Wrestling Against Myself (12 page)

Tentatively, Courtney reached up and took the card. She eyed the bright red card and read what it said. “It has a cross on it,” she said.

“Yep.” Antonio found that she had stated the obvious amusing. “My youth pastor gave it me and now I'm giving it to you. Might be worth a try.”

Courtney put the card in a clear plastic pouch that was inside her binder.

“We have youth group tonight,” Tony blurted out. “It's a lot of fun, gets kind of noisy though.”

“That's okay,” Courtney said, “they probably wouldn't want me there any way.”

Antonio was confused. “Why wouldn't a church want you there?”

“Some Christians don't like certain other people. The church I was at asked me not to come back.”

Antonio was offended. “Why would they do that?”

“I guess they hate me too.”

A look of disgust came over Antonio's face. He never heard anything so revolting. “Some people are plain stupid. I can't talk about others, but I don't hate you.”

“You don't know me.”

“Maybe you can give me the chance to know you; maybe we can even be friends.”

Courtney's eyes glassed over, but she quickly composed herself. “I got to go,” she said in a rush and then turned to leave.

“But,” Antonio said, but by the time he thought of an objection, she was already half way towards the door.

Courtney never lessened her pace, went through the door and disappeared from view, leaving Antonio behind with his mouth open.

“At least you can carry on a conversation,” he said to the empty space in front of the girl's locker.

He shrugged it off. Normally he didn't have this big of a problem making a connection with a person. Usually everyone was trying to get a word with him and he thought that maybe he was out of practice.

Tony put his head against his locker. It would be quite some time before the first bell rang and he didn't have much to do. He was more confused than ever by the girl's behavior.

“What could she have done for a church to ask her to leave and have others want her to leave school,” he pondered as he ran his fingers over the pages of his Bible.

“Could she have had an abortion?” He thought to himself in disbelief. “That could be it,” he continued on the line of thought as he tried to add up everything he knew about the situation. “It would explain why a church would ask her not to come back, some churches are like that. Unfortunately. But she's so small. But it would make sense. She got pregnant.” He shuddered at the thought of a middle school kid in that predicament, even though he knew it happened. “Okay. She got pregnant. The boy who made her that way got in a ton of trouble. Maybe even made to move to another state or something. She got an abortion. Maybe not the best thing to have done, but, who am I to judge? It got around the school what had happened and they all blamed her and now want her to pay.”

Tony looked down at an open page of his Bible, but didn't even bother to read it as thoughts swam around his head. 'Could that be it? Is this poor little girl being ostracized for making a few bad choices? How sad, she probably feels as if she hasn't a friend in the world.'

Though her rather not believe it, there was a certain logic to his conclusion. He would find out soon enough, rumors always made their way around the school eventually.

“Lord,” Tony spoke as he looked up. “Let her know that she has a friend in you. And in me. Amen.”

Tony felt a bit proud of himself for figuring things out. He leaned against his locker and decided to read through Matthew 6 once again.

Lunch time came none too soon for the hulking teenager. For the second day in a row, by the time he got to the cafeteria, he was famished. He got into line and waited as he drew closer. Since he had lost the weight, he was worried about falling back into old habits. One of those habits was taking too much food when he was hungry and overeating to compensate for waiting so long.

Antonio was quite proud of himself when he walked away with a regular sized lunch. If he would've asked, the lunch lady would've given him an extra burger or more fries. He would eat this meal and then return to his normal schedule, but thought it might be prudent for him to start bringing a healthy snack for those mornings when he would be at school early.

Tony made his way to his regular table. Carl and Tracy were already there.

“Hey, you two,” Tony said as he sat down and started dressing his hamburger.

“Hey Tiny,” the pair said in unison.

“Finally had a chat with that girl this morning,” Tony said and then ate some fries.

Carl laughed. “I told you, he's obsessed with her.”

Tony shot Carl a look.

“Come on Tiny, it's the third day in a row that you've brought that girl up. It isn't a sin to admit that you are interested in her. Besides, she is cute. You should go for it Tiny, would make her popular.”

“You think I want to date a freshman?”  Tony asked, trying not to sound offended.

“You wouldn't be the first senior to date a frosh,” Tracy said. “Some girls like older dudes.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Is this the kind of things you two discuss while I'm not around?”

“Generally.” Carl laughed.

“I do not want to date that girl. I'm just concerned, that is all.”

“Right,” Tracy said holding onto the vowel for a few seconds before finishing the word.

“Enough teasing,” Carl finally relented. “You know Tiny, he sticks up for the little guy. Or, little girl in this case. So, what did she say?”

