Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father(65)

All the heads in the room turn back toward Matt, but I leave mine facing forward. I know how it feels to be a leper, and I choose not to stare at his festering boils.

“Instead of being arranged in a timeline as whole, it’s arranged by type of literature,” Matt replies.

“That’s goo—” Professor Towne starts, but is cut off by Matt.

His voice is that of a trained public speaker, loud and full of confidence. Not at all gruff like I’m used to hearing from him. “In the Old Testament, which is relevant to this class, it goes like this: The Books of Moses, which are Genesis to Deuteronomy; the Books of History, Joshua to Second Chronicles; the Wisdom Books—including Job, which we’re in—all the way to the Song of Songs. Some people refer to those as poetry. And then you get the Prophets—Isaiah through Malachi.”

This causes me to join my class and crane my neck around. When my eyes land on him, his gaze shifts to mine and he quickly arches his eyebrow, then seems to talk only to me while everyone else sits in stunned silence. “The New Testament, in case anyone is wondering, starts with the four Gospels, then Acts—which is one book of history—followed by all the Letters, Romans through Jude, and then ends with a bang—one book of prophecy. Revelation.” He says the last word with the mystical wonder of a small child. Or the guy who does voiceovers for movie trailers. My ears are hot and I feel a little breathless, to be honest. It’s time to call my best friend, clearly, if I’m finding this kind of talk a turn on.

“Oh,” he adds, moving his eyes back to the professor, “each section is, in and of itself, in relative chronological order. But, to address Kennedy’s earlier question, it’s not known when the Book of Job was written. So they stuck it here.”

“Nice, dude.” One of Matt’s football friends who sits in the back with him high fives him and the class breaks into awkward laughter.

“Thank you very much, Matthew,” Professor Towne lauds. “That was quite good. Well spoken. So…”

We continue our discussion on the writhing Book of Job, and I’m struck by one verse. Well, more than one, but this one in particular resonates with my observations of the men of Carter of late.

Job 3:26— I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.

It may seem dramatic, but I’ve seen some of these young men pray—and it looks anything but rejuvenating at times. What I wouldn’t give to get inside their heads…





“I’ve misjudged you. In a good way,” Mollie chirps into the phone while I walk to lunch.

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“Matt Wells sounds positively dreamy,” she sings.

“What’s with the British accent? He’s from the South.”

Mollie huffs. “I can’t do that one.”

“Besides,” I drone, “he’s far from dreamy.”

“He sounds like he looks like Trent.”

I stop in my tracks and my jaw drops, even if she can’t see it. “You’re right. Craaaap.”

“Mmm hmm. Gotta go. Class is starting. Update me on him later, k?”

“K.”

I slide my phone back into my bag and reminisce about Trent Kratz. While my high school did not—gasp—have a football team, they did have a state championship winning basketball team. TK, as he was affectionately called on the court, was its star. And my boyfriend for a hot minute, much to the breath-holding of my mother.

He was a year older and the absolute most popular boy in the school. Like, the obscene high school movie kind of dramatically popular: unreal and mostly unfair. We were an item for almost his entire senior year. I was well aware of his sexual reputation before I entered into a relationship with him, but I dutifully avoided talking about it with him at all.

Rumor had it he was fantastic in bed. Which, thinking about it now, is an absurd thing to think of an eighteen-year-old. Certainly none of them are good, let alone fantastic.

Anyway, our relationship itself became kind of popular, kind of like I can picture Eden and Jonah becoming—almost legendary. He was handsome, smart, and athletic, and I was beautiful, smart, and went to every single game. What was special about TK was his size for his position. He played small forward, or a “three” depending on the play setup the team used, though his size was more that of a center. Well over six feet by the time he was a freshman, he was on the varsity team from the beginning. He was light on his size-fourteen feet, and able to move his six-five frame around the court like it was a freakin’ ballet by the time he was a senior.

His grace was left at the court, however. He was a sloppy kisser and his hands were rough as they forced their way under the Victoria’s Secret silk underwire bra I’d spent fifty dollars on and only wore for him. He never actually noticed it. I was honest with him and emphasized I wasn’t going to have sex with him. I wasn’t ready, I told him, though it was less about being ready. I simply wasn’t interested in going there with him. Sculpted body aside, I knew it wouldn’t be special. And while I wasn’t against having sex before marriage, I at least wanted it to be special (or have the appearance of being special) if I did choose to.

We didn’t have some sort of dramatic breakup at one of our proms or in any public way. Instead, it was scarier and sadder.