Tattered Innocence (8 page)

A stalk jabbed her insole above her
flip-flop, and she grabbed her foot.

“Where are you dragging me?” Jake said from
the darkness behind her.

She inhaled the damp smell of seaweed and
salt. “You’ll see.”

Waves rolled in, churning up dirty foam like
the guilt inside her. Ahead, maybe sixty people scattered around a
bonfire—the gathering her cousin, Avra, and a few friends had
started. The only place she knew to look for forgiveness.

The musicians were warming up. She could
hear their voices singing prayers to God, wafting upward and
nudging something inside her that had been asleep. She wanted the
God-songs to carry her to Him.

Inside the circle of light, firelight
glinted off Cat’s platinum hair. Never one to hold a grudge, Cat
would probably knock her down and lick her face. Her cousin, Avra,
wouldn’t make a scene, but Rachel tensed at the thought of facing
her all the same. Thank God Hall had snagged a camp counseling job
and wouldn’t be here tonight. She didn’t want to risk his reading
the guilt on her face.

Rachel stooped to shed her flip-flops. The
sand cooled the arches of her feet and the skin between her toes.
“
Forgiven...
clean….”
The words pulled her toward the
light. Hope trickled into her spirit for the first time in a long
time.

Jake caught up with her. Moonlight
highlighted his clenched jaw. “I’m over this whole scene.”

“Fine. Go soak your head in the ocean for an
hour. I’ll meet you at the car.” She’d only wanted to help. If he
didn’t want comfort, he shouldn’t fault her for trying.

Rachel stood in the dark watching flames
lick the night and gathered her courage. The circle of light from
the bonfire came alive with greetings and laughter as people
arrived. Avra’s friend, Jesse, strummed his guitar. Avra’s husband,
Cisco, beat softly on bongos.

Firelight caught on Cat’s stick-straight,
blond hair. She sat with her knees drawn up, her face toward the
fire. Someone laughed. A surfer shoved his friend’s shoulder. Two
high school girls whispered to each other and giggled.

Rachel drew in a breath and headed toward
Cat. She sank down shoulder-to-shoulder next to Cat’s good ear.
“You were right about everything.”

Cat’s gaze flew to hers.

“We’ve never been disconnected for this
long. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Cat wrapped her arms around Rachel’s neck
and squeezed. “Of course I forgive you. I just didn’t want you to
get hurt.” She released her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I started having make-believe conversations
with you, so it was past time to make up.”

“Ya think?”

Rachel shot her a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry
I didn’t return your calls.”

“I’m not getting another roommate in case
you change your mind and want to move back in.”

“Thanks. Maybe sometime.” When stepping
through the door didn’t ambush her with shame. “But you know my
weird compulsion to take care of Mom…. I’m good at home on the
weekends for now.”

Cat shrugged, a sigh slipping out. “Avra
said you took a job crewing.”

As if she heard her name, Avra looked up
from the group of people around her and waved.

Rachel smiled and focused back on Cat. “I
had to get away from Bret.” She sifted a handful of sand through
her fingers. “I’m here looking for forgiveness.”

The crowd quieted.

“You’ll find it,” Cat whispered.

Rachel’s eyes slid shut. The God-song
floated around her and seeped inside. No longer fighting, she fell
into the melody and let it carry her. She hoped Cat was right. She
believed God had forgiven her on some level, but her heart still
wore the black swath of what she’d done. She hungered for a
cleanness she hadn’t found anywhere else.

A sullen Jake appeared beside Rachel.

She glared at him until he melted onto the
sand. The guy hurt. He needed God as badly as she did—whether he
wanted to be here or not.

A girl in front swayed to the music where
she sat cross-legged on the sand, her eyes closed. The guy from the
fish counter at Ocean’s Seafood rolled up onto his knees. Some
faces lifted, eyes closed, some bowed.

She lifted her eyes to the night sky.
Oh
God, make me clean.

The music faded. Avra’s husband, Cisco,
cleared his throat. Firelight glanced off leftover scarring from
teenage acne on his face. “Jesse asked me to dump my gut tonight
because I’ve got a boat-load of baggage—stuff I never shoulda
done.”

Bret’s body entwined with hers blazed to
Rachel’s mind and she flinched.

