Amazing Words~Ali Cummings

Amazing Words

A few hours after I came home from the church, I heard Matt’s car pull out of the driveway. I figured he had gotten lost on the way back. He wasn’t exactly what I would call an experienced woodsman. I didn’t really see his leaving as relevant. I had already broken up with him.
That was kind of a smack in the face for me. I mean, we had only been dating a week and already it felt as though I would never look at him the same again. I had tried calling Niki when I got home, but she didn’t answer her cell. A couple of months ago, I would’ve called Milly and told her about it, but I couldn’t talk to her right now. This only seemed to add depth to my depression.
I heard my mom rolling through the hallway on the far side of the house and I was struck with an idea. Maybe I could talk to her about it…but that was ludicrous. It would never work. I would walk away feeling exactly the same as I had, if not worse. But maybe it will. The other side of me argued. It felt like my mind had split into two teams, each with it’s own opinion and idea about the consequences of my choice. One half of me wanted to believe that it would work, but the other half of me was fighting for the logical side, I believed. My mom and I had never been close. Well, not since her accident, anyway. She was always saying things now that made it seem like she didn’t want me around or she didn’t care about me anymore. That kinda made it hard to have any decent relationship with her.
Her wheels got closer and I knew that I would have to talk to her now, if ever. If I didn’t say something now, I would never have the courage to speak up later. So I decided. I would talk to her.
She pushed open my door.
"Ali, your dad just called. We’re going out to dinner tonight." I started at her, unable to think of anything to say. I went with the obvious.
"Mom, can we talk?" I felt maybe six years old asking her that.
"Sure." She said, pushing open the door to my room further. She pushed the wheels on her chair, bringing herself further into the room. "What did you want to talk about?" I couldn’t read whether she was shocked or scared or happy or anything. I was too caught up in my own emotions.
"Us." I said plainly. She waited me out. "We haven’t been getting along." I said. I didn’t have anything else to say after that, but she stayed silent for some time.
"Oh." She said finally. "I guess we haven’t." She stared at her feet.
"It feels like you hate me." I said. I felt the tears coming and I tried to hold them back. I felt like if I said anything else, all the tears would come spilling out. I couldn’t look at her.
"I don’t." She said. I could tell that she was crying, but I still didn’t look up at her. "I really don’t. I don’t try to make you think that." I knew she didn’t. Why did I even say that? I knew she didn’t hate me. But that was how it felt sometime.
"Am I doing something wrong?" I asked as a few tears spilled over my eyelids and rolled down my face. Her quiet crying turned to sobs.
"No." That was the word I had been waiting so desperately to hear. It was selfish of me, but I needed to know that I wasn’t the cause of this whole thing.
"Then why do you act like that?" There was a long pause in which the whole world seemed to have stopped spinning.
"I don’t know." This only made the tears come faster. I still tried to hold them back, but I wasn’t doing so good a job at it. "I really don’t know." There was only one more question to be asked.
"Do you think we could fix it?" I asked. I waited and waited for a response from her, but it seemed to come entirely to slowly.
"Yes." I sighed a sigh of relief and let my tears fall fast and uncontrolled. All the anger and resentment I had had for her for the past seven years melted away and I literally felt the tension leave the room. I tried to carry on with the conversation so that the tears would stop.
"I broke up with my boyfriend." I said. I didn’t look up to see her reaction.
"I didn’t know you were dating anyone." She said. I could tell she had stopped crying.
"I haven’t been for long. Maybe a week." I said. I finally got the courage to look her in the eye. What I saw was the sad face of a mother that felt like she was missing her daughters life. My eyes threatened to overflow again. I didn’t want her to miss my life. I wanted her to be a part of my life.
"Was he nice?" She asked.
"I thought he was." I said. She nodded as if she understood.
"Sometimes boys aren’t always as nice as they pretend to be." She said. "They’ll do anything to get what they want." I understood exactly what she was saying. I remembered Matt’s words exactly. ‘All I want is you.’ ‘I want you, Ali. I would never do anything to hurt you.’ Well, where were we now. He was probably back at his house, sulking about the fact that he had lost something he wanted. And I was still torn up over the fact that he had hurt me. It wasn’t a great place to be.
I thought about the kisses he had tried to force me into and I wondered if he would’ve done more, had I given him the chance. He wasn’t a Christian, and his standards didn’t match mine. There was no telling how far he would’ve gone if I hadn’t walked away. I shuddered. If I hadn’t walked away. Suddenly, sitting in my bedroom talking to my mom was the happiest place I could think to be.

