Текст книги "Immaculate"
Автор книги: Katelyn Detweiler
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar.
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.
My hand flew to my mouth to trap the scream I could feel rattling up my throat. All three of the boys got down on their knees and leaned forward into bows, their arms fanned out on the floor below me.
O, star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect Light.
Darren pushed himself up off the speckled linoleum and stood. He fiddled with a knob on the speakers, lowering the volume, then reached into his front pocket slowly. “I present you, my fair Virgin Mina, with gift number one.” He pulled out a handful of condoms and held them above his head for everyone to see. “Very valuable to have around. Too late this time, of course, but I’m sure there will be plenty of other opportunities.” He laughed hysterically at his joke, tossing the shiny gold foil packets onto my lap before lowering back down to his knees.
Eric stood up next, opening his hand to reveal a small pink plastic bottle. “Perfume for your purse, Virgin Mina. I hope you like the scent I picked. It’s called Seductress. Sounded just perfect for you.”
I balled my fists against my eyes to block out everything that was happening, as if it would all cease to exist if I couldn’t actually see it anymore. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Please let this be a nightmare. I was dreaming, and I’d wake up soon.
Myrrh is mine: its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom.
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
The music clicked off, and I dropped my hands from my face.
“That’s enough!” Jesse’s voice, strong and angry, filled the sudden silence.
“Yo, asshole,” Kyle said, standing up and getting so close to Jesse that their chests nearly touched. “We haven’t finished yet, so sit the fuck down and mind your own business.” He gave Jesse a small push backward, throwing him off balance as he stumbled over an empty chair.
“And for Virgin Mina’s last gift,” Kyle continued, holding up a small clear bottle, “I present her with Johnson & Johnson’s finest baby oil. Very important for the baby on the way, obviously, and I’m sure she’ll find lots of other creative uses, too.”
Jesse lunged at Kyle, and they tumbled against the wall behind our table. Jesse was a few inches taller, but he still had nothing on Kyle and his overmuscled football player’s body, especially with Eric and Darren just waiting for the right moment to jump in. Kyle punched once, hard, his fist landing on the edge of Jesse’s cheek.
I felt Hannah push her chair back and get up beside me, and I followed her motions without thinking, hurrying to catch up with her as she ran over to Jesse.
“Stop it, Kyle! Stop hitting him!” she was screaming, hands thrashing at both sides as she flung herself into the middle of the action. I was just steps from joining her when my hands rushed to cradle my stomach. I couldn’t help break up the fight. I couldn’t risk the chance of Kyle’s fist anywhere near my body. I backed away, frantic to be as far from danger as possible.
“Help,” I said, gasping, looking around me. No one seemed to notice, even though their eyes had been glued to me just seconds before. I was nothing now, invisible compared to the drama of the fight.
A shrill whistle blew from across the cafeteria, and I looked over to see two aides rushing toward us. Kyle stepped back as they approached, fists clenched at his sides in surrender. Relief swelled through me and I moved closer to Jesse and Hannah, needing to make sure that they were both okay now that the baby was safe.
A heavyset aide with cropped black hair stepped up beside me and spit out her whistle, while the second aide, white-haired and petite, hung back, keeping her distance. As my eyes landed on her and her face came into focus, I froze.
Iris.
She was here.
In my cafeteria. Almost swallowed up in the background as my classmates seethed and roiled like a wild, stormy sea around her.
She was looking at me, too, those same piercing green eyes, as her lips twisted up in a smile. A friendly smile. A reassuring smile.
I looked down for a second to steady myself against the table, and when I looked up again, there was no Iris. There was still a second aide, small and white-haired, but her face looked nothing like Iris’s. And she was too far away for me to even see her eye color—how had they looked so green before?
I shook my head, dizzy from the image.
“All right, show’s over, men. You’re both coming with me.”
“Jesse,” I said, my heart still racing as I tried to bring myself back to what was happening around me. “I’m so sorry. Let me come with you and explain.”