“I guzzled beer, downed a boatload of Jack
Daniels, toked a couple pounds of reefer. And I’m ashamed to admit
it.” Cisco gazed somewhere beyond them in the night, then hung his
head. “I did my share—and somebody else’s—of sleeping around.”

Wow. She’d known Avra had to work through a
lot with Cisco, but not how much. Cisco sure wasn’t that guy
now.

“Yeah, I’ve got a good reason—my folks split
up, and I kicked into escape mode. Maybe something motivated your
bad choices, too. News flash. Everybody’s got an excuse to do the
wrong thing. But nobody held a knife under my chin and made me do
it. I chose.”

Was inheriting Mama’s weakness for affairs
just an excuse?

Cisco glanced at Avra. “Hey, if I had any
idea how my actions would rip people I love, I never would have
done it, any of it. And I never want to eat shame again. So, if
you’re thinking ‘bout a bad choice—don’t. If you’re eating
shame—get clean with God.”

He nodded at Jesse and grasped Avra’s hand.
Avra smiled softly at him, her face a picture of forgiveness.

Jesse sat in the sand beside the fire. He
stared down at the Bible lying open between his knees. “Here’s what
faith is, friends—” Jesse held his Bible over his head. “Believing
that what God says in the Bible is true—that if we admit what we’ve
done is wrong, God will forgive us. Your feelings will catch up
with the truth.”

Jesse continued to speak over the surf and
the crackling of the fire, but Rachel’s heart arched toward
God.

I stole Bret from his wife and children.
Please, please forgive me. Help me believe You forgive me.

Jesse’s voice gained strength as he spoke.
“Basketball went first,” Jesse said. “Then my band broke up.
Sometimes I still miss the rush of performing with the group.”

Rachel leaned forward to make sure she
didn’t miss anything.

“I graduated. By that time there was only
one girl I was into, and she ditched me.” He glanced at his
wife.

“I ended up alone in the woods, screaming at
God. I can’t explain it, but I knew he was there. For the first
time, I wanted God.”

Jesse’s words tugged at Rachel, reminding
her of how she used to listen for God, the sound of the ocean in a
conch shell—constant, ethereal. But she’d dropped the shell, not
wanting to hear what He had to say about Bret.

Jesse strummed his guitar. “What about you?
Is it your time to give up, to let God run you?”

Way past time
.
Did she even have the
strength left to pick up the God-shell?

Rachel leaned back to gaze at the
constellations. Jake’s shoulder bumped hers and she smelled the
Suave Ocean Breeze shampoo she’d seen in the shower. Her cheeks
burned under the tears slicking her face. The words of the song ran
over her, “Forgiven… clean,” and puddled around her. Finally, she
rubbed her eyes dry with her palms. When she dared a glance at
Jake, he was gone.

The crowd thinned. Jesse talked with a kid
whose swimmer’s hair glinted in the firelight.

Rachel headed toward the fire where Avra
stood. She looped an arm around her cousin’s shoulder. Months had
passed since she’d spent quality time with Avra… or anyone else in
her family.

Avra slid an arm around her waist and
propelled her toward the surf. “You’re done with Coach Bret?”

“How about a ‘Hi, how are you?’ before you
go for my throat?”

“Sorry. The night you came home from State,
I walked over to your apartment and waited on the steps. Cisco and
I were having drama, I wanted to talk to you…. When I saw you guys
kissing, I took off.”

The bile of shame rose in the back of
Rachel’s throat—forgiveness, too new to have taken root. “I wish
I’d been there for you. I had no idea what you went through till
tonight. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. We got through it.” Avra toed a
piece of driftwood. “But I worried about you.”

Rachel’s eyes teared at the tenderness in
her cousin’s voice. “I—quit seeing Bret. I’m here. I’m
listening.”

Hall—who loved God with an abandonment she
used to understand—had been tainted by her sewage, too. She wanted
to shop-vac all the gossip sludging the walls of the high school
and restore his idealism. But it was much too late.

Jesse’s words churned in Jake’s gut as he
hiked into the dunes, away from the kids heading to their cars from
the bonfire. He glanced back at Rachel and her cousin strolling
toward the water.

The guy screamed at God
.

“God, this whole deal sucks.”

