel about Nola is the way you felt about Jeremy Walters in seventh grade. (Remember that, Laura? Remember how I used to be able to get you red in the face just by saying his name?) So yeah, I guess I should just say it: I’m in love with Nola, and I guess that makes me a lesbian. It feels so weird to write that, but it’s true.
It started when I first sat next to her last year in Bio class. But at the time, I didn’t know what was happening. I was fascinated by her, but I didn’t know why. I remember thinking she was cool and really, really wanting her to like me. It was that night in June, the bath-salts night, when you went home and I slept over at her house, when I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was attracted to her. Nothing happened, but we fell asleep together on the sofa, and I’d never felt anything like that before. Still, I tried to ignore it, or deny it. You know what the Bible says about it. You know what my dad says about it. I was really scared. I still am.
But the more I saw her, the more I got to know her, the harder it was to hide how I felt. I wanted to tell you, Laura! But you have to understand how scary and confusing it’s been. Is there something wrong with me? Am I evil? It’s weird because I’ve been so messed up about it, but also so happy whenever I’m around Nola, so it feels like there’s a war in my mind, like I’m going crazy. Maybe I am.
Nola and I kissed for the first time at camp. We told each other how we felt. Since then, things have been weird. I think my parents suspect something, although I’m not sure what. My mom’s been acting strange. She doesn’t like it when I go out, and seems not to want Nola around anymore. The other day, I caught her looking through my phone. My dad isn’t as bad, but he’s still quiet around me. I don’t know what’s going on.
I’m scared, Laura. If they found out, I think they would literally go crazy on me. I don’t know what to do. And it’s not something I can really talk to Nola about. You’re the only one. I miss you, Laura. I know you’re mad at me, but please try and understand why I felt I couldn’t tell you. I need my friend.
I’m going to end now because my hand is killing me. (Seriously, how did people do this all the time?) Please ca
ll me, or just come over. I’m not leaving the house much these days.
Your friend forever,
Bethany
After I read it, I put the letter down, looked up at my ceiling for a moment, then picked it up and read it again.
Then I jumped up off my bed, ran down the stairs, threw on some shoes, and ran outside. I wanted to run all the way to Bethany’s house, but I forced myself to stay at a fast walk. I had this crazy fear that the house wouldn’t be there when I arrived, or that Bethany and her family wouldn’t be in it, and I would never be able to apologize to my friend or talk to her again.
I’m used to irrational fears like that springing up inside me, and I’m used to having them very quickly put to rest whenever the crazy scenarios racing through my head turn out to be impossible. I’m not used to having those fears justified. I’m not used to having them come true.
Over the years, I had become accustomed to just walking right into the Moyers’ house unannounced. But since I hadn’t been there in so long, today I rang the doorbell. When nobody answered, I tried the door and found it locked. I walked around the porch and looked through the front windows. All the lights were off, and when I looked in the garage, I saw that one of the cars was gone.
Standing in their front lawn, I called Bethany, my heart beating fast. She didn’t pick up. I called her again on the walk back home. Still no answer. I sent her a text: Hey, got your letter. Where are you? Somehow, I already knew I wouldn’t get a response.
Every day for the next few days, I walked over to the Moyers’ house, and it remained dark and empty. It seemed clear to me that the whole family must have gone somewhere. And if things had been normal, I might have known where. But I’d lost touch with everyone and with everything going on at church in the past month, because since the end of VBS, we hadn’t been going to church.
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