Things I Can't Forget (9 page)

I’m laughing now. Matt smiles at me and I return the grin. “Do you want to dance?” I mouth at him.

Matt raises his eyebrows and steers Claire toward us. He asks, “Hey, Claire, do you mind dancing with Jackson so I can dance with Kate?” Matt whispers to her.

“Uhhh…” she says, glancing at Jackson.

“For me?” Matt asks. “I really want to dance with Kate.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Claire says, rolling her shoulders.

I wrap my arms around Matt’s neck and he pulls me in close. Over his shoulder, Megan gives us a disapproving glare, and Andrea looks like she wants to stab me, but whatever.

He’s the perfect height for me. Only a few inches taller. His body fits snuggly against my curves. This is the first time I’ve experienced his cologne. It’s woodsy. He smells like walking in a forest.

“Your dress is pretty,” he whispers in my ear.

“You dance well.”

“You feel good.”

He thinks I feel good?!

“You do too,” I mumble, nearly choking on the words.

“I love your hair,” he says, clutching a clump of it.

“I love your invisible shoes.” We look down at his bare feet, and laughing, we look up at each other. He shakes the dirty blond hair out of his eyes and holds my gaze, pulling me closer. My heart pounds against his chest.

I can barely think. All I can concentrate on are his skin and warmth and how I want to press my mouth to his. Like seven years ago. I want him to pull me behind the pavilion again.

Megan appears behind Matt and clears her throat. “I need you two to chaperone the dance now, got it?”

“It’s just one dance,” Matt says, letting me go. When he’s out of my arms, I feel like I’ve lost a limb.

“This is a job,” she says under her breath, throwing me a dirty look. “You aren’t paid to socialize with each other.”

So Andrea and Carlie are allowed to go smoke cigarettes by the lake every night, but I can’t share one dance with Matt?

“It’s fine,” I tell Matt. “I’m sorry,” I tell Megan, then head over to DJ again. I change the music to rap and all the kids start jumping around in a mosh pit.

Matt goes back to pouring punch. He talks to Andrea, Ian, and Carlie, laughing with them, but Megan doesn’t seem to mind. It’s okay for
them
to socialize on the clock. If Megan pisses Carlie off, Carlie could put in a bad word with her mom, ensuring Megan doesn’t get the job at the regional conference.

Maybe it’s a good thing they’re trying to keep me away from Matt. It’s not like I’ve had the best judgment in the past. What if I end up sinning again? I don’t think I’m the kind of girl who’d ever end up pregnant, but like I told Parker, one thing leads to another.

Last night when I thought of Matt, my skin flushed. The thought of his woodsy cologne makes my stomach leap into my throat. Being around him makes my body go hot everywhere.

That dance with Matt just might have been the best moment of my life.

•••

On Friday morning, before the campers leave for home, we all go to Woodsong Chapel for morning devotion. Megan tells the campers we have twenty minutes to sit and think about God and pray or do whatever we want, so long as we’re silent.

I decide not to go to the altar, but to bury my face between my knees and stare at the ants marching through the dirt between my flip-flops. To God, we’re all ants.

I stare up at the sunlight filtering through the trees and wonder how Emily could question whether God exists. This place is perfect. How could any of it be possible without a God?

He speaks to people here.

I examine my hand. It’s perfect. Five fingers that allow me to touch, grasp, feel, move, hold, rub, test. How could something so perfect have come into being without God making it so?

None of the campers have approached the altar—no one wants to be first, but then I see Matt stand and make his way past the log benches. He tips onto his knees and his cross necklace swings like a pendulum as he bows his head. I really want to know what he prays about. Who does he pray for?

After morning devotion, we walk the campers back to the welcome pavilion, where we’ll see them off. Everyone is exchanging email addresses and signing T-shirts and hugging good-bye.

I wrap my arms around Claire. “Go to some dances for me this year, okay?”

“I will,” she whispers. “Jackson asked for my email address!”

“Nice!” I say.

When I hug Sophie good-bye, I tell her how much her decoupage vase impressed me. “Stick with art, okay?”

She smiles. “I will.”

Then I spot Matt on one knee, speaking quietly with Quincy, the boy who played DJ last night. Matt takes off his wood chip nametag and hands it to him. The little boy puts it around his neck, smiling. I quietly step toward them and see that a phone number is written on the other side. I have no idea what they talked about this week, what sort of bond they formed, but I want to bottle the look on Matt’s face.

By noon, all of the campers have left to go home and I’m standing here, looking at the empty green field. Thinking about how some parts of this week weren’t that great, but a lot of it rocked. I smile, reliving the dance with Matt, remembering the cheeseburgers I made all by myself, thinking about how Claire grew more confident this week.

