Secret Admirer (7 page)

The cabin was hot and stuffy and noisy with girls trying to clean up and get ready for dinner. “Maybe I’ll just rest on my bunk for a while,” said Carlie as she realized there was a crowd in the bathroom. “Until it thins out in there.”

“Good idea,” said Morgan. “It’s almost an hour until dinner anyway.”

Carlie closed her eyes and wished she could fall asleep, but all she could think about was Chelsea now. Despite that nice prayer that Morgan and Emily had prayed, Carlie was feeling more and more anger toward Chelsea. She was replaying everything that Chelsea had said and done since they first came on the ski trip. And each time she replayed it, Chelsea seemed to get worse and worse until Carlie wondered how any of them could possibly stand her. Then Carlie started to remember other things about Chelsea. She remembered how selfish and spoiled Chelsea was, and how she was sometimes snooty because she was richer than everyone else in their club. She even remembered the time Chelsea had shoplifted and not been the least bit sorry for it. Really, Carlie had a whole list of
reasons to hate Chelsea. And yet, there were times when they had been friends too. It was confusing. Mostly Carlie knew that Chelsea had hurt her. And for that reason, Carlie decided to keep Chelsea at arm’s length — even if it was a broken arm’s length.

“Okay,” said Emily, gently tapping Carlie on her good shoulder. “It’s cleared out in here, time to fix you up.”

Carlie sat up and looked around the messy cabin. “Okay …”

“Where’s your bag?” asked Morgan.

Carlie pointed to her duffle on the floor at the foot of her bed, and Morgan immediately started to go through it. “How about if you wear your warm-ups?” she suggested, holding up the slightly rumpled Tommy Hilfigers. “That might be easier on your arm.”

Carlie nodded. “Yeah, I could probably just sleep in them too.”

Emily laughed. “It looks like you already did.”

“Hasn’t anyone taught you how to pack?” asked Morgan as she continued to rummage through Carlie’s bag. “Hey, what’s this?” She stood and held out the pink and white polka dot bag.

Carlie rolled her eyes. “My mom must’ve stuck that in.”

“Good for Mom,” said Emily as she took the bag and unzipped it. “Yeah, just what you need.” Then she paused.
“And there’s a note too.” She chuckled as she handed the slip of paper to Carlie.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness
,
”
read Carlie.
“Love Mom.”

Morgan and Emily both laughed.

“Is that really in the Bible?” asked Carlie.

“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “But I do know that God likes to make us clean on the inside.”

“And I’m sure he appreciates it when we’re clean on the outside too,” added Emily. “So, come on, Carlie. It’s time to clean up your act.”

It was awkward taking a shower with one arm sticking out, but Morgan and Emily did their best to help her and to keep her cast dry. After a while she was clean and dry and dressed in her warm-ups. And, the truth was, it felt pretty good. “I suppose there are better ways to rebel,” she admitted, “instead of sacrificing personal hygiene.”

“I’ll say,” said Emily as she fussed with Carlie’s curls.

“Hold still,” said Morgan, as she put some cherry lip gloss on Carlie’s chapped lips.

“There,” said Emily finally. “Done.”

“And just in time,” said Morgan, pointing to the clock.

“Thanks, you guys,” said Carlie. “I really do appreciate it.”

“So do we!” exclaimed Emily as she helped Carlie with her parka.

“Farewell to Pigpen,” added Morgan, and they all laughed.

As they walked back to the lodge, Carlie considered her mom’s neat-freak ways. She thought about how hard Mom worked to keep her home and her family clean and fed and well cared for. And then Carlie thought of all the times she’d gotten mad at Mom for those same things. Suddenly she felt bad. Mom was just doing what she thought was best. And even packing that polka dot bag had turned out to be a good thing. Carlie knew that she’d have to thank Mom for that when she got home. And she’d have to apologize too. Just like that, Carlie realized that she had forgiven her mom. And she wasn’t mad at her anymore. It seemed slightly miraculous too. Like God had helped her somehow. Then she wondered if the same thing could happen with Chelsea, but she doubted it. That was different!

“How’s it going, Carlie?” asked Amy as they sat down at the same table to eat. “Is your arm hurting much?”

“A little,” said Carlie, carefully avoiding making eye contact with Chelsea, even though she was sitting directly across from her.

“I miss having you as my buddy,” said Whitney.

Carlie looked at Whitney and could tell she was being sincere. “Thanks,” said Carlie. “You were a really good buddy — and a good teacher too.”

