Page 73 of A Surefire Love
She gulped and shook her head. If the notes she’d collected only sang her praises, the doctor wouldn’t get a true picture of her to aid in the diagnosis. But she was already too well aware of her flaws. Reading the exact feedback wouldn’t help her any more than eating that apple had helped Eve. She fit Anson’s envelope in her purse next to Philip’s.
Before she put the purse back on the floor, she pulled out a folded stack of lined paper. As she set it on the table, Anson ran a hand over his face.
She brushed his forearm with the back of her fingers. “What’s wrong?”
“The leadership board. I knew Eric wanted me fired, but tonight was the first time I realized he might actually get his way.”
“What?” At her loud question, he glanced around. She lowered her voice, despite the sense of injustice ringing in her core. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen a better youth pastor.”
The corner of his mouth lifted ruefully. “Have youseenany other youth pastor?”
A nervous chuckle caught in her throat. “Like, in person?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Anyway. Why were you hoping I’d come?”
She hesitated. With his job in jeopardy, her own concerns were far less pressing. Yet he seemed to want a distraction. She nudged her papers toward him.
“Look at us, passing notes.” As he unfolded her pages, insecurity shivered through her.
“After hearing your talk last night, I went home and all of that poured out. It’s my story. I know I’ll cut things like you did to make it relevant and shorter and less … personal. But I thought you could help me decide what to cut and what to keep?”
His gaze swung up from the pages. “This is your unedited story?”
He might as well ask if he was holding her soft, beating heart.
“Basically.” She’d omitted certain details, but she mentioned all the significant events she could recall. Some of her admissions were more appropriate for a high school audience than a middle school one. Some, perhaps, shouldn’t be shared with either. She didn’t trust herself to know the difference, especially when she’d been so surprised by Anson’s choice in his testimony. “You left out Gury when you gave your talk. I understand not diving into all the details, but you skipped him entirely. Do you plan to tell the high school students about him?”
His brow furrowed instantly, and he gave his head a quick shake.
“Why not?”
Leaving the papers on the table, he sat back and pushed his palms over his thighs. “A story like his might elicit an emotional reaction, but I want the kids to choose Christ based on something less fleeting.”
“Isn’t Gury’s story about as deep as it gets? We all need to consider the afterlife.”
“Sure, but Gury isn’t the only person I lost. Eternity comes into my testimony through Coach Voss too.”
Feeling a little like a confused Rooted student, she persisted. If she couldn’t understand this, how could she give her own testimony? “It’s not always as impactful to students when an adult dies. When it’s a student like them—”
“It wasn’t the time or the place.” His tone was firm. “The message that needed to come across did, or Hadley wouldn’t have chosen Christ.”
The reminder of Hadley soothed the sting of his interruption. “I haven’t prayed with anyone like that since Mercy, and she was quite a bit younger at the time.” Blaze bit her lip, looking at her papers. “I’ll need your help deciding what to keep and toss in mine, then, because I definitely would’ve voted to mention Gury. I put in pretty much everything.”
Letting him read her unabridged testimony served a double purpose. Not only could he give advice on how to present it—if he still believed her qualified to speak to his students—but she could also quit wondering if knowing the truth would change his mind about her.
He unfolded the papers, but after a moment, he extended the packet toward her. “I want to hear it from you.”
She lifted a hand in refusal. “I wrote it out.”
“It’s different, reading versus hearing.” Hope brightened his expression. “Besides, I love your voice.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, huh?” She accepted the papers back and scanned the words she’d hurriedly scrawled last night. In this lighting, she hoped he couldn’t discern the tremor in her hand.
Laughter from the bar echoed through the event hall. With the evening’s entertainment over, the room had mostly emptied. The few who remained were a good fifteen feet away and engrossed in their own conversations.
She’d asked Marissa if it’d be all right for her to not come straight home, but she couldn’t dawdle forever. She cleared her throat and bumbled through the facts about her parents, the fire, and her stint in foster care. “By the time I got home again, I knew my mom wasn’t like other moms, but she reminded me often that she’d worked hard to get me back, so I needed to be a good girl or I’d have to go away again. Maybe the reason all the kids believed I’d been sent away as a punishment was because that’s what I thought. I was really lonely and scared.” Her voice hitched. Wow, that was harder to admit than she’d expected.
Anson’s touch on her elbow reminded her of how times had changed.
