Shelter Me (19 page)

I couldn't even imagine.

But this was my life now. I was tethered to this man, for better or worse. This was it. This was the freedom that I'd wanted so badly.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jacob

Brandon's family was holding their annual Fourth of July party, and the whole world was going to be there.

Well, all of Hobb's Vale, anyway. I don't think anyone was quite sure how the tradition started, least of all Brandon's family. But every year, it happened - culminating with all the kids gathering on the roof to watch the neighbors' lavish fireworks. It was typically an all-day affair, with Brandon and his brothers barbecuing about a thousand pounds of meat, everyone playing Frisbee and football in their massive yard, and many late-night chats out on the porch swings while the youngest kids ran after fireflies, their giggles echoing into the night.

Usually, at some point during the night, Mari and I would end up out on the porch, talking long after the sun went down. It wasn't until now, when I realized she was going to be with Mark all night, how much I was going to miss it.

Miss
her
.

I forced myself not to think about it. I had Lily, after all, someone who was actually interested in me - and more importantly, wasn't married to someone else.
 

We got there very early, and I spent some time kicking a soccer ball around with Lily on the massive lawn, soaking up the sun and focusing on tracking the ball, on the movements of my feet. It was a welcome distraction. After a while of running around in the grass, I started to feel a strange clarity in the back of my mind. Everything was going to be fine. This was my new life. Out with the old, in with the new - this was the summer when I finally grew up. This was the summer I'd get over Marissa Moore.

It was kind of exciting, if I thought about it in those terms. Like it was a New Year's resolution or something. I'd just...stop feeling the way I used to feel, that was simple enough, right? When the feelings cropped up, I'd stamp them down. I'd pray, I'd read the Bible, I'd ride my bike, I'd run around in circles shouting nonsense - whatever it took.
 

As the party got into full swing, I felt like a new man. It turned out that if I pretended hard enough that Mark and Marissa were just people to me, just ordinary people like anyone else at the barbecue, it almost became true. As the afternoon wore on, I started noticing things that had escaped me these past few months. Little Carson, the church pianist's baby, who I'd held on my lap a few times when she went up to play, was walking on his own. Brandon's little sister had grown about three feet taller. With my mind clear and unclouded, I felt like I was waking up for the first time in months.

I'd always privately taken the verses in Corinthians about how it was best to remain unmarried with a grain of salt - but now, I was starting to understand his point. When you were busy thinking about love, you missed a lot of the world going by. How much time had I wasted feeling sorry for myself? I felt disgusted by it now. Never again.

Lily was a much better match for me. I could easily see her complementing my life; improving it, even. She didn't make me feel like I wanted to tear my own hair out. It was a calm, quiet, steady feeling, being with her.

She had to leave the celebrations early, to get home and rest up for a college visit in the morning. Before running off to meet her dad's running SUV, she gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and then turned away, embarrassed.

"What a sweet girl," Brandon commented, making me jump.

"You've got to stop doing that," I complained, turning around to face him. He was holding a plate loaded with burgers, macaroni and potato salad, and assorted cheese cubes. "Bringing me food isn't going to make me feel any better about the inevitable heart attack when you sneak up on me at the wrong moment."

"Oh, this?" he said, glancing down at the plate. "No, no, this is for me."

As he shoved one of the burgers into his mouth in a single bite, I realized he wasn't kidding.

"And yes, she is a sweet girl," I said, taking one of the cheese cubes anyway. "Thank you for noticing."

"You seem..." He paused, searching for the right word.

"Happier?"

"Less comatose," he said. "But sure, whatever spin you want to put on it."

"I am," I said. "It's weird. I feel awake for the first time in ages."

"Great. Let's keep it that way."

Before I knew it, dusk was starting to fall. We all crowded into the attic level room and climbed out onto the roof below, laying out under the stars there were just barely starting to twinkle. Off in the distance, I heard the snapping and crackling of the kids' sparklers. Soon, the show would start.

Someone flopped down next to me.

"Hi," said Marissa, staring up at the sky.

