“I only wanted to know so I could pray for her,” Christa says.
Kelly tilts her mouth toward my ear. She whispers, “You never looked at his Insta, did you?”
“I totally forgot.” This feels like more gossip. I try to shift the topic. “How’re you and Dave?”
“Good. We’re praying about God’s leading right now.”
I’m not sure what this means, so I say, “I’m glad. How long have you been dating now?”
“We’re not.”
“You’re not?”
“No. We’re courting.”
“Ohhh,” I say, nodding like I know the difference. Are Jake and I courting? Should we be?
Candy has us end by reading Paul’s words to the Ephesian church: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
Wow. I love that verse. I’ll have to memorize it when I get a chance. I wonder how different school would look if everyone listened to Paul’s words.
* * *
Maybe Kelly didn’t really hear the verse because immediately after Brett’s sermon and closing prayer, she says innocently, “Jake, do you have an Instagram?”
Jake’s sitting on the other side of me, and he pulls out his phone. “Pretty sure you follow me,” he says to her.
Caught, Kelly backpedals. “Right. But Lovette doesn’t.”
Jake chuckles to himself. He can see right through her words.
“It’s okay,” I say. I don’t want him to think I’m part of this, but Jake unlocks his phone, opens the app, and hands it to me. Kelly’s mouth drops open. He smiles. “Go ahead.”
I feel him watching as I scroll through photos of his life in Hawaii. I click on the most recent upload: a pic of a girl in a bikini. She’s freckled, and her hair falls over the front of her tanned shoulders in sticky saltwater strands. She looks like she’s clipped from a magazine.
best view in #oahu
My stomach feels hollow when I read his caption. I scroll down and click on another. It’s Jake and a bunch of guys in front of a place called Joe’s Coffee Shop.
bros before Joes
Another with the guys in boardshorts and bare chests, up on some rock, their arms draped over one another.
#summatime
Jake’s finger reaches over and taps a thumbnail that I saw but didn’t have the nerve to click. There, in full screen now, are Jake and Hannah on a beach towel. It’s a selfie—I can see Jake’s long arm as it holds the camera away from them—and they’re kissing at sunset. I cancel out of it, my stomach turning. Jake reaches over and clicks back on it.
“Scroll down to the date,” he says.
I do. I see the year.
“Fourteen months ago,” he says.
“But you haven’t deleted any,” Kelly says, but a little hesitant now. This obviously isn’t going according to her plan.
He doesn’t seem fazed, but he clicks on the most recent photo. It’s the one of Hannah looking into the camera. The cute bikini, perfect salty hair, and dancing freckles one.
“This was my last post,” he says, his eyes on me even though Kelly’s with us. “It was taken almost twelve months ago to the day. I haven’t posted on Insta in a year. Lost interest. And all this”—he waves his phone at me—“it’s my past. It’s a good one. I don’t regret that I dated Hannah. No reason to erase her.”
“She’s pretty,” I admit.
He nods. “She is.”
He puts the phone back in his pocket. Dave appears from nowhere. “Hey, babe,” he says to Kelly. “You listen to my latest song I put up on SoundCloud?”
“Hi!” She jumps up. “No, but let’s do that right now.”
“Actually me and Randy are having a jam session. You wanna come listen?”
She leads the way, pulling him behind her. He looks back and waves with his free hand.
There’s a Ping-Pong game behind us with a lot of shouting and laughing. The music from the speakers blares, a punk Christian band with too many horns, and we can hear Randy’s and Dave’s guitars in the corner as they start strumming. Jake leans close. “I’ll shout you out on Snap, Insta, Twitter, tumblr, Facebook. You want me to do that?”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling again. “I’d never see it.”
“Yeah, me neither.” He takes my hand and places it face down on top of his hand, palm to palm. His fingers extend a good inch longer than mine. “So why don’t we start with the stuff that matters to us.”
He shifts his hand and laces his fingers between mine, gently squeezing. We’re holding hands. Oh my gosh, we’re in youth group and we’re holding hands. He catches me biting my lip.
“Oh no, is this on the list?”
“No, but . . .” I look around. No one seems to notice. Do I care if they notice? Should I?
“Good.” He squeezes my hand with his, and I squeeze back. He guides me with his eyes to look at our hands, my right and his left, our fingers tightly intertwined, and I wonder if he’s thinking what I’m thinking, that our fingers fit perfectly—like God made them that way. His thumb rubs the inside of my wrist, and it makes me inhale sharply.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Of course,” I whisper. My wrist still tingles. “Kelly holds my hand, but . . .” I feel my cheeks grow warm. “This feels different.”
He smiles. “It better.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next week at school, Jake and I walk down the halls as a two-man army, locking hands. I think of the verse Kelly recited a few weeks back at youth group: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.” I feel stronger somehow when I’m linked to Jake, and the new curious glances make me stand a little taller. When a tenth-grader named Gus yells across the hall, “I thought you didn’t touch guys, Lovette!” I gasp, removing my hand from Jake’s and grabbing my wrist with my other hand. “Oh no!” I shriek, staring at it like it’s diseased now. Then I look at Gus and laugh. It throws him off his game. He blinks and turns away. When I return my hand to Jake’s, he squeezes.
