Secret Admirer Read online

  “Need some help?” offered Chelsea.

  “Sure.” Then Carlie described the packet and sat down on her bunk to wait for Chelsea to look.

  “Here it is,” said Chelsea. “Want me to open it for you?”

  Carlie nodded.

  Then Chelsea went to the bathroom and returned with a glass of water, handing Carlie the pills first and then the glass. Then she sat down beside her on the bunk.

  “I’m sorry, Carlie,” said Chelsea in a quiet voice.

  Carlie blinked. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really.”

  Carlie wasn’t sure what to do now. As mean as it seemed, she wasn’t ready for this. She was still mad at Chelsea. And she didn’t know if she could let go of that anger. Chelsea didn’t deserve it.

  “I know you’re mad at me,” continued Chelsea. “And I guess I can’t blame you.”

  “You can’t blame me?” said Carlie bitterly.

  “No. I was pretty sure you’d be mad.” Chelsea sighed. “But I figured you’d forgive me too.”

  “Why should I forgive you?” asked Carlie.

  Chelsea shrugged.

  “How fair is it that you picked on me? Or that you egged me on about jumping on the half-pipe? Or that you made fun of me and called me a liar in front of everyone? How fair is it that you think you can waltz in here and say you’re sorry and expect me to forgive you? Just like that. Easy breezy.” Carlie stared at Chelsea with narrowed eyes. On one hand, she was shocked by what she was saying, but on the other hand, it felt good to let her feelings out. And, besides, Chelsea deserved this.

  “I guess it’s not fair …”

  “That’s right,” snapped Carlie. “It’s not. And besides that you go around acting all boy crazy and you make fun of people who aren’t and you influence Amy to act like you and you —”

  “Fine!” shouted Chelsea as she stood up and faced Carlie. “You hate me. Go ahead and just say it. You hate me and you’ll never forgive me.” Tears were streaming down her face now. And then, before Carlie could say a thing, Chelsea turned and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  chapter eleven

  If Carlie was unhappy before, she was totally miserable now. She considered chasing after Chelsea, but even without a broken arm, it would be hard to catch her. It would be hopeless with her new handicap. Why had Carlie been so mean? What was the point of saying all that? Even if most of it was true, why did she have to say it the way she did? Why couldn’t she have been kinder? More like Morgan or Emily? Now Carlie started to cry. More than ever she wanted to go home. She wanted her mom and dad. She wanted her own room. She even wanted her noisy little brothers. But it had been her choice to stay here until tomorrow — she couldn’t very well back out now.

  “There you are,” called out Emily’s cheerful voice.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Morgan.

  Carlie sniffed and went to the bathroom for a tissue.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Emily when she reemerged.

  So Carlie told them about Chelsea, about how she apologized and how she asked Carlie to forgive her … “And you know what I did?” she sputtered out, “I yelled at her. I told her about everything she’d done that was wrong. I made her feel really horrible. It was like I wanted to hurt her just as much as she’d hurt me — maybe even more.”

  “Oh …” Morgan sat down in a chair and seemed to consider this.

  “And what did Chelsea do?” asked Emily.

  “She started crying and then took off.” Carlie wiped her nose again. “I really hurt her feelings.” She sadly shook her head. “And now I feel worse than ever.”

  “Did you think that you’d feel better if you yelled at her?” asked Emily.

  Carlie nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes my mom yells like that. She calls it venting. I hate it when she does it, and I always tell myself that I don’t want to be like that … and then there I go.” She sighed. “I’m hopeless.”

  Emily laughed. “No, you’re not.”

  “It feels like I am.”

  “Everyone feels hopeless sometimes,” said Morgan. “But that’s just God’s way of reminding us that we need him.”

  “Well, I guess I really need him.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “So …” Morgan paused as if she was thinking of how to put this. “Well, Carlie, did you even listen to what Cory said last night?”

