Stay With Me (21 page)

Chris rubbed his fingers over his brows and down
his temples and cheeks. “Abby’s one to talk. You’re not a freak. You’re
beautiful. Inside and out. And if you’re a freak, so am I. Maybe not freaks.
Fools. Fools for Christ.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t throw Scripture at me.
I’m not in the mood.”

“So, what happened at my place—you were trying to
prove you aren’t who they say you are? They’re jackasses, Rebecca, and I’d like
to beat the crap out of them for hurting you, but they’re so, I don’t know,
misled, confused, degraded, that they see virtue as some kind of albatross.
That’s not how I see you.”

She lowered her head, not wanting to glimpse the
pity on his face.

“Hey. Look at me.”

His stern tone sent a chill up her spine. When she
didn’t look at him he softened his tone. “Rebecca, please.”

She didn’t lift her head, only her eyes.

“I love you, Rebecca. I don’t say that lightly.
I’ve never said those words to anyone other than a blood relation. I love who
you are, right now, and who you will be for the rest of your life.”

He meant it, and that’s what made this so hard. She
looked away and watched as the busboy cleared the table next to them. Could
someone do that with her life? Sweep away the trash and the clutter and the
dirtiness and make her free and clean?

God could.

She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on
Chris. She expected him to be angry with her. She wanted him to be angry with
her. She’d used him, and now she half-ignored him, but he didn’t seem mad, only
sad and hurt.

“What is it that scares you so much about caring
about me? Because for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.”

He nailed it. He knew, even when she didn’t.

“I’m afraid of this.” She motioned to the space
between them with her index finger. “I’m afraid of the heat and the chemistry
and the fact that you love me. I’m afraid I’m not who you think I am. Why you,
Chris? If I’m so special and wonderful, why are you the only one that sees it?”

“Rebecca, I can’t account for the stupidity of
other males. I can only be grateful for it because it gave me a chance with
you.”

Then all at once she knew what she had to do, just
like her dad had told her.

“No. You need to go find someone who’s not so
messed up.”

“Rebecca, we’re all messed up in one way or another.
If I’ve gone too fast or pushed too hard, I can wait for you. I haven’t hidden
how I feel about you, but I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

His eyes were wide and plaintive and little lines
creased his brow. “God can fix this. He can heal all your hurts. Have you
prayed about it? Maybe this is an opportunity.”

There it was again. God can fix it. Well, He hadn’t
done much fixing yet.

“There’s nothing to fix. We’re different. Too
different. I’m sorry, Chris.” She pushed away from the table, grabbed her purse
and fled.

“Rebecca, wait!”

She didn’t respond and didn’t slow down. She had an
advantage because he was too upstanding a guy to walk out without paying the
bill short of it being a true emergency. She’d have enough of a head start on
him that she could beat him back to her car and be gone. Gone from his street
and gone from his life.

17

The Space Between

Chris parked his bicycle in his parents’ driveway,
hung his helmet on the handlebar, and walked around the house to their deck.
Not wanting to wake his parents, he used his key to slip in the sliding glass
door to their kitchen and helped himself to a cup of coffee from their
single-cup coffee maker. He grabbed the steaming mug, slipped back outside, and
took a seat on top of the wooden picnic table where they often ate during the
summer months.

He breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of
freshly-mowed lawn, and looked out over their property where the yard gently
sloped toward a line of trees. Birds twittered as they alternately hopped and
pecked at the clumps of grass clippings scattered across the hillside. He set
the still-hot coffee next to him and let his head fall into his hands.

The bike ride was supposed to help him get his mind
off of Rebecca, but it had merely postponed the inevitable. Without work to
distract him today, he knew he’d be hard pressed to think of anything but her.
For the entire week, Chris’s chest felt like it had collided with a fast-moving
train—one he hadn’t seen coming. But he had known he was on the tracks. There
were signs. She had been uneasy from the start. She bristled when he pestered
her to sing. Then there were the anti-Catholic tracts from her dad. Her attempt
to seduce him. Next thing he knew she insisted they were too different and ran
away.

He’d grown to love her so much, indulging in
foolish dreams: dreams of marrying her and starting a family. Finally giving in
to a week’s worth of sadness and the relentless tears he kept pushing back to
the point it left him with a dull headache, he let go and cried.

His tears were far from spent when the sliding door
hissed as it opened and shut. Footsteps sounded on the deck, moving in his
direction. He dried his face with his hands, sniffling and clearing his throat
as he tried to pull himself together. He recognized Alan’s voice as he boosted
himself onto the table alongside him. 

