Salvaged (31 page)

"No."

"Riley, jot that one down; I need to add it to my iTunes."

"What's it called?"

She started singing the song. "My girl wants to party all the
time, party all the time, party all the ti-ime."

He rolled his eyes at her. "Mom, seriously, stop."

"It's a good song, Riley; wait until you hear it."

"I'll load it on there if you'll promise to stop singing it so we can
watch the movie."

"You're no fun," she pouted. "He's not any fun, is he, Attie?"

"Nope. No fun at all, and he's also a sore loser."

"You're a poor winner-you rub it in."

"Poor baby, got his butt kicked by a girl," I sang.

"Again," Pops added. "It's becoming a regular event around here."

The doorbell rang at ten o'clock sharp the next morning. I started to
run to answer it, but Riley beat me to it. As I finished getting ready,
I could hear the conversation from my room.

"Hey, Riley!"

"Chase, what are you doing here, bud?" Riley asked.

I smiled as I waited for Chase to respond.

"Attie invited me to go horseback riding at Cooper's with her
today."

"Really? She invited you along?"

"Yeah, wasn't that nice?" Chase sounded pleased. He had no
idea that I had ulterior motives when I suggested he tag along.

"Yes, it was nice," Riley agreed. "Well, come on in; I'll go get her.
Dad, keep Chase company while I get Attie."

Hearing Riley's footsteps running up the stairs, I waited for him
to enter my room. He had a huge grin on his face as he walked
through my door. "You invited Chase to go with you?"

"Chase loves horseback riding. I thought he would enjoy it."

As he walked closer to me, his grin somehow grew larger. "Is
that the only reason you invited him?"

"Well,"-I shrugged-"I wouldn't want Cooper to get the
wrong idea. I mean, it's not like it's a date or anything."

He grabbed me and gave me a hug as he picked me up off the
floor. "Thank you, Charlie; you don't know how much this means
to me."

"Yes, I do." I wrapped my hands around his neck and looked
down at him. "Besides, you were my first kiss, Riley. I'll be darned if
you aren't going to be my first date too."

He lovingly gazed up at me. "I'm so crazy about you."

"I know."

"I swear, if I could kiss you right now, I would."

"If you could kiss me right now, I'd let you."

He slowly lowered me to the ground and then gently grabbed
my hands and kissed the inside of each of my wrists.

"That'll have to do for now," he said miserably.

I could feel my face blush. "I'm starting to like it when you do that."

"Then I'll do it more often."

After bringing Chase along with me to horseback riding, Cooper
got the point that I wasn't interested in a summer fling. We worked
alongside each other every Tuesday and Thursday thoroughly enjoying each other's company, but he never asked me out again. We did
continue going to lunch once a week as he helped me prepare for
CLEP testing. We also spent a day at UCO getting all of the necessary enrollment information together. He became a very good
friend, and I enjoyed spending time with him. I never brought him
up to Riley, and I never talked about Riley with him. I believe that
they both preferred it that way.

Summer quickly passed, and Riley and I spent almost every night
watching movies with his parents followed by camping out on my
bedroom floor. I still experienced nightmares almost every night, but
Riley learned to calm me so that we were both able to fall back to
sleep within a matter of minutes.

Cheerleading practice began, and if it hadn't been for Anne and
Jennifer, it would have been the worst two hours of each and every
day. Most of the senior girls wanted nothing to do with me, and
Tiffany managed to make it the entire summer's worth of practices
without so much as saying hello. I wished that I'd stuck with my
initial gut reaction to have Mr. Bennett get me completely off the
cheer squad. Surely living with the school principal had to have some
advantages.

After my first counseling session with Joshua and Nicole, every
session also became "driver's license therapy," or "DLT" for short.
They were set on me getting my license before school started.

The first DLT session was spent with me sitting in the driver's
seat of Joshua's old Honda. He sat in the passenger seat, and Nicole
sat behind him in the backseat. All we did was pray. I never even got
to start the engine.

During the second and third sessions, I got to stick the key in
the ignition and turn it on. The rest of the time we prayed while a
Chris Tomlin CD played in the background.

The following week we focused on getting in the car, turning
on the ignition, and doing visualization techniques. Or, as Joshua
called them, DLT-VT (for some reason he was into titles). I closed
my eyes as Joshua took me through different driving scenarios, and I
would respond with acting out the appropriate behavior. In a typical
session, you might have heard the following:

Joshua: (speaking slowly) "You're driving down the street, and a
stop sign is coming up in twenty feet."