“Mina, it’s fine.” His jaw was already bruising from the hit, and a few spots of blood had been smeared above his top lip. “I’ll go with her. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t think about anything except Iris, that overwhelming belief that she had been there, watching over me somehow. I nodded my silent agreement, stepping toward Jesse and wrapping my arms around his neck in thanks. He stiffened at the touch, and I pulled back, realizing that everyone was staring.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My cheeks were flaming, and I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Everyone’s watching . . . and I didn’t mean for anyone to get the wrong idea about you. About us.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, giving my shoulder a soft tap before turning and following both aides through the maze of tables toward the side door, Kyle close behind him. I stood looking out over the eerily still cafeteria, blinking as reality slowly started to settle, a few whispers giving way to the normal sounds of chatting and laughing and yelling across the tables. When my daze lifted, I realized I was directly facing my old table. I looked for Arielle’s face, the reason this had all just happened to me, but she wasn’t there—she was probably too busy slapping hands with Kyle’s friends on the other side of the cafeteria.
But Izzy and Nate were there. They were staring into each other’s eyes from across the table, their faces hard and pale under the fluorescent lights. People talked around them, to them, but they both seemed too lost in their mutual thoughts to notice. They were sharing something, some deep, unsettling vision, and I ached to grab both of them, shake them out of their stupors—make them look at me and listen to me and understand just how hard this was for all of us. But they looked so far from me now, so removed from all my pain. I couldn’t worry about them, not anymore.
And though part of me wanted to find Arielle and scream at her, yank her perfect, shiny hair, I knew it wouldn’t do any good at this point.
I had to let everyone go, everyone but Hannah and Jesse and my family. Everyone who didn’t and couldn’t believe in me and my story. Seeing Iris, whether I had imagined her there or not, had made it all so much clearer. I couldn’t worry about changing anyone else’s mind. I only had the power to change myself.
I wasn’t ready to talk about Iris, though—about that second of absolute certainty, not even with Hannah. She reached out from behind me as if she’d heard my thoughts, pulling me down onto the seat next to her.
“I wanted to help,” I said, “but I didn’t want Kyle to accidentally hurt the baby.”
“I know. Trust me, I would have gone totally psycho on him if he’d laid a hand on you, so we’re all better off that you stayed away.”
I squeezed her hand, weaving my fingers through hers. “Everyone knows now, Hannah. Even if some people were confused when it was happening, I’m sure Kyle and his friends will be screaming the whole story through the halls until every last person in this building knows everything. I mean, they blared ‘We Three Kings’ and threw condoms and baby oil at me, Han. Who the hell does something like that to someone they barely even know? I mean, obviously I know that Kyle and Arielle and their friends never really liked me, but still? This? This much?” Saying it all out loud made me want to crawl into an infinitely deep, dark hole in the cafeteria floor and stay there until no one even remembered that Mina Dietrich had ever existed in these hallways.
“They’re such immature shitheads that they’ll do anything to put someone down.” She sighed. “But you’re right. There’s nothing we can do to stop the news from spreading.” No frills to pretty up the truth, no silver lining.
“What am I going to do now?”
“I know what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to run away. You’re not going to hide. You’re not going to let any of these damn idiots think you have anything to be ashamed about or sorry for. Okay, Meen? You keep doing what you’re doing. You go to class, you make plans for the future. You take care of yourself and that baby growing inside of you. You keep living. And you hold your head up high because you are so much more special than even I could have ever imagined. And I picked you as a friend the first second I met you, so that’s saying something.”
I nodded and tried to smile, but my lips refused. “You’re right. I don’t hide. I live my life. Fuck them, Han. Fuck them all.” The words sounded harsh and more powerful than I felt, but they filled me with a burst of hope—hope that I really could rise above the judgment and criticism to come. I could be strong. I could be courageous.
A bright white paper plane flashed out of nowhere and soared toward me, the nose making a small jab against my forehead before the plane tumbled down my face and chest and landed on top of my untouched food. Heat prickled along my neck as I felt eyes turning back to me. I picked the plane up and unfolded the paper, careful to hold my trembling hands steady.
ALL, BEWARE:
THE SECOND COMING IS NOW UPON US.
I smiled as I tore the paper in half, and then in half again and again, until the plane was just a pile of shreds on the floor below me. And then I blew a kiss to no one in particular, nothing but the air, and picked up my sandwich to start eating.
“It’s hard to believe that you’re already twenty-two weeks in,” Dr. Keller said, flipping her folder open as she rolled her stool over to the exam table to face me. Her assistant Jamie hovered just behind, a quiet, obedient shadow. “How have you been feeling? Anything concerning you?”
