Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father(74)

Jack holds out his hands. “I don’t really know how to handle this. Maggie, are you okay with the two of them walking to Pastor Abbot’s house?”

Before turning to him, I catch Maggie comically roll her eyes. “I’d say this situation is outside any CU protocol. They’re fine.” She turns to me. “Get going before everyone comes back from dinner and you’re bombarded.”

Matt opens the door, sticking his head out cautiously, checking for people wandering, I assume. “It’s clear,” he says quietly.

I find it hard to move my legs, but do so anyway in the interest of getting somewhere else. Walking down the stairs, Matt fishes car keys out of his pocket.

“Why do you get to have a car?” I question without much conviction, referring to CU’s stance that only those students with the highest privileges get to have their vehicles on campus.

“Favoritism,” Matt blurts out cynically.

There’s much more there, but I can’t focus long enough to ask follow up questions, so I drop it.

Navigating the short mile to Roland’s house in Matt’s new-looking Jeep, I dial my parents’ house number.

“Kennedy?!” Mom shrieks thanks to caller ID.

“I’m fine.” I know in what order to address her concerns.

“Jesus, Kennedy. What the hell is going on?” She’s in full-on panic mode.

I give her a few seconds to tell me what she knows and how. Apparently my Facebook page has gotten quite popular since Joy started handing out the “Look Who’s Sleeping with the Pastor” flyers. Pictures of the poster along with a host of un-Christian wall posts from my CU classmates, according to my mom, went viral. When those who stuck around Mission Hall heard my revelation about my actual relationship with Roland, the activity on my Facebook page exploded past viral to epidemic. My stepsister Jenny called our parents after failing to reach me when she saw my name filling up her newsfeed.

“Matt is taking me to Roland’s house now,” I reply, ignoring all information regarding social media. I haven’t been on my Facebook page in days. I can’t say my curiosity isn’t on overdrive, though.

“Who is Matt?” she demands.

“Matt Wells. I guess Roland is friends with—”

“Is his father Buck Wells?”

I hold my phone a few inches in front of my face, perplexed.

“What?” Matt asks.

I shake my head “I…is your dad’s name Buck?”

Matt laughs. “It’s Joseph, but…when he was younger…yeah.” Matt shakes his head and grins. “Buck.”

Without explanation to Matt, I return to my mom. “Yeah, it’s Buck. Why?”

“Interesting,” she replies, sounding far away for a moment. “Just…get to your father’s house and call—”

Mom stops talking and I stop breathing. Not once in my eighteen and a half years has she referred to Roland by anything other than Roland. She’s never even called him my birth father. I don’t even know how to respond.

I clear my throat. “I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” she says with a little less confidence in her voice than when we started the call.

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

My voice trips on some tears forming in my throat. “Can you come?”

“Of course,” she whispers, a sign I’ve learned that means she’s hiding her own tears. “I’ll get in the car right now. I’ll be there before you wake up.”

I check the clock and see that if she really did leave now, and didn’t stop, she’d arrive at Roland’s by five in the morning.

“If I even sleep,” I remark.

“You’ll sleep,” Mom and Matt say at the same time.

It makes me grin. I say goodbye and realize Matt has us parked in Roland’s driveway, and Roland is standing on his front porch.

“Ready?” Matt asks.

“Are you coming with me?” I look up at him hopefully.

“If you want me to.”

My eyes shift to the front porch, then back to Matt. I nod. “I want you to.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


10,000 Reasons


“I have a thousand friend requests. One thousand.” I stare at my phone as if it’s the most alien thing I’ve ever held.

Roland, Matt, and I are sitting in Roland’s grand living room. His assistant, Jahara—who I didn’t know existed until an hour ago—is pacing through the house on her cell phone. We’re on lockdown.

Matt pushes a window curtain aside, moving his head to survey the land in front of Roland’s house. “There’s more of them now,” he comments, referring to the news reporters.

He wasn’t kidding: this really is a big deal. A big f*cking deal where I come from. The iron gates that surround the New Life property are serving one hundred percent of their purpose, as far as I’m concerned. They were closed per Roland’s orders the second Matt and I walked in his house. Good thing, because local news reporters started showing up less than twenty minutes later, shouting Roland’s name, and mine. Jahara says it won’t take long for national news outlets to come knocking.

“A thousand,” I say again regarding my friend requests on Facebook, not yet able to handle that anyone who covers the news is interested in me at all.