The Opposite of Love (18 page)

45

CHASE

Pastor Tom bounced a basketball against the hot asphalt of the YMCA court, his palms a light gray because of the dirt, sweat pouring down the back of his neck, and his arms looking skinny and pale in contrast to his dark green Celtics shirt. Chase had never seen a pastor that looked less “pastorly” in his life. If anything, he looked like a skinny second-string basketball wannabe.

The YMCA wasn't exactly Chase's scene, and basketball wasn't his sport, but there were only so many video games a guy could play before his eyes started to cross. So he'd found himself shooting hoops on his own until Pastor Tom introduced himself and challenged him to a scrimmage.

“You don't look like a pastor,” Chase told him, bouncing the ball away from him. The ball felt a little flat, like it needed to be pumped up, so he dribbled hard down the court. “You're not that much older than me.”

Pastor Tom stole the ball back and squared up to shoot. He grinned, showing somewhat crooked but evenly spaced teeth, like he'd had braces once upon a time but never wore his retainer. The ball lifted off his fingers and arced toward the hoop. It circled and dropped through.

Pastor Tom grinned. “I'm twenty-eight, which is plenty older than you.” He laughed from deep in his gut. “You look like you're twenty, but you're still in high school, so you can't be more than eighteen.” Pastor Tom scooped up the ball and palmed it back and forth, breathing hard.

Chase moved for his water, the condensation-soaked canteen almost slipping out of his hands. He tipped it back and let the water rush down his throat, so cold it ached. “How do you know I'm still in high school?” Chase challenged. “Maybe I'm not.”

Pastor Tom rummaged around in a black bag with “Got Jesus?” printed in white cursive letters. He pulled out a sports drink, some kind of cheap spin-off on Gatorade. “I have an ‘in' with God. I know these things.”

“Okay, now I know for sure you're not a pastor.” Chase laughed.

“No, seriously.” Pastor Tom twisted the top off the bottle and sat down on the asphalt. “I'm a youth pastor. That's a full-time job if I ever saw one, even though our congregation is small. But I also pick up ten hours a week as the assistant coach for the high-school track team. They give me a little stipend, but I don't do it for that.” He took a little sip, and Chase could tell right away that it was the kind of sports drink that would turn his lips and teeth blue.

Pastor Tom went on. “I do it because I've always had that running bug myself, and being a pastor doesn't change it. Once you've got the running bug, you've got it forever.” He smiled slowly, blue teeth and all. “And you, my friend, may just have been infected yourself. I saw you running the track last week. Your stride and your intensity are good. You ought to think about joining the high school team.”

“Me?” Water almost spurted out through Chase's nose when he laughed. “On a high-school sports team? Not my thing.” Chase eased himself down on the ground next to Pastor Tom, recognizing the aching of his quad and calf muscles. He'd run a good six miles the day before. “Besides, what about separation of church and state?”

“Don't worry, my friend. I leave my ‘Got Jesus?' bag at home, and I don't say a word about God the whole time.”

Chase shaded his eyes with his hands so he could see the man's face better. “Isn't that sacrilegious or some shi … or something?”

“Here's the thing, Chase. God can work through me, through you, through anyone, and touch our lives for the better. We don't have to force God's name down anyone's throat. We can just know this for ourselves and let everyone interpret it as they see fit. It doesn't matter what we call it, it just matters what it
is
.
Comprende, amigo
?”

Chase narrowed his eyes skeptically. “What kind of a Christian are you?”

“The flexible kind,” Pastor Tom said, laughing like he thought he was a riot. Chase was glad this guy found himself funny, because Chase sure didn't. “No, really. I'm a youth pastor at a nondenominational church. We're pretty low key and casual in our approach, so we get a large following of young couples and families.”

“Oh.” Chase got the feeling he was about to get the religion recruitment pitch, and he wasn't in the mood. He considered getting up and shooting hoops again, only his calves were cramping up, so he stayed put.

“Are you religious?”

“Not really.” Chase admitted.

Pastor Tom leaned forward, “Maybe you just need to find the right church.”

“Yours, right?” Chase leaned back away from him. “Yeah, no thanks. I'm not into being
told
what to believe. I just want help figuring out what it is that I
do
believe. That's why I don't think organized religion is my thing.”

“We're not that organized. You should see my car.” Pastor Tom looked at Chase pointedly, then tilted his sports drink back and gulped the last bit down.