Lydia catches up to us from behind and slaps me on the butt. “That’s right,” she says, head nodding toward where Gus stood a few moments ago. “Tontos.”
I wish that God was enough for me to get over my embarrassment—to stand tall regardless of the lies (and truths) Cecilia spread about me—but I think of Moses in battle holding the staff of God, and how as long as he held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but when he’d lower his hands, the Israelites would start losing. But old Moses got tired, so they gave him this rock to sit on, and then Aaron and Hur literally held his hands up for him, and thus became the coolest wingmen in history. It reminds me that God gets it. He knows we get tired, and that sometimes others need to “hold up our hands.” Or in Jake’s case, just hold our hand.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, youth group is canceled, and my parents are out shopping after work. It’s a perfect time to hit the water in the afternoon, especially since I won’t be going that much in the next few days. Not with my brother home and watching me like a hawk. Jake texts that he’ll be late, which makes sense. I barely saw him at school even though I know he was there. He wasn’t at our usual meeting spots during passing period or at lunch, and I finally found him tucked away in the library working on college apps. He minimized his screen when I walked up, so I joked, “You don’t have to be embarrassed about watching Harry Styles videos. He’s a good singer.” This got a smile out of him. He stood and gave me a hug and a sorry.
“Just didn’t want to bring you down with all this,” he said. “I’m way behind on these apps, which is totally my fault.” He looked more stressed than I’ve ever seen him. I mean, he still has until November 30, but by the look on his face, he’s just started a couple of them.
There’s a cluster of about five or six guys on the north side of Lifeguard Tower 27, so I paddle over to them to get a surf report. “How is it?” I ask when I’m in earshot.
An older forty-something guy answers, “Pretty flat, but a good set here and there.”
“Well, well, well.” I know that voice.
Trevor Walker.
He’s behind two other guys, and he paddles around them and flips his wet hair back so he can see me better, or maybe to show off his pretty hair. “Hey, Trev,” I say and offer a mini wave hello.
“The Legend is back on her wave rider.”
“That’s the rumor,” I say, and look back at the horizon.
“Speaking of rumors, heard you signed up for the All Wave Junior Open.”
I nod.
“Babe, I’d take you out any night of the week. Always thought you were cute.”
I feel my eyebrows crowd against each other. Huh?
“It’s all right. Cecilia told me you signed up. I told her about your crush back when we were in JGs.”
My crush? Junior Guards? On him?
There are so many things wrong with this conversation, but I don’t have words. My mouth clicks open, but someone yells, “Outside!” and we see the set coming in. I turn and paddle, but Trevor is on my side ten feet away. He sees me paddling for it, but he doesn’t pull out. I pop to my feet and bark out a warning. No response. He never even looks back. He does a roundhouse turn, comes off the bottom, and a collision is imminent. I kick out, but the lip of the wave smacks me in the chest, and my board is sucked over the falls, nearly pulling me over as well. Adrenaline is pulsing through me. It takes me a minute to retrieve my board, but eventually I heave myself back on and meet him as he’s paddling back out to his pack of boys.
“What the heck, Trevor? You snaked my wave.”
“Hey, can’t help it if you can’t keep up.”
“Can’t kee— You fully knew that was my wave.”
He laughs like I have no clue. “Hardly.”
“You do that at All Wave, and you’ll lose points.”
“We’ll see.”
Another set is coming, and he turns to paddle for it, so I wait for him to disappear. I catch the second wave clean and quick, and I feel the weightless plunging drop of my stomach as I race down the wall and turn hard onto my inside rail, soaring back up. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or the annoyance, but I’m not paying attention, and I surf right up the lip and catch some unexpected air, back flopping behind the wave.
Trevor paddles up. “A little rusty, huh?” He sits up onto his board. “I could work with you.” The way he says it hints at more. I can’t believe he’s still trying.
“You have a girlfriend, remember?”
He shrugs as an answer. Unreal.
“Well I have a boyfriend,” I say, and pop myself up to sitting. “He’s on his way.”
Trevor searches the expanse of the beach. It’s empty today. “That so?”
“Yeah, he’s just late. Actually, thanks for reminding me. I should probably go check on him.”
“Good luck with that,” he says. I paddle away from him, but I hear his voice as he regroups with his guys, “Not nearly as cute as the freshman I hooked up with last week, but she’s got mad skills on that board.”
The comment about the freshman he “hooked up with” echoes in my brain as I catch a small one-footer, riding down the line as it angles for the shore. I don’t turn or try anything fancy. I’m too busy thinking back to all those papers stuck to the school walls, strewn across the floors, stuck to the bottoms of sneakers sticky with soda. All that effort. The venom in Cecilia as she changed my essay and made it into something else entirely. I remember in that moment asking God why. Well, now I know.
