Sway (17 page)

So much for hoping. Everything in me aches to reach out and touch them.

“Hey,” I say. Eloquence isn’t my thing, especially when all I can think about is the only time I kissed her.

“Hey.” At first she stares at me like I’m not real, but then all traces of awe evaporate and change into confusion, like she can’t figure out what would possess me to show up here after we said goodbye the other night. That makes two of us. “What are you doing here?” she finally asks.

“I told you I would take you to see Ben today for your interview.” I shrug and glance up at the ceiling, as though it’s the most obvious answer in the world. As though I haven’t spent the last forty-eight hours watching her repeat the same four sentences on television. Inside my head, a few brain cells explode from raw nerves. “So, are you ready to go?”

Kate blinks at me, then looks down at her rumpled pajamas and grasps onto her pants. “Do I look ready? Why didn’t you call? I could have showered before you got here.”

Her words sound stoic, but I can see the furrow of her brow, the way she looks toward to bedroom, as though summoning help. I look back at the row of albums, hoping for some as well. “You look fine. Let’s go.”

“I’m not going like this, Caleb. I look like a homeless person.”

“Then you’ll fit right in with the foster kids.”

I immediately regret my words. She winces but doesn’t respond, and the quiet settles in for a long moment, becoming so uncomfortably thick with tension that even I want to fill it and I’m the one who got us here in the first place. A few years ago I would have let her squirm and laughed about it. Today, because of all the forgiveness stuff that’s infiltrated my head and heart like perfume in a guy’s locker room, I start to backtrack. But Lucy walks into the room and looks at me, then gives the apartment a loud sigh and eye roll.

“Okay, I just have to say it. How are you a pastor? You look like you belong on a billboard advertising underwear, not like someone who advertises God.” Her gaze rakes me up and down, slowly taking in my hiking boots, jeans, white t-shirt, tattoo, and then making another pass downward, stopping at the studded belt wrapped at my waist, where her eyes linger long enough to become embarrassing.

“Lucy! Stop looking at him like that!” Kate scolds her.

“Well, have you seen him? It’s kind of hard not to since he puts it all out there.”

I’m not sure what I’m putting ‘out there’, but of all the things she could have said, that was the worst. My face is turning red and it never turns red, not even when Mrs. O’Hare squeezes it and says I remind her of her husband, who for forty years has turned her on more ways than a flashlight in a power outage. The woman loves the Lord; she also loves mortifying me.

“Do I get to give you the same once-over?” I ask Lucy, because turnabout seems fair play. I don’t smile, not even a little.

No immediate response to this. Lucy’s bold behavior obviously doesn’t work both ways. Her face turns crimson, making it clear that she can look her fill, but far be in from me to give her the same treatment. I might be ashamed of my question if I didn’t find it necessary. Besides, Kate is standing there watching us, and I don’t want her to think I’m flirting with her roommate. Because even though I should hate her, Kate’s opinion matters. It matters a lot more than it should. Her eyes light up in the corners like she can’t wait for Lucy’s answer. When Lucy finally gives it, it’s better than I could have imagined.

“Look all you want. You probably never get to see anything but old ladies and nuns in that church of yours. I feel sorry for you. Even Adam got to see a naked woman once in a while.”

I smile at the logic, but can’t resist pointing out the obvious. “I’m not Catholic. We don’t have nuns at my church.”

“A pity,” Lucy shrugs and turns toward her bedroom. “Some might say there’s nothing sexier than a lady wearing a long black robe.”

“Personally, I prefer pink.”

I want to kill myself when the words come out. Kate’s eyes go wide, but I try to brush it off and instead watch Lucy leave, knowing that little exchange was verging on sacrilegious and definitely took a dip into crassness. Still, I have to admit that it’s nice when people talk to me like a real person with real issues and not always like a spiritual leader. It hits me then that that’s what I liked about Kate in the first place. She yelled at me. Told me to get out of her apartment. Looked me in the eye and lied to my face without blinking once. Right or wrong, that kind of honesty has appeal.

Everything would be near perfect if only she shared my faith.

But she doesn’t, which is what snaps me back into a sobering reality. My faith is my life. There might be things I miss about the old me, but I wouldn’t trade a minute to go back. Not when God has given me everything. And when you come from nothing, you know everything when you see it and dive in for all its worth. I shove a hand in my pocket and look at Kate.

“About that foster kid comment…that was a rude thing to say. I’m sorry.”

She crosses her arms. “It was rude, and you should be.” She doesn’t meet my eyes for a long moment, which makes me think she’s looking for a way out of this awkward situation. I almost wish she would find one and spare us both. But then she surprises me by walking over to her record collection, snatching up a forty-five, and handing it to me. Our fingers touch for the briefest moment, and heat rushes up my hand. From the way she looks at me before glancing quickly away, I can tell she felt it, too.

“Here, put this on. You can listen to it while I shower and change.” She swallows. “But break it, and I’ll kill you. It’s one of my favorites.” I think I see her smile, but then it’s gone and it’s easy to convince myself I imagined it. She moves past me and retreats into her room, leaving me in the living room alone again.

I flip the single over and take in the classic James Taylor title. A few seconds later, the scratchy strains of “You’ve Got a Friend” fills the apartment, and after a few moments, I realize something. Kate didn’t just give me a song to play. In a roundabout way, she gave me an apology.

For now, it’s enough.

*

“You know, no one would have blamed you if you hadn’t come today,” Kate says. “I certainly wouldn’t have. It’s isn’t like you owe me anything.”

I took the long way to the shelter, so we’ve been driving a while. It’s the first time either of us has spoken.

“I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it. So in a sense, I owe you that much.”

