Between These Walls (48 page)
Read Between These Walls Online
Authors: John Herrick
Gabe didn’t
need
to ask. He already knew.
Hunter now realized Gabe had wound up alone while he’d talked to his dad.
“Where’s Ellen?” Hunter asked.
With a shrug, Gabe examined the people around them, then pointed to the gazebo where he and Hunter had sat the night before. “There she is.”
Standing beside the gazebo, Ellen conversed with someone, but with passersby blocking Hunter’s view, he couldn’t determine the other individual’s identity. It was a man, but he faced Ellen with his back toward them. Hunter and Gabe meandered toward Ellen, and once they reached the gazebo, they decided to hang back.
She was talking to Brendan. Their conversation didn’t appear romantic, but it looked amiable.
Hunter wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but in this case, he wound up close enough to where he couldn’t help but overhear them. He chalked it up to concern for his friend.
“I’m sorry, Ellen,” said Brendan. “I didn’t realize how much the pressure had gotten to you.”
“It’s not your fault, Brendan. I should’ve said something.”
Brendan gazed into her eyes. Creases appeared across his forehead. Even from a short distance, Hunter saw the sincerity in his expression. Brendan paused for a moment, then spoke again.
“Could we give it another try?” Brendan asked. Then, as if fearful she might reject his offer, he added, “We don’t need to be engaged if you’re not ready for it.”
Brendan reached down, took her hands, and enveloped them in his own. Hunter watched Ellen’s shoulders ease.
“I don’t want to lose the most important person who ever walked into my life,” said Brendan, his eyes trained on hers. “And if we can find a way to make this work, keep our communication lines open, I’d like to do that.”
“Yes. I want that,” Ellen nodded. “I really do.”
Brendan continued to hold her gaze. His face beamed as he grinned.
“No more walls between us?” he said.
Ellen shook her head.
“No more walls,” she replied.
Hunter felt Gabe’s arm wrap around his shoulders.
“No more walls,” Hunter whispered to himself.
Ten years later, Hunter sat in the den of his home in Phoenix and powered up his laptop computer. When he checked his email, he discovered a message from Gabe Hellman. Though they had parted ways in their relationship under mutual agreement, they had remained good friends and had kept in touch ever since.
Scanning the message, Hunter read that all was well back in Ohio. Gabe remained single, but he had peace. His clinic continued to thrive. In fact, upon adding two more partners to the business, Gabe and his team prepared to move to a larger location.
Hunter couldn’t help but smile as he contemplated the season of discovery he and Gabe had shared. Their relationship had lasted more than two years. Looking back, neither Hunter nor Gabe regretted it. To this day, Gabe knew Hunter better than almost anyone else.
Oftentimes, when Hunter thought of Gabe, his mind wandered to their mutual friend, Ellen Krieger—that is, Ellen Pieper. After slowing down for a year, Ellen and Brendan reinstated their engagement and, after another year, they married. Hunter served as Brendan’s best man. Brendan and Ellen finished building their house, where they lived today. On occasion, Hunter still heard from Ellen, but once he moved to Phoenix and time marched forward, she kept in touch less and less. Hunter knew it wasn’t intentional on Ellen’s part. Ellen Krieger—that is, Ellen Pieper—tended to live in the here and now.
Not long after her wedding, Hunter accepted a sales position in Phoenix. Setting distance between his past and present, spending time in the opposite corner of the country, had helped him come to terms with whatever might lay ahead for him. And he had to admit, he savored the abundance of sunshine and desert heat.
He opened the attachment Gabe had sent with his message—a photo of Gabe standing in front of the new office building, arms folded across his chest. Hunter could see the excitement in Gabe’s eyes, as well as the familiar compassion which had drawn Hunter to him the day they had met.
After relocating to Phoenix, Hunter created a blog, which he wrote in the evenings and continued to operate. His number of readers grew by the year. Often he received messages from individuals expressing gratitude for the way he’d voiced how they felt inside.
He kept his identity anonymous on his blog, which allowed him the freedom to express his heart. The journal Gabe had given Hunter on their first Christmas together had proven a pivotal turning point and had given him an emotional outlet. Nowadays, in his blog, he offered encouragement for those walking through homosexuality. Hunter couldn’t bring back Lucas Hampton, but he’d determined to prevent another individual from reaching Lucas Hampton’s decision to end his life.
Lucas Hampton. To this day, he crossed Hunter’s mind on a regular basis. Though he would have been about thirty years old by now, he remained a kid in Hunter’s mind. Hunter never forgot the image of the teenager sitting in church, consumed with unspoken sadness.
