Grace Alive: a Christian Romance (24 page)

My mom was applying her own eyeliner like a
pro. I swear we could be swerving and hitting mailboxes and my mom
will have the most perfect makeup. It makes me so jealous. She
calls it experience. She is a mom of three. She used to put makeup
on while driving us to school. Yikes. It’s lucky I didn’t die when
I was a kid.

“New shirt, Clare?” my dad asked as he
started up the engine. I looked down at my tiger shirt.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“It’s nice.” He gave me a smile as he backed
the van out of the driveway. Since when did my dad notice my
shirts? Weird. My mom and dad have been trying to connect more, it
was really freaky. My dad is awesome, but he’s not much for
talking. I think in their small group at church they’d been
discussing relationships with their children. I zoned out for a few
minutes by reading my Kindle. Suddenly, a deadly smell wafted into
my nostrils.

“Benny!” I waved my hand back and forth. Cam
gave me a look that said
I told you.
I had been warned. We
arrived at church not soon enough. I opened the door and gasped
dramatically for air. It made Benny laugh really hard. It really
stunk in there!

Cam gave me a glance, and I knew he wanted to
know if his hair was still looking good. Cam looks like my dad;
tall, skinny, light brown hair, with brown eyes. I look more like
my mom with dark hair and blue eyes. Benny looks like some sort of
combo. Cam likes this girl at church named Chelsea. I personally
think she’s a stuck up snob, but he can’t seem to take his googly
eyes off her. I have to admit she’s pretty, but seriously, the girl
takes selfies every five minutes. I nodded to him. It didn’t matter
how perfect his hair was, Chelsea was into blonds. She’d even told
me that. I think she knew that my brother had the hots for her but
was trying to subtly tell me that she was not interested. I didn’t
really have the heart to tell Cam that it was a hopeless cause.

He walked away with a confident smile, and we
stepped into the foyer. People walked into the sanctuary, some
sipped at coffee, not quite awake. My church isn’t huge, but it’s
not dinky either. I think we run about 200 on a normal Sunday.

“Hi, Clare!” My best friend Paige waved
wildly at me. I smiled at her as I shouldered my purse. Her light
brown hair was hanging down her shoulders in crimpy waves, her
hazel eyes smiling.

“Hi, Paige!” We embraced, and I could smell
the faint hint of vanilla. Paige loves vanilla body spray. It smelt
so good.

“I saved you a seat next to Lucy and me.”

“Are the twins here?” I looked around the
room to see if I could spot two of my other best friends. They are
identical opposites. While Raina was spunky and outgoing, Willow
was super shy. I spotted their brown curls as I went to put my
stuff down in my chair.

“Hi girls!” I said. Raina ran over to me and
threw her arms dramatically around my shoulders.

“Clare! Oh my gosh, I have so much to tell
you!” Her brunette curls bobbed. “Willow and I both bought new
outfits!” She pulled back from our embrace and squealed in my ear.
Ouch. Loud.

“That’s awesome!” I matched her grin as she
clapped her hands and stomped her feet like a little kid on
Christmas morning. Willow came over and shyly lifted her eyes to
mine.

“Hi, Clare.” She gave me a sweet smile, and I
pulled her into a gentle hug. Willow was never loud. Ever.

“We should probably sit down,” I said. Lucy
arrived a few minutes later with the largest Bible on the planet.
Lucy is like 110% Christian. Everything she does shouts,
I’m
amazing.
Sometimes her perfectness gets on all our nerves. She
tells us how much she prays every time we see her, and she’s the
youth pastor’s favorite. We all know it, but we still love her, or
most the time anyways. The service began, and we quieted our
chatter. Well, Raina’s chatter to be precise. I chuckled under my
breath as our worship leader, Mallory, began to play the keyboard.
Her soprano voice filled the sanctuary and brought me to my
feet.

“Good evening, everyone! I want you to stand
to your feet tonight and greet someone.” Mallory’s warm smile
stretched across her face. I turned around in my seat and nearly
choked. A cute blond boy met my eyes. I took an involuntary leap
backward and nearly hit the chair behind me. He looked startled by
my reaction but then laughed.

“I’m Dillon.” He flashed a boyish grin at me
that made my knees weak. Geesh, I was being such a girl.