“Hey,” Alan said, not bothering to look at him.
“I’ve got an early tee time with Dad. Saw your bicycle in the driveway. Did you
take it out on the trail this morning?”

He was grateful that Alan didn’t point out the
obvious—that he had been blubbering like a baby a minute ago. “Yeah. I couldn’t
sleep, so I decided to get out there early and get in ten miles before the
trail got overrun with dog walkers.”

A half-minute of silence passed between them before
Alan asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Then he figured he would have to tell Alan
about Rebecca at some point anyway. “No. Actually, my life sucks lately.”

Alan arched a brow.

Chris took a breath and exhaled. “Rebecca won’t
return my calls or texts. She walked out on me last weekend, and I haven’t
heard from her since.”

“You had a fight?” Alan asked, looking forward
again and stretching his legs out in front of him.

“That’s just it. We didn’t. She was upset, but not
with me. She’s got some baggage, a lot of insecurities, and some major daddy
issues. She embarrassed herself in front of me, and now she’s got it in her
head that we’re never going to work. It’s messed up.”

“Sounds like it.” Another half minute passed. “I’m
not blind. I could tell you loved her almost from the beginning. Does she feel
the same way?”

“If she does, she’s never said.”

“Not even when you’re in bed?”

And, here we go.
It was amazing they
had avoided this topic up to now. “We’ve never slept together.”

Chris had never had a conversation filled with so
many dramatic pauses. A full ten seconds passed, and Chris knew when the
realization hit Alan because he turned to face him.

“You’re not still a…”

He couldn’t get the word out, as if it were
obscene, so Chris responded. “Yep.”

Alan dropped his head and cursed, and despite his
lingering sadness, Chris laughed.

“What the heck are you waiting for?”

“Marriage.”

“Man, you take the whole God-religion thing
seriously, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“Rebecca, too?”

“Yep.”

Alan must have figured there wasn’t much point in
pursuing that line of conversation, which filled Chris with relief. He didn’t
feel like explaining premarital chastity when that was the least of his present
concerns.

“So that’s it? You’re going to let her go?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Get her back. Convince her that what you have is
worth working through whatever bug it is she’s got up her butt.”

“How am I supposed to do that? And why should I?
She doesn’t think we’re worth fighting for.”

“You do though, or we wouldn’t be here trying to
pretend you weren’t just wiping the tears and snot off your face.”

Chris shot him a look that said he ought not to
have brought that up. “I get your point. What do you think I should do?”

“That’s up to you, but I would think the usual
would be a start. An extravagant bouquet sent to where she works.”

“And what if after all that she still doesn’t want
to talk to me?”

“Well, you’re no worse off than you are right now
except that you don’t have to wonder if you did everything you could.”

***

 Rebecca shifted in her seat, leaned her head back
and stretched her legs. She had been looking at the same spreadsheet for an
hour, and her eyes were dry and her vision blurred. She pushed back her seat
and rose to fill up her water bottle from the cooler when the phone on her desk
buzzed. She reached across the desk and pressed the button next to the flashing
line.

“Yes?” A couple seconds of silence followed before
she heard Angela adjust her headset.

“There’s a delivery out here for you, Rebecca. And
if you don’t come claim it, I will.” Angela sounded excited, typical since she
was bubbly almost to the point of obnoxiousness. Day in and day out she
plastered a smile on her face. It would be intolerable were it not genuine.

“What is it?”

“You’ve got to come see it for yourself.”

“Okay. I’ll be right out.” Angela’s exuberance
piqued her curiosity. She left her water bottle behind, walked through the line
of cubicles, and opened the glass door that separated the staff from the
reception area. She had no sooner swung the door open than the largest bouquet
of roses she had ever seen nearly bowled her over.

“This?”

Angela sat behind the high desk, and her
ever-present smile loomed larger than ever.

“These are for me?”

“Yes,” Angela said. “They’re gorgeous.”

They were. There must have been three dozen red,
long-stemmed roses, some budding, but most fully-opened with some baby’s breath
scattered in between. They sat in a large, clear vase encircled with a gigantic
red bow.

Rebecca’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She
looked back at Angela.

“Some guy named Chris has the hots for you. And
bad. I mean, three dozen roses? A guy only sends something that expensive for
one of two reasons. Either he’s a guilty cheat or he wants you to have his
babies.”

Rebecca’s cheeks warmed, and she shot Angela a look
that said, “Don’t go there.”

Ignoring her, Angela proceeded. “So, which is it?
Is he a cheat or does he want you to produce an heir?”

The thought of mothering Chris’s baby set her heart
aflutter, and her cheeks grew warmer. “Angela,” she pleaded as several
accountants opened the glass door and crossed the reception area to the exit.
Their conversation faded as the door clicked shut behind them.

