Arousing Love, a teen novel (21 page)

“Wow,” I whispered to myself.

Joanna proceeded to give me a guided tour of
her house, spinning around and walking backwards to talk into the
camera, she giggled and chatted as she made her way down the
hallway. In the kitchen, she found her mom.

“Say hi to Zach, I’m making a video for
him.”

“Oh, hi Zach, I hope everything is well with
you.” Her mom smiled.

The tour continued around the rest of the
house, then back to her bedroom again, where the camera zoomed in
close to Joanna’s beautiful face once more.

“I miss you, Zach. I hope this video makes
you a little happier. I don’t want you to be depressed. I love
you.” She leaned towards the camera and gave the lens a kiss. The
image lost focus, then the screen went blank.

I’d been smiling the whole time I was
watching it, and now my face muscles were sore. I rewound it and
watched again. I sighed, It was so good to see her again. Photos
are too still, they don’t show the life of a person. I loved seeing
her bright, happy face, and the way she moved.
I have such a
beautiful girlfriend.

I felt happy for the rest of the day.

•••

Dear Joanna,

Thank you for your wonderful video. I loved
seeing your smile and hearing you laugh again. You have no idea how
much it meant to me. It made me happy again for the first time in
weeks.

I went to church on Sunday. The message was
good and the singing was ok, but hardly anyone talked to me the
whole time I was there, apart from when they did this greet the
person next to you thing, and a couple of people shook my hand. I
feel like I can kind of relate to them now, though. I used to see
them all as fake, but I realize they’re just trying to work out
their faith as best they can, and that can be hard. I still think
your dad’s right, though. Christianity is meant to be more than
this. It’s supposed to be powerful, and spiritual. It’s not meant
to be just another religion with man-made rituals and practices,
it’s meant to be something of God.

Your friend Emma seems nice. Tell me about
your other friends.

I don’t really have much else to say because
my life is so boring without you. I’m just working every day. I’m
still practicing my guitar, and I’m getting better at it. I might
even be good at it in 2 or 3 years. I’m enjoying it though, it’s
like making my own background music to my thoughts.

I love you. You are the only good thing in
my life, other than God. I think about you all the time. I can’t
wait to be with you again. Hopefully the colleges will contact me
soon.

I love you my beautiful, sweet, wonderful
girl. You are in my heart.

Zach.

•••

Finally, I got a letter from college. I tore
it open and skimmed down—‘We regret to inform you
. . .
’ It was a rejection letter. I was
surprised more than anything. I’d expected to get in to all of them
except maybe my first choice, which I knew was a really hard school
to get into.
Stupid college, I didn’t wanna go there anyway.
I crumpled the letter in my hand.

I decided not to tell Joanna about it. Why
worry her when there were still three more schools to hear
from.

But I got two more rejection letters the
following week. I was shocked that I hadn’t got in to any of them.
The only one left to hear from was my first choice school, and I
didn’t have much confidence in that one. I started praying for a
miracle.

•••

I woke up, and the now constant familiar
feeling of anxiety returned. I never wanted something so bad in all
my life. I hated feeling so tense all the time. I grabbed my gear
and headed down to the beach.

Five foot and clean, the waves were just
perfect. I saw Josh out the back as I paddled out through the
break.

“Hey Josh!”

“Zach! Good to see you, man
. . .
picked a good day
. . .
some surfing
. . .
” The roar of the surf drowned him
out.

I paddled closer but he’d caught a wave and
was gone. He was right though, this was a great day for surfing. I
caught wave after perfect wave all morning.

Josh paddled up beside me as I was waiting
for the next set. “Best surf of the summer, dude. Glad you didn’t
miss it. Thought you’d gone all religious on me and given up
surfing.” I didn’t say anything but he didn’t wait for an answer.
“Surfing’s the one true religion, my friend. We live and we die by
it.” And he was off again, catching another wave and leaving behind
a bad taste in my mouth. I caught one last wave and rode it in to
shore.

