by Reni Huang
Oh. My. Goodness.
As the pieces began to connect, Julia’s mouth fell open, the blood drained from her face. She had to blink twice before managing to pull her gaze up to meet Wynn’s.
“My journals.”
Wynn cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, I kind of figured that wasn’t what you meant to give me.”
Her mind couldn’t comprehend it. She wanted to run, but he just stood there so calmly in front of her. Did he realize how mortifying this was? Well, he must know since now he knew her much, much too well. More than Lexi or Elliott would ever know.
“Did you read it?” Julia managed to squeak.
He gave her an apologetic look and shrugged. “I thought it was the Easter play.”
She shook herself out of her trance as Lexi rounded the corner of the shelf arguing with Elliott about the package of pink coconut snowballs in her hand.
“If the wrapping is sealed it won’t make a difference,” Lexi insisted.
Elliott shrugged and said, “The cold air can still penetrate the plastic, plus with the high altitude the texture’s going to be all hard and nasty.”
Lexi frowned at the sugary balls and sighed as she placed them back on the shelf. Noticing Julia’s panicked expression, she asked, “What happened?”
Geoff and Mudd joined them then so Julia shook her head and said, “Nothing.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Lia, wake up!”
Julia groaned and rolled over as Lexi plopped on her bunk bed early the next morning. Lexi tried again, shaking her shoulder, “What happened yesterday at the gas station with Wynn?” she whispered persistently.
“What time is it?” Julia mumbled, squinting at the dimly lit sky from the cabin window. “It’s so cold, and,” she propped herself up on one elbow and gave Lexi a bewildered look, “You never wake up this early, what’s going on?”
Lexi sat up and bounced on the creaky bed, “It’s snowing outside! I can’t sleep! And I’m dying to know what Wynn said to you last night!”
Someone from one of the top bunks coughed.
Julia clamped a hand down on Lexi, warning her to lower her voice. “C’mon, if you can’t sleep then let’s get out of here.”
Lexi squealed and clapped her hands, “Snowy nature walk!” The girl coughed again, and Julia gave Lexi a swift kick from under her sleeping bag making her double over, smothering her giggles in Julia’s pillow.
Bundling up in their heavy jackets, scarves, and mittens, they tromped through the fresh snow as Julia filled Lexi in on her conversation with Wynn. Julia couldn’t tell if Lexi was horrified or excited by this news, her exclamations mingled somewhere in between.
“I can’t believe this! So he knows all your secrets?”
“Well, I don’t know how much he actually read.”
“I bet he read all of it!”
Julia rolled her eyes. “More likely he got bored and couldn’t make it past the first page,” she mumbled. “This whole thing is just so embarrassing.”
“So what does this mean?”
“Lexi, I think you’re reading too much into this. It was just an accident, a mistake. It doesn’t mean anything. I just wish it hadn’t happen.”
“I bet he likes you back,” Lexi said confidently.
Julia laughed in disbelief. “What? Where did that come from?”
“It’s all kind of perfect, don’t you think? That your diary full of your most private thoughts would land into the hands of the guy you have a secret crush on? I’m mean seriously, I’ve known you since forever, and I still have a hard time figuring out what’s going on inside your head sometimes! This way, Wynn has a head start and gets to see what a wonderful person you are without having to try to decipher your cryptic mind!”
“Lexi, I didn’t know you were such a romantic,” Julia said, shaking her head, “An optimist, yes. A romantic, I hadn’t realized.”
“But you two have been spending a lot of time together lately.”
“Not really. I mean, the only time I see him is for youth group stuff. It’s not like we hang out regularly. He barely even talks to me outside of Leavesly Church. And he definitely has not asked me out on a date.”
“Well, how about when …?”
“No. And anyways, I don’t think reading my diary is exactly the best way to get to know me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve written some pretty brutal stuff in there.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“You know I trust you completely, right?”
“Yes.”
“But have I ever let you read any of my journals?”
“You’re a private person.”
“I’m a prideful person, and petty, and vengeful, and judgmental, and vain, and angry, and unforgiving.”
“No, c’mon, Lia.”
“Well, I can be. And it’s all there in my journals. All my weaknesses, my true self I hide from other people. Unedited. It’s not pretty.”
“But, we all are,” Lexi started to say then fell silent. Julia knew what she was thinking. It wasn’t the same when someone was reading it on paper. It seemed harsher somehow.
Julia shuddered at the thought, feeling exposed.
“You know,” Lexi said slowly.
Julia looked up at her, wary of her tone. It sounded more optimistic than this conversation warranted.
“He didn’t seem that turned off by you yesterday. And this is after the fact that he already read your journals.”
Julia stopped walking. “So, maybe he didn’t read it all. Maybe he stopped right away.”
“Or,” Lexi continued, an impish smile creeping back on her face. “Maybe he read it all, and just liked what he saw in you.”
“Not possible.”
Lexi laughed and reached over to give Julia a tight hug. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I dare to say I know you more than anyone else does, and I love you. Why can’t he also…”
“No,” Julia insisted, cutting her off. “Please don’t start, I don’t want to …,” she trailed off unwilling to admit it to herself.
“What?”
Julia looked somberly at her and confessed, “I don’t want to get my hopes up just to get hurt again.”
“Not every guy is going to be like Craig,” Lexi said. “Not if he’s the right one.”
“Yeah, but how can you tell when he is?”
Lexi shrugged, searching for the right words. “He’ll be able to see past the surface. And despite any imperfections he’ll still want to know you more. And love you for all that you are.”
If only a girl could find a guy like that, but from what Julia could tell, it was rare.
Not even her parents could pretend to love each other.
* * *
After gathering in the chapel for prayer and a morning devotional, Julia trudged through the knee deep snow trailing after Lexi and Elliott as they headed towards the cafeteria for breakfast.
“Why are