She seems to think on that for a while, growing so quiet that I start to wonder if she’s fallen asleep. But then she turns her head to look at me, and I feel the words coming even before she says them.

“No one would blame you if you decided to back out now. Least of all, me.”

I shrug. “Well, since my shoes are size eleven hiking boots with more scratches than a cat could have given them, I guess I don’t have to worry about it.”

A ghost of a smile crosses her lips, and I look away. That smile is one of the things I like about her the most, the thing that might make me toss aside everything I believe in just to see it every day. Thankfully, we pull in to the shelter parking lot and I don’t have to consider the idea further. Ben’s face presses against the door waiting for us. A basketball rests between his stomach and the glass and his nose is pressed flat, making him look smaller than his eleven-year-old self. A sense of pride fills me when I look at him, which is weird because I’m not his father or brother or anyone who has a claim to him, but this kid has changed over the last year, all of it for the better. A selfish part of me likes to think I had something to do with it.

I can’t help but wonder how I might have turned out if I’d had someone to hang out with when I was his age. Someone to play basketball with and eat with and—as Kate will find out in a few short minutes whether she wants to or not—pray with. Sometimes even the smallest prayers make a difference, especially when it keeps the belief alive that someone actually cares.

And belief, I’ve discovered, is a precious commodity. One easier to obtain at a younger age, rather than a later one. Although later is better than never, as I can attest to.

If only Kate would discover it…

I stop that train of thought before it can fully play out. Because Kate isn’t an unbeliever. No, Kate has beliefs…firm, rock-solid ones. She believes that everything I believe in is wrong.

It’s a tough thing to keep in mind when I’m sitting so close to her, but I do it anyway. The reminders are necessary if we’re going to spend any time together, and since me and my stupid mouth both have the IQ of a slow-learning four-year-old, it looks like we’ll be hanging out every Monday for the next three months.

I open the door and step out of my truck. Kate doesn’t move as I walk around to open her door. She’s learned. In just three short days of getting to know me, at least she finally learned.

I don’t allow myself to smile, even though I kind of want to.

Kate

“Stuck in the Moment”

—Justin Bieber

T
his was a bad idea. A really bad idea. We’ve been here an hour, and though I appreciate Caleb’s willingness to keep his word and see me through this project, right now I wish he would just brand himself a liar and be done with it. Put us both out of our misery.

Everything about this trip is different than last time.

I’ve already gone through the list of questions I quickly prepared in my head on the drive here—twice—and I’m out of things to talk about. Ben looks bored with me. Caleb looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. And once I’m done talking, the silence in the room is deafening. I close my notebook and shove it inside my bag, taking in inordinate amount of time arranging it next to the novel I’ve been reading, making sure that both spines are pointed down, that the corners line up, that both sides are perpendicular to the pens that also need to be organized—

I sigh. Lucy is right, I
am
OCD in the worst possible way.

Dreading the next five minutes or however long Caleb decides we need to stick around, I sit up and try to appear calm. It isn’t easy, especially because I somehow feel like we’re in the awkward, post-break-up stage, and we were never even in a relationship. I hate this whole situation, and I’m angry at all of it because I see no way out. The only thing I know for sure is that I was happier than I’d ever been during the last week with Caleb; now all hope of repeating those moments is gone. Considering our differences, I doubt we can even be friends anymore, and the loss feels so palpable it hurts.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Ben says, looking between the two of us. He might be eleven, but he’s observant.

I open my mouth to say something even though I have no idea what, but Caleb rescues the situation.

“There’s nothing wrong. We’re both just tired, I think.”

“Did you have a fight?” Ben asks. “Because you both look mad, especially you.” He nods in Caleb’s direction. “She keeps asking me the same questions over and over, and you haven’t even offered to play basketball once, and we always play basketball, even that one time when you had the flu.” He sets the basketball on his lap and rests his arm on top, looking up at Caleb with chocolate eyes. “You mad at her questions? Because they weren’t that bad, even if they were a little dumb. Maybe next time she could ask me something different, something better, and then we could play ball. You want to play ball today, Caleb?”

Ben’s little speech has given me whiplash because it covered so many topics. But the theme was the same in all of it: He gets one day a week one-on-one with Caleb, and I’ve just ruined it for him.

“We’re not fighting.” Caleb’s words are so forceful, even I almost believe them. “Something just came up that we can’t seem to agree on, so we’re both in kind of a bad mood right now.”

Ben’s eyes light up. “Oh, well then just do what they tell us to do at school.” He bounces in his seat a couple times and smiles, convinced he has the perfect answer. I would smile at him myself if I could only remember how.

Caleb glances at me. I look back at him and for a minute we just hold there, neither one of us able to look away.

Without taking his eyes off me, Caleb asks the question. “What’s that, buddy? What do they tell you to do at school?”

I break eye contact first and connect with Ben’s wide smile. He’s sure this will work. I’m sure it won’t.

“The teacher tells us to talk about it for a few minutes, and if we still can’t agree, we have to hug each other anyway and learn to get along.” He looks between us both, expectation and hope making his thoughts transparent. We need to talk. We need to hug. Like a strip of gauze secured across an ugly scrape, it’s just what we need to make it all better. After all, his teacher said so, and teachers have all the answers.

Ben pushes on Caleb’s arm. “Well, if you’re not gonna say anything, at least hug her, man.”

I look at Caleb and Caleb looks at me and we both take a tentative step forward. The minute his arms go around me, everything fades away except the scent of his cologne and the feel of his back muscles and the sound of his labored breaths that seem to stumble one over the other. But when I feel his lips brush my neck and hold there for the briefest second…that’s when I melt. Turn into a puddle of want and longing and bittersweet sorrow right there in the middle of the gym floor. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull myself together.