~
My alarm screeches in my ear and I grunt and roll over, slamming my hand down to unplug it.
It runs on batteries.
I groan and get up, turning it completely off. I had forgotten to yesterday. Today is the first day of summer, and I can’t sleep in now that I’m awake.
I run my hands over my face and stretch. Finding my way to the floor, I head down to the kitchen for cereal.
“How’d you sleep, sweetie?” My mom hugs me as I walk into the room. I return it half-heartedly.
“Fine.”
I walk over and pour some orange juice into a cup, chugging it down. The cold gives me a headache, but that’s good, I guess. It seems to take my mind off of the dream.
“Your dad and I are leaving tomorrow to go to California. Are you sure you don’t want to go with us? It’ll be so much fun, and I’ll miss you.”
I shake my head, turning the cup around.
She sighs, looking at the counter behind her.
“Well alright. Hannah wants to stay behind too.”
I put my head in my hands and rub the bones behind my eyebrows. Great. I’ll have to babysit for two weeks.
“Why isn’t she going?” I ask, placing my cup in the sink. I’m not really that hungry, so I think I’ll skip breakfast.
“She says she wants to hang out with her friends for a little bit over the summer.”
“She has three months to hang out with them. I don’t see why…”
“She said that Stacy is going to be in New York by the time we get back, and that she’s spending the whole summer over there. And then Joanne and Myra are busy until August, and Lindsay and her brother are going to Florida. This is the only time she has with her friends, and I’m wanting you to take her.” My mom says, watching as I trace the counter with my finger.
"Me?" I ask, taken aback. "Why me?"
"Because I won't be here to drive her around everywhere and you just recently got your license. It's good practice for you."
I groan obnoxiously.
“We’re going to church later tonight. You ready to go?”
I rub my eyes and look at the clock on the wall. Today is Wednesday.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go get ready.”
“Don’t forget to eat something,” She calls as she walks to the living room to go clean something.
So much for skipping breakfast.
After picking at my cereal, I head to the bathroom to pee. Looking at myself in the mirror, I see the bags that have formed from the dreams and the little peach fuzz on the top of my lip. I run my fingers over them. If only they could go away. And I can’t shave them either. They’ll just come back longer and thicker.
I make a face that makes more wrinkles on my skin. I smooth them out and comb out my hair with my hands. My long hair. If only that was pretty. Then I’d look better.
First of all, my eyes are too small and too close to my long nose. Then my nostrils are too big and you can practically see up them. Then you can just take my lips and call me disproportional, because they’re too small. My skin is blotchy with red pimples that I’d recently picked at, and freckles cover my face. My eyebrows are a mess, almost like the Twelfth Doctor’s—
No. No, don’t think that. That’s nerdy. I hear myself think.
My shoulders are too wide, my hips are too big, and my body jiggles. I pull my shirt up to reveal my stomach and pinch at the fat. There isn’t very much, but it still looks disgusting.
And the excess fat underneath my chin? If that doesn’t tell me I’m fat, then what does?
Okay, I’m not fat. I just want to be a tiny bit skinnier, to where I don’t jiggle. Is that too much to ask?
Soon enough, I get tired of poking and prodding at my face and looking to see if there are any new freckles or blackheads that have appeared, and I head to my room and plop on my bed. I want to sleep, but I know it won’t come. I’m too scared to fall asleep anyway. The hooded figure scares the effing daylights out of me.
I pick up my phone off of my nightstand and unlock it. The apps settle themselves on the screen and I open up my messages.
-Hey.
-Hey s——.
-Wyd?
-Nothin. Are you going to that party tonight?
-No :/. I have church.
-That’s stupid.
-I know. Parents are forcing me.
-That sucks a—.
-Yeah, tell me bout it.
-Yea. C u 2morrow then?
-Ig. Can I call.
-Nah babe. I’m buzy doin somethin.
-:/ Okay…
-L8r tho. K?
-Alright.
My parents weren’t forcing me to go to church. They never do because they never have to. I like going, don’t get me wrong. It’s just… I don’t know. The whole Jesus thing… they really get into that stuff. It’s not that big of a deal, you know? He forgives us for our sins, hooray for us, right? Good news, we all get into heaven. We just have to ask for forgiveness once in a while, right?
My phone buzzes.
I look and see a text message from my best friend, Alex.
-Hey, you coming 2 church 2night?
My fingers hover over the keys as I stare at his letters. He’s always asking if I’m going to come, and he should know that I never say no. I’m there every day for, like, everything.
-Of course.
-Kool. I think we’re reading Ephesians tonight.
-Mmhm.
-Or maybe it’s Philippians. Idk. I get them mixed up.
-They’re not even spelled the same, Alex.
-They sound the same.
-No. No they don’t.
Alex has been my friend ever since I moved to this town in third grade. He became a believer in seventh grade, and he hasn’t stopped believing, which is good, but he won’t give it a rest. You don’t need to know the whole Bible to be a Christian. You just have to know that Jesus is real. I guess that he’s just trying to make sure he gets into heaven, which, of course we will, if we believe.
