Chapter Thirty
Running Away
I decided to move to San Diego with Bianca instead of moving back with my parents. I only had three weeks before I left for Vancouver, and I knew that it would probably be the last and only time I would ever get to live with Bianca. She worked as a waitress at an Italian café, and she helped me get a temporary job as a hostess there.
Charlie came to visit us over the weekend. We were staying in a small apartment on the beach with a loft. One night after Bianca fell asleep, Charlie and I stayed up talking and praying. We held hands in intimate prayer. I felt so close to him and God.
“I really want to kiss you,” Charlie said after we prayed.
“I want to kiss you too!” I said. “But I can’t. If I kiss you now, and then I have to leave for Vancouver, I will just die! I will miss you so much. Let’s just wait. I have committed to God that I won’t kiss any guy until my wedding day. You know that.”
“I know. I will respect you. I love you.” He gave me a big hug. “I don’t want to make any mistakes either. You are too important to me.” We said goodnight, and I went upstairs alone to go to sleep. He stayed downstairs and slept on the sofa.
The next night, Bianca fell asleep on the sofa downstairs, and Charlie and I stayed up talking upstairs in the loft.
“I have a confession to make,” he told me. “I’ve been thinking and praying about it, and I have to tell you the truth about me. If I don’t, if I’m not totally honest with you, then I don’t deserve you.”
“OK, tell me then.” I started thinking of all the terrible things it could be.
“I …”
He started tugging at his eyebrows. We were sitting on the bed, about a foot apart, but I didn’t move.
“First of all, I had a girlfriend my sophomore year of high school,” he said in a shaky voice. “And we made some bad choices.”
“What? You never told me about this!”
“I’m trying to tell you now.”
I tried to keep my mouth shut so I could listen. It was a while before he went on.
“We didn’t have sex,” he said. “But we did do other things.”
Whoever this girl was, I hated her with all my heart and soul. My ankle started jittering.
He told me what they did, and I almost threw up. I crossed my arms and bit my lips until they bled. I never knew another person’s choices could affect me so much. I was aching in my guts.
“I’m so sorry!” he cried, and I was stone cold as he wept. “I’m ruined, Miriam!”
That was not all. He had to tell me everything.
“After she cheated on me with a few different guys, we broke up. I was so lonely and confused, I started looking at a lot of pornography.”
He glanced at me to see my reaction. I was frowning and looking away. At that point, nothing he could say would make things better or worse. The truth was the truth. It was spilled there in front of me, and I had to look at it.
It was like being in hell.
Where are you God? Where were you when all of this was going on in Charlie’s life? Is this my future husband? Could he be, with all of these mistakes and sins? This is bad.
Tears were the only words I had for Charlie. I couldn’t rationalize anything that night. I was too emotional.
“I’m ruined,” he said again, his head sunken into his hands.
“Get out. Leave,” I said. I crossed my arms and looked away.
He left the apartment. I heard the door shut behind him.
I prayed, cried, and wrote in my journal, trying to understand how I was supposed to handle the information. I was shaking, but I had to write it out.
He didn’t have a change of clothes. He felt sweaty, dirty, and he wanted to change his shirt. He sat downstairs in the purple velvet chair and leaned over, heaving, exposed and ashamed. He looked at his hands and remembered how dirty they once were. How he wanted to cut them off; but first he would have ripped out his eyes.
He was ruined. Ruined.
But it was right that he told her everything. All of his dirty past. So she knew him. She had seen him at his worst, how he had lived obeying his carnal desires, pleasing himself with this and that, her and her.
Upstairs, his girlfriend lay on her back on the floor with her eyes closed and her arms in the air, asking for something from God. It was more than she could understand, more than she could handle. She was still shaking. The cold air came through the window and she trembled, ultra aware of her skin, her humanity.
His words had chilled and sickened her body. She convulsed over and over at the words he had said to her. Why those words? Fear of him shook her. Who was this man that she loved?
“I can’t touch you,” he had said. “I don’t deserve to touch you.”
“I don’t want you to touch me!”
So he had gone downstairs so she could think alone. He walked outside in the beach air and prayed and cried out to God. Would he lose her?
He walked back to the apartment and sank into the chair, wishing he had brought clothes to change into. He stared. His red eyes leaked onto his hands. He waited.
Then, knowing that somehow he was a new creation in Christ, free from his past, he stood, pulled his shirt over his head, folded it, and set it on the purple velvet chair. Then he took the white blanket she had left for him and wrapped it over his whole body like a cocoon on the floor. He lay still, listened, and fell asleep.
The next morning I leaned over the railing to see if he was still there. He was on the couch having a cup of coffee, talking to Bianca as if nothing had happened.
When Bianca went to work, Charlie and I talked.
“Listen,” I said. “I love you no matter what. But I need to know that you have changed. I need to know that you don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“It’s in my past,” he said. “It’s gone.”
“You don’t have feelings for her anymore?”
“No. Not at all.”
“You don’t look at porn anymore?” I could hardly say the word.
“No.”
“Thank God!”
He got down on his knees on the floor in front of me.
“Can I hold your hands?” he asked.
We held hands, and he put his nose to my knees.
“Thank you for forgiving me.” He looked at me with loving tears in his eyes.
“I do forgive you,” I said. “I believe you when you say you’ve changed. I know you are honest and genuine. I know you belong to God. I have been praying for you—for my future husband—my whole life. And I know God is strong enough to make you whole again.” I hugged him.
While I was in the kitchen cooking eggs for breakfast, he picked up his guitar and started playing. Then he started singing.
Let’s talk about runnin’ away
Let’s talk about gettin’ away
I want to fly down a highway with nowhere to go but tomorrow
Stop and dance with the daisies, run in fields and play
Let’s talk about bein’ free
Let’s talk about you comin’ with me
I want to take you where you’ve never been, be alone in this world
Settle down with you and raise a family
They’re talkin’ ‘bout stayin’ here
They’re talkin’ ‘bout the politics of fear
Now you know that I can’t stand the crime and the noise
And this ain’t no place to raise
our two little girls and our little boy
Let’s talk about movin’ on
Let’s talk about gettin’ lost
I want to build our house on the rock away from the city
I’ll hold you watchin’ sunsets, kiss you ‘til the early morn
“Who is that song about?” I called from the kitchen.
“My wife,” he said.
“Will you teach it to me?”
“Sure.”
After breakfast Charlie taught me the chords.
It was a simple song, similar to “Goodnight.”
While I sat with the guitar and pick in my hands, Charlie crossed his arms.
“You have to take my guitar to Vancouver.”
“No way.”
“You have to. You need it,” he said.
“What about you? You love to play. You love to write songs.”
“I can use Luke’s if I need one. Really, I insist.”
“OK. If you insist,” I smiled.