“Hi, I’m Clare.” I reached out my sweaty hand
and shook his. He looked at me through thick eyelashes and tipped
his head to the side.

“I love your shirt.”

“Thanks,” I said. Mallory was beginning to
sing, and the band was revving up.

“Nice to meet you!” I waved to him as I
turned back around, my heart thudding like a drummer gone wild.
Good God. Literally. God had to be good for a guy that good looking
to be at our church. I caught Raina’s slacked jaw, and she mouthed
‘Oh my gosh!’ to me. I laughed as I tried to pay attention to what
was happening. I could feel Dillon’s eyes on the back of my head,
and it made me squirmy. What did the back of my head even look
like? I curled my hair like super speedy tonight; it probably was
flat by now. After worship ended, our pastor dismissed us to youth
group.

Us girls formed a blob as we made our way
into the other building. We had to go outside to get there, and we
were chatting the whole way. I eyed Dillon as he lingered behind us
several feet. I really wanted to find out more about him, or at
least find out where he came from. It was pretty abnormal for some
random teenage guy to just show up at our church. We were nearing
the door to the youth building when Raina, God love her, asked,
“Where you from?”

“My parents and I just moved here two weeks
ago. I’m from Detroit. That’s my brother Dex.” He pointed to a
dark-haired guy that was lagging behind everyone. He looked a
little bit older than Dillon, maybe 18 or 19? Raina’s eyebrows went
up.

“Big city boy,” Raina said. Her nose
scrunched. “Why on earth did you move here? We don’t even have a
decent Starbucks.”

He laughed and scuffed his feet against the
gravel. “God called us here. My dad’s a minister. He got hired on
staff as the new assistant pastor.”

“Oh wow!” Raina said. We headed into the
building as rain lightly splattered my curls. Man. There went my
curl job. Feeling like a wet dog, I weaved my way through the crowd
of rowdy teens. Our youth pastor, Pastor Carl, was not equipped for
the amount of teens that came every Wednesday. He always looked
harried and annoyed.

“Alright, alright! Let’s find our seats!” He
waved some teens to their chairs, running his bulky fingers through
his thinning hair. He wasn’t really that old. Maybe thirtyish, but
I think we were aging him and fast. I sat next to Paige. Raina
pulled out some lipstick, put it on, smacked her lips, and handed
me the tube.

“Put this on, girl. You need it.”

I stared at the bright pink lipstick and
shuddered. Ungh-ugh. I was not wearing that. It would probably make
me look like my 80-year-old grandma. It was bad enough that I had
gained five pounds this month; I was not adding fuel to the
fire.

“Nah.” I shook my head.

“Put. It. On. Now. Or so help me.” Raina gave
me her most fierce look. Good lord. I grabbed the lipstick, pulled
out a tiny mirror in my purse, and applied it before she threw a
tantrum. Actually, it didn’t look half bad on me. Wow. My makeup
was rough today. Stupid eyeliner. Satisfied, Raina took the
lipstick back, pulled out another color, and shoved it in her
sister’s hand. Willow gave me a helpless look as I handed her my
mirror.

After every girl in our row was wearing some
of Raina’s lipstick, Pastor Carl cleared his throat. As if that
would get anyone’s attention in this place. He grabbed his
microphone, which was never ever loud enough. He opened up his
Bible onto a wooden pulpit that was just a tad too high for his
short frame.

“Open your Bibles up today to 1 Corinthians
6:18-20. Jim, go ahead and read that out loud for everyone.”

Jim, a super shy guy, with too much height,
and pimples accenting his cheeks, stood up.

“‘Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a
man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality
sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God,
and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore
glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.’” Jim
turned all shades of red after he read the verse. My eyes widened.
Were we seriously talking about sex? Oh God. This was bad. I felt
my face turning beet red at the thought of Dillon sitting behind
me. Of course the day that this super cute guy shows up, and Pastor
Carl has to talk about sex!

“Can anyone tell me what this scripture
means?” Pastor Carl’s eyes swept the room. Please don’t pick me.
Please don’t pick me.

“Clare?”

No! I melted into my chair, but Pastor Carl
motioned me to stand to my feet.

“Can you tell everyone what this scripture
means?”

Sweat broke out over my entire body. Why the
heck was this happening to me? I heard snickers as I twisted my
lips in thought. I tended to bite my lower lip when I was
nervous.