“Very funny. Just what I need.” Chase pulled his knees to his chest, preparing to heave himself up. “A pastor who should have been a stand-up comedian.”

“Oh, good, someone thinks I'm funny besides me,” Pastor Tom joked. “How 'bout let's play a game of HORSE, and if I win, you come to youth group this week. If you win, you get to decide if you come.”

“Is that a bet?” Chase asked, feeling a smirk come to his lips.

“It's not a bet. It's a negotiation.” Pastor Tom popped up from the ground, looking rejuvenated by his sports drink and ready to take Chase on.

Chase stood up, realizing he stood at least three inches taller than the pastor. “Let's just get HORSE over with. You first.” He headed over to the hoop, rolling his shoulders back and wishing he'd pumped up the ball more before he'd come. Maybe it was what he'd scarfed down for lunch, but he had a rotten feeling in his stomach that he was about to be creamed.

Five minutes later, sweat dripping down his back, it was clear Chase had been right. And now he was stuck going to a freaking youth group in a town he didn't know with a basketball-playing wannabe pastor and a group of kids with actual morals. He wouldn't have anything in common with them.

For a moment, Chase wanted to call the whole thing off. But considering the list of sins he'd racked up so far this year, he didn't think it wise to tip the scale farther in that direction, just in case God was keeping track or something. Besides, he figured, maybe there'd be a roomful of hot girls. That could help him get his mind off of Rose. Clearly things were over with her. Forever. He'd screwed up and it was over. Time to move on.

He smiled, imagining it. A roomful of hot religious girls, dressed in short private-school uniformed skirts. Girls he could sit next to, smell their scented body lotion and shampoo, and look in their eyes, but who, for all intents and purposes, would be off limits. Question of the day: was that heaven or hell?

46

ROSE

On the third Sunday in October, when half the kids in town were buying Halloween costumes, Rose decided to take action. She'd wrap all the gifts she'd gotten for her mother over the years, the ones from the shoe box under her bed. She'd always kept them unwrapped in case she wanted to look at them or touch them. But now it seemed the right time to package them up. She tiptoed toward Mrs. P.'s gift-wrapping supplies, thinking she'd grab tape and different colors of tissue paper.

Mr. P. stood in the kitchen, barefoot, in a loose cotton undershirt and faded sweatpant shorts. She couldn't help but notice the thick, graying hair covering his arms and back as he reached into the cupboard for the gluten-free corn flakes. He'd gotten a four-pack at Costco, so everyone in the house had been eating gluten-free corn flakes for weeks.

Rose had been counting down the minutes, even the seconds, until he'd get dressed and leave for the Daily Drip so that she'd have the house to herself for a couple of hours. The man read the entire paper sitting there, start to finish. Mrs. P. had gone to a neighbor's house to help prepare for a Tupperware party.

Something about the way Mr. P. moved to the fridge made Rose stop. It took him forever to lift the milk from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. He breathed heavily. Midway between the fridge and the counter, the muscles in his arm and hand seemed to give out. His wrist flopped forward like a piece of strung-out Silly Putty. The milk carton fell to the linoleum floor with a thick fist-in-the-gut sound. Milk pooled around the carton.

Mr. P. didn't grab his chest and drop to his knees like they did in the movies. He just turned to Rose, his eyes as wide as silver dollars, his face sweaty and red. His right arm held on to his left, and he stood there teetering and watching Rose. He looked like the giant at the top of Jack's beanstalk, swaying back and forth as if he were about to tumble.

His lips didn't move, but she could read in his eyes what she was supposed to do just as sure as if he'd written it down step by step. She needed to get help. The kitchen phone lay within arm's distance behind Mr. P., but he made no move to reach for it. Instead, Rose lunged for it and pressed 9-1-1 before she could even think. When the voice came on, brisk and urgent, Rose felt the words freeze on her lips. It had been so long since she'd spoken to anybody. She wouldn't forget how, would she?

She could hear the operator through the receiver, saying “Hello? Hello?” from what sounded like far away. And suddenly, she heard her own voice, also from far away, and very hoarse, say, “Heart attack! Send an ambulance!”

She dropped the phone then, and although she could still hear the operator asking questions, now she really sounded far away. Still, Mr. P. stood, little sweat bubbles popping up across his nose like tiny raindrops. Their eyes connected for a moment that felt as long as an hour. She wondered what he was thinking.
Pick up that damn phone and give our address!
Or,
Can't you do anything right?
Or,
I'm sorry I didn't get to know you better.
Or maybe he wasn't thinking about her at all. Maybe he was wondering if he was going to die.