“Well, thank you.” Whitney grinned.

“So who was your buddy after I left?” asked Carlie.

“We became a trio,” said Amy. “Whitney, Chelsea, and I.”

Carlie nodded, still not looking at Chelsea.

“But we stayed off of the half-pipe,” said Whitney. “After seeing what happened to you, there was no way I was going to try it.”

Amy nodded vigorously. “No way.”

“We saw you talking to Enrico,” said Whitney in a slightly teasing tone. “Is he your boyfriend now?”

“No,” said Carlie sharply. “We’re just friends. That’s all.”

“Sorry,” said Whitney, obviously offended.

Carlie softened now. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

Now the other girls started talking, and as the noise level at their table increased, Carlie was relieved not to be the center of attention anymore. Her friends were sharing various snowboarding stories and almost mishaps and planning for what they would do on the slope tomorrow, and after a while, Carlie started to feel slightly left out. Plus, her arm was starting to ache, and she realized that she’d forgotten to bring her Advil with her.

She reached down to rub her arm, but all she could do was rub the surface of the blue cast. Then, for no rational
reason, Carlie wanted to cry. Maybe it had been a mistake to stay here after all. Maybe she should’ve asked Mom to come get her. If Carlie had been worried about being an outsider before coming up here, she had a lot more cause to feel that way now. The lump in her throat was growing larger. But the last thing she wanted to do was to start bawling in front of her friends.

Then she looked up to see that one other person at their table seemed to be on the outside of things too. Carlie stared at Chelsea across from her. She was just sitting quietly, poking at her barely touched food, her head down, and not talking to anyone. And no one was talking to her either. Just then Carlie felt the tiniest pin prick of pity for Chelsea. It wasn’t much … but it was something. More than that, Carlie felt sorry for herself. But she didn’t want to cry.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly, although no one seemed to notice. Then she awkwardly got up, and without looking back, she hurried toward the exit. Her plan was to go back to the cabin and get her Advil. Whether or not she came back … well, she’d figure that out later. Going to bed was actually sounding like a good escape at the moment.

“Hey,” said a voice from behind, followed by a hand on her shoulder.

Carlie turned to see Chelsea. “Huh?”

“Where ya going?”

“To the cabin,” said Carlie in stiff voice. “My arm hurts, and I forgot my pills.”

Chelsea pushed the door open for her. “Mind if I come along?”

Carlie shrugged. “Sure, whatever …”

They both walked quietly on the trail, snow crunching beneath their boots. Carlie wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure that she wanted to say anything at all. Finally they were at the cabin, and Chelsea opened the door, waiting for Carlie to go in before she closed it.

Carlie started fumbling through her things, using one hand to check pockets and trying to remember where she’d put the sample packets the nurse had given her.

“Need some help?” offered Chelsea.

“Sure.” Then Carlie described the packet and sat down on her bunk to wait for Chelsea to look.

“Here it is,” said Chelsea. “Want me to open it for you?”

Carlie nodded.

Then Chelsea went to the bathroom and returned with a glass of water, handing Carlie the pills first and then the glass. Then she sat down beside her on the bunk.

“I’m sorry, Carlie,” said Chelsea in a quiet voice.

Carlie blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Carlie wasn’t sure what to do now. As mean as it seemed, she wasn’t ready for this. She was still mad at Chelsea. And she didn’t know if she could let go of that anger. Chelsea didn’t deserve it.

“I know you’re mad at me,” continued Chelsea. “And I guess I can’t blame you.”

“You can’t blame me?” said Carlie bitterly.

“No. I was pretty sure you’d be mad.” Chelsea sighed. “But I figured you’d forgive me too.”

“Why should I forgive you?” asked Carlie.

Chelsea shrugged.

“How fair is it that you picked on me? Or that you egged me on about jumping on the half-pipe? Or that you made fun of me and called me a liar in front of everyone? How fair is it that you think you can waltz in here and say you’re sorry and expect me to forgive you? Just like that. Easy breezy.” Carlie stared at Chelsea with narrowed eyes. On one hand, she was shocked by what she was saying, but on the other hand, it felt good to let her feelings out. And, besides, Chelsea deserved this.