“No, nothing I didn’t expect at this point. A little aching in my back, some soreness and swelling in my feet, but otherwise I’ve been feeling good. Much better than the last few months, actually.” I was surprised to hear myself saying that out loud, and even more surprised to realize that I actually meant it. It had already been more than a month since the Three Wise Men debacle, and so far, miraculously, nothing else too cataclysmic had come out of the big reveal. Jesse, fortunately, had got away with only a warning, given that he’d had an unblemished record and Kyle had already been an established troublemaker. People stared at me more maybe, whispered more, but I was becoming a master at tuning them out. I hadn’t seen visions of Iris again, either, and no matter how illogical I knew it was, a part of me hoped that she’d actually been there, even for a second. I wanted to believe that she was watching me, that she hadn’t abandoned me to deal with all this on my own.
“Good. And have you felt the baby move at all yet?”
“No,” I said, my hands automatically settling around my belly, a position they were in more and more often lately. I usually woke up that way, holding my stomach in my sleep. My arms felt too heavy and inconvenient, unnatural even, if I just left them dangling at my sides. “But that’s not abnormal, right?”
“No, not for a first-time pregnancy. It’s true that most women feel movement closer to twenty weeks, but it’s nothing to worry about right now, Mina. I expect it’ll happen soon. Can you lie back for me?”
She was quiet as she and Jamie went through the motions, taking my blood pressure, feeling my abdomen, checking my hands and feet for any swelling. When it was time to use the Doppler to listen to my baby’s heartbeat, I closed my eyes and let the sound flow through me. The perfectly rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump was just as mind-blowing to me as it had been the first time I’d heard it, maybe even more so now. The more I processed and accepted what was happening to me, the more amazing it became. I wanted to carry the sound with me all day, a constant reminder that there was a real miniature person with a beating heart growing inside of me. Before now I had never thought about the fact that pregnant women held two working hearts—and I was pretty sure that even after the second heart was no longer physically inside my body, emotionally I would have double the hearts, double the love within me for the rest of my life.
“Well, Mina, everything is looking good, perfectly normal for this stage. I’ve gone over what the hospital sent me from your midpregnancy ultrasound, and your baby seems to be developing perfectly on cue. Speaking of the ultrasound, I take it you’re still planning on waiting until delivery to learn the baby’s sex?”
“Yes. Definitely waiting.” Everything else about this pregnancy was a mystery, so it only seemed fitting to keep this a secret, too. “You know, I never peeked at my Christmas presents early either. And I still refuse to help Gracie now when she begs me for hints. Surprises make life so much more interesting.” I smiled—that was certainly an understatement.
“Of course,” Dr. Keller said, her bright pink lips attempting a smile in return, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
She looked back down at her papers, jotting down a few notes, and I pulled myself up onto the edge of the exam table. I looked down and started to pull my gown closed in the front, but I stopped when I realized just how obvious my bump had become. How had my body changed so quickly? I’d already gained more than twelve pounds according to Dr. Keller’s scale. What would I look like next week? Next month?
“Jamie,” Dr. Keller said, nodding toward her assistant, “you’re free to go prep the next patient. I’ll take it from here.” She waited for the door to click behind Jamie before she turned to face me.
“I’ve been wanting to check in with you about the recommendation I gave to talk to a professional counselor about some of what you’re going through. I received the message that a coordinator has tried to reach you several times now, but they’ve yet to hear anything from you. Did you get the voice mails, or is it possible they were using the wrong number?”
“I did get the messages, yes,” I said, pulling my gown tighter around my chest and belly. “And while I really do appreciate the suggestion, I think I’m going to pass for now. I have the support I need and, to be perfectly honest, I’m really not in the mood to have one more person think I’m crazy. If you have any other questions you’d like me to answer for you, I’m happy to, but I’m not telling my story to some counselor who’s going to send me off to the psych ward.”
“That’s not what a counselor would do. They would just help you get to the bottom of some of what you’re feeling right now. No one thinks you’re crazy.”