I ran outside again. On actual grass!

All in only a week.

Megan toots her whistle. “Everybody gather around me…You need to be back here by six p.m. on Sunday evening, to prepare for Monday. Kate and Parker, if you could please be here by five p.m., Eric will give you some pointers on starting fires and first aid.”

Parker and I catch each other’s eyes, and we nod at Megan.

“Great first week, guys,” Megan says with a smile, and everyone cheers.

Everyone goes to pack up their cabins and clean. By the time I get my suitcase back to my car beside the tree line, to get ready for my forty-five-minute drive home, nearly everyone else is gone. Andrea’s Camaro and Matt’s Jeep are still here, and so is Brad’s little blue Datsun, but I don’t see him anywhere.

Andrea and Matt are talking quietly beside his Jeep, so I avoid their faces and pop my trunk.

“Kate,” Matt calls out to me, even though he’s still standing with her.

She gives me the Death Stare to end all Death Stares.

“Can you hold up a sec?” he asks me. I nod, and he turns his attention back to Andrea. I lift my suitcase into the trunk of my car, shut it, and then stand here, jingling my keys. I can’t hear what they’re saying.

A minute later, she climbs in her Camaro and shuts the door. The car bolts up the dusty road out of camp. Matt stares after her for a few heartbeats before walking my way.

What was Andrea talking about last week, when she said to Carlie, “You think he’d be over it by now”?

Matt stops right in front of me, taking in my eyes, ruffling his hair. “See you Sunday.”

I twist the purity ring Mom gave me around my finger. “Looking forward to it.”

“Yeah? Me too. You can make my breakfast on Monday.”

“I’ll try,” I say, laughing.

He glances around, I guess to make sure we’re alone, and then pulls me into a bear hug. His touch makes my knees buckle. His breath is warm on my ear as he whispers, “What’s your last name again?”

He doesn’t know my last name?! And we’ve been dancing and splashing in the pool and sitting in the darkness together? He was my first dance, my first kiss. Him not knowing my last name makes me feel embarrassed and nervous and excited all at once.

“It’s Kelly.”

“Kate Kelly?” His blue eyes look happy as his hands settle around my waist. “That’s pretty.”

“See you on Sunday.”

“Yep,” he says. He lets me go, then jogs over to the Jeep with no doors and hops in and buckles his seat belt. Matt looks back over his shoulder at me and grins and waves.

“You need doors!” I call out. “That Jeep is a death trap.”

“It’s an adventure!”

The real adventure is waiting for Monday, when I’ll see him again.

•••

I let out a loud groan when I reach my room and collapse onto the bed. I power up my laptop and shut my eyes, trying to relax. I never knew how important air-conditioning and Diet Coke were until now.
Thank
you, God, for AC and Diet Coke
.

I check my email. Lots of junk. Two emails from Emily that I’m afraid to open. I drum my fingers on my laptop. I will go see her this weekend. I will. I bite down on my thumb, trying to ignore her voice running on repeat in my mind.

“You’re being a judgmental bitch,” she’d said.

I resolve to go see her on Sunday before heading back to camp—I worry she doesn’t have enough money to buy food.

An email from Facebook pops up. Matthew Brown wants to be my friend. My hand shakes as I accept the friend request. I’m scared to check his profile, for fear of finding pictures of him with other girls or something, but I can’t help it.

When I see his picture, I grin. It’s of him and a woman that must be his mother. She has the same dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and warm smile. He’s kissing her cheek and she’s laughing.

I can’t stop staring at his blue eyes.

Heat rushes through my body as I remember him wading up to me in the pool, his eyes taking in every bit of me by moonlight.

Another Facebook email pops up. “You have a message from Matthew Brown.”

Can I get your number?

I gasp, shove my laptop off my thighs, and rush to make sure my door’s locked. Should I write back now? Or wait a little while so he doesn’t think I’m a desperate loser? I peer around my room. Wait, I am a loser.

Framed sheet music hangs on the wall. Mom put it up after I pulled the pictures of me and Emily down. Books I read in middle school still line my shelves, and my bedding is pink and yellow with ruffles. I need to buy new, adultish bedding immediately. Part of me wants to call Parker, to ask for advice. What does her room look like? I doubt she has a stuffed cow resting on her pillow.

I walk to my mirror. How could a guy like Matt Brown possibly want my number? Why would a boy like Matt visit my cabin at night?

Is God testing me? Seeing if I’ll hang out with Matt, a guy who’s in a frat, a guy who has done questionable things with a banana and maybe has fooled around with Andrea?