I pad across the sandy beach, lugging my surfboard under my armpit.
It doesn’t make it right. But in a strange way, Trevor’s comment shifted the pity I felt for myself to Cecilia.
I shrug off my wetsuit and grab my phone from under the towels on one of Mike’s lawn chairs.
There’s a text from Jake: Sorry can’t make it
He’s been absent all day. I know he was busy with college apps, but he’s gone completely MIA from all conversation.
I type: U ok
Yah just getting these apps done
I can’t imagine the stress—deciding where to spend the next four years, what major to pursue, wondering if it’s the right one. I’ve still got a year, but he’s going through it all right now.
Sorry. How’s it going?
Eh
Tomorrow?
We’re supposed to meet up in the morning at the church to make Thanksgiving baskets for the poor.
There’s a pause. Then his text appears.
Sorry. Deadlines
I get it
I do. But I don’t get a chance to even show that concern, because he hasn’t been around. Which makes me worry that there’s something more going on. And then he responds.
See you Monday
Monday? Two months ago, this would’ve been normal. But not seeing each other for the next four days feels like, well, like something’s wrong. I call him but it goes straight to voicemail, which means he pressed Ignore.
An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach, but I text back: Kk
It’s after eight when Matt arrives and gets settled in. Mom and Dad are in the kitchen banging around, getting all the pots and pans in order for Thanksgiving, and of course, joking and laughing way more than usual. The Golden Child appears in my doorway as I’m folding my clean laundry.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I say. “Thought you might be home. Mom and Dad are way too chipper.”
He grins. “They’re just happy we’re all together.”
“Yeah, okay, keep telling yourself that.”
“Whoa, what’s up with you?”
I sit down on my bed. “Sorry. My boyfriend’s not responding to my texts. He was supposed to show up today to take me sur—” I stop myself just in time. “Somewhere, but he bailed.”
“There another girl?”
“Matt!” He always knows what to say to push my buttons. “He’s just stressed with college apps. And we were supposed to make Thanksgiving baskets tomorrow at church, but he just texted no.” I toss the phone onto my bed.
“They gonna preach at this basket thing?”
“What? No. We’re boxing up food and lugging fifteen-pound turkeys across a parking lot.”
“I’ll go.”
My mouth opens but no words come out. My brother is offering to go to church? Mom and Dad have never even mentioned joining me on a Sunday. I’ve asked. Mom says, “That’s more your thing,” and then pats me on the shoulder as if I’ve done something adorable. Dad gives a quick shake of his head like someone asked an inappropriate question in public. “But we’re proud of you,” he always adds, and it makes me feel like I’ve joined my high school’s ROTC or something. “It’s good to live by rules. Keeps your head straight and your life in order.”
My parents see church as rules. My brother sees it as a joke. I see it as the opposite of both, but nothing I say to them ever has much of an impact, so I gave up a long time ago and just do my own thing.
“Yeah, okay, sure,” I say. “But it’s seven in the morning.”
He freezes, the words shocking his system. He takes a huge mouthful of air and forces out a squeaky, “Sounds great.”
He pats the top of my bedroom doorf
rame as a goodbye but then pauses.
“You go swimming tonight?”
I grab my wet hair. “The YMCA has a pool.”
“Saltwater pool?”
“No. Chlorine.”
“Hm.” He doesn’t blink when he says, “You have sand on your forehead.”
“Oh,” I say. I used Mike’s hose to rinse off, but when I wipe above my eyebrow, flecks of sand rain down. Oh no.
“Must be from my towel,” I say.
He taps the top of my doorframe again and then turns to go. “Yeah, okay, keep telling yourself that.”
Chapter Thirty
The church parking lot glows in the early morning light, reflecting a light pink on the bright-white tables. There are ten rows, each five tables long, and volunteers are lined up wherever they can find a spot. Matty and I park ourselves in one of the lines at the canned-yams station.
“Damn!” he says, yawning, and I look around to make sure nobody heard. It makes me nervous that the one time I bring him to church, the single crotchety old lady with cats and gnarled fingers is going to find him and tell him to watch his language.
“What?” I ask, opening a box full of canned crushed pineapple.
“This is like a well-oiled machine.”
It’s true. We’re here to make hundreds of boxes for the poor. Prior to us arriving, volunteers stacked food next to different areas of the tables: rolls, stuffing, cranberries, and everything else. At the beginning of the line, volunteers have empty boxes ready to be filled. At the end, volunteers are waiting to carry the full boxes to the trucks, which will then be delivered to downtown LA.
As a box gets passed to us, already full of green beans and powdered mashed potatoes, we add a can of yams, a can of crushed pineapple, and a bag of marshmallows, then slide the box down the line.
Pastor Brett is nearby opening boxes of marshmallow bags and tossing them to our table. Matt snags some bags midair, but others drop through his hands as his timing isn’t quite perfect anymore. Brett joins us a short while in and shakes Matt’s hand.
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