“You mean by get to the bottom of it, they’d help me uncover what awful truth I’m actually hiding from myself, right? Like this is all some delusion I’ve created to cover up who really made me pregnant?” I could feel my cheeks burning, and I regretted the decision not to bring my mom into the room with me. She was out in the waiting room—she’d insisted on driving me—but I’d told her I wanted to do this part on my own. That I had to start feeling more independent and comfortable handling these sorts of things by myself. But I wanted her in here now, holding my hand while she made all of Dr. Keller’s questions disappear.
“Oh, Mina,” she said, her voice low and subdued. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sorry, I really am. The truth is, I don’t know what the best thing to say right now is. I don’t know the best way to help you because, quite honestly, I still can’t really wrap my head around what you’re telling me, and what all this means. I want to take you at your word as my patient, but . . . we both know that you’re an unusual case. One of a kind. I don’t exactly have a lot of experience with handling this kind of . . . situation.” She paused, her hands flying to her face, covering her cheeks, which were now as red as mine felt. “I shouldn’t even be saying any of this out loud. But you know what? Doctors are humans, too. And I want to be understanding and supportive for you. I want to know what you’re really going through every step of the way.”
“I get that, really I do,” I said. “I’m sure they don’t teach divine intervention as part of the reproductive unit in med school. You’re not trained to deal with someone like me. And honestly, I can’t expect you to believe me. I mean, my own dad thinks I’m a liar, and he’s my dad. All I want is to not have to defend myself every time I come here to see you. Because now that everyone in Green Hill knows what’s going on, I spend way too much of my time defending myself. I don’t need that here, too. I look forward to this, you know, hearing the heartbeat, knowing everything is normal and healthy and happening like it should. It’s when everything feels most real. Most special. So please, can we agree to that?”
She looked at me, her eyes red-rimmed and watery beneath her pink plastic eyeglass frames. I could practically see straight through them to the struggle happening beneath. Was it more important to get to the bottom of what could have happened, to some dark, repressed sexual memory? Or to stand by me? Focus on me and the baby, the future—not the past?
Dr. Keller nodded, coming to her decision. “Absolutely, Mina. I want you to feel safe here. I want you to be able to say what you’re really thinking and feeling. You know that everything is completely confidential.”
I nodded, and I could feel my own tears pricking at the corner of my eyes. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
“Of course.” She reached out to me, her hand grasping mine as our fingers briefly interlaced. “So I’ll see you in another four weeks, Mina, but please know that you can call whenever you have any questions. I’m here. I’m always here.”
• • •
I could see the mystery green car sitting in our driveway from a quarter mile down the road.
“Mom? Who is that at our house?” I asked, turning to get a clear view of her expression. She bit her lip and looked out the driver’s side window, avoiding my eyes.
“I think it’s . . .” She trailed off, ticked her fingers against the wheel. “Well . . . Mina, your father mentioned something this morning about maybe having Pastor Lewis stop by. You’ve had such a long few weeks at school, and you had your appointment today, and I just . . . I don’t know, I didn’t want to add to everything else. I figured he’d probably even change his mind, or that the pastor would already have plans.”
“And why would he have Pastor Lewis come to our house?” I asked, a burst of anger pouring through me so red-hot that my hands were already shaking as I balled them into fists. Pastor Lewis had tried calling me a few times, had left a few polite messages to check in, but I had never followed up with him. I was too scared to hear what he might have to say. “Does Dad think the pastor will talk sense into me? Make me confess or something?” And, silly me, here I’d thought my dad and I had been slowly working our way to an understanding. Clearly, I’d been mistaken. He was just trying to soften me, maybe. Knock down my defenses until I was ready to finally tell the truth.
But I’d already told him the truth. I’d told all of them the truth. He just didn’t want to hear it.
“No!” I yelled, my voice so unexpectedly loud and high-pitched that my mom jumped, banging her shoulder against the window. “No,” I said, steadier this time. “I have nothing to say to Pastor Lewis, Mom. I’m not defending myself.”
“You don’t have to defend yourself, Mina. He’s not going to interrogate you. You know Pastor L. He might be able to help you make more sense of all this. Maybe he’ll give you more perspective.”
I snorted. “Perspective, huh? So you agree with Dad on this one?”
“Mina, I know this may be hard for you to believe, given how strained things have been around the house. But your dad still wants what’s best for you. He cares about you, and he’s worried. He’s incredibly worried, Mina, about how stressful all this has been for you.”
