Have a Little Faith in Me

by Sonia Hartl

  “You’re going to do it?” I bounced on my toes. “You’re not mad at me?”

  “Don’t get me wrong—I’m annoyed and frustrated with your total lack of awareness regarding Ethan. But you already told him we’re dating. For better or worse, you’re stuck with me as your summer boyfriend.”

  “I could do a lot worse.” I wrapped my arms around him, squeezing all my gratitude for his friendship into my hug. I’d be completely lost without him.

  As we headed back up the trail, I waved to some of the others from our group who were still talking by the lake. Paul and I made our way into the dining hall, which was packed with kids from ages thirteen to seventeen, and grabbed trays at the front of the long food line. The cavernous room made every clang of silverware rattle off the walls. College-aged counselors hung out in tight-knit groups against the walls as they scanned the crowd for any sign of a burgeoning food fight.

  “How did unpacking go for you?” I asked.

  “All right. Don’t like Jerome. Never liked Ethan. They’re bros, of course. Peter doesn’t talk much, spends a lot of time in the bathroom. That’s pretty much it.”

  “These next three weeks are going to suck for you, aren’t they?”

  “Yep.” He gave me the kind of grin that reminded me why so many girls at our school asked me if I’d be cool with them asking him out. As if I cared. He wasn’t hot in the traditional sense: he was tall and lanky and didn’t have a six-pack or muscular arms, his nose was too big for his face, and his eyebrows were a little on the bushy side, but he had a way of looking at someone as if they were the only one in the room.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve said that to you yet.”

  “It’s fine.” He nudged me forward with the line. “Do you think I’d miss the chance to watch you squirm this summer?”

  “You wish you could watch me squirm.”

  “Don’t I know it.” His low voice sparked a warm tickle in my stomach, making my head light. I’d become extra aware of the fresh bread on the line, and my mouth watered. I must’ve been really hungry.

  “I’ll have you know I handled myself like a pro during the whole unpacking.” I put two rolls and a mini-baguette on my tray. “No one suspects for a second I’m not like them.”

  “Unpacking and getting to know your cabinmates is like riding a bike with training wheels, and you’re about to enter the X Games.” He loaded his tray with two sandwiches, an apple, a salad, and two bags of chips.

  “Watch me double backflip on a half-pipe for Jesus.”

  “I’ll pray for you.” He chuckled.

  “No, you won’t.” I passed the weird meat drowning in brown sauce as I moved down the line. “Speaking of riding a bike … what’s up with that Scripture you laid down like a boss on Jerome? Do you just remember stuff like that?”

  “This environment has a way of recalling it more clearly than back at home, but it’s not like I can escape it there, either, with my mom and stepdad determined to save my soul.”

  “Aww, how sweet are they?”

  Paul ignored me and added five cookies to his tray. With the way he ate, his mom probably had to go shopping every day. My parents wouldn’t even let him come over for dinner anymore because his appetite didn’t fit into the budget spreadsheet.

  “Your mom is such a badass, I bet she could save your soul on sheer will alone.”

  His eyes shone with amusement. “No swearing.”

  “It says ass in the Bible. I’m calling a pass on that one.”

  “You’re thinking of a donkey, unless I missed the part where Jesus referred to his disciples as a group of badasses.”

  “Language, Mr. Romanowski,” said a stern-faced man who had more gel than hair on his head. “We don’t tolerate swearing here at this camp, as you’ll well remember.”

  “Yes, sir,” Paul mumbled while my entire frame shook from trying to hold in my laughter. “Not funny,” he said to me. “If I go, you’re screwed.”

  “Language, Mr. Romanowski.” I grabbed two wedges of Swiss and Colby cheese, debated, and took another Colby. We stopped at the drink station, and I stuck my glass under the purple Kool-Aid.

  “Don’t.” Paul put his hand over mine to stop me. “The first rule of Jesus camp is don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”

  “But”—I looked mournfully at the drink station—“it’s Purplesaurus Rex.”

  “It’s your funeral.”