I believe. I always have. I grew up hearing about it in church, how he died on the cross for our sins and that we are “washed white as snow”. I’ve heard it all. Multiple times. Now I just block it out. It doesn’t make sense that I’m even there. I’m saved already. That’s all that is, and that’s all it will ever be. They preach—the pastors preach to the people who aren’t saved. That’s why they call people forward that haven’t given their life to Christ. That’s not for me, and that’s good, because that’s not why I go. I mean, yeah, God wants us to go to church, and so I do. He wants us to follow the ten commandments, and I try, though I can’t name them all from memory. But I go because I know my friends need help, and I’m the only help they have sometimes. Well, me and Jesus, I guess.
The day passes by slowly, and I’m up in my room, trying not to go downstairs and eat everything in the cabinets. I sit at my computer and type up my dream.
I keep this ‘dream journal.’ Yes, like the one in Sharkboy and Lavagirl. It has pictures and everything in it.
I look at my clock and decide it’s time to get ready for church. We have to leave in about an hour.
I put on all of my makeup to hide the bags and the creases and the freckles and fix my Doctor Who—no, not that again—my unruly eyebrows with a pencil. I brush through my hair and pin it up on one side. I like the way it frames my face. It makes the chub of my cheeks less… chubby.
I put on long earrings to make my face look less round and a necklace to cover the gap between my neck and my low-necked shirt, along with the random freckle in the center of my collarbone.
I slide into the pants that make my butt look good and put on a pair of shoes. A few bracelets, touch up on mascara, and there! I look like a supermodel.
With a flap of skin underneath her chin.
I set my head on my hands and stare into the mirror at that piece of fat. I hate that flap as much as I hate t
he way my elongated feet look. I move my head around, memorizing how it looks if I move it a certain way. If I pull my head too far back, it shows a lot, but if I lean it out too much, it makes me look like a f—ing giraffe.
Excuse me for my French. I just… God, I hate my body.
Knocking on my bathroom door.
“Mom said we gotta go!” I hear Hannah shout through the door annoyingly.
I groan and walk out of the door.
We reach the front steps of the church, and I go my separate way to the youth group, and Hannah goes to the one for middle-schoolers. My mom and dad walk into the main Sanctuary, where all the grown-ups go.
“Thank God,” I whisper as they leave.
“Hey, Sophia!” I hear Riley call as she attacks me with a hug.
She lets go and we head inside. The lights are dimming as the band prepares for worship.
“Hey,” Alex says, waving as he walks up to me.
I’ve always thought he was cute, but not in the attractive way, really. Okay, it could be that way, but he’s my best friend. I could never think of him that way. Not after all we’ve been through together, after all he’s been through…
Alex struggled with depression for the longest time. His dad was an alcoholic, and his mom was never around. His dad would beat him and pass out on the couch in grief. Alex never knew why.
Then one day his mom showed up and took him away from his dad. She brought him to an apartment complex, where she said she’d go to to get away from his dad. She had gotten involved with a local church—my church—and they’ve really helped her through everything that was going on.
I knew him all through school as we were growing up, and I was always his friend and he was always mine, but I had no idea that any of that was going on behind the scenes until church camp in seventh grade. He broke down crying the third night, and I was sitting beside him. We were always together. We were inseparable.
I didn’t know what was going on. I’d never seen him cry, and I was in shock. He left the room to go outside, and I followed him. A Leader came out with us to ask what was going on.
“He just started crying,” I told him.
The Leader placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder as he leaned over the rails, looking down at the ground a story below. This was his first church camp, and I felt bad because I thought he was crying because he hated it so much.
Turns out he told the Leader everything, even though I was standing right there. At the end of it, he looked at me.
“Don’t hate me,” He said, and looked down, closing his eyes.
I looked at him strange.
“I don’t hate you, Alex,” I said and I sat down next to him. “I don’t judge. God tells us not to judge, so I don’t.”
I remember him looking up at me and he gave me a smile. It was so random to think he could smile when he was just balling his eyes out a second ago. He wraps his arms around me in a tight hug and I can feel his tears clinging to my hair.
Now he stands before me, no bruises, no cuts, and he is actually pretty decent looking. Of course, Riley thinks he’s hot.
“Who’s that?” I remember her asking as Alex started to walk up to us.
I noticed that recently he had hit a growth-spurt and his voice got lower.
He had hit puberty.
“That’s Alex,” I had told her, rolling my eyes as the thought of agreeing with her.
“He’s hot,” She said quietly as he walked up to us.
Even now, as he stands in our presence, I can feel her smile as she looks at him. I have an urge to groan, but I quiet it.
He runs his fingers through his hair and gives me a half-smile, his perfect teeth glistening. In his other hand, he holds an old, worn-out Bible. It’s the one I had given him that night at church camp. I told him to keep it because he didn’t have one, and we had dozens laying around the house. I never read it anyway.
