The Arrangement (19 page)

“What happened to make you realize that?”

“Oh, I think I’ve always known it. But the preacher talked about Peter and his denial of Christ and then how Christ forgave him and gave him a big job in the new church.” Evie paused as she thought about all the times she had denied Christ. Being part of the youth group at home was cool, but when she got to college, it wasn’t so cool to go to church or be active with the Christian campus groups. Most of her sorority friends were too busy scouting out new pledges or working to secure leadership positions on campus to be concerned about pursuing God.

“Even the people closest to Christ, who knew him and loved him the most, were susceptible to turning their backs on him,” Eli summarized. “It brings up a good point. If Christ could forgive someone for turning their back on him in his hour of need, have you forgiven Ben for betraying you?”

His question hung in the air for a minute before dropping like a concrete block onto Evie’s heart. She thought she and Eli were talking about church and God, not Ben. How did he even end up in this conversation? She was finished with him. She’d even packed up all the stuff that reminded her of him. What more did she need to do? And now Eli gave her another task, one harder than chucking a few photos and stuffed animals into a cardboard box. What did he expect her to do to forgive him? Couldn’t she merely push him out of her life and forget the whole mess ever happened?

“You know, Evie, if you don’t forgive him, you are going to hold all that anger inside until it rots into a pit of bitterness. And bitterness will eat away at your whole life. If you are serious about following God, you have to forgive.”

Evie blinked slowly. She had already cried all the tears she cared to shed over the situation. She only wanted to back away from it, to forget that he accepted
money
over
her
.

Unwanted.
The word landed on top of the concrete block of Eli’s challenge to forgive like a hammer. She had believed Ben loved her, really loved her and not her parents’ money. But she was wrong. He had only used her to get out of the pitiful lifestyle of his parents.

“Evie?” Eli’s voice reminded Evie she had not answered his challenge.

“You’re right, Eli.” Her voice strained from the weight of the truth. “I just want to forget all this, I want to forget the feeling of being lied to and used. But how do I forgive him? Can I just say it and that’ll be enough?”

Eli laughed lightly. “I wish it were that simple. The forgiveness has to be real. You have to move on to a place where you genuinely want the best for Ben, want him to be happy. No more fantasies of him wasting all the money your parents gave him on stupid stuff and ending up broke. No more fantasies of his new girlfriend dumping him. No telling people what a scumbag he is. You simply let him go on with his life and don’t wish for bad things to happen for him.”

“Is this where you are with Whitney?” Evie turned his challenge back to him.

“Finally, yes.”

“How long did it take?” The challenge faded from her voice.

“About a year. I tried to dodge those thoughts of her. I could flip past the pages in the newspapers that I knew would show her picture. I avoided looking at anything that would remind me of her.”

“So how did you know you had to forgive her?” she pressed.

“My mom confronted me. When I moved back here, she watched me for a while. I would go to work and then go home. I moped a lot. She asked me one day if I had talked to Whitney since I moved, and I glared at her. I told her I had no intentions of talking to Whitney again. We were finished. She wanted something I wasn’t ready to be. Mom showed me a picture in a newspaper that showed Whitney with a different politician than the one she’d left me for. I remember smiling and thinking,
It wasn’t me. She can’t be satisfied with anyone.

“Mom called me on it. She asked why I was smiling, and I told her. She looked me straight in the eye and told me I had to forgive Whitney. I really thought I had. I thought because I had gotten rid of all her stuff, put her out of my life, and moved on, that I had forgiven her. But I hadn’t. I still dreamed of her wanting to come back and me turning her down. I dreamed of winning a big election and having her standing in the lines waiting for a glimpse of me, wishing she had stuck by me.”

“How did you finally forgive her?”

“First I had to accept that I am who I am. I had to forgive myself for not being who she wanted me to be.” His voice carried the wisdom of someone who had truly struggled with this journey of forgiveness and survived.