  Carlie shrugged. “Kind of, but it didn’t make all that much sense.”

  “So you didn’t get that forgiveness is like a circle?” asked Morgan.

  “Not exactly.” Carlie looked hopefully at Morgan. “Want to explain it?”

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah. To put it simply, Cory said that forgiveness is a circle that shouldn’t be broken. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “He said that the circle begins with God …” Morgan used her finger to draw a circle in the air. “Up here …” She moved her finger up. “Is where God forgives us.” Then she circled down. “And then the circle continues and we forgive others … and that brings us back around to God again. Does that make sense?”

  “Kind of.”

  “But you see, when we circle down here, where we need to forgive others … if we don’t, then the circle gets broken and we can’t circle back up to God again. It’s like we land in a black hole.”

  “That’s where it feels like I am.”

  “So the way out of that hole is to forgive,” said Morgan.

  “But how do you forgive someone when you’re still angry at them?”

  “You ask God to help you,” said Emily. Then she told Carlie about how she had to forgive her dad. “I didn’t think that it was possible,” she admitted. “It just seemed too hard.”

  Carlie nodded. The story of what Emily’s dad had done had been frightening to her. Carlie couldn’t even imagine what she would do, or how she would feel if her dad was like that. “Yeah, I can understand that it’d be hard. How did you do it?”

  “I had to ask God to help me.”

  “And did he?”

  “Yes. But I realized I had to do my part too. It was kind of like having faith. It’s like you take the first step without knowing whether or not the earth is going to give way beneath your feet.”

  “And did it?”

  Emily smiled. “No. And the best part is how good I felt after I forgave my dad.”

  “What did he do?” asked Carlie.

  Emily just shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. I just had to forgive him on my own. Then I wrote him a letter and put it in a Christmas card that I took to the jail. I never saw him. And I never heard back from him.”

  “That was it?”

  “The ‘it’ part of it was that I forgave him, Carlie. With God’s help I forgave him. And when I did that, it was like I was suddenly closer to God again. It was like this huge weight was lifted, and I was happy again. How my dad reacted was up to him. I mean, I pray for him, but I can’t do anything about his choices.”

  “So does that make sense?” asked Morgan. She drew a circle with her finger again. “God forgives us, we forgive others, and the circle continues. We refuse to forgive, and the circle is broken.”

  Carlie nodded now. “Yeah, actually, it does make sense. You guys make a good preaching team.”

  Morgan and Emily laughed. Then all three of them hugged. And finally, Carlie asked if they could pray for Chelsea again. And this time Carlie prayed too.

  “Dear God,” she said after the other two finished praying. “I want to forgive Chelsea, but I need your help. I want to be a better friend to her, but I need your help to do that too. Please take care of Chelsea tonight, God, and help me to make things right with her.” Then they all said “amen.”

  “Well, it’s time to get back for tonight’s meeting,” said Morgan. But when they got back to the lodge and went into the meeting room, Carlie looked around and realized that Chelsea wasn’t there. As they s
ang songs, Carlie tried to keep an eye on the door, hoping that Chelsea would walk in. But by the time Cory started his talk, Chelsea was still not there. And now Carlie started to feel worried. She wondered if she should tell Janna. What if Chelsea was lost out in the snow somewhere? And if she was, would it be Carlie’s fault? Suddenly, Carlie knew that the only thing to do was to pray. So she bowed her head and without actually saying the words out loud, she began to pray in her head for Chelsea, begging God to keep her safe and bring her back tonight.

  Then, just as Carlie lifted her head and opened her eyes, she noticed Chelsea slipping in the door. Her cheeks looked flushed from the cold, and Carlie could tell by the way she slumped into a seat in the back that she was still feeling bad. Carlie knew that was mostly her fault. And she knew she’d have to make things right. Mostly she was just thankful that Chelsea was safe.