  “Fine. Though if it’s really that bad, they shouldn’t even have it out.” I filled my glass with iced tea, picked up my tray, and headed over to the leadership table.

  I plunked down my food next to Ethan, who turned his nose up at my dinner. “I see you’re still content to live off bread and cheese.”

  “It’s true.” I slathered a generous amount of butter on my roll. “I’d make an excellent old-world prisoner.”

  “They didn’t get cheese.” He bumped his arm against mine and smiled. For a brief moment it was like it used to be between us.

  “Alas. Guess I’d have to be on my best behavior then.”

  “Your best would probably still get you a week in the hole.” Paul set his tray next to mine and stretched his long legs under the too-short bench.

  “That wouldn’t be so bad.” I licked the butter that had dripped off the end of my bread. “Depending on whose hole I got to spend a week in.”

  Across the table, Peter snorted, spraying milk across the table.

  “Watch yourself.” Ethan scowled as he wiped the droplets off his arm.

  Paul pushed his glass to the side. “It’s milk, dickhead. It won’t kill you.”

  “What’s your problem with me, Romanowski?” Ethan looked at me with an odd expression, like he’d bitten into a lemon expecting an apple. “Proverbs 5:20?”

  “Careful, Jones. I’d hate for your choirboy face to get busted up.” Paul kept his tone eerily calm, but I recognized the threat. I’d only heard Paul talk that way once. To his father.

  “Paul, don’t.” I wrapped a hand around his upper arm. I had no idea what was going on, but the tightness there scared me, like it would take so little to trip his wire. “If you want to go for a walk, I’ll walk with you.”

  Paul held Ethan’s gaze, like in a game of chicken, until Ethan turned his attention back to his food. “Forget it, man. I’m not here to fight. I’m trying to get closer to Jesus.”

  “I’m not. Remember that the next time you breathe a word about CeCe to me.”

  The Bible verse Ethan had mentioned didn’t mean a thing to me, but that unfamiliar warmth spread through me again, and I stuffed a bite of cheese into my mouth to get my jumpy stomach to relax. Across the table, Peter eyed Paul with puppy-like adoration. Poor kid. I bet no one had stood up for him in his life.

  Mandy set her tray on the other side of Ethan. Even her sunny persona dampened under the tension at our table. “What did I miss?”

  “Nothing,” the four of us said at the same time.

  Jerome arrived next, and Ethan glared at Peter until he moved down to make room for Sarina and Astrid. The gang was all here. And what a happy little family we made.

  Mandy shoveled food into her mouth at steamroller speed. She barely chewed once before she grabbed another forkful of potatoes to stuff in next to the meatloaf she’d inhaled. It was like watching a snake unhinge its jaw and swallow a mouse whole. She caught me staring, put her fork down, and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

  “How do you stay so skinny when you eat like a lumberjack?” I asked.

  Paul coughed and elbowed my ribs.

  Mandy didn’t seem fazed. “Growing up in a home with eight kids, you learn to grab what you can, when you can. You don’t have brothers or sisters?”

  “Only child,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.” She had a pitying look on her face, as if literally fighting to get full at every meal was some kind of life experience I missed out on. “We didn’t get a chance to talk more about this at the cabin, but I was wonderi
ng how you and Paul know Ethan. Do you all go to church together?”

  Ethan shot a glance at Paul. “No. Same school.”

  “That’s so neat.” Mandy beamed at us. “How fun to have friends from home here.”

  “I wouldn’t call us friends,” I said. “More like once-upon-a-time acquaintances.”

  “Once upon a time, huh?” She took down half her milk in one gulp. “That sounds like a story. I bet it’s an interesting one.”

  “I bet you wouldn’t think so if you heard it,” I said in a singsong voice.

  Astrid narrowed her eyes as she glanced between me and Ethan. I had to watch myself with her. She was a lot sharper than I’d given her credit for. “There will be plenty of time for stories at the testimony bonfire on Sunday night.”

  I lifted my glass in a toast. “Can’t wait.”

  Once we finished eating, we had to make sure all the trays got picked up and there wasn’t a bunch of trash or food left lying out. The kind of crap job reserved for counselors in training. It quickly became clear that “leadership program” really stood for “grunt work.”