What an opening when listening to Gramps say
grace was the sum total of Jake’s prayers. He lifted his eyes to
the star-spattered sky.

“Aren’t You the one who created men and
women to—want each other? And Gabs and I wanted each other for a
year. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Silence.

He flung a piece of driftwood into the
dunes. “Maybe she never loved me. That’s what I always
suspected.”

He closed his eyes and listened to the surf
crashing yards away.

“Honestly, I don’t regret it. I had sex
because I wanted to. Now I’m paying. I hope You’re happy.”

Jake opened his eyes to moonlight glinting
off the water-slicked sand, the fire glowing on the beach nearby.
Everything had been sucked out of his life but the
Queen
.
Gramps and Gabrielle gone in the same year. Sailing only displaced
the hurt in five-day increments.

He inhaled the scent of salt and seaweed.
His damp T-shirt clung to his skin.

Jesse said he needed to let God run him,
Gramps’ words more or less. The guy had given up everything—music,
love. And he got them back. Even if Jesse didn’t get the girl who
made him scream at God, he’d married—probably the blond hottie who
sat near Rachel’s cousin. A wry chuckle slipped out. It couldn’t be
too rough to wake up to her every morning. Maybe God could be
trusted to give him back a life.

But it was a gamble. With Jake’s luck, God
would make him sell the
Queen
and join the Peace Corps. Or
become a priest.

God had always been a friend of a
friend—Gramps’ friend. Gabrielle’s friend. Probably Rachel’s
friend. Even that shirttail connection eased some of the ache
inside. Maybe he’d actually survive Gabs’ rejection if he stepped
toward God.

But how could he get past what he’d done to
Gramps?

Rachel parted from the people standing
around the fire and walked alone down the beach.

He sprang to his feet and followed her. She
shouldn’t be alone on the beach at night. It wasn’t safe.

He headed for the water, shoulders hunched,
hands buried in the pockets of his shorts. He didn’t want to be
here. She had no right to hijack him tonight.

Up ahead, Rachel gripped her flip-flops in
her hand. She waded through the foam to the clean water beyond.

He walked past her on the hard-packed sand
toward the jetty.

Maybe tonight had been good for him. Gramps
would have thought so. As much as he hated to admit it, those guys
talked his language.

The rocks of the jetty pointed a jagged
finger into the ocean. A wave ran out, and Rachel crossed the
water-sheened sand to where he stood. She raked fingers through her
ringlets. Her tears must have been over the guilt she’d talked
about the night they went on the Dr. Pepper run.

A hermit crab scampered across the sand.
Jake looked up from the crab to Rachel. “Those guys made sense. But
that screw-up got his girl. I saw the look she gave him when he
finished talking.”

“You saw that, too? That screw-up is my
cousin’s husband.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged.

“Sleeping with my fiancé wasn’t half as bad
as what that guy—your cousin-in-law—did. And I lost the girl.” He
stared at the waves crashing on the tip of the jetty. Gabs said
she’d still feel shame even after they married. He’d wrecked her
religion or something. “One lousy mistake and God zapped me.
Presto, no Gabrielle.
No
future.”

He turned away from Rachel. This was crazy,
puking his life out on the rocks. The bonfire must have gotten to
him more than he realized.

“Avra chose to stick with Cisco. Gabrielle
chose to ditch you. How is that God’s fault?”

“Isn’t He like the great webmaster in the
sky who runs everybody’s show?”

Rachel’s chin dropped. Seaweed sloshed
against the jetty beyond her toes. “He made me choose a guy who
already belonged to someone else? No. It was my choice.” A gust of
wind blew her hair away from her face as she gazed seaward.

Jake started back down the beach. “The guy
with the guitar got one thing right. I’m hacked because God’s
rubbing my face in the dirt over this.”

Rachel walked beside him in the surf. “I
hope… I hope God forgave me tonight.”

Her words were so soft and plaintive that he
had to strain to hear them. “I don’t get your guilt. What did you
do that was so bad? What did I do? We’re not talking murder or
robbing banks.”

“Yeah, I felt that way for a long time.
Then, one day, the whole dump truck of guilt unloaded on me.”

They headed into the dunes, not talking.
Something tugged him toward the God people sang to tonight. A part
of him had always strained toward the man of integrity Gramps had
been, maybe even the man of faith he’d been.