Peace After a Storm~Niki Belle

Peace After a Storm


The turned my head to look down at the bible sitting next to me. My eyes refused to focus on the gold printed letters on the cover. The blurred into a mix of shining blur mixed with a dark, dull red. I had meant to come into my room and read over some verses, but I had given up on that when I realized that I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything in the room.
I laid back on my bed and thought for a while. My thoughts never stayed constant. They would stay on one thing for a few seconds, then skip to the next thought with no rhyme or reason to it. Most of them all had to do with Tod. I remembered his funeral, the Teen Game night just before his death, the tree falling, and my trip to his room.
In truth, it hadn’t been as hard as I thought it would be to step into his room and take in everything. Untouched and like he had left it. My first stop when I went into his room had been the desk. I had known that he had been working on something for Milly, and I was going to try to figure out what. My search had come up empty except for some scraps of paper with the words scribbled out and laying crumpled on the edge of the desk.
His closet was something completely. I took one look at his clothes and I was absolutely positive that I could’ve told you at least one time where he wore each individual outfit. This one to church, that one to Laser Tag, that one to the movies when he went to see Bolt. I had closed the closet before I could start crying again. The funeral started a half-hour later and I would need my tears then.
Looking back, I blocked the funeral from my mind. It had been very similar to Milly’s, people milling around and crying on each other’s shoulders while I tried to block everything out. It was harder now. Every time I heard his name, I was once again brought back to reality. My brother was dead. Milly had been dead. They were together, and I was alone. I knew that would sound selfish, had I ever been brave enough to say it aloud.
I actually had a lot of things that would sound selfish if I chose to say them aloud, but I didn’t want anyone to worry about me, so I kept quiet. I was always there for other people, but I didn’t really talk to anyone if I had a problem. I remembered back to the time when I had been shy and almost antisocial. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to talk to people, I just didn’t want to. People scared me. I didn’t want them to see what I was behind me wall.
I thought about that for a long time. I laid in my bed thinking into that. If I hid behind a wall for my whole life, what were people going to say at my funeral? That I was a good person, who was there for everyone. Part of me would be delighted to know that they were saying that. The other part of me would be screaming that it was a lie. I wasn’t there for everyone. I wasn’t strong. I pretended to be strong, but that was it. I could pretend to be strong for other people, but when it came to helping myself, I was helpless.
I was jolted from my thoughts by a knock on the door. "Come in." I said, thinking it was my mother. The door opened and my father poked his head in the room.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" He asked. I was confused. Usually I was the one that wanted to talk to him. I realized he was waiting for an answer.
"Sure." I said, still wondering what he could want to talk to me about. "You can come sit on my bed." I offered. He ignored me. He looked as if he was a different world altogether. He pulled up a chair from the edge of my room and sat down facing me.
"It’s about Tod." He made the topic clear.
"Oh." It was the only thing I could come up with. I didn’t really want to say anything until I figured out what was a safe topic and what wasn’t.
"I shouldn’t have said those things to him. They were wrong." It took me a minute to realize he was talking about when he had yelled at Tod. "He really did love her." He said. He was quiet for a moment, as if he didn’t know exactly how to explain it to it’s fullest extent. "He gave up everything for a dead girl." He said. I thought he might’ve been finished, but I stayed silent, still not knowing what was safe to talk about.
"I’ve learned from him." He said. I looked up, surprised. He was not the kind of person to say something like that. "He was willing to give his life for a girl he wasn’t even with." He paused. "And I couldn’t even give up one part of my life to support him for it." I understood where he was going now.
"Dad, I’m sure Tod doesn’t blame you for it. He’s forgiven you for that." I said. I almost reached out to touch his shoulder, but I drew my hand back, not knowing what his reaction would be.
"I don’t deserve his forgiveness. I don’t deserve your sympathy." He said. His voice was huskier than usual, and he cleared his throat to hide it.
"We don’t deserve a lot of things, but God let’s us have them anyway." I almost chuckled. "You of all people should know that."
"I’ve let down a lot of people. I’ve fought with a lot of people that I should’ve forgiven. I drove people away from me." His conversation had taken on a new direction.
"Like?" I said, knowing full well who he was talking about.
"The Callums. We didn’t agree on much, but we were part of the same family, and we didn’t do a good job of respecting that. We were both part of their leaving, but I had control over my part. I could’ve changed things." He was silent. The silence was pressing this time, as though something that needed to be said wasn’t. I decided to say it, regardless of the consequences.
"What are you going to do?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Strangely, I didn’t regret them. But I still hadn’t heard his answer yet.
"I’m going to try to talk to them. I don’t know if they want to work this out or not, but from my point of view, we’ve put everyone through enough." I nodded. My mouth was dry. I had never imagined my father as being the one to end the argument. I had always thought it would either continue or Milly’s mother would try to reason with him. Even then, I can’t say I predicted a good end to it all. This way, I thought, would work much better.
I leaned forward and wrapped him in a hug. I felt his arms on my back and I thought for a moment, I felt him shake. "I’m proud of you, Dad." I said. With this, I definitely felt him shake, but only for a moment. He straightened up, cleared his throat again, and stood up.
"I’ll go try to call them." He said. He turned and walked out of the room before I had the chance to say anything more.

