Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(43)

“Forgiven?” I ask.

“Forgiven,” she answers. “And me?”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll let you off the hook this time.”

“Oh, come on!” She shouts away from the receiver, so I know she’s not talking to me. “Matt, I gotta go.”

“What’s wrong?” I’d almost forgotten that I’d asked her to talk just so I knew she was okay with that miscreant on the train.

One you’re supposed to love.

Kennedy’s voice is higher pitched than usual. “Our psychedelic baseball fan just spewed his Gatorade all over his seat.” I chuckle at her invisible air-quotes around his beverage of choice. “Good news? We get to move into a new car and he is staying in here. Bad news? I gotta go so I can get my crap together. Then, I’m probably going to try to sleep for a while since I’ll get to Connecticut at the crack of dawn. How much more time do you have on the train?”

I pull my phone away from my ear to check the time. “Just a couple hours.”

“Well, stay out of trouble,” she says with a small laugh. “Text me any excitement, if you should be as lucky as I’ve been today. Oh! Also text me over break, okay?”

“You got it. You text me, too.”

“I will. Oh,” she adds in again. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not broken. I don’t know what your story is, and I know you’ll tell me eventually, but you’re definitely not broken.”

I let out a soft sigh. “You’re sweet.”

“So are you. All right, it’s starting to stink in here, gotta go. Bye!”

“Bye,” I say long after the call ends.

Scrolling past my hidden “Heavy Metal” playlist, I settle for some Casting Crowns. I need to get my head on, and I know these guys get it. They get where I am, even if I don’t know how much I jive with their message. It’s not that I’m questioning my belief in God, or Jesus, or whatever, but seeing what my family has been put through in the past few years leaves me wondering.

Why?

My dad used to be a good guy. A hard working, Bible-loving, family man of a good guy. Then, just like that … gone. Everything I revered in him and believed to be true was washed away. Why would God do that to me? To test my belief? Nearly destroy my whole family just to test my belief? Not to mention my mother’s and sister’s?

“Girlfriend?” The woman across the aisle from me speaks up.

“Excuse me?” I ask politely.

She nods to my phone. “Was that your girlfriend?”

I shake my head. “Just a friend. My best friend,” I say out loud for the first time.

A sweet smile crosses her lips. “Yet,” she says.

“What?”

Shaking her head slightly, she goes back to her book. “Nothing. Sorry for butting in.”

“Not at all, ma’am.” I dial up my accent and southern charm. Her accent sounds about as far north as Kennedy’s does, so I know this could go one of two ways, but I’m counting on Hollywood’s romanticism of Southern boys to take over.

She takes the bait and smiles at me. “Keep that up with her, and she’ll be your girlfriend in no time.”

Grinning, I click play and adjust my earbuds before leaning my head against the window. No matter what ends up happening with Kennedy and I in the future, I desperately need a friend right now. More than I ever have.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





I’m Letting Go


Kennedy.




Thankfully, the drunken, scorned lover was the most exciting thing that happened on my trip. I was able to sleep several hours straight last night, thanks to my earbuds, neck pillow, and eye mask, and even though we’ll be pulling into the Stamford station in a few minutes, I managed to snag a cup of coffee from the dining car. I need to be awake enough to order at Starbucks, which will be my first stop once I get into my mom’s car.

I grin at the horror that would override Asher’s normally straight-faced facade if I told him I plan to spend a hundred dollars, give or take, at the international coffee chain over the course of the next several days. He asked me once, just after he hired me, if I ever drank there. My lack of response was all he needed. He just shook his head, told me that forgiveness was meant for coffee-drinkers, too, and walked away. I guess I should have picked up that he was a Jesus freak then, but I still thought he was joking around with me about my residence up on The Hill. I resolve to get to know him better once I get back to campus. I’ve avoided talk with him about the prison ministry that I know he has, because he hasn’t told me about it. It’s all been second hand information and I don’t want to seem like a weird stalker. But, I’m curious and, if nothing else, I’ve learned it’s best to go straight to the source when you need actual information.

Once inside the station, I’m grateful to shuffle past the luggage carousel and straight to the main area. This is one of the busiest Amtrak stations in Connecticut—save for New Haven—so business people traveling to and from jobs in New York City, and parts of Connecticut are forced to co-mingle with travel-wary Thanksgiving passengers, such as myself. In an effort to cause as little angst for those on their way to work, I keep my head down and head for the front sidewalk, where I arranged for my mom to pick me up. I’m anxious to see her, but hugging in the middle of a thousand stressed out corporate asshats is not my idea of a happy reunion.