“Um, I think, um…” Spit it out, girl! Why
didn’t he call on Raina? She never ceased to have something to say.
Just make something up! “Because Jesus died for me and loves me?” I
wanted to slap my forehead. What just spewed from my mouth? That
scripture wasn’t about the love of God! Laughter erupted from all
four corners of the room, and heat spread throughout my entire
body.

“Pastor Carl, I think what Clare meant to say
was, the scripture is talking about remaining pure and holy before
God. He wants us to remain chaste for our future husband or wife.
We’re not allowed pleasure before our covenant is made,” Lucy said,
rescuing me from my torment. Thank God she was a know-it-all! I sat
down in my chair and prayed that I would become invisible. Pastor
Carl smiled at Lucy.

“Excellent! This scripture is about keeping
ourselves pure! In today’s society we see impurity spread across
everything. T.V, Facebook, the internet, you name it. It becomes
difficult to follow God’s instruction for our lives to remain
pure.” Pastor Carl continued to preach, but I really didn’t hear
much after that point. How could I have said that? What was I, a
complete idiot? My face remained flushed the entire time as I
relived my stupid words over and over in my head.

“We are going to play a game,” Pastor Carl
said. He grabbed a stack of papers and pens and had this kid pass
them out. After I got my paper, I stared at it. It was one of those
games where you have to ask people if they’ve done one of the
things on the list. Such as: Have you ridden a horse? Or something
dumb like that. I was terrible at games like this. They were
icebreakers, but besides my friends, I didn’t really talk to a lot
of people in youth group.

“Okay! You have five minutes. Whoever wins
will get a gift card to Walmart.”

I could use some new makeup. I wanted to win
that card. Teens scattered all over the place. A girl I barely knew
came up to me with a scowl.

“Have you ever met a celebrity?” she asked in
the dullest voice possible. Someone was excited.

“No,” I said and scrunched my face slightly.
She turned from me without a second question. Alright. I tapped my
pen against my paper.

“Do you own your own car?” I asked this kid I
didn’t know at all.

“I wish!” He laughed and pushed past me.
Annoyed, I went to another person. I painfully and slowly began to
fill out my sheet until I had only three questions left. I’d asked
a lot of people the last three questions, but no one had done them.
I spotted Dillon. No. I didn’t want to ask him. It was dumb, but my
stupid answer earlier made me feel awkward. Raina caught my
attention and pulled me aside.

“What’s wrong with you? Go talk to that guy.
He’s hot!”

“I don’t know, Raina, he’s too hot. That’s
the problem. I feel like an idiot.”

“Here, I’ll go with you.” She tugged me along
until we were close to Dillon. “Clare wants to ask you a question.”
Raina smiled smugly and turned to me. My throat seized up, and I
was going to vomit. Right. Now. Puke gushed out of my mouth, all
over the front of my tiger shirt, and onto the floor. Raina
screamed and let go of me like I was a poisonous snake. Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh. I just puked in front of the cute guy. Willow was
instantly at my side rubbing my back.

“Pastor Carl, I’m going to take Clare to the
bathroom.”

Pastor Carl was staring at the pile of puke
in utter horror and nodded his head numbly. “Go, go…”

Willow wrapped her arms around my shoulder
and walked with me all the way to the bathroom, soothingly rubbing
my arm in the process.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” I kept saying over
and over to myself.

“Shhh…its fine, Clare, you’re fine. Are you
sick?”

“Uh huh,” I said. Yuck, my throat burned, and
my mouth tasted like garbage. I just puked in front of Dillon.
Sometimes when my nerves were wound tight, and I had eaten greasy
food, I’d puke. What had I eaten for dinner? Tacos. Oh dang it.
That was what it was! I usually avoided stuff like that, just
because it would make my stomach upset. We finally got to the
bathroom, and Willow turned on the sink. See why I love her?
Suddenly, Paige burst into the bathroom behind us.

“Clare! I’m so sorry! What happened?” She
came to my side. I was rinsing my mouth out as Willow continued to
rub my back.

“Tacos.” I lifted my head. “Do you have any
mints?”

Paige rummaged through her tiny purse and
produced Altoids. Thank God! I shoved two in my mouth as Willow
brushed my hair back from my forehead.