Page 41 of The Dating Game

Again, surprise skitters across her face. “Maybe not stupid,” she says, “but certainly a little strange.” She peers up at me. “You never did say how you two know each other.”

“Oh.” I look away, shoving my hands in my pocket and being sure to keep my voice nonchalant. “Corbin is my brother-in-law.”

“Your brother-in-law?” she says in question. “But Corbin is a widower…” her voice trails off as realization strikes her. “Corbin’s wife was your sister?” she says softly. I nod, an unbidden lump forming in my throat. It's been two years, but losing my sister will never not hurt. “Oh, Will. I had no idea. I’m so sorry for your loss.” She steps closer, raising her hand and resting it gently on my forearm. There’s compassion in her eyes like she wants to share the burden of my pain; to make the weight less unbearable.

My mom used to say she saw marriage as a picture of the Bible verses about casting our burdens on God to find rest. Ultimately we can only find rest in God, but she always saw my dad as a conduit of that rest; like by giving her the gift of companionship God had also given her someone to tangibly share her burdens. As Brooke holds my arm I feel the emotional weight of my sister’s untimely death lessen. Brooke seems to not only genuinely care about my pain, but also to want to sit with me in it. And it’s amazing how simply the presence of another person can make you feel better.

“Thank you,” I tell her, my voice rough with suppressed emotion. “We all miss Amy everyday.”

“Of course you do. And to lose her in such a senseless way. Corbin told me a drunk driver hit her…It must be hard not to lose yourself in the anger.”

She’s not wrong, has in fact hit the nail right on the head.

“Losing my sister that way,” I say carefully, “really forced my whole family to think about whether or not we wanted to do as Jesuscommands and not only withhold vengeance, but forgive.” I draw in a breath. “For me it wasn’t so much about whether or not it was possible to do those things or whether God could strengthen me to do them; it was about whether or not I even wanted to. I was so angry, and if I held onto that anger it kept some of the pain at bay.”

As I admit all of this in the middle of a loud and crowded salsa club, Brooke’s attention never wavers from me. I’m not even sure why I’m sharing this with her, other than that it feels right to do so. Maybe it's because on a smaller scale I was doing the same thing with her and this whole dating game: holding onto my anger with her to keep from having to truly feel the sting of her rejection. I suppose some things take us longer to learn than others. Thank goodness we serve such a patient God.

“That makes complete sense,” Brooke whispers. She tucks a curl behind her ear. “So what changed? How did you get past that anger?”

I stare into her amber eyes, wondering if she can sense how close she’s getting to unpacking all of my secrets.

“My fiancée left me,” I tell her, and this time I’m able to keep my emotions in check. Sure, it hurt when Kimberley ended our engagement, but I’ve long since realized that we were not right for each other.

If Brooke is surprised to find out I was engaged, she doesn’t show it. I get the sense she wants to give me the freedom to share my story without inserting herself, and it’s that simple kindness that enables me to continue to open up to her.

“A couple of months after Amy’s death. She said she’d had enough of my bitterness and anger, and that if I couldn’t move on from Amy’s death then she was going to move on from me.”

A furrow lines Brooke’s brow and her lips bow down in disapproval, but she remains silent continuing togive me space.

“I couldn’t do it. In the end holding onto my bitterness was more important than holding onto her, and so she broke off our engagement. After she ended things my bitterness only grew, until one day I was singing at church and I just started crying in the middle of the song. We were doing a cover of that Katy Nichole song that was so big then, “In Jesus Name”.” Brooke nods, indicating that she’s familiar with the song. “That song sings like a prayer,” I go on. “There’s a line in the chorus about praying for circumstances to change and the second time I sang it I realized that for circumstances to change, I had to change my attitude. If I was going to get out of my darkness I had to actually seek the light. That’s when the tears came. I couldn’t even finish the song. Next thing I knew I was surrounded by Luke and my worship team and everyone was praying over me, and I finally,finally, asked God to help me let go of my anger and to help me forgive the man who hit Amy.” I drag a hand through my hair, then blow out a long breath. “I felt the first glimpse of light and freedom in that moment, but it still took me weeks of continuing to pray into that desire before true forgiveness became a possibility. Along the way I realized that the person I was hurting the most by not forgiving him was actually myself.”

“Like the other son in the story of the prodigal son,” Brooke murmurs. “He was so busy being angry at his brother for leaving and his father for forgiving him, that he didn’t even get to enjoy the epic party his father was throwing.”

A corner of my mouth tilts up in a half-smile. “Yeah, I suppose so. I-I never really thought about that story that way, but that’s exactly it. I was so busy being angry and holding onto my unforgiveness that I couldn’t enjoy life anymore. Which is certainly not what Amy would have wanted for me.”

“So true,” Brooke agrees. We stand in contemplative silence for a minute, then she says carefully, “Thank you for sharing all of that with me, Will. I’m truly honored that you did.”

As her eyes lock with mine, something opens up inside me, a space I’ve filled with the distractions of life but now acutely feel the emptiness of: the desire for companionship.

What a horrible coincidence that the woman who’s awakened this desire is only with me as part of a bet. Once her two months are up, she’ll disappear on me, and I suspect that space will become a dull ache that nothing will ever be able to distract me from again.

Pathetic as it may make me, I don’t want to mess with her anymore, instead I want to get the most out of the time I have with her.

“Will you dance with me some more?” I ask her, and she nods.

“I’d love that.”

We dance for so long my feet start to hurt, but I won’t be the one to break this spell she’s put me under. I will dance with Brooke for as long she’ll let me.

Chapter 15

Brooke

Somethingshiftedbetweenmeand Will last night. When he dropped me off at my house after hours and hours of dancing, he even walked me to my door and said good night with a hug and a soft kiss on my cheek.

Did I fall asleep with my hand pressed to that spot where his lips brushed?

How ridiculous would that be if I had?

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