But Matt’s mom is a youth minister. I’ve seen him praying and he wears that cross around his neck. Brother John said we should only date other Christians. Does Matt worship somewhere in the middle? And is that okay?

I pinch my thigh. Stop thinking so much, I tell myself, and before I can change my mind, I write back to Matt and give him my number.

I pace around the room, slapping my cell phone against my hand. I stop in front of the mirror and turn sideways, to examine my figure. I am thin, but my boobs aren’t that big. Why does Matt stare at me the way he does?

The cell rings. I swallow and answer.

“Hey.” I thought I’d be scared, but I’m calm like a soft breeze.

“Hi,” Matt says. He goes silent for a bit, then says, “You busy tomorrow night?” He sounds nervous.

“Nope.”

“Can I take you to dinner?”

“Me?” I exclaim.

“You’re funny,” he says with a laugh.

I lick my upper lip. “Yeah, I’d love dinner.”

“I can pick you up at seven-thirty.”

He lives in Bell Buckle, which is forty-five minutes from here. “You don’t have to pick me up. I could meet you—”

“My father would crucify me if I didn’t pick you up.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“Yeah, because who’d take you dinner then? Bumblebee Brad?”

what happened on april 18

Every time I get my hopes up about Matt, I think about how I made a fool of myself in front of Will Whitfield last spring.

Using my blue coloring pencil, I shade in the outline of my prom dress.

One evening in April, I had rested my chin on my fist and clicked through the website again and again until the pictures of children burned my eyes. Planned Parenthood. I was trying to figure out options that Emily might consider instead of abortion.

A knock sounded on the door and Mom came in, dressed for church in a white blouse, slacks, and loafers. I quickly exited out of the site before she could see it.

“Sweetie.” She tsk tsked. “You need to get dressed for youth group.”

Mom never let me miss a day of church.

Normally I didn’t mind that, but today I just wanted to bury myself under the covers and wallow in my own humiliation and sadness.

She adjusted my curtains and fluffed my pillows, and I sat there staring at the blue prom dress hanging on my closet door. Mom and I had picked it out a couple months earlier because she always thinks the best will happen.

Brother Michael and Brother John often say that forcing relationships is against God’s will, that if He wants us to be with someone, He’ll make it happen. But He only wants us to date other Christians.

For years, I’d waited and waited for the right boy to come along, watched as Emily and Jacob fell in love and grew up without me. Sitting there in my room, I knew I should’ve waited for a sign from God, but I had done it anyway.

I had asked Will Whitfield to prom.

It was my last chance for high school, and I couldn’t seem to forget about him. He seemed like a good match for me: Christian, a gentleman, friendly.

Emily used to comb her fingers through my hair and tell me, “You’re beautiful. You just have to let guys know you’re interested in them. Ask Will out already!”

So I approached him in AP Chemistry, and cracking my knuckles, I said, “Can we talk after class?”

“Sure,” he said with a brief smile, then went back to checking over his homework. I should’ve noticed that was the sign I’d been waiting for all that time. If a guy would rather triple-check some chemical equation he balanced, he’s just not that into you.

Later, in the hallway, he seemed distracted as Parker walked by, giving him a long look. He scratched the top of his head and followed her with his eyes.

“What’s up?” he asked me.

I adjusted my backpack straps. “I was wondering if you’d go to prom with me. If you don’t have a date.” I studied my loafers for the longest time, waiting. Waiting.

Finally he cleared his throat. “I don’t have a date.”

My head shot up.

“But…” He gazed up and down the hallway before refocusing on me. “I’m interested in somebody else,” he whispered.

His response sucked the air out of my chest. “You’re going to prom with her then?”

“No.” His face seemed conflicted. He felt bad, but I also saw pity there.

“Oh.” I needed to get out of there before I started crying, so I stalked off down the hall without even saying bye. Daddy would be so disappointed that I’d be home on yet another Saturday night.

“Thank you for asking,” Will called out.

It’s not that I hadn’t had a chance to get with guys before. Besides Bruce Wilson, the creepy captain of the math team, I mean. One time Daddy’s partner came over for dinner and brought his nephew, Scott. The two of us ended up watching a movie in the basement, laughing and talking about school. Emily asked why we didn’t make out or anything, and I told her I just wasn’t feeling it. She said, “Nothing wrong with that. If there’s no sparks, there’s no sparks.”

“Such a pretty dress,” Mom said that evening before church, smoothing the silk with her fingers.

I make shadows on the paper, to show the folds of the silk. It is a pretty dress. I hope I can wear it one day.