“So, tell me, Rebecca. What’s he like?”

Perfect. Beyond my wildest dreams.
“Just a guy.”

“Nice try, but those rosy cheeks and the way you’re
wringing your hands make me think he’s more than that.”

“Okay. He’s gorgeous, smart, funny, considerate….”
She let the words trail off before she added, “And I told him I didn’t want to
see him anymore.”

“You’re crazy, girl. Cra-zy.” She shook her head a
few times for emphasis. Then she reached up into the enormous bouquet whose
fragrance permeated the room, pulled out a small envelope, and extended her
hand to Rebecca. “There’s a card.”

Rebecca stepped forward and took the envelope. She
slid her fingernail under the flap and opened it. She recognized Chris’s
handwriting on the small card dotted with hearts. There was no signature, only
a message. “Did you think I’d make it easy for you?”

Not the tears.
She had cried so much
over the past week there couldn’t be any left. She bit her lip hard and pushed
them back, refusing to lose control at work. The glass door swung open again,
and Marcus breezed in. He leaned against Angela’s high desk and lifted his chin
toward the ostentatious display.

“So, Angela, reeling one in, huh?”

Angela gave him an icy smile. “Oh, they’re not for
me. They came for Rebecca.”

Marcus’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh.” And he breezed
out as easily as he’d breezed in.

***

By midweek, the slightest provocation sent Rebecca
into a fit of tears. She suspected that if she Googled “emotional wreck,” it
would turn up her picture. Despite the heat, she decided that a long, late
lunch hour walk would give her some perspective. With no destination in mind,
she didn’t realize until she arrived that she stood in front of the cathedral
where she and Chris had gone to Mass. Had it only been a couple of weeks ago?
It felt like a lifetime.

She walked up the steps and into the dark,
cavernous church. Noon Mass had long since ended, and people had gone back to
work, leaving the sacred space cool, quiet, and empty. Even if people did come
through at this hour, she hoped they would leave her be. She took a seat near
the front and stared, not knowing why she had come. She didn’t feel as if she
could pray. Maybe if she were silent, God would speak to her. People claimed He
did that, right? How long had it been since she’d even listened for His voice?

She sat in silence for at least ten minutes before
a familiar figure moving across the altar caught her eye. Father John. He
belonged at Chris’s church in Gettysburg, not here. He crossed the altar,
genuflecting midway, then glanced her way without stopping. He took care of
something at the side altar where a couple dozen candles burned in red glass
jars beneath a statue of some saint. When he was done there, he came toward
her.

Her furtive glances to the side and rear turned up
no possibility of escape.

He slid into the pew beside her. “Hey, how’s it
going?”

Chris hadn’t told him?
  “Oh, you know, it’s
going. What are you doing here?”

“I filled in at noon Mass for a friend who’s on
retreat.” His smile seemed forced.  “Chris is hurting.”

He knew
.

Father John’s gaze slipped to his hands folded in
his lap, then he looked back up for her reaction.

No, not the tears again. Would they never stop? She
nodded because she knew if she spoke, the dam would break. A single tear
escaped. She hoped Father John wouldn’t notice, but he did.

“You’re hurting, too.”

She looked away.

“Can I say something as Chris’s friend? And maybe
yours?”

“Of course.” Her voice came out thin and broken.

“I want you to think a minute about all the voices
in your life. Your dad’s. Your co-workers’. Chris’s voice.” He paused for a
couple seconds. “God’s voice. Who has spoken to you in love and truth? Whose
words make you free to love and whose words hold you back?”

Chris
had
told him everything. Had he told
him she tried to seduce him, too?

“I’ll think about that, John. I mean, Father John.”
She made a show of looking at her wristwatch as if she were in a hurry.

“Rebecca.” He waited until she looked at him again.
“You came to the right place. You can leave all your burdens here.” He inclined
his head toward the crucifix suspended above the altar. “All the pain. All the
guilt. All the stuff that’s holding you back. He can take it.”

She nodded quickly. “Yeah. Um, I’m on my lunch
hour. I’ve got to get back to work. It was good seeing you.” She didn’t even
wait for him to let her out of the pew. Instead she darted out the other side.
When she pushed open the heavy doors, the afternoon sunshine blinded her, and
it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She wished her heart could adjust to
change as easily. She would think about what Father John had said though.
Later. Maybe God had spoken to her after all.

***

She survived another weekend, though Rebecca wasn’t
sure how. The distraction of babysitting her niece and nephews helped. Abby and
Joel needed a date night anyway, and Abby had told her she could nurse her
broken heart by watching her kids anytime.