Back at the shack, I washed off my wetsuit
and hung it out to dry on the back deck. I sat down on the rough
wooden deck, and looked out at the ocean. The mail would be here
soon. I tried to relax in the sun but I was too on edge.

Please God, let me get into this one
college.
I was desperate.

The mailman stopped at our box, and somehow I
knew today was the day. I went to the mailbox and fished out the
single letter addressed to me. It was from the college I was
waiting to hear from. I took a deep breath before opening it and
skimming for the crucial sentence—‘The Admissions Committee has
reviewed your application, and we regret to inform you that we are
unable to offer you a place in this year’s class.’

For a moment I lost all perception,
everything darkened around that one sentence. I crunched the letter
in my fist. I was so angry—angry at the colleges for not seeing my
talent, and angry at God for setting me up like this.
Why did
you do this to me? I’ve lost everything I ever wanted and the one
person I ever loved. Why?
I just couldn’t understand it.
Should I never hope for anything good ever? You’ll take away
everything I want? You have to destroy me before I’m any use to
you? Well you have!

•••

I sank into the deepest depression I’d ever
known. The days went by in misery. I had no one to talk to. I
didn’t want to write to Joanna, I didn’t know what I’d say to her.
I was alone and so depressed. I tried to hope in God and his plan
for me, but there was nothing there to hope for. I had no idea what
I was going to do now. Everything was darkness with no light. I
felt totally lost.

I got another letter from Joanna, but I
didn’t even open it.

God no longer felt near to me. If I prayed, I
could hardly believe he even heard me. He felt so far away, and I
felt like I was losing my faith.

I painted one last portrait of Joanna, her
face so pale, almost transparent, her smile like she’d forgotten
what she was smiling about. I stood back and looked at the
painting. It was Joanna as a fading memory.

Just before daybreak, I got up and went for a
long walk along the beach. It was dark and cloudy and looked like
rain, which suited my mood.

“I thought you loved me? Why didn’t you get
me into college? You knew how important this was to me.” I spoke to
the sky, and the sky answered with a single drop of rain on my
forehead. “Is this some kinda cruel joke you’re playing on me?”

I kept walking, ignoring the damp chill. What
was I going to tell Joanna. I still couldn’t bear the thought of
telling her.

“So you didn’t want me to marry her? Why did
you let us fall in love then? Why did you give us all this
hope?”

A chill wind blew against me, and it started
to rain. I yelled into the wind, “Do you even care about me at
all?” Somewhere, deep down, I knew God still cared about me, but I
wanted his pity. I wanted him to feel sorry for what he’d done to
me.

I walked all the way to the cove, and there
were our initials carved in the rock. I touched her ‘J’ as if it
was a part of her she’d left behind.

“I know this is your will for me, but it’s
just too hard.” I felt a rush of peace come over me, warming me
from within. “Am I ever gonna see her again? You know how much I
love her. Take away this pain because I can’t bear it. It’s too
much for me. I don’t wanna live without her.”

All my plans for the future were gone. All my
hopes and dreams were over. But somehow, through all the darkness,
I knew God was still with me. I had to trust in him no matter how
bad things got. I held on to that last little bit of faith with all
the strength I had left, because it was the only thing I had left
to hold onto. I fell to my knees in the wet sand. “I trust in you.
I will follow you no matter how hard it is. I give it all to you,
Lord. Your will be done.”

I felt a deep sense of peace for the first
time in a long time. It still hurt, but I only wanted his will for
my life.

I looked down at the ring on my finger, this
thin silver band that represented so much—all our love, all our
hope for a future together. Somewhere Joanna was wearing a ring
like this one, and she was still hoping and believing in us. For
some reason that thought gave me hope too.
She hasn’t given up
on us yet.