  The actual counselors pushed the benches to the back of the room as the lights dimmed. Large speakers at the front of the stage blared the kind of hip-hop my mom listened to in the car whenever she took control of the radio. Very nineties. Colored strobe lights lit up the dining hall, and everyone started … well, I couldn’t call it dancing, but they jerked their bodies around in an attempt to dance. Christian girls gone wild.

  The stern-faced man who’d given Paul a lecture at the food line took the stage. You’d think a rock god had entered the room. He flashed his game-show-host smile, and all around me people screamed. Mandy had honest-to-God tears streaming down her cheeks. What fresh hell had I gotten myself into?

  “Welcome to the X Games!” Paul yelled in my ear.

  “What’s wrong with everyone? Is this why you didn’t want me to drink the Kool-Aid?”

  Paul laughed so hard, I could actually hear him above the noise. “That’s Pastor Dean up there. He runs the place, and people kind of think he’s cool.”

  “Kind of?” A young girl in the front row fainted and had to be carried away by two counselors. “Good Lord.”

  “Amen.” Paul leaned close enough for me to feel his breath on my neck. “Now are you starting to see why I left all this behind?”

  “Give me a few days to process what I’m seeing here. I’m sure I’ll get there.”

  “I’m sure you will.” He smirked.

  The strobe lights shut off and a single beam shone down upon Pastor Dean, making the generous amount of gel he’d slathered in his hair glow like a halo. “Welcome, new and old friends, to Camp Three SixTeen.”

  The crowd cheered and I clapped respectably, so as not to stick out.

  “We’re going to have another wild summer and I can’t wait to hear your testimonies. But before we get into the activities we’ll be doing, who here is down with Jesus?”

  The earth-shattering scream nearly split my head open.

  Pastor Dean held a hand to his ear. “I can’t hear you.”

  “What more does he want?” I asked Paul a moment before another cheer, impossibly louder than the first, shook the walls of the building.

  “That’s more like it!” Pastor Dean shouted. “You know what I see before me? Warriors. Strong, loud warriors for our man Jesus.”

  He could’ve stood there spouting gibberish and the crowd would cheer.

  “I thought they said no fighting.” I grabbed Paul’s arm. “Are they training us to be actual warriors? I didn’t sign up for combat.”

  Astrid shot a quizzical look over her shoulder.

  “Might want to save your questions for when we’re alone.” Paul nodded to Astrid. Soft music started up, and Pastor Dean’s voice hummed like slow molasses as he gave praise and thanks to the Lord for gathering us all here. “Just go with it. Act like you’re mid-orgasm.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah. As if I know what that’s like.”

  “You don’t?” Paul raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  “It’s not that interesting in this situation.” I glanced around at the people holding their hearts and swaying; they all had one arm raised to the heavens.

  “Act like you just took a big bite of cheese.” He got so close this time, his cheek brushed mine. “The best cheese you’ve ever had in your life. Brie.”

  “Oh God. Yes.”

  “That’s the look.” Paul lifted my arm to match everyone else in the room. His fingers trailed around my wrist and I shuddered. “Keep your hand in the air and think of Brie.”

  If only it had occurred to me to think of Brie while I’d had sex with Ethan. It would’ve been a whole lot easier to fake it. Astrid gave me another backward glance and, seemingly satisfied with what she saw, continued to sway and cry with everyone else.

  Pastor Dean droned on for what felt like an eternity, but the crowd never lost interest. Not even the freshmen fidgeted, and I knew they didn’t have thoughts of Brie dancing through their heads to keep them sated. The Lord truly worked in mysterious ways.

  “Thank you all for sharing your passion, your love for Jesus,” Pastor Dean said. “We’ve got everyone’s favorite, the bonfire testimonies, set for Sunday night. Tomorrow after workshops we’ve got a fun treasure hunt lined up, so make sure you get plenty of rest tonight and keep your bodies strong for the Lord. It’s going to be an exciting summer.”

