Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2)(67)

“You with us?” Kennedy snaps her fingers in front of my face, pulling me back to our study group.

I blink rapidly for a few seconds, trying to take Kennedy’s face out of that scene. That place. “I’m here, sorry.”

She doesn’t look like that girl from Tops. She doesn’t look like that girl from Tops.

I went to another one. In a skeevy neighborhood just past Downtown. I went so I could prove to myself how awful it was. That the fantasies that have been in my head for the last couple of weeks were made up—a way to justify what I’d done in my hometown over Thanksgiving Break.

It was awful. But I stayed. I stayed and watched these girls—who looked about the same as the girls at The Pink Pony—dance all night long. I got a few demerits out of the deal. One for not signing out before going off campus, one for leaving campus alone, and one for breaking curfew. Those were minor compared to what would have happened if anyone knew where I’d been that whole time.

The demerits hardly matter. They don’t address what it did to my insides to look around at the men there and realize I was one of them. And I liked it. Not being grouped into their likeness, but watching the girls. It excited me to watch their hips move, their breasts heaving from the tops of their lacy bras.

But it was wrong, and I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back. Those women aren’t mine to view. Even though I paid to do just that. They’re not mine. None of them are.

Who do they belong to?

I just wanted to see what was so exciting for my dad to risk his life on. I know now. Exciting, yes. Worth risking everything? No. I can’t shake the images from my mind, though. They’re like an open invitation welcoming me back there whenever I want it. I just close my eyes and I’m there again. It was a week ago that I went to Tops, and I know it’ll be dumb if I go back again. Now or ever.

I’m not him.

“I barely know my own family tree,” Kennedy mumbles, pulling me away from my daydream—nightmare—again. “Yet, somehow, I need to memorize thousands of years of Jesus’?”

Silas leans over, looking at Kennedy’s notebook. “Here,” he says, circling some things on her page, “try organizing it this way.”

For a few seconds, Kennedy studies the lines and arrows Silas has drawn. “Brilliant,” she confirms with a smile.

The change in Silas over the last couple of weeks has been palpable. He’s actively seeking out friendships and things to do with people, and smiles more than he frowns. Bridgette says this is how he’s always been, which seems reasonable since that’s how she always is. He maintains that this change is the work of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual force behind God and Jesus that transforms lives and changes hearts. Technically Jesus is God, God is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but they’re all just manifestations of the same thing. I guess. Anyway, Silas is different and, except for any medication he might be taking that I’m not aware of, I have to accept that God is working for him in ways that he’s not for me.

“Why do people say Old Testament God?” Kennedy asks, garnering the attention of our entire study group.

“What do you mean?” Eden asks, taking a break from her hand-holding with Jonah to put her hair in a ponytail.

Kennedy twists her lips in thought. “Not people in the Bible. I mean among us. People within our denomination or other denominations will say, the God of the Old Testament, or something like that. It’s the same God. Why the distinction?”

Bingo.

As usual, one of Kennedy’s honest, innocent questions stumps a group that, for most of their lives, has taken everything at face value. Not asking too many questions for fear of external repercussions or, more likely, fear of what they’d find.

“I mean,” she continues, “it’s not like he went to therapy or started taking SSRI’s. I get that his behavior seems different but, really … I think free will really scr—messed with him.” She’s getting better, but sometimes forbidden words still try to break free from her lips.

“Messed with who? God?” Jonah sets his pencil down and leans back, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Kennedy nods. “It’s like the eternal tale of the inventor who steps back in horror and exclaims, I’ve created a monster!” She chuckles and the rest of us seem to lean in at once, watching her think out loud. “It’s like God had this little box of free will he’d created however long ago, and was waiting for the right time to use it. Then, he created humans and thought, sure, why not? His plan seemed to be that allowing humans to have free will, they’d be able to choose to turn it back to him and, for their own good, allowing him to guide their lives. And, of course, they could use their free will for good, once praying about it … or something. Anyway, my point is … I think … is God created a monster when he gave humans free will. His wrath, while tough to swallow in the Old Testament, was him trying to rein it all in. Then, he decided to come down.”

“Sent an ant,” Silas cuts in. I wasn’t friends with them back when Kennedy told the tale of ants marching and sending messages to other ants and Jesus being the ant God sent to get through to us, but Silas and Jonah talked about it off and on for days. It stuck.

“An ant.” Kennedy nods.

“People don’t separate the Old and New Testament God,” Eden pipes in with a fire in her eyes. “It’s certain denominations of Christians that find the ramifications of sin uncomfortable, usually.”