“Well, if he’s been so worried this whole time, why hasn’t he just talked to me about it? Asked me how I’m doing? I can count on one hand the number of times he’s said a word to me in the past few months.”
She sighed, finally turning to look at me as she parked the car and turned off the ignition. “I don’t know, Mina. He has a different way of dealing with things. I know it’s not the best way, but we can’t force him into this, sweetie. He needs to find his own path back to you. He loves you. You have to remember that.”
“Loving someone means having faith in them. Trusting them. Supporting them. Last I’d checked, he’s failed to do much of that over the last few months.”
“Please just give this a chance, Mina. Talk to him and Pastor Lewis. Just for a few minutes at least. For me.”
I could hear the tremor in her voice, the needy, pleading undertone, and I wanted to give her some kind of relief, some kind of hope that things would get better. I knew that this wasn’t easy for her, either, her husband and her daughter barely speaking.
“Fine. A few minutes.” I clenched my sweaty hands as I got out of the car, kicking the door shut behind me. As soon as I stepped into the cool damp of our foyer, I could hear voices from the kitchen, Gracie and Dad with Pastor Lewis. They were all laughing, joking about something I couldn’t quite make out. The sound of it hit me like a kick to the stomach. How could my dad sound so happy? Why wasn’t he as torn up as I was?
Their laughter stopped as soon as they heard my footsteps in the hall. Gracie ran to me, wrapping her little spindly arms around my waist and burrowing her head into my side.
“Hi, Pastor Lewis. Hi, Dad,” I said, nodding toward both of them. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes, Mina, I think that a family talk with Pastor Lewis would be a good thing for all of us,” my dad said, his gaze fixed somewhere on the yellow-checked wall behind me.
“Well, you know, Dad, I have been here since August, living in the same house as you. You haven’t seemed all that interested in talking to me.” I bit down on my lip to stop myself. I would be mature about this, at least in front of Pastor L.
“Let’s go sit in the living room,” I continued, starting for the hallway before either of them could respond. I was suddenly feeling exhausted and every bit of twenty-two weeks pregnant. I pressed my hands against my back as I walked, rubbing out the dull, persistent ache. My baby was now roughly the size of a papaya, or (finally!) a much more appealing description—a small doll, coming in at a whopping one pound, eight or so inches long. A doll that was developing senses, a doll that was beginning to touch, see, hear, taste.
I settled onto the sofa with a pillow behind me, propping my feet up on the coffee table. Pastor Lewis and my dad sat on the love seat directly across from me, while Gracie and my mom hovered for a minute before deciding to join me on the couch.
I had known Pastor L for my entire life, and I’d never seen him look nearly as uncomfortable as he did right then. He was always so calm and composed, as if he had all the secrets of the world just waiting for you behind his bright twinkling eyes. But he looked very uncertain and very out of place in our living room, picking at the white clerical collar around his neck like it had suddenly become a few sizes too small. I had always loved Pastor L—he was a warm, big-hearted teddy bear of a man who had a hug and a kind word for every person who walked through the church doors. But as I sat there watching him fidget and perspire, thinking about the role he’d played in my life, I realized that a big part of why I had loved him so easily was because he made religion feel simple. He didn’t push envelopes, he didn’t ask hard questions. He had never made me face my doubts, had never made me even consider that I had any doubts at all.
Hopefully he wouldn’t finally start with the hard questions now.
Pastor Lewis coughed, clearing his throat. “It’s good to see you, Mina. I’ve been keeping you in my prayers these last few months. You and the baby, too, of course. I was glad that your family invited me here today, though, so I could ask for myself how you’re doing.” He paused, waiting for me to respond.
“I’m doing okay, Pastor L,” I said, forcing my lips into a smile. “Considering the circumstances, anyway.”
“Very good, very good,” he said, knotting his fingers so rapidly that his knuckles made a fierce cracking sound. “Your father tells me, Mina, that . . . How do I say this? The child was conceived in a rather miraculous way. That there’s no father. And that this all started with the appearance of a mysterious woman at the pizzeria one night.”
“That’s all correct,” I said. “I don’t mean any offense to you, Pastor Lewis, but I have nothing to add to that.”