“I never thought about forgiving myself,” she admitted. “So do I have to forgive my parents, too, for having money and for offering it to him?” Evie frowned as she tried to soak in Eli’s words.

“If you are angry or hurt by what they have done, then yes, you have to forgive them, too.”

She thought once she told Ben it was over and packed up all the stuff from their relationship that it was over, done. “I’m not even sure they realize how much it hurt me that they would pay off my boyfriend,” she admitted.

“Have you talked to them since you talked to Ben?”

“No,” she admitted.

Her father had called, but she had ignored him. Right before she left for church, she finally gathered the courage to listen to the voicemail he’d left her. He said he wanted to know she was okay and wanted to explain what happened. Just listening to his message left her unsettled, and the feeling remained throughout the Sunday morning church service. “So did you ever tell Whitney you forgave her?”

“Yes, I did, actually.”

“What did she say?”

“I called her one night after I’d read and prayed and finally decided I didn’t want to carry that anger around inside me anymore. I really wanted to move on with my life, but I wanted to have a clean break with her. I just told her that she might not even realize she needed forgiveness, but that I was forgiving her anyway. I knew she did what she needed to do for herself and that I was moving on with my legal and political career and wished her the best. She snickered a little and told me she was glad I found where I belonged and then hung up.”

Evie’s jaw dropped. “Didn’t that make you more mad?”

“Actually, no.” Eli laughed. “It made me wonder what I ever really saw in her. I think for the first time I felt sorry for her because she truly thought living off someone else’s fame and success would bring her happiness. And I prayed that God would direct her to find Christ, the one person who could fulfill all her needs and give her peace.” He paused, then said softly, “And I truly meant it.”

She grunted. “You’re a better person than I am.”

“No, I simply got tired of carrying around all that baggage. I couldn’t date or allow myself to get close to anyone because I didn’t trust people anymore. All that anger prevented me from finding someone who really cares for
me
, instead of for what I can give them.”

Eli’s words stung Evie. “How mad are you at me for lying to you about Ben?” she said, her voice barely audible. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, bracing herself.

“It hurt, I’ll admit it. But you were honest with me, and I knew from the beginning you hadn’t dealt with your feelings for Ben or with the bigger issue of following Christ the way you know you should.”

“So where does that leave us?” Evie wished she could see Eli’s face. She wanted to see if his eyes were shining with understanding or if they burned with pain. She wanted to know if he still cared about her.

Eli drew a deep breath. “Evie, I’ve prayed and prayed about the answer to that question. And I think we should be friends for a little while.”

The words soaked through the raw skin of her emotions.

“I really care about you,” he added. “That’s why I want you to work through the forgiveness you have ahead of you and to focus on your relationship with Christ right now. I truly believe if God intends for us to be together, he’ll bring us back together. In fact, I don’t think we’ll be able to keep away from each other.”

“But…” Evie wanted to protest, wanted to tell him she was ready to move on. But their conversation had zapped any thought she had of arguing with him. “Ugh,” she grunted in frustration.

“Evie, I’m sorry….”

“No, don’t. You have to do what you have to do,” she declared. “You’ve left it in my court now. I have to figure out a way to forgive that scumbag ex-boyfriend of mine and start a relationship with Christ, and we’ll be all ready to go.”

There was a pause, then, “You know it’s not that simple, right? You can’t just wake up tomorrow and say you want to have a relationship with Christ and by tomorrow night you are good to go. You have to
really
want to know Christ better. You have to spend time reading the Bible, praying, and listening to teaching to get to know him.”

Evie considered throwing the phone across the room and walking away. Then she halted. What had drawn her to Eli in the first place?
Oh, yeah, he cares about me.
The realization wiped away all the anger and soothed her heart. He cared about her. He cared enough to walk away, to give her the space she needed to be her best for someone else before she was her best for him. And he was willing to wait for this transformation to be completed.

“So how do I start?” she asked reluctantly.