  “Jesus doesn’t expect us to be perfect,” Cory was saying now. “He just expects us to give our imperfections to him. He wants us to admit that we blow it, and he wants us to come to him with our failures. But that’s not the way our human minds work, is it?” He glanced over the crowd. “Think about how you feel when you mess up. Don’t you just want to hide it, sort of bury it and pretend that it never happened? Of course you do. You make a mistake and you don’t want to put it on MySpace do you? You don’t want everyone to know. But that’s not how God works. He tells us to bring our mistakes out into the open. He says to bring our troubles to him. Then he invites us to lay that junk down in front of him, and he asks us to trust him to make things better.”

  Cory continued on about how God wasn’t intimidated by failure, about how God wanted them to live wide-open lives. And as he talked, it began to make more sense. The things that Morgan and Emily had said began to make more sense, and there was a warm sort of electric feeling running through Carlie — like God really was doing something inside of her. And suddenly she was excited about all this. Suddenly she knew that not only was she a Christian — just like Morgan and Emily and the others — but she wanted to be a Christian. She wanted to forgive others, and she wanted to be forgiven. And she wanted so many other things. But first of all, she wanted to settle things with Chelsea.

  Then Cory, once again, invited them to give their hearts to God. This time he challenged them to surrender everything. And this time, he asked for anyone who wanted to take their faith to the next level to stand up and come forward. Well, Carlie had never done anything like this before. Certainly not during mass — although they did go forward for communion. But she knew this was different. She knew that she needed to stand up and go forward. Even if she was the only one. So without pausing to question herself, Carlie jumped to her feet and marched forward. To her surprise, several others did too. Then as Cory stood quietly in front, just playing his guitar, more and more kids came forward. Even Jeff and Enrico came forward. And finally Carlie saw that Chelsea had come forward too.

  Then Cory prayed with all of them. They all promised to serve God more wholeheartedly than ever. Carlie knew that these weren’t just words. She knew that she meant it — all of it.

  Then, after Cory said “amen,” Carlie went straight to Chelsea. “I’m really, really sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t know why I was so mean to you earlier tonight, but I am really, really sorry. And I want you to forgive me. And I totally forgive you. And I want us to be friends and —” But before she could finish, Chelsea was hugging her.

  “I’m sorry too, Carlie. I feel really bad about everything. And I know I’m a mean, horrible, selfish person. I was jealous of you, Carlie. And I think I actually wanted you to get hurt, and everything you said about me was true and I don’t deserve to —”

  “Okay, okay,” said Carlie, stepping back. “But don’t be so hard on yourself, Chelsea.”

  “What about what Cory said? What about bringing our messes out into the light?”

  Carlie laughed now. “Yes. You’re right.”

  Just then Emily, Morgan, and Amy joined them. All the girls were happily talking about how things were going to be different between them — how important their friendship was and how they wanted to treat each other better. Soon they were all in a group hug, and Carlie was so thankful she hadn’t gone home. And she was so thankful for these four girls — and their Rainbow Bus club. She couldn’t believe how close they had come to losing it up here on the mountain. But now she thought they’d be closer than ever when they went home.

  chapter twelve

  Later on they all drifted over to the games room where kids took turns playing pool, ping-pong, or video games. And while Carlie tried to stay involved with her friends, she was getting tired and her arm was starting to ache again. So she sat down with a soda and just watched the buzz of activity all around her.

  “Hey,” said Whitney as she joined her. “What’s up?”

  Carlie shrugged. “Not much. I guess I’m kinda tired.”

  “How’s the arm?”

  “A little sore.”

  “That’s too bad. Do you wish you’d gone home?”

  “No …” said Carlie slowly. “Not at all. I’m really glad I stayed. Just to be here for Cory’s talk tonight was awesome. And then being with my friends … well, it’s worth it.”

  Whitney nodded. “I saw you and your friends afterward. To be honest, I think I was a little jealous.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I know you and your friends were kind of in a squabble, but it seems like you guys really love each other.”