20 Questions~Milly Callum

20 Questions


"J-Jesus?" I stammered. My tongue seemed to be tripping over itself. He was standing there, scars in his wrist and a warm smile on his face.
"Yes?" He replied, laughing. "Who did you expect?" He asked. I sighed. Being with him was easier. It didn’t feel like a guessing game, but more like just having a friend.
"I’m not sure. I guess I just forgot that there were three of you." I said, still trying to wrap my head around the trinity.
"Three of us?" He asked, seeming genuinely curious.
"Well, yeah." I said. "You, God, and the Holy Spirit."
"That’s only one." He said, smiling. "You count it as three. To us, it’s only one." I thought about this for a minute.
"Us! You said us. That means there’s more than one." I said, finally feeling as though I had a substantial argument.
"Yes." He said. He seemed to be waiting for a response.
"But you just said that there was only one."
"There is." He said. I couldn’t quite make out the smile on his face. Finally I got it. My face broke out into the same smile his face held. "Did you get it?"
"Yeah." I said. "Three in one, one yet three." I grinned. "You’re just messing with me." He nodded.
"That I am. I’m glad you got that. We could’ve gone on all day with that." The same smile appeared on his face again.
"Yeah, we-" I cut myself off, understanding the joke. "You know exactly how long it would’ve gone on." I accused. He nodded, laughing.
"You’re getting better." He said. I hadn’t realized until that moment that we were actually walking down the road toward my house.
"I guess." I said, trying to act nonchalant. "I have a question, though, about the conversation I had with your dad earlier."
"Me." He corrected.
"Fine, the conversation I had with you, then." He nodded and we continued to walk down the road without stopping.
"Continue." He urged.
"Why is it that people turn away from you? I mean, you said that the reason people suffered is because they didn’t put their all into you. But why are people so against doing that?" I asked.
"Ahh. I knew that question would come up sooner or later." I wanted to point out that he knew all the questions that would come up sooner or later--it kinda came with the all-knowing thing--but I had the feeling that he was going to continue. True to my expectation, he kept talking.
"Well. There’s a lot of reasons that people don’t come to me. They don’t know me. They think it’s a waste of time. I scare them. There’s so many reasons. Some people are mad at me." I asked the obvious question.
"But why are they mad at you?"
"They think maybe I’m doing something that’s not in their best interest. Like I said, it mostly stems from the fact that they don’t know me."
"But some people say they just don’t want to know you. What about them?" I asked. This was going to get complicated in a second. I could feel it.
"The people who say they don’t want to know me think they already know enough about me to think that I’m not worth their time. Does that make any sense?" He asked, looking down at me.
"I’m not sure. I think it makes a little sense." We kept walking until we got to my mansion. We stood staring at the doors for the longest time before either of us spoke.
"You want to have some time by yourself?" He asked.
"I won’t really be alone, will I?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Not really. I’ll still be here. It just makes it easier for some people if I’m not there physically. It makes them feel a little bit less like they’re being watched." He chuckled. "Really, I’m always watching you." He said.
"That actually makes me feel a little better." I said. "But I would like some time by myself." I continued.
"I know." That same smile he had been wearing before crossed his face. "You know where to find me if you need me." He turned and walked back the direction he had come.
I watched him until he turned and was out of sight, then I walked up the steps to my house and walked through the front door.