Little Do We Know(61)
“Thanks.” He pulled me in closer and kissed me harder. That time, it wasn’t a school kiss. It wasn’t even close. It left me wishing we could disappear and spend the rest of the day alone together, just talking and laughing and kissing like we used to. God, I’d missed kissing him.
I left the cafeteria and headed for the theater, feeling like my feet weren’t even touching the ground. Luke was back. I was back. We were Luke and Emory again, and everything was going to be fine.
After SonRise practice ended, I walked up to the sound booth and knocked on the door. Aaron opened it so quickly, I wondered if he’d run from the other side of the room. “There you are. Just in time. Come look.”
He sat on his stool and reached for the mouse. “I lightened the whole thing up a bit. I thought Luke would want to keep it kind of dark, and I couldn’t do too much more without it getting grainy, but I adjusted a few things so you can see him a little better.”
Luke was still in shadow, and the whole thing had the same mysterious look to it, but now I could make out the hint of a smile on his face. It was clearer, but it was still dark, the way Luke wanted it. “It’s perfect.”
Aaron pressed PLAY. “Hi. My name is Luke. To be honest, I’m not really sure why I’m doing this.”
Aaron and I sat in silence, watching Luke talk about the thick blue water, the room without walls, and the overwhelming sense of love he felt. And then he snapped his fingers and explained how it ended—how my words ended it—and I felt my heart break for him. Luke’s expression changed. He choked up. Then we heard my voice. “Do you think you saw heaven?”
He talked about fearing death, and how he believed his soul was safe and on its way to another place. And then, with his eyes fixed right on the camera, he said, “I know I’m going to be in that water again. I’m not ready to die or anything, but I’m not afraid of it anymore.”
The tape went black.
“It’s amazing,” I said.
“It really is. He’s articulate and charming,” Aaron said. “He draws you in, even before he gets to the part about the water. He’s so…real.”
I knew what Aaron was saying. The video was raw and emotional, unfiltered and powerful, thought-provoking and life-affirming. It made me want to cry and turn cartwheels, both at the same time.
“He reminded me of the kids we picked for the testimonial video, you know? Sincere and earnest without being cheesy,” Aaron said. “Actually, I had an idea.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “What?”
“What if you asked Luke to speak at Admissions Night? He could give his testimonial live.”
I let out a laugh. “You’re joking, right? There’s no way he’d do that. He doesn’t even go to school here. And besides, he’s not going to say yes.” I paused. “He’s only told us what happened to him. No one else can see this.”
Aaron shifted in place. “About that…Your dad came up here a few hours ago. I went to open the door and didn’t think to hide what I was doing. He walked straight to the computer, thinking I was working on one of the videos for the campaign, and he saw Luke’s face. I didn’t have any choice but to play it for him.”
That meant Dad had heard me asking the questions. He knew I’d snuck out of my room in the middle of the night. I wrung out my hands, already dreading the ride home. “He must have been furious.”
“Not at all. He loved it.”
I stopped fidgeting. “He did?”
“He was happy to see you talking to Luke about what happened to him. And he didn’t say anything, but I think he was also a little bit happy to see his sanctuary in the background.”
I pictured Dad sitting in front of the monitor a few hours earlier, watching Luke onstage, speaking so honestly about what he’d been through, and suddenly, everything became clearer. “It was Dad’s idea to ask Luke to speak at Admissions Night, wasn’t it?”
“How did you know that?”
I locked my eyes on his. “I know my dad.”
Aaron looked impressed. “Luke is this good-looking, nice, clean-cut kid who wasn’t a believer before, but died and came back changed. He believes something important happened to him.”
“He doesn’t know what happened to him,” I corrected.
“Maybe not, but he’s starting to realize he’s part of something bigger. Don’t you think he’s supposed to pass it on?”
“Not if he doesn’t want to.”
I thought back to the conversation Luke and I had after we shot the video. He didn’t necessarily believe he went to heaven. Or maybe he did, and I was the one who told him he might not have. I wasn’t sure. But either way, he was still figuring this whole thing out. I couldn’t put him on a stage in front of hundreds of applicants and their parents and make him talk.
“Luke experienced something intense that night,” Aaron said. “He’s trying to figure out what it all means. And talking about it with you, and to a camera…it seems to be helping a little, don’t you think?”
I had to admit, Aaron was right about that. Luke had seemed like a totally different person when we drove home from the church the night before, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And he’d been texting me all day, telling me how everything tasted better, and colors were more vivid, and his sense of smell seemed to be heightened. He said he hadn’t researched NDEs at all when he got home. He fell asleep right away and didn’t wake up until his alarm went off in the morning. He hadn’t slept for three hours in a row since the accident.