  “What’s this testimony bonfire thing people keep talking about?” I asked.

  “It’s where people overshare their most shameful sins that led them on the path to Jesus, thinking they won’t be judged, but we all remember the good ones,” Paul said. “The last time I was here, there was a guy who said he let his dog lick peanut butter off his—”

  I held up a hand. “No need to finish that sentence, thanks. Testimonies sounds horrible. Amusing, but horrible.”

  “My advice is to listen. Don’t be tempted to speak.”

  “What makes you think I’d be tempted to speak?”

  He gave me a bland stare.

  “Okay, fine.” I mimicked zipping my lips. “No speaking. Just listening.”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to get caught up in testimony night.”

  Chapter 7

  After Pastor Dean left the stage and everyone woke up from their Jesus trance, we helped the counselors put the benches back for breakfast. The camp had a lights-out rule at eleven, and I had no problem with that. My whole body felt like I’d run a five-mile obstacle course. The combination of manual labor and faking the Christian spirit took a lot out of a girl. We finished cleaning up the big house at ten thirty, long after the younger years had already gone back to their cabins, leaving the leadership group alone on the grounds.

  The air smelled of woodsmoke and freshly mowed grass. Gravel crunched beneath our feet as we trekked toward our cabins, with only the moonlight to guide us. Though the camp had a strict no phones rule, I wish I’d snuck mine in just to get a picture of the sky. I’d never seen so many stars at once. Not even on my family camping trips, which tended to be in heavily wooded areas without much open space for stargazing.

  Paul held my hand, hanging back from the rest of the guys to walk with me. “Do you think there’s a chance you can sneak out of your cabin tonight?”

  “Sure, why not?” The other girls would probably be too nose deep in their nightly prayers to notice. “What did you have in mind?”

  “We need to go over some of the workshops. Sometimes they split up the guys and girls for those, so we should probably figure out how we’re going to get you through them without you making an ass of yourself.”

  I smiled sweetly at him. “Don’t you mean making a donkey of myself?”

  “That too.”

  An owl hooted in the distance as we got closer to the cabins. The light from the moon dimmed near the forest. A tight cluster of trees blocked out the stars, leaving the woods a
twisted mass of dark leaves and unknown predators. Out here, no one could hear us scream. Except for maybe Jesus.

  “Summer camps are a classic setting for all the worst slasher films.” I shivered and rubbed my arms. “If there’s a masked killer out there, we’ll be the first ones to die.”

  Paul squeezed my hand. “Because neither of us are virgins.”

  “Might as well write our obituaries now.”

  He pointed toward the forest. “I’m going to hang a red T-shirt from a branch on that tree right there, by the lake, the halfway point between our cabins.”

  “Oh right. That tree right there. So descriptive.”

  He gave a long-winded sigh. “Just look for the red shirt.”

  “What happens if we get caught sneaking out?”

  “They’ll threaten to kick us out. Unless we come clean and confess our sin to our parents, meaning they’ll make us tell them we snuck out to have sex.”

  I’d die a thousand deaths if Pastor Dean forced me to tell my mom I’d had sex with Paul. She practically thought of him as the son she never had. “So. Don’t get caught then?”

  He nodded. “And if it looks like you might get caught, run for it. They won’t hog-tie you or anything. They’ll just spend the next few weeks laying the guilt on you.”

  “Sounds like you have a lot of experience in this area. How much sneaking out did you do with good Christian girls when you were a freshman?”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “You are such a pig.” I shoved him. “And not even a modest one.”

  “That might all be true, but I’m still saving your bacon.”

  “And I’m forever grateful.” I leaned up and pressed my lips against his cheek.

  Mandy turned around right then and oohed, like the kiss-track for a cheesy sitcom. If only she knew I’d done a lot more with her boyfriend than a chaste peck on the cheek. Ethan looked at me with regret, which made my heart leap into my throat, and he gave Mandy a real kiss on the lips, which made my heart promptly drop into my stomach again.

  “See you at devotions tomorrow?” Mandy sounded as if the breath had been kissed right out of her. I knew the feeling. Literally.