“I guess it’s not fair …”

“That’s right,” snapped Carlie. “It’s not. And besides that you go around acting all boy crazy and you make fun of people who aren’t and you influence Amy to act like you and you —”

“Fine!” shouted Chelsea as she stood up and faced
Carlie. “You hate me. Go ahead and just say it. You hate me and you’ll never forgive me.” Tears were streaming down her face now. And then, before Carlie could say a thing, Chelsea turned and ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

If Carlie was unhappy before, she was totally miserable now. She considered chasing after Chelsea, but even without a broken arm, it would be hard to catch her. It would be hopeless with her new handicap. Why had Carlie been so mean? What was the point of saying all that? Even if most of it was true, why did she have to say it the way she did? Why couldn’t she have been kinder? More like Morgan or Emily? Now Carlie started to cry. More than ever she wanted to go home. She wanted her mom and dad. She wanted her own room. She even wanted her noisy little brothers. But it had been her choice to stay here until tomorrow — she couldn’t very well back out now.

“There you are,” called out Emily’s cheerful voice.

“Is something wrong?” asked Morgan.

Carlie sniffed and went to the bathroom for a tissue.

“What’s the matter?” asked Emily when she reemerged.

So Carlie told them about Chelsea, about how she apologized and how she asked Carlie to forgive her … “And you know what I did?” she sputtered out, “I yelled at her. I told her about everything she’d done that was wrong.
I made her feel really horrible. It was like I wanted to hurt her just as much as she’d hurt me — maybe even more.”

“Oh …” Morgan sat down in a chair and seemed to consider this.

“And what did Chelsea do?” asked Emily.

“She started crying and then took off.” Carlie wiped her nose again. “I really hurt her feelings.” She sadly shook her head. “And now I feel worse than ever.”

“Did you think that you’d feel better if you yelled at her?” asked Emily.

Carlie nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes my mom yells like that. She calls it venting. I hate it when she does it, and I always tell myself that I don’t want to be like that … and then there I go.” She sighed. “I’m hopeless.”

Emily laughed. “No, you’re not.”

“It feels like I am.”

“Everyone feels hopeless sometimes,” said Morgan. “But that’s just God’s way of reminding us that we need him.”

“Well, I guess I really need him.”

“Of course you do.”

“So …” Morgan paused as if she was thinking of how to put this. “Well, Carlie, did you even listen to what Cory said last night?”

Carlie shrugged. “Kind of, but it didn’t make all that much sense.”

“So you didn’t get that forgiveness is like a circle?” asked Morgan.

“Not exactly.” Carlie looked hopefully at Morgan. “Want to explain it?”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah. To put it simply, Cory said that forgiveness is a circle that shouldn’t be broken. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“He said that the circle begins with God …” Morgan used her finger to draw a circle in the air. “Up here …” She moved her finger up. “Is where God forgives us.” Then she circled down. “And then the circle continues and we forgive others … and that brings us back around to God again. Does that make sense?”

“Kind of.”

“But you see, when we circle down here, where we need to forgive others … if we don’t, then the circle gets broken and we can’t circle back up to God again. It’s like we land in a black hole.”

“That’s where it feels like I am.”

“So the way out of that hole is to forgive,” said Morgan.

“But how do you forgive someone when you’re still angry at them?”

“You ask God to help you,” said Emily. Then she told Carlie about how she had to forgive her dad. “I didn’t think that it was possible,” she admitted. “It just seemed too hard.”

Carlie nodded. The story of what Emily’s dad had done had been frightening to her. Carlie couldn’t even imagine what she would do, or how she would feel if her dad was like that. “Yeah, I can understand that it’d be hard. How did you do it?”

“I had to ask God to help me.”

“And did he?”

“Yes. But I realized I had to do my part too. It was kind of like having faith. It’s like you take the first step without knowing whether or not the earth is going to give way beneath your feet.”

“And did it?”

Emily smiled. “No. And the best part is how good I felt after I forgave my dad.”

“What did he do?” asked Carlie.

Emily just shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I just had to forgive him on my own. Then I wrote him a letter and put it in a Christmas card that I took to the jail. I never saw him. And I never heard back from him.”

“That was it?”

“The ‘it’ part of it was that I forgave him, Carlie. With God’s help I forgave him. And when I did that, it was like I was suddenly closer to God again. It was like this huge weight was lifted, and I was happy again. How
my dad reacted was up to him. I mean, I pray for him, but I can’t do anything about his choices.”

“So does that make sense?” asked Morgan. She drew a circle with her finger again. “God forgives us, we forgive others, and the circle continues. We refuse to forgive, and the circle is broken.”

Carlie nodded now. “Yeah, actually, it does make sense. You guys make a good preaching team.”