"Hi," I said.
 

"Mark's being boring," she said. "Apparently, grown-ups don't climb up on the roof to watch fireworks."

"That's ridiculous." I kept my eyes up, and very much
not
on the delicate profile of her face, inches from mine.

The first few bursts of colored light lit up the sky to a chorus of gasps and "oohs" and "aahs."
 

"I'm going to miss this," said Marissa, very quietly, after a long silence.

My chest ached. "Well, you can still come. Even if you're too much of a grown-up for the roof stuff."

"Yeah," she said. "For now."

It was a given that eventually, she'd be moving away. Mark would go found his own church somewhere, or work wherever he felt God was calling him. But I hadn't thought about it until now. Hadn't let myself.

"Well, I'm sure you'll have something just as good, wherever you end up."

"Yeah," she said, drawing out the word slowly. I could tell she was turning her head to look at me, but I didn't dare meet her eyes. "I doubt it."

I swallowed hard.

"MARISSA!" Mark's voice boomed from somewhere inside the house. "Will you get down here please?"

She sighed, getting up and climbing back in through the window. I was still surrounded by people, but now I was alone. I couldn't exactly ride my bike or run around in circles screaming without someone noticing, and I didn't have a Bible on me.

There was nothing left to do but pray.

Please God, I don't want to love her anymore.

Please make it stop.

***

After the holiday weekend wound down, I was still completely at my wit's end. Lily was off at her college visit, and she'd barely taken the time to text me "xoxoxo" from wherever the heck she was. All the progress I thought I'd made after my epiphany at the party had come crashing down around my ears, as soon as Marissa laid down next to me on that roof.

There was still no solace in all the usual places I turned to for advice. With all the little things they addressed in the Bible, couldn't hopeless crushes be somewhere in there? I thought it seemed like a pretty glaring omission. Wouldn't Timothy have had some choice words about the subject?

Finally, I found myself in the kitchen, staring mindlessly at two packets of instant oatmeal I was holding, one in each hand. Apparently at some point I'd decided I needed to choose one or the other. I wasn't sure how long I'd been standing there.

My mom was sitting at the kitchen table, reading, and it occurred to me that I could talk to her. A second later, before I had a chance to filter it, this came rushing out:

"Was Dad the first guy you fell in love with?"

She looked at me like a deer in the headlights.

"This isn't a trick question," I said. "I really want to know." I sat down opposite her. Now that I'd said it out loud, I might as well fully commit.

She cleared her throat, setting down her mug of tea and closing the catalog she'd been paging through. "Well," she said. "I guess it depends on what you mean by 'fell in love.'"

"Let's assume the pop culture definition," I said.

"So, you mean, stars in my eyes, can't eat or sleep, et cetera? Well, yes, there was a guy in high school, of course. Long before I met your father. But I was just a kid. I grew out of it."

"But did it feel real? Back then?"

"Of course," she said. "They always do, in the moment. You don't really think about the future, or whether it makes any sense...or even whether they feel the same way about you. It's selfish. It's not really love, but it feels like it."

"How do you know the difference?" I pressed, leaning forward, scooting in closer with my elbows on the kitchen table. "I'm serious. Everyone always says...oh, real love is the thing you work at, the thing that keeps you together after all these years, but how do you know when you've just met someone? How do you tell the difference between being in love, and just being infatuated?"

My mom laughed a little. "At your age?" she said. "I wouldn't even venture a guess. That's why I'm not really a fan of this...you know, this courtship culture. I think everyone rushes into these things too quickly. They're kids, you know, they don't...they haven't had the experience to make these kinds of life-changing decisions. But, what do I know. Most of them seem happy. There's no denying that dating can make people miserable."

"But so can marriage."

She smiled, wryly. "Okay," she said. "So you've got that part figured out."

"I just don't know what to do," I admitted. "All the advice out there, it's easier said than done. Much easier."

"I know," she said, with a sigh. "And I wish I knew what to tell you." She looked at me searchingly. "Is this about Lily?"

