Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father(78)

His words make about as much sense as those lists of names in the Book of Kings. Except the PK part. And I’m not so sure I’m ready to identify as a Preacher’s Kid. I’m not his kid.

“Stand up for you? For what? Can’t you guys tell your tales?”

Matt shakes his head. “No one listens to us, especially if our parents have a breakdown. Just like they took care of us when they wanted to get close to our parents, they throw us out with the bathwater when they wash their hands of them. Just…please don’t keep your mouth shut. You’ll make mistakes in what you say, but that’s okay. Don’t pretend to be…don’t pretend to be one of them.” His voice is strained and his eyes are pleading.

I bite the inside of my cheek. The whole semester I’ve been tortured by this concept. And, worse, looking at Matt, I wonder… What if I do feel like I fit in with them? Will I lose him as a friend?

“Is it really us versus them? Who are us? Who are them?”

Matt steps forward and places his finger under my chin, lifting it and brushing his thumb slowly down my lip ring.

“Those who see through the bullshit,” he whispers. “And those who buy it.”

I should be processing his words, but all I can think of is the proximity of our lips. All I can feel is the anticipation of his lips against mine. We can’t kiss. Especially not in Roland’s house or under these circumstances. I wonder if Matt feels the same pre-kiss tension, if it really is tension at all. Maybe I’ve been programmed by secular media to think this is the perfect pre-kiss moment. A tense situation, the boy who’s suddenly my closest friend…

“I don’t know what’s bullshit and what’s not, Matt,” I admit, stepping back and breaking the spell.

“Good,” he says in relief. “No one does. Please, please don’t become someone who is so sure they know that they push others away from searching.”

Suddenly, his confused words start to make sense. He hasn’t really been talking to me at all over the last five minutes.

“Your dad did that to you,” I say, not ask.

Matt’s nostrils flare and he clenches his teeth. “Still does.”

“And you’re not searching anymore, are you?”

He shakes his head. “God stopped searching for me.”

“Matt,” I gasp, shaking my head. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah? Do you know that for sure?” he challenges, taking on a snide tone.

I lift my chin. “What I do know is that if God can relentlessly chase me and tackle me to the ground, He can do the same to you. People who are being followed rarely know it until it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

“Yeah.” I snicker and look down. “Too late. To change your mind. Change directions. God isn’t bullshit, Matt,” I say, making my way for the door to the living room, uncomfortable that these words are coming out of my mouth. But He’s not bullshit. “Don’t stop being my friend over that, please. I’m still trying to figure myself out in all of…this. But one thing I do know is I can’t pretend to know more than the creator of the universe. Does that make me someone who sees through the bullshit? Or someone who buys it?”

Matt’s gaze falls to the floor, where he seems to be piecing together an imaginary puzzle. Looking up, just as confused, he shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Well, my guess is we’ll have lots of time to figure that out. But, for now, I’ve got to get back to Roland and the shitstorm that is our shared DNA.”

Matt’s features remain soft as he follows me through the door. We cross into the living room, and Matt leans in to me. I can feel his lips against my ear.

“Clean up your mouth before you open it again, K. Sawyer.”

I hear the grin in his voice, and am grateful that, for now at least, he remains on my side.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


You Won't Relent


You know that feeling you have when you wake up on Christmas morning? The anticipation from the night before shoots you out of bed and racing downstairs. Everything seems to be in Technicolor—a picture perfect representation of your own life. As you get older, you know that none of this is actually happening, but you still hold on to those moments of perfect. The peaceful elation of something you’ve waited for all year.

Waking up this morning was the exact opposite of that.

With much reluctance on my part, and his, Matt went back to the dorms before we all fell asleep. Jahara insisted that we didn’t want any more problems with the media than we were already guaranteed, so the boyfriend needed to go. Matt and I half-heartedly fought the boyfriend angle, but Jahara was adamant that it didn’t matter. Matt was the one who rescued me from the throes of students and whisked me away to my birth father’s house. As far as anyone would be concerned for a long while—he was my boyfriend.

Even if he wasn’t.

Matt texted me when he got back to his dorm and said his floormates were eerily quiet. He suspected there was some sort of gag order placed on all of them in regards to asking questions. I thanked him for everything and was then forced to deal with the awkward question of where I’d sleep.

I’m not one of those people who gets too stressed out to sleep. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Stress exhausts me. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to take my shoes off in the guest room Roland led me to before passing out into a deep sleep. I knew somewhere in my subconscious that my mom would be arriving in a few hours, but that was hardly enough to keep me awake. It likely made me fall asleep faster.