Colton
We walk out of the building in silence, and I drop back just slightly to let Alexis lead the way to her home. She stops at the door, turning to me and opening her mouth, but I hold up a hand to stop her.
“I’m walking you home.”
She shrugs and mutters something I don’t quite catch, and we fall back to quiet.
I just don’t know how to talk to her. I mean, I met her all of half an hour ago. But I can’t just let her go. Obviously, she’s getting my number before we say goodbye, but I just… feel like we need to talk before that. Especially after what I saw earlier. But I just don’t know how.
Her sigh breaks the silence before I can figure it out.
“Look,” she says quietly. “Just get it over with. I know what’s coming, so don’t worry about making it nice.”
What the heck is she talking about?
I bite my lip and make a helpless gesture.
“Get what over with?”
She exhales again. “The lecture. We both know what you saw earlier, and you might as well yell at me about and get it out of the way.”
“I…” I falter and start again. “Alexis, I won’t lie to you and say I haven’t been wanting to talk to you about that. But a lecture is the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Really?” she asks with the hurt edge to her voice that I’m sure is so often mistaken as anger. “Then what were you going to say?”
I hesitate. “I’ll tell you,” I say after a long moment. “But first, tell me what you thought I was going to say. You’ve obviously heard it before.”
Her quiet, rye laugh is conformation of the fact. She’s quiet for a minute, but I know it’s coming. When she does speak, her voice is barely audible, yet full of bitterness, hurt, and utter rejection.
“You were going to say that I’m handling everything wrong. That I need to find a different way to cope. That it’s straight-up stupid to hurt yourself like that. You were gonna ask if I even realize that I’m hurting those around me by my behavior, and you were gonna tell me that it needs to stop no matter what, and I need to go get a counselor and have him teach me how to handle ****** life.” She kicks a rock lying on the sidewalk. “Call it a lecture or not, you know that’s what you were gonna tell me.”
I feel my heartbreak with every one of her words. I don’t understand how someone could actually say that to her.
“Alexis, that’s not what I was gonna say,” I tell her softly. “I would never lay so much shame on your shoulders.”
“Yeah?” That harsh note is back in her tone. “Then tell me what you wanted to.”
I take a deep breath. “I just want to know why you do it,” I say finally, by voice barely above a whisper. “I just want to understand.”
She’s silent for several minutes, but I don’t push. I can tell she’s shocked, deciding whether or not she believes I’m being true and whether or not she wants to answer my question, even if I am. It just gives me a perfect chance to pray.
“I’d like to see what you would do…” Her voice surprises me after so much quiet other than the crunch of our feet on the sidewalk. “if the parents you love with everything in your five year-old heart and trust with everything in your pathetic life turn out to be nothing more than fakes who leave you to fend for yourself as soon as he’s in jail and she can’t pay the nanny, and the one person who sticks through you in the good and the bad, no matter what, is killed by ****** cancer.”
I wince at her words, not only because of the story they tell, but also because of the total devastation and hopelessness that guides her tone.
“You have a point,” I reply softly as I try to get past the shock of her past. “I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know how I’d handle it. It’s very possible that I’d be just like you, making myself bleed, broken on the floor with no where to turn. Except I would have the whisper of my perfect, heavenly Daddy in my ear, begging me to fall into his arms again. I believe you have that whisper too, but you’re just not used to hearing it.”
“How do you honestly believe that?” she bursts out. “I mean, if He was really up there, why would down here even exist… the good, the bad, any of it? Why would He have ever wanted someone like me if He has all of Heaven?”
“Well…” I run a hand up through my hair, trying to think straight. “He didn’t want heaven without us. He had all of that, but He was missing something. He created us for Him. For His pleasure. I guess I think that’s pretty cool.”
“But…” She sighs. “Look, don’t take any of this to mean that I’m actually starting to believe you, because I’m not. But, if it was true, if there was really some fantastic Being in the sky that made me for His pleasure, why would he still want me? Because I can’t really see this life bringing Him much joy.” He laughs without any mirth at all. “Unless it’s amusement over how badly my life sucks and I suck at life.”
