I exhale, because the YMCA’s no longer part of his question. How was it? It could mean anything. “Good! Really good,” I say.
He comes into the hallway, closing his door. Darts a look back toward their room. “Matty’s coming home next month to surprise your mom for her birthday.”
My brother’s in his third year at UC Santa Cruz, and he’s way closer to my parents than I am, but I’m fine with that because when he was younger, he almost died. If I had a kid who was basically brought back from the dead, every day with him would feel like my birthday.
“Hey.” Dad puckers his lips, brings his face close to my scalp, and inhales. “They cleaning that pool at the Y?”
I don’t answer because, again, the lying thing.
“You don’t smell like chlorine.”
“Oh,” I say to his second statement. “I rinsed off before I came home.” Which is true, and once again, I’ve avoided lying. But I feel a little twisty in my stomach.
Dad salutes me. “Well done, soldier,” he says, which is kind of dorky, but I like it, because he musses my hair and it makes me feel like he’s proud and I’ve changed the world a little.
I enter my room, close the door, and apologize to God for my non-lie lies. My mind drifts back to Jake Evans. Why did he want to know when my shift was over? Was he really interested? I’ve never been interested in dating. I mean, why bother entertaining those thoughts if I’m not going to marry the guy? And I’m definitely not getting married until I finish college, which is, like, in six years. So he’s off-limits, which means thinking about him now would only be bad. Remember King David? He thought about Bathsheba when she was off-limits and ended up having sex with her and getting her pregnant, then sending her husband to the front lines of war to cover his butt. No, thank you.
But what if I think about future Jake Evans—like the Jake Evans that I meet again six years from now. I can dream about that Jake . . . right? He would love animals, build houses for the homeless, and lead worship, and we’d go on night hikes, live on the ocean, and swim twice a day. His shoulders would be the same, I think as I sink into my pillow. They’re already perfect.
Chapter Three
At youth group two days later, I’m still in the parking lot looking for Kelly when I see her wave and hop off the brick wall she’s sitting on. That should’ve been my first clue. Kelly doesn’t hop. She moseys. Her feet don’t leave the ground when she walks. Her hair’s always in a messy bun, with that single inch-wide streak of purple bright against her blond.
One of the leaders blows the conch, which means we’re starting the group game downstairs in five minutes.
Church has been a second home to me since sixth grade, and there’s a rhythm to it that I’ve come to love. Big-group game, followed by same-sex small groups, and then back together for worship and prayer. I love the pattern of it, the routine. Every week, I know what I get. Lydia tried to explain to me once that’s why she loves her Catholic church. Something about tradition, and how we’re creatures of habit, and something else that I’m sure’s all good, but there’s no way I’d ever leave my church for hers, not when this place is the reason I love God so much. Or at all.
“Did you see him?” Kelly says and squeezes my hand. She loves touching people while she talks.
“Who?”
“Who!” she squeals back, which doesn’t help me. She twirls my hair into ringlets. “You’re going to say ‘hit’ with an S in front, you’ll see, but I call dibs.”
Is someone back from college? Sometimes old youth-group kids come back to visit for a night. Whenever it’s a guy, the girls swoon, like being out of high school makes him perfect boyfriend material.
Of my two best friends, Lydia’s the crazy one, but Kelly’s usually mellow, so seeing her like this means she must like this guy, whoever he is. I’m guessing Tim Rainsforth. It’s like a movie premiere when he comes back on his semester breaks.
The music blares from the speakers downstairs, something about eternity, and the way the drums and the bass pound, it makes me feel like heaven’s gotta be way better than roller coasters or bungee jumping. Kelly loops her arm through mine as we walk down the steps to the youth room, side-hugging anyone we pass.
Brett, our youth pastor, is on the microphone as we enter. “Hey, hey! There are three large squares on the carpet I made with painter’s tape. Find your way into one of those squares.”
The carpet’s so thin that you could sweep up a spilled can of Coke with a broom. Or drape it with long pieces of painter’s tape.
Our youth room is how I imagine college apartments. Mismatched, comfy couches. A Ping-Pong and foosball table in one corner. Three Nerf basketball hoops. The walls covered in posters of extreme sports—a skier midair with a snow cliff above, a rock climber hanging from a precipice by his fingertips, a base jumper sailing through a bottomless sky—and on each poster, a quote about living for Christ.
Some kids start yelling, “Poop deck!” and divide themselves up between the three carpet “squares.” Brett laughs. “Yes! We’re playing poop deck! It’s about to get ‘lit’ in here, you know what I’m sayin’, brahs?” He doesn’t notice the groans and eye rolls. Brett is the best youth pastor. He doesn’t talk to us like we’re five, or yell at us to stop chatting when we’re playing games.
The only problem is that he tries to talk like a teenager, but he uses the words in all the wrong places. No one cares, because for the most part, Brett puts up with way more than our parents would. And his talks make you get so fired up for God. “Okay, okay.” He holds the microphone close. “Miggity-miggity-mic check! For the one person who grew up in a cave and hasn’t played this game, here are the rules. There are three large squares in the room: poop deck on the left, half deck in the middle, and quarter deck to the right. If I yell ‘Half deck!’ everyone run to that square. If you’re already in that square, you’re safe. Our leaders will be the refs. Last two people to each square are out. Oh, if I call ‘Hit the deck!’ you’ve all gotta jump down to your bellies. Last two people to the ground are ‘Bye, Felicia.’ If you’re one of the last five remaining, you win—wait for it, wait for it—a five-dollar gift card to Two Guns Espresso.”
Everyone keeps talking and giggling over him, but Brett doesn’t care. “And one, two, three . . . poop deck!” Instantly fifty teenagers scramble. Kelly and I are already in the poop-deck square, so she embraces me in a bear hug like we’ve already won. The square’s not big enough for fifty teenagers, and it’s a giant mosh pit of laughter and squished bodies. “There he is!” she says in my ear. I try to turn my body around, but I can only stretch my neck. In the corner of the square, his eyes, barely above the other heads, look back at me. Deep brown eyes peeking out of his slightly too long hair. It can’t be.