“And I’m not here to disagree with you, Mina,” he said, his voice deeper, more mellow and assuring, like he’d started acclimating to the bizarre surroundings. “I’m here just in case you have any questions, or anything at all you want to talk about. You should know after, what—nearly eighteen years now?—that I’m not a fire-and-brimstone kind of preacher.” He leaned back into the chair, propping one leather loafer against his knee. “I have to admit, even as a Pastor, I’m not the most literal of biblical scholars. Do I believe that God created the entire world in seven days and seven nights? Do I believe that Noah actually loaded up an ark full of animals? That Moses parted the Red Sea?” He cocked one eyebrow dramatically and wriggled his shoulders. “Literally? No, probably not. To be perfectly honest, Mina,” he said, putting a finger to his lips as he leaned in and whispered, “I’m not even sure that I believe in Hell.”
I heard my dad gasp next to him, and I pressed my lips together, stifling a laugh.
“But that is a discussion for another day. My point is that faith isn’t a rigid book of rules to me. I believe in a compassionate, loving God. And I believe in a compassionate, loving Jesus. I might have a fancy certificate saying that I graduated from seminary school, and I might have this fancy collar around my neck, but I don’t have any answers for you today, Mina. I’m as dumbstruck as you are. Faith is one heck of an interesting journey sometimes,” he said, chuckling to himself as he reached out to pat my knee.
“Thank you,” I started, grinning at him in relief. “I was a little—”
“Pastor,” my dad interrupted, his face flushed as he leaned forward to intrude upon our cozy powwow. “I don’t want to speak for you here, but I was hoping you might have a little more insight into what is really going on.”
“And what do you mean by ‘really going on’?” I asked, turning to look at my dad.
“I’m worried,” he said, his blue eyes drilling into mine. “I am scared every second of every day, Mina, worrying about what God is thinking about all this. About how these—these lies you’re telling—could . . . could change your path forever. Pastor,” he pleaded, tilting his head toward Pastor Lewis, “can you really sit there and not be terrified for my daughter’s future?”
“If by ‘future’ you mean whether she’ll make it to Heaven, then no. I’m not scared,” Pastor Lewis said simply, his voice like a smooth touch, gently nudging my father back toward his seat.
“I’m not sure that I believe in Hell either,” I said, feeling encouraged and emboldened by everything Pastor L had said. It felt good to say the words aloud, as if I was freed from something I had never realized was holding me back before now. “I’m not scared, Dad, and I don’t want you to be scared for me either. I just want you to be in my life again.”
“Do you think I don’t want that, too, Mina?” he asked, his voice breaking as he buried his face behind his hands. “It’s tearing every last piece of me to shreds to ignore you like this. This isn’t what fathers do. It’s at least certainly not what I do. I’ve watched you and your mother deal with this for the last few months, and I’m so damn proud of you for fighting through it all, holding your head up high, but I don’t understand why you keep hiding behind lies, Mina.”
I couldn’t begin to respond, not right away. I closed my eyes first, trying to relax my abdominal muscles and breathe in deeply from my diaphragm, a meditation practice I’d been turning to whenever I felt the stress closing in on me. It seemed so simple, but it was more helpful than I would have ever imagined, giving me the strength and calm I needed to make it through my days at school. Ten. I inhaled, exhaled. Nine. In, out. Eight.
“Mina?” My mom laid her hand on my elbow. “Are you okay, sweetie? Does something hurt?” Gracie leaned in against me, curling up alongside my belly.
“I’m fine, Mom. Just trying to stay calm for the baby’s sake.” I took another deep breath in and opened my eyes, locking them on my father’s face.
“I can’t explain why this is happening, Dad, but it doesn’t feel wrong to me. It doesn’t feel bad or dirty or freakish. It feels . . . it feels amazing, actually. It feels like it was meant to be for some reason, like this was meant to be my life. And maybe someday I’ll understand all of it, or maybe I won’t. I don’t know. But either way, this is my life now. This is what I’ve chosen.”
I turned to Pastor Lewis to thank him again, but before I could say anything, I felt a strange tickling in my stomach—like a tiny, fragile butterfly was fluttering its wings for the first time, flapping its way slowly into life. I looked down and grinned, a golden, sunny happiness flooding through my body.