“Not much of anything. Just that she lives in that walled off community next to the school and she had a bit of a problem at her last church.”

“Ooh, intrigue,” Tracy said as she leaned forward. “What kind of a problem?”

Antonio chuckled. “We got Ms. Gossip interested now.”

Tracy frowned. “I do not gossip.”

“Right,” Tony responded, mimicking the girl.

Tracy stuck her tongue out at her friend. “Anyway, what kind of problem?”

“She didn't get into it, just said that she didn't feel welcomed there anymore.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “Problems at school. Problems at church. I don't know Tiny, maybe she is some kind of trouble maker.”

“Not very friendly,” Tracy added.

Tony cocked his head. “Say again?”

“I said she isn't very friendly.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I tried to talk to her yesterday afternoon. You know, how was school, was she finding everything alright, that kind of thing.”

“Okay,” Tony leaned in and took a big bite out of his hamburger.

“She wasn't like rude or nothing like that. But she couldn't get away from me fast enough. Kept giving me those one word answers. You know, I'd say, 'How are you doing?' and she'd go 'okay.' Then I was like, my name is Tracy, what's yours?' All she said was 'Courtney.' Not even in a full sentence. I was glad when we had to get in class, very uncomfortable.”

“She's really scared here,” Tony offered.

“Then maybe she should go to another school,” Carl said casually.

“That's what's making her scared in the first place, remember. These dopey Freshmen want her to drop out, making her life miserable. I'd be on my toes to.”

“But what does she have to be afraid of,” Tracy asked.

“After school Peter and his little crew tried chasing her down.”

Tracy shrugged. “That's kind of what they do, isn't it? I figure every school has its bullies.”

“They tried chasing her down in his pickup.”

Carl looked surprised. “Yeah, I'd be scared.”

“He'll grow tired of her sooner or later,” Tracy offered. “Not like him to pick on a girl though.”

“She had to do something to tick people off, Tiny,” Carl added. “It's not normal for so many to have a thing against someone undeserving.”

Shannon joined the group at the table. “Let me guess, the chick?”

Carl looked up at the football player. “Yeah, we were talking about what she might have done to get so many people upset at her.”

“I bet she stole some money,” Shannon said as he sat down. “People always get mad over stolen money. What do you think, Tiny? Since I'm sure you're the one who brought her up. Again.”

“I have my theories,” Tony said. “But they're just theories and I don't want to add to the rumors.” He looked down the table. “Where are Dave and Ted?”

“Oh,” Shannon said while holding a handful of fries. “They're at the library trying to do their dice game thingy.”

Antonio shook his head. “So they're back to missing meals again.”

“There she is,” Carl said as he motioned towards the door.

Tony turned his head and watched as Courtney joined the line. The line was a little bit longer than the day before. Tony checked his watch, five minutes earlier than the first two days. 'Progress,' he thought.

“I told you he was obsessed,” Carl said to Shannon.

“Anyway,” Tony decided to let the comment slide. “I invited her to youth group tonight.”

“A date?” Shannon asked with raised eyebrows.

“You guys must talk about me a lot when I'm not around,” Tony said pointedly. “No, it is not a date, she pretty much said no when I asked.”

“Wow, Tiny got shot down.” Shannon let out a deep laugh. “I never thought I'd see the day.”

“I didn't get shot down,” Antonio said, knowing that everything was being said in good fun but it annoyed him none the less. “I wasn't asking her out on a date, I was asking a fellow student to youth group, like we're supposed to.”

“You know what the football players said,” Shannon replied.

“Yeah, we've been there before. Too busy.”

Shannon shrugged. “I tried.”

“I know all the same people you know, Tiny,” Carl answered when he was looked upon.  “I got one maybe.”

“I got one boy from my French class coming,” Tracy offered. “But I doubt he's coming for the preaching.”

Carl looked at her.

“Relax,” Tracy said. “He isn't coming with me and I'm still not dating. Besides, that's not what I meant. I told him we had a rock band and he was curious to see a rock band at a church.”

Carl looked relieved but tried to hide it. “I wasn't saying nothing.”

“Sure you weren't,” Tony returned the needling he had gotten.

“Probably a good thing she isn't coming to youth group,” Tracy said before the verbal jabs went back and forth.

Tony turned his attention to the girl. “How so?”

“Think about how scared she is here at school.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Think about youth group. You know how loud and wild it gets. Pastor Bob always gets everyone into a frenzy on top of that. If she's scared at school, she might wet herself if she was at church.”

Tony shrugged. “Maybe.” He looked at the front of the cafeteria and saw Courtney heading towards the first table with her tray. “Anyway, I'll leave you guys be. I'm going to try to repair a small problem.”