Hunter closed Gabe’s email message and took a moment to ponder the past, his personal growth, and God’s grace in the midst of it all. He whispered a quick prayer, thanking God for how He had brought Hunter to a place of peace in his life.
Hunter wasn’t perfect. He had struggled to find balance. Yet God had gotten him there somehow.
As Hunter sat at the computer, he felt a pair of arms wrap around him. One hand overlapped the other across his chest.
Hunter located a favorite freckle on the right hand and planted a kiss there. With that, he peered up at the one who gazed down upon him with eyes of love.
“I’m so thankful for you,” whispered Hunter.
FROM THE DEAD
A Novel
by
John Herrick
Now available at major online retailers!
CHAPTER ONE
Jada Ferrari lit the collection of miniature candles along the coffee table. Darkness evaporated from the living room.
As Jada leaned forward, Jesse Barlow admired the curvature of her figure, the way her brunette hair fell in curls past her shoulder blades.
“I just bought these today,” said Jada, who brushed her hand above the flames and sent the aroma of jasmine wafting through the air. Ever the center of attention, she sat on the edge of the sofa beside Cameron and Gavin, friends from an apartment downstairs, as Gavin lit the round of joints.
The scene, once common, had grown less frequent in recent months. Nowadays, Jada, a burgeoning film director’s assistant, sought company with people who could further her career.
Jesse’s career, on the other hand, begged resuscitation.
From the recliner at the far end of the room, Jesse, distant and disengaged, stared out the window at the crisp glow of a streetlight two stories below. At the chirp of an activated car alarm, Jesse leaned toward the sound in time to see a male silhouette emerge from the shadows and wander into the apartment building next door.
An anonymous man. Los Angeles is filled with them.
Then again, everyone is anonymous to
someone
. And everyone has an anonymous side, a shadow within, a guarded corner where secrets hide.
Gavin passed a joint to Jada. With a puff, she held her breath, coughed a few times, then fell back against the cushions and hung limber, as though she’d craved this all day.
Cameron grinned. “Next time, you buy.”
Spoken like a low-level accountant.
Jada waved her joint toward Jesse in a hypnotic-like motion. “Are you gonna keep staring out the window or get in on the act?”
Years ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Never an addict or heavy user, Jesse enjoyed a recreational hit when the urge mounted within. But the pleasure had long passed. He’d grown tired of breathing the strange air, the subtle loss of control.
He wished his guests would leave but knew it would be a few hours. Soon the music would start—Beck’s
Odelay,
no doubt—followed by a raid on his refrigerator. Gavin and Cameron would argue whether “Loser” or “Where It’s At” was the singer’s breakthrough single.
Oh, what the hell.
“All right, hand one over.” And with that, Jesse reached out his thumb and forefinger.
“There you go.” Jada beamed as she passed Jesse a joint. “You never have fun anymore. Gotta live a little!” She turned to her couch mates. “Right, losers?”
Lightheaded, Gavin giggled.
With the joint in his fingers, Jesse sank into the recliner once again. He yielded to the sharp herbal fumes that crept like a current through his veins and loosened his brain. The effect seemed immediate, his body no longer conditioned to the stuff. He focused on the array of candles as their flames increased in clarity and the jasmine grew richer.
Gavin exhaled a deep cloud and leered at oblivion, a pensive look on his face like a stoned Socrates. He waved his joint in front of his face, as if in afterthought. “You know, those Rastafari guys say this stuff helps you get close to God.”
God,
thought Jesse. The God who never seemed to give him answers to a lifetime of questions. And as Jesse sat, present yet isolated, those questions resurfaced in a torrent.
Why did she have to die?
Why did I leave them behind?
Jesse leaned back further against the black leather cushion and clenched his jaw.
I’m a preacher’s son,
he thought.
So how did my life get so fucked up?
From The Dead
Available at major online retailers!
John Herrick is the author of
From the Dead
and
8 Reasons Your Life Matters.
A graduate of the University of Missouri—Columbia, readers turn to him as a chronicler of spiritual journey and the human heart. Herrick lives in St. Louis. Visit his website at
www.johnherrick.net
.
Rediscover
Between These Walls
at John Herrick Online!
Get to know John Herrick
Download reading group guides
Uncover bonus content
Read John’s blog
And more!
Website:
www.johnherrick.net
Blog:
johnherricknet.blogspot.com
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/johnherrickbooks
Twitter:
@johnherrick