There was the question I'd been dreading. I swallowed thickly. "Uh, sort of," I said. "I'm just, you know - thinking a lot. About everything."

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me." She raised her hands up, palms facing me. "Goodness knows I didn't want to talk to my parents about any of this stuff. I'll just say this. Looking back, I wish I hadn't wasted so much time worrying about my future love life while I was still a kid. Which you are. I know you don't like hearing it, but you've got so much life ahead of you. Do you know how many people, statistically, end up with their high school sweethearts? Or even college?"

"No," I said. "Do you?"

"No," she admitted. "But it's
got
to be approaching zero. Just relax and have fun. Enjoy what you have, while you have it. Nothing lasts forever, and if you spend all your time worrying about the future, you'll miss what's happening right now."

It was solid advice, I thought. But I still had no idea how to apply it to my situation. She was looking at me with unspoken questions in her eyes, and I knew she wanted me to just come out and admit that I still had feelings for Marissa. But I couldn't do that - not now - not anywhere outside of my own head. I had enough trouble dealing with it in there, as it was.

***

"You still fix bikes?"

I finished dumping the packet of cider into my cup of hot water, and turned around.

"Yeah," I said. Marissa had a way of sneaking up behind people, which for some reason I didn't really mind. "Sometimes. My own, mostly."

"That's great," she said. "You were always good at it."

I nodded, looking around to try and figure out why she was talking to me. All the other churchgoers were chatting quietly in the social hall, as was their wont, but Mark was nowhere to be found. She'd been following him around like a shadow ever since the wedding, barely making eye contact with anyone else. Now, she seemed to be avoiding him on purpose.

She didn't seem too anxious to continue this line of discussion, so I tried changing the subject. "So, how's everything with you? How's Mark?"

"Fine," she said, but her tone of voice betrayed something. "I...well, you know."

"Do I?" I smiled, trying to keep things lighthearted.

She sighed. "Yeah, we're going through a rough patch. Is it that obvious?"

"Kind of. You're normally attached at the hip." I sipped my drink. "You want to talk about it?"

"It'll be fine." Her tone was matter-of-fact, but she was clearly very troubled by whatever had happened. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen Mark angry. He was unnerving enough when he wasn't.

"I'm sure it will be," I was saying, before I could stop. "He loves you."
 

Ugh. I didn't even believe
myself
.

"Can we talk about something else?" She wasn't looking at me, but she wasn't looking at Mark, either. She appeared to be staring at a blank spot on the wall.

"Sure," I said. "Sorry, I didn't..."

"It's fine," she cut in quickly, looking at me again with a slight smile. "Didn't you have some idea about opening a bike shop?"

"Oh. Well. Yeah." I shifted my stance a little, scratching the back of my neck. "It's more of a...I don't know, a daydream."

"I think you should do it," she said. "It's ridiculous that there's no place here to take your bike and get it fixed. Not even by the college, I bet you'd get plenty of business from there."

"Well," I said. "Maybe. But I'd probably need some start-up capital. My job doesn't really pay that much."

"You know my dad works at the bank." She was looking at me very pointedly.

I did, actually, but I didn't like where she was going with this. "Oh yeah?"
 

"Yeah," she said. "He's a loan officer. I'm sure he could help you out."

"I'm sure he could," I said. "But I don't know. It seems..."

"What?" She looked at me, curious. And I couldn't come up with an answer.

This was what I wanted, after all. Wasn't it?

"Okay," I said. "I'll go in and talk to him."

Her whole face lit up with a smile, bright enough to hurt.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Marissa

Lakeshore Bible Camp was the summer's last great hurrah. Every year, all the families from Eternal Grace would gather at a nearby campground, along with the congregations of several other local churches, to spend a weekend in worship and fellowship. When I'd heard it was just a few weeks after our wedding, I'd assumed we wouldn't be in attendance, but Mark quickly disabused me of that notion. He had to be at camp - it was important for the youth group kids to have some leadership and guidance. And, of course, being his wife, I had to be there as well.