57

CHASE

Chase stretched his calves and warmed up his quads. The other runners did the same, and Chase smiled or held up his hand in greeting, but he didn't bother making conversation. He'd only had practice for a couple weeks, but he already looked forward to that burn. The burn of his muscles, the burn of his chest, that strange combination of exhaustion and exhilaration that stuck with him for hours.

As his feet pounded the grass, little bits of water sprayed up and dampened his socks.
Practice
. He'd never had practice before. The word felt funny in his mouth. It sounded like something some jock would say. And he was no jock. But to shut Pastor Tom up, he'd joined the Bakersfield High School cross-country team.

“It'll look good on college applications,” Pastor Tom had promised. He didn't even mind that Chase planned to return home for second semester so that he could graduate with his class. A few of the kids from youth group were on the team, and even though Chase had only made it to a couple youth-group meetings, they seemed to accept him as one of their own.

Chase knew he was an unlikely runner, all big and bulky like a polar bear. In fact, when Becca found out he'd joined the team, she just about laughed her Rockstar energy drink right out her nose. Chase knew he didn't have speed on his side. Stamina, maybe, but not speed.

Still, there was something so cleansing about it. The pumping of his arms, wind in his ears, hearing nothing and everything all at once. His heart working hard like it was pumping steel. His thoughts just flowed while he ran. No right or wrong. No shoulds or shouldn'ts. Chase sifted through his thoughts, figuring out which ones to come back to and which ones to discard, getting rid of the ones that just cluttered his mind. And then he felt lighter somehow.

Chase never led the pack. Generally he wound up in the middle of the second half of the team. That meant he just picked someone who seemed to be plugging along at about the same speed, and he paced himself. Matched his footsteps, matched his stride. At first, he had to focus on it, and then the pacing happened mindlessly. That left his mind completely free to drift.

Drift to
Rose
. Transforming from hot and heavy to arctic cold in a matter of moments. And now she'd practically disappeared from the face of the earth.

Drift to
Candy.
Sending him off with a prepaid calling card, whispering hard and fast, her mouth moving all weird to keep from crying. “I'm doing this because I think it will be good for you. But if it's not, you come home, understand?”

Drift to
Walter
. Different but the same. Drunk, he had the strength of the Incredible Hulk, and sober, he was back to being Bruce Banner.

Drift to
Daisy.
Daisy called nearly every day with a whiny, hurt, why-did-you-leave-me-behind tone to her voice. “You'd better come back soon or I'll paint your walls pink and steal all your leftover T-shirts for nightgowns.”

Drift to
running
. It hadn't ever formally been a part of his life before. Looking back, running did sort of come naturally to him—but usually after an emotional explosion. Putting it before the explosion, to ward off the volcanic eruption, seemed genius. He shook his head at how dense he'd been not to think of that before.

Drift to church.
He could hardly believe he'd actually been attending. Youth group here and there mostly, although he had gone to a couple worship services. Pastor Tom's church seemed more like “religion lite.” Sure, they talked about God and prayed and all that, but most of what they seemed to do was volunteer in the community. Soup kitchens, wrapping presents for Toys for Tots, cleaning up local parks, and once a year, building houses in Mexico. Maybe because the sermons felt more like classroom discussions than lectures, Pastor Tom's church didn't have that oppressive feel he remembered from when he was a kid. Go figure.

Chase hit his last few strides, then walked it off. His legs felt rubbery and weightless. This long, lean kid named Brian strode past him, looking like he'd already caught his breath. “Good job, Chase,” he said as he passed.

Chase stopped moving, just hunched over with his hands on his knees. “You too.” His words came out breathless. His social life had dwindled to exchanging a few words in the locker room during water breaks and attending the occasional youth group. Fine by him. There didn't seem to be a reason to spend a lot of time making friends he would just leave again in January. He'd been spending lunch in the library too, jamming out as much homework as forty-six minutes would allow. He couldn't bring himself to actually do any homework at home, but at least he wasn't totally blowing it off anymore.

For the first time in his high school career, Chase felt like he had it together. Like he had a plan. There were even a bunch of college applications open on his desktop. He hadn't started any of them, of course, but they sat there waiting for him. Maybe he could make something of himself after all.