And here’s where I need Michael and the crew to be here to explain everything so much better than I can. But the least I can do is try.
And help me, Jesus.
“That’s something I still don’t understand,” I say carefully. “I don’t know how a perfect God could want my mess. But He did. He made me to bring Him joy. I’m His child. He’s my Father, and He loves me through all of it.”
“That hasn’t been my impression of a father,” Alexis mutters.
I nod slowly. “No, I guess it hasn’t. And that breaks my heart. But God is a good, good Father. He’s a perfect Father. Which means He always wants his runaway, rebellious, beaten-down, and broken children to come running home. He wants it so bad that He came down to earth in the form of Jesus and died in the most painful way, just so that He could have you and me back from hell.”
“I guess it must be nice to believe all that stuff,” she replies quietly. “But it’s not for me.”
“The Gospel is for everyone, and it changes everything,” I reply gently. “As hard as it is to grasp sometimes.”
She doesn’t answer, and I don’t push. Instead, I return to an earlier subject.
“So now I know why those scars are on your arm. But you haven’t heard what I’m going to say about it.”
“Hit me,” she says, her tone dull, prepared for any kind of hate or rejection I can hurl.
I take a deep breath. “I would say I’m here for you.”
I feel a giant weight lift from my shoulders as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“I know we met tonight, and you know nothing about me except that I’m a Jesus freak of a singer who doesn’t want you to walk home by yourself,” I continue, “but this…” I hand her a small slip of paper. “Is my phone number, and I just want you to know that I’m only a text or call away. Whenever you’re feeling the harsh reality of this world so hard it takes you to your blood,” I swallow hard, biting back tears. “I want you to know that you have someone to call. To just talk to. Because, sometimes, that’s all it takes.”
She’s shaking as she takes the paper from my hand and shoves it into her pocket, and she doesn’t say anything.
I don’t either. I’ve said what I needed to say. And I need to give her a chance to process.
And I notice for the first time how the area has been changing. We’re walking through a run-down neighborhood, with tiny houses basically on top of each other in their lots that aren’t really any bigger than they are.
There’s no fences, and there’s honestly no grass on the lawns. I know it’s February and a snap of sixty-degree weather doesn’t make grass come back, but it isn’t that the stuff is dead. It’s that it’s not there. Unless you count bind weed covering the ground, that is. We walk over a gang marker on the broken concrete, and I wince.
Alexis obviously notices and glances at it, then shrugs.
“That one’s new,” she mutters, just loud enough for me to hear.
That one.
“You mean there’s…”
She cuts me off. “More than one in the area?” She laughs bitterly. “Yeah. Like five. Don’t be surprised if we see someone get shot.”
I unconsciously move up to her side, like I honestly think being that much closer to her is going to protect her. But it can’t hurt.
She turns again, and the houses change to trailers. I don’t know why they even bother having windows in the things. The only thing most of them look at is the neighbor’s house.
And the sidewalk is gone as she turns again, replaced by weaving through the trailers any way we can. A different gang marker on the side of one trailer, trash everywhere, a pile of broken bottles. She lives in this environment.
We’re at the edge of the trailer park before she stops. At least if you had a window on the far side, it would overlook a field that has more glass in it than it does grass and then Denver. It’s better than the next person’s kitchen.
She shrugs slightly, gesturing at the trailer in front of us.
“Home, sweet home.”
The only thing that stands out about it is the drastically increased amount of beer bottles on its property.
I nod slowly, trying not to show her what I’m thinking.
“Thanks for letting me walk with you,” I offer after a long moment.
She shrugs. “I couldn’t really stop you.”
“Fair enough,” I laugh, “but thanks anyway.” I turn to her and place a hand on her shoulder. “I mean it, Alexis. Call if you need anything. I mean anything.”
She looks away from my gaze. Her response is so quiet I don’t catch it.
But before I can ask her to repeat herself, she turns on her heal, strides through the glass-littered yard, and disappears around the corner of the trailer.
And, just like that, she’s gone.