Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock(35)

“Can I ask you a question, Lauren?”

She doesn’t answer, but manages to get this mom-looking woman to take a tract. Lauren says “Jesus loves you” to the woman.

“Forget about all the aliens stuff, okay? What I really want to know before I go and never see you again is this—”

“Where are you going?”

I don’t want to tell her that I’m going to kill Asher Beal and myself because it will make her worry about me ending up in hell—which is a real place to her—so I say, “I don’t know why I said that. I’m just being stupid, but I wanted to ask you—”

She says “Jesus loves you” to another stranger.

“Do you think that maybe if I were a Christian—like maybe if I were born into a family like yours and was homeschooled and forced to believe that—”

“I’m not forced to believe anything. I believe of my own free will.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But the point I’m trying to make is that if I were more like you, if I believed in god like you do, do you think that maybe you and I could have dated and maybe gotten married and had babies and lived a happily-ever-after sort of life?”

She looks at me like she’s trying to make a decision, and then she says, “You could have that sort of life if you ask God for it. If you give your life to God, He will provide for you in marvelous ways. He promises us that. If He takes care of the sparrows, how much more will He take care of us?”

There are a million arguments I could use against her right now, because not everyone who believes in god gets to live in suburbia and have first-world problems like Baback says, and if believing in god could really solve all of my problems and make me feel better, I would definitely do that pronto—everyone would, right?

But I’m not really interested in debunking her theology right now. I’m much more interested in the fact that Lauren’s never been kissed and that I might die without kissing her.

“Just pretend I’m a Christian like you. For argument’s sake. Theoretically. Could we have ended up married and living a regular life? Like maybe in an alternate universe?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

She looks really confused and like she might actually run away from me, so I drop it and say, “I bought you a present,” and start to open my backpack.

“Why did you buy me a present?”

“This may seem weird, but I feel like god told me to buy you this present.” I’m completely lying, but I manage to say it with a serious old-school Hollywood face and I can tell she buys it, mostly because she wants to buy it. “He spoke to me. Told me you had been praying hard. And so he wanted me to give you a sign today.”

Her lips are parted just a little. She doesn’t wear any makeup ever, so she looks natural right now, which I love.

Her breath is slipping in and out of her like a soul yo-yo.

I hand her the little pink box.

“I don’t know that I can accept a present from you, Leonard,” she says, but she’s also staring at the box like she really wants to know what’s inside.

“It’s from god,” I say. “So it’s okay.”

She sucks her lips in between her teeth and then her mittens come off and she’s unwrapping the paper, which makes me so so so happy.

Lauren lifts off the lid and pulls out the silver cross on the silver chain.

“I know how much you love Christianity, so I found this on the Internet. It’s simple enough to go with your style, but—”

She clamps it on around her neck, holds the cross in front of her nose, and gives it a good stare before tucking it into her shirt. Then she smiles beautifully.

“Did God really tell you to buy this for me?”

“He sure did,” I lie. “I’m really thinking about turning around my life and avoiding hell. Giving my life to Jesus and all the rest. I just have to sort through some issues first, but your dedication, the fact that you stand out here three times a week, the strength of your faith is amazing and really won me over.”

Her eyes open wide and I can tell I’m totally making her day, like she was waiting for some sort of signal from god, some sort of affirmation, and I’m her miracle, so I just keep piling it on, talking about being a changed man, and wanting to live a good life, and spending eternity with her in heaven.

Inside I start to feel terrible, thinking about how disappointed she’ll be when she sees the news tonight—how crushing that will be for her—and I wonder if her faith will be able to withstand it.

I think god is just a fairy tale, but I’m really starting to like the fact that Lauren has faith.

Don’t know why.

It’s weird.

A contradiction, maybe.

Or maybe it’s like wanting little kids to believe in Santa after someone else already ruined it for you, or you just figured out that your parents were Santa after all and the magic of Christmas instantly evaporated. But thinking about my destroying her faith by tricking her and then killing myself really starts to bring me down, until I just can’t lie to her anymore.

“Life can be really hard, you know. It makes it difficult to believe in god sometimes, but I’m trying—for you, and maybe for me too,” I say, and then I just start to f*cking cry. I’m not sure why. Man, I bawl and bawl.