“God, I know you’ve closed all the doors, and
I accept that, but if there’s any way we can still be
together
. . .
” I felt a sudden
surge of hope fill my heart. “You still want us to be together,
don’t you?”

He’d closed the door to college but maybe he
would open another door for me. I just had to hold on to that hope
and not give up.

When I got back to the shack, I opened the
letter from Joanna. A card fell out and I picked it up. It was a
home-made party invitation. ‘You’re invited to Joanna’s sweet 16
birthday party’.

I unfolded the letter that came with it.

Dear Zach,

I’m glad you liked my
video. My two best friends are Emma and Crystal. They’re crazy and
funny and we just have fun all the time. But sometimes it’s like
they can’t turn that off and discuss serious things, which is why I
miss you so much. You’re the only person I can really be myself
with because you’re like me. You like to have fun, but you also
like to talk about deep things as well. I really love my friends
but if I try to have a deep conversation with them, they just turn
it into something stupid. It never used to bother me before, I
think it’s because I’ve changed so much since I met
you
—

“Zach!” The shrill voice of my mother
intruded. “Phone for you. It’s Joanna.”

I left the letter and went to the house.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Hi me, I was just reading your letter. Sorry
I haven’t written for a while.”

“I was beginning to worry, it’s been such a
long time since your last letter, is anything wrong?”

I wanted to tell her everything was fine, but
I couldn’t lie to her.

“I didn’t wanna upset you
. . .
”

“Why, what’s wrong? What happened?”

I sighed. I couldn’t see any way around it.
“I didn’t get into college.”

There was a long pause. “Did you hear back
from all of them?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I thought it might be that, or you’d met
someone else and fallen out of love with me.”

“That could never happen, you should know
that by now.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I’m trusting God. He closed all the doors
but he can still make a way for us. I believe he still wants us to
be together.”

“Maybe you should just come. You don’t need a
sign if you know in your heart what God’s will is. Maybe he’s
teaching you how to be led by the Spirit instead of signs.”

“Yeah, maybe
. . .
but I already asked for a sign, I can’t
ignore it now just because it isn’t what I wanted. And it’s such a
big thing, if I come to Colorado we’ll be betrothed. It’s a
decision that’ll affect both of us for the rest of our lives. I
need God to show me clearly that it’s his will, and it’s what he
wants for us. I’m scared of just deciding something like that when
it’s this important. He knows the future, and he knows what’s best
for both of us.”

“I’m scared of the opposite though, Zach—that
it is God’s will but it won’t happen because of some sign you made
up to test it when God didn’t even want you to do that. If you know
that it’s God’s will for us to be together then just trust God, you
don’t need a sign. I’m scared I’ll lose you for no reason when I
know we’re meant to be together. I know without a doubt that you’re
the one for me. I don’t need any sign to confirm that.”

“Joanna, God can do anything. It was an easy
thing for him to get me in to at least one of those colleges. Why
didn’t he? Was it just chance that I didn’t get in to any of them?
Two of them were supposed to be easy schools to get into. I had a
good portfolio and good grades. I should’ve walked in to any of
them. I believe in God to open and close the doors and direct me
where he wants me to go. If I’m the one for you he will still make
it happen, because I trust him to.”

“How can it happen now if God has closed the
doors?”

“I don’t know. I lost all hope when I got
that last rejection letter, and I was so depressed and full of self
pity, but I learned today that God doesn’t respond to self pity, he
responds to faith. When I gave it all up to him, and just trusted
him, he gave me a new hope. I’m believing in God to work things out
some other way. I don’t know how yet, but I know he will.”

“Okay.”

“I love you so much, Joanna. This time apart
has been a thousand times harder than I thought it would be.”

“Me too. Sometimes I wish we’d just made love
already. Then we’d have to be together.”

“Yeah
. . .
”

“I’m going to keep hoping and believing for
you. Don’t stop writing to me though, Zach. You don’t know what
it’s like waiting to hear from you and nothing comes.”