Me: I would tap the brake to slow down.

Joshua: "You're six feet from the stop sign and have decided to
turn left."

Me: I would turn on my blinker and slowly apply steady pressure
to the break.

By the middle of June, we moved on to DLT-Advanced Visualization Therapy. DLT-AVT was similar to the regular visualization
except that Joshua would suddenly scream some action as it could
possibly happen if I ever actually left the driveway.

Joshua: "You're driving through an intersection, and someone
just ran a red light!"

Me: I would calmly but firmly press the brake.

Unfortunately, I almost failed one DLT-AVT session.

Joshua: "We're driving past Mr. Hendricks's house, and his dog
just ran into the street in front of your car!"

Me: I swerved to miss it by yanking the steering wheel to
the right.

Joshua: "No, Attie, you never swerve like that. You could roll the
car or get out of control and crash. Your life is much more valuable
than a dog's."

Me: "Is it necessary to hit the dog?"

Nicole: "You didn't tell the future vet to hit the dog, did you?"

Joshua: "Nicole! Would you rather she hurt herself and save the
dog? Isn't that the point of DLT? To save her life and the life of other
human beings? Seriously, this could set us back a few sessions."

Nicole: "No! Attie, next time, you hit the dang dog, do you
hear me?"

Me: "Yes."

Nicole: "See, Joshua, next time she's gonna hit the dog. Aren't
you, Attie? You're gonna hit the dog?"

Me: "Yes! I'll take the dog out!"

Nicole: "Thank God. We're not adding more sessions! Ifwe don't
eventually get out of this driveway, I'm going to lose my mind."

Me: "I know a good therapist."

Joshua: "Very funny, Attie. I'm trying to be thorough, Nicole!"

Nicole: "No, you want to be able to say `DLT--AVT' some more!"

And with that, DLT-AVT sessions were over.

The third week of June we actually got out and drove. Of course
Joshua drove the car to a remote location and then let me take over,
but at least we were moving.

The first week of July I got to drive on city streets, and by the
third week I was on the highway and was allowed to turn the music
up beyond a whisper.

On the fourth Tuesday of July, Nicole finally took me to take my
driver's test.

(Riley)

We brought every extra chair and lawn chair into the family room so that we could wait for Attie to get back from taking
her driver's test. Anne, Tammy, Tess, Chase, Matt, Curt, Gramps,
Joshua, my parents, and I all started praying when Nicole called to
announce that Attie had "gone into the building."

"Do you suppose that God has ever heard so many prayers for
one poor child to get her driver's license?" Gramps asked when we
were finished.

"I couldn't imagine it," Dad replied.

I paced, Joshua was biting his fingernails, and Anne knelt praying in the corner.

"I've gotta leave the room. You people are freaking me out!"
Tammy announced. "She might as well be having a baby!"

"I'm a nervous wreck," Tess said as she rocked back and forth in
her chair.

Finally we heard the car pull into the driveway. Everyone
jumped up and looked at the front door in anticipation. We held
our breath.

The door opened, Nicole walked in, and I noticed that her eyes
were red. She'd been crying. The air left the room, and our hearts
broke.

"Where is she?" Joshua asked.

"Composing herself. She'll be right in." Nicole cried and walked
into Joshua's arms.

We all looked back at the door and prepared ourselves to comfort Attie after she failed for the fourth time. I could hear her footsteps make their way slowly up the patio stairs, and I waited to see
her face. But instead of walking into the room, she merely stuck her
arm inside the door, and in her hand she held a driver's license.

The room exploded in screams and cheers.

Attie ran into the room. "I'm a licensed driver!"

"Watch out, world," Dad yelled.

She wore the largest smile I'd ever seen. The girls ran to her,
and they all jumped around in circles and took turns looking at her
driver's license picture.

"Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!" Gramps waved his hands
in the air.

I looked over and saw Joshua on his knees crying. I didn't know
if he was crying out of happiness for Attie or out of relief for not
having to continue DLT sessions. I assumed it was probably a combination of both.

Nicole sat next to him laughing. "I fooled you! I fooled you!"

After a long celebration of hugs all around, Mom brought out
a celebratory cake. The cake decorator had drawn a blonde cartoon
character with car keys in her hand sitting in a tank. Attie's favorite
part was the angel's wings coming out of the roof.

Chase, our official photographer, made sure to document the
entire event, and we all sat and ate cake as Nicole shared the journal
entries she made after every DLT session. By the time she finished,
Attie and Joshua were bright red, and the rest of us were in stitches.