Morgan and Emily laughed. Then all three of them hugged. And finally, Carlie asked if they could pray for Chelsea again. And this time Carlie prayed too.

“Dear God,” she said after the other two finished praying. “I want to forgive Chelsea, but I need your help. I want to be a better friend to her, but I need your help to do that too. Please take care of Chelsea tonight, God, and help me to make things right with her.” Then they all said “amen.”

“Well, it’s time to get back for tonight’s meeting,” said Morgan. But when they got back to the lodge and went into the meeting room, Carlie looked around and realized that Chelsea wasn’t there. As they sang songs, Carlie tried to keep an eye on the door, hoping that Chelsea would walk in. But by the time Cory started his talk, Chelsea was still not there. And now Carlie started to feel worried. She wondered if she should tell Janna. What if Chelsea was lost out in the snow somewhere? And if she was, would
it be Carlie’s fault? Suddenly, Carlie knew that the only thing to do was to pray. So she bowed her head and without actually saying the words out loud, she began to pray in her head for Chelsea, begging God to keep her safe and bring her back tonight.

Then, just as Carlie lifted her head and opened her eyes, she noticed Chelsea slipping in the door. Her cheeks looked flushed from the cold, and Carlie could tell by the way she slumped into a seat in the back that she was still feeling bad. Carlie knew that was mostly her fault. And she knew she’d have to make things right. Mostly she was just thankful that Chelsea was safe.

“Jesus doesn’t expect us to be perfect,” Cory was saying now. “He just expects us to give our imperfections to him. He wants us to admit that we blow it, and he wants us to come to him with our failures. But that’s not the way our human minds work, is it?” He glanced over the crowd. “Think about how you feel when you mess up. Don’t you just want to hide it, sort of bury it and pretend that it never happened? Of course you do. You make a mistake and you don’t want to put it on MySpace do you? You don’t want everyone to know. But that’s not how God works. He tells us to bring our mistakes out into the open. He says to bring our troubles to him. Then he invites us to lay that junk down in front of him, and he asks us to trust him to make things better.”

Cory continued on about how God wasn’t intimidated by failure, about how God wanted them to live wide-open lives. And as he talked, it began to make more sense. The things that Morgan and Emily had said began to make more sense, and there was a warm sort of electric feeling running through Carlie — like God really was doing something inside of her. And suddenly she was excited about all this. Suddenly she knew that not only was she a Christian — just like Morgan and Emily and the others — but she wanted to be a Christian. She wanted to forgive others, and she wanted to be forgiven. And she wanted so many other things. But first of all, she wanted to settle things with Chelsea.

Then Cory, once again, invited them to give their hearts to God. This time he challenged them to surrender everything. And this time, he asked for anyone who wanted to take their faith to the next level to stand up and come forward. Well, Carlie had never done anything like this before. Certainly not during mass — although they did go forward for communion. But she knew this was different. She knew that she needed to stand up and go forward. Even if she was the only one. So without pausing to question herself, Carlie jumped to her feet and marched forward. To her surprise, several others did too. Then as Cory stood quietly in front, just playing his guitar, more and more kids came forward. Even Jeff and Enrico came
forward. And finally Carlie saw that Chelsea had come forward too.

Then Cory prayed with all of them. They all promised to serve God more wholeheartedly than ever. Carlie knew that these weren’t just words. She knew that she meant it — all of it.

Then, after Cory said “amen,” Carlie went straight to Chelsea. “I’m really, really sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t know why I was so mean to you earlier tonight, but I am really, really sorry. And I want you to forgive me. And I totally forgive you. And I want us to be friends and —” But before she could finish, Chelsea was hugging her.

“I’m sorry too, Carlie. I feel really bad about everything. And I know I’m a mean, horrible, selfish person. I was jealous of you, Carlie. And I think I actually wanted you to get hurt, and everything you said about me was true and I don’t deserve to —”

“Okay, okay,” said Carlie, stepping back. “But don’t be so hard on yourself, Chelsea.”

“What about what Cory said? What about bringing our messes out into the light?”

Carlie laughed now. “Yes. You’re right.”

Just then Emily, Morgan, and Amy joined them. All the girls were happily talking about how things were going to be different between them — how important their friendship was and how they wanted to treat each other better. Soon
they were all in a group hug, and Carlie was so thankful she hadn’t gone home. And she was so thankful for these four girls — and their Rainbow Bus club. She couldn’t believe how close they had come to losing it up here on the mountain. But now she thought they’d be closer than ever when they went home.