I reach for it, but he moves his hand away too fast. He smiles at me and I grimace.
“I just want to see it,” I whine, and lunge again.
He moves, and I bump into him, my heart skipping once. I straighten at the feeling and cross my arms impatiently.
I do not like him. That’s that.
“Please?” I command more than ask.
He laughs and forks it over. I start turning pages, feeling the impressions where the pen met the paper. He takes so many notes, and they’re all inside the Bible.
“Why do you still have this?” I ask. “It’s like five years old.”
“Almost five years old,” He corrects, taking it back and shutting it. “It’ll be exactly five years old when our last church camp comes around.”
My heart is saddened by that thought. My last camp ever.
“And then college,” I say quietly, and Alex nods.
“Pretty much. You figure out where you want to go yet?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“I think I’m gonna go to Florida,” Riley interrupts, wanting to get the chance to talk to Alex more than I would. She always complains he only talks to me. I always tell her it’s because he’s known me since third grade.
“So?” She always said. “I’ve known you since fourth.”
She actually didn’t know me. She knew of me, but she didn’t know me personally. That’s just how fourth grade goes. You know who everyone is, but you don’t actually know them because you want to show them what you can do. Oh the years of selfishness.
The timer on the screens start counting down from five minutes. We sit in the back so we can talk to each other. Alex always tries to make us move to the front, but we never do, and he ends up circling back to sit by me.
The band starts to play, and I sing along quite loudly. I want people to know I can actually sing, and that I’m not just one of those people that think they can sing, you know what I mean? I hate when someone sings the wrong note and screws me up because then everyone thinks you mess up and you get nervous and you can’t really recover and then everyone thinks bad about you. I can’t have that happening.
The five songs are over with, and we sit as they open the stage for the pastor with a prayer.
“How’s everyone doing tonight?” He smiles out to the audience. Mutters and a few whoops fly across the air and he repeats a few of them. He announces some things, as well as camp, which is in just a month from today, and the screens on the walls change to Paul’s Prayer, Philippians 1:3-11.
“If you’ll all turn with me to Philippians chapter one, verse three.”
He goes over a short history of Paul and where he is and of the reason of the letter. He reads the entirety of the verses, going over each one in short, but he goes on and on about verses nine through eleven.
“This is my prayer for you:…” He reads. “…that your love will grow more and more; that you will have knowledge and understanding with your love; that you will see the difference between good and bad and will choose the good; that you will be pure and without wrong for the coming of Christ; that you will be filled with the good things produced in your life by Christ to bring glory and praise to God.”
I tune out as he describes it, only catching bits and pieces as he talks about it. But I can’t stop thinking about the party I’m missing. My boyfriend is there now (and I hope he’s not hitting on some b——), and he really wanted me to come. He knows I’ve never been to a party in my life, and he wants me to have that experience.
You could have a party, I hear the voice in my head say to me. Your parents will be gone for two weeks. What could happen?
“Let’s end in prayer,” The pastor says, wrapping up and clapping his hands together. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for today, and may we continue to grow in you, Father—” I never understood why they said Father so much. “—I pray you lead us to choose the good things you have put in front of us, and that you continue to show us what is good and what is bad in our lives, Father. May you convict us for our sin
s and for what we have done that was bad, and that we know is bad, God. I pray you continue working in us and help us learn to love like your Holy Son, Jesus did. For You loved the world so much, that you gave your only begotten Son to die for our sins, and to wash us clean—” See? Told you, there it was again. “—and we thank you for that, Lord. And in Your Son’s Name, everybody said…”
“Amen,” The audience says in unison.
My row of friends and I stand up and walk around the end of the chairs. Riley was going through something with her sister, and was needing to rant, while Meghan needed a shoulder to cry on because her mom passed away just a few days ago. She was busy praying, so I walked over to Riley.
“So Veronica…” She rambles on about something while my head swims about the party.
What am I going to wear? How am I going to do this? How can I get Hannah not to squeal to mom?
You could always tie her up…
No, that wouldn’t work. She’d have to stay over at her friends house.
“Are you even listening?” Riley asks, a little defensive.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Hey, I wanna throw a party after my parents leave. What do you think?”
“Awesome! I’ll tell everyone I know,” She says, her eyes skirting over to Alex.
“Don’t tell him,” I say quietly.
“Why not?” She asks, looking a little hurt.
“He’ll lecture me about how God doesn’t want us doing this stuff or something. You know he will… I just can’t let him find out. If he does, everything will be ruined.”
“I doubt—”
“Trust me,” I say, looking into her green eyes. “He’s not a cool Christian like you and me. He won’t do this s——. Trust me.”
“You’re in a church, young lady,” She teases me because I cussed. “Okay, though. You owe me a boyfriend though.”
My parents walk inside of the area that holds my age group. I wave her a goodbye, and my stomach holds me back from saying anything to Alex. It couldn’t be guilt, could it?
No.
I’m not doing anything wrong. I just want to have fun.
After all, that’s all God wants us to do.
Have fun right?