“When you and I met, we didn’t know much about each other, right?” He waited as though he could hear her nod. “What did we do to get to know each other?”

Evie pictured the two of them in the coffee shop. “We talked.”

“That’s how you get to know Christ. You talk. You pray, you read the Bible, you write down what you think God is saying to you, and you spend time every day learning more about him.”

Evie scanned her room—the books, notebooks, and sorority projects scattered all over the place. She had a ton of work to do, plus the expected activities of attending parties and participating in the upcoming school elections.
How will I find extra time to spend with someone I can’t even touch or see? But I don’t want it to be just one more thing on my to-do list,
she thought.

“I’ll try,” she promised, still unsure how she’d manage to fulfill that promise.

“And I’ll be praying for you.” Eli’s voice slipped sweetly through the lines. “If you need to talk, ask questions, cry, or whatever, just call.”

“Yeah.” Evie gave him the answer he wanted but knew she wouldn’t be able to call him for anything, not for a while anyway. As their conversation worked itself to an end, she knew this would be their last call for quite some time. She soaked in the sound of his voice and pictured his curly dark hair framing his high cheekbones. She had work to do…and no idea where to start.

“I guess I better hang up then, huh?” she asked, hoping that maybe he had something else to discuss with her. What, she didn’t know, but something.

“Probably.”

They said a lingering good-bye, and then Evie held a silent phone in her hand for a long moment.

“Lord,” she spoke into the stillness of her room, “I’m not sure what to do now. But I really do like Eli, and I would like to know him better. So please, please don’t let him find anyone else while I get myself together.”

11

)

li paused in his review of a client’s business contract to listen to the rhythmic clacking of computer keys. In the last year since he moved to Duncan and joined the firm, he’d grown accustomed to the daily social and work routine.

Eli enjoyed the quiet of the first hour. He’d learned to use the time to gather his thoughts for the day and focus on his work before the distractions began. On days he had to start the day in court or at a client’s office, he always felt a little behind and nervous the rest of the day.

When his intercom buzzed, Eli checked his watch before pressing the accept button. “Yes, Lisa?”

“Eli, Mr. Hudson is here for his 8:45 appointment.”

“Send him in.” Eli placed the contract in his hand into its folder and stacked it on the corner of his desk before he rose to shake hands with a childhood friend. He smiled as the door opened, and a sandy-haired man with a grin plastered across his round boyish face walked through.

“Good to see you, Eli,” Michael greeted.

“What’s going on, man?” Eli asked as he shook his friend’s hand and then motioned for him to sit.

Once they settled into their seats, Michael began to speak. “I’ll get right to the point. City elections are next year, and I want to run for the mayor’s office. First, I wanted to make sure you weren’t planning to run.”

Eli blinked hard and shook his head. “Michael, I had not even thought about the elections. I have no intentions of running.”

“Good. I’ve wanted to take a leadership role here for years, but I never thought I was ready. However, I’ve been a small-business owner here for fourteen years, since high school, and business is good. In fact, it’s good enough I can leave it in the hands of the manager and focus full-time on something like being mayor.”

“That’s great. But why would it matter if I was running?”

Michael laughed. “You’d be pretty tough competition. I’ve heard several people say they think you moved back here to start your political career, and there’s a lot of speculation that you’ll start with the mayor’s race.”

“Ahh…” Eli had revealed his true motives for moving back to Duncan to very few people. He did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but when he did start his political career, he would probably start with something on the state level first, not the local level. But Duncan needed strong leadership. The community needed a mayor who had invested his life in the community and had a real reason to see it prosper. He could think of no one better suited to the task than Michael Hudson. “So is Mayor Colson not running again?”

“Actually he is, but I think it’s time for a change. He made some great progress the first few years, but he’s been in office for three terms, plus he’ll be 70 by the time this next term ends. It’s time for someone a little younger with some new ideas and more open to change.”