  “We do.”

  “And Amy told me about your club and your clubhouse and everything.”

  “Did you think it was silly?”

  “Not at all. I think it sounds pretty cool. I think you’re lucky.”

  Suddenly Carlie felt uncertain. Was Whitney hinting that she wanted to be involved? But, even if that was the case, it was a decision that would have to be made by the group. Just the same, she knew she would bring it up — when they got back home anyway. But now it was time to go back to the cabins. Janna and Cory were going around and telling kids that it was time to call it a night, and Carlie was glad.

  “Janna’s going to talk about boys,” said Amy with excitement as they walked back to the cabin.

  “How do you know?” asked Emily.

  “She told me,” said Amy.

  “She told me too,” admitted Carlie.

  “This is going to be good,” said Amy.

  But all Carlie could think about was sleep. She just wanted to crawl into her bunk and close her eyes. And that’s just what she did when they got back to the warm cabin. She tried to listen as Janna talked to the girls. Still, she realized it wasn’t much different than what Janna had said to her on their way home from the clinic. And it wasn’t that much different from what Carlie already believed in her heart. Even though she had learned to appreciate boys, including Enrico, in a new way, she had no interest in anything beyond friendship.

  “There will be plenty of time for boyfriends later,” Janna was telling the girls. “Right now you should just enjoy being yourself and having good friends. This is a time in your life that can never be repeated, a time when you can grow close to God and learn how to live a life that honors him. Having a boyfriend can really mess that up.” Then Janna started telling a story about a thirteen-year-old girl named Jessie who thought the best thing would be to have a serious boyfriend. She hooked up with a guy named Hunter who was sixteen, but it quickly turned into a mess. And, as much as Carlie wanted to hear the end of that story, she was about to drift off to sleep. But she also knew that her friends would retell the story to her tomorrow … if she asked them to.

  Mostly she knew that something really big had changed in her heart tonight. She knew that her commitment to God had deepened, and that her commitment to her friends had deepened as well. And, even with a broken arm and feeling too sleepy to think quite straight, she couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen tomorrow. She knew that with God in her life, it
would have to be good.

  Secret Admirer

  chapter one

  “So are you guys going to the Valentine’s Day dance?” asked Amy.

  “Why would we want to do that?” Morgan’s brows drew together, and she peered at Amy like she’d just suggested that they all go jump into the ocean. Not a great idea since it was wicked cold and wet outside.

  “Yeah,” said Carlie, as she picked up a chip and popped it into her mouth. “Who wants to go to some lame dance?”

  “Because it’ll be fun,” said Amy hopefully.

  “Fun?” Emily frowned at Amy as she picked up a bead. “You gotta be kidding.”

  Now Amy regretted bringing the subject up. She looked out at the rain pelting the windows of the clubhouse, a converted school bus. The girls had gathered to spend a rainy Saturday just hanging together, doing beadwork and, of course, eating junk food — well, not exactly junk food, but not exactly the kind of food that Amy’s mom allowed in her house either.

  “What do you plan to do at the dance, Amy?” asked Morgan.

  “Dance, of course.”

  “You’re actually going to dance with boys?” demanded Carlie.

  “That’s the basic idea.” Amy just shook her head as she stared at her three friends. What was wrong with these girls anyway? Why were they so totally clueless when it came to boys?

  Emily laughed. “You’re nuts, Amy.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Amy frowned. This whole thing about not liking boys did not seem to be improving in the least with her friends. Amy had hoped they’d made some progress on their recent ski trip, but once they got back in school again, everything had gone pretty much back to the same old-same old. Just like always, most of the seventh grade boys would stick to their side of the locker bay with the girls clustered on the other. Not that Amy wanted to be like those girls who were regularly seen globbed onto their boyfriends and sometimes even kissing in front of God and everyone else. But, on the other hand, Amy thought it would be cool to have a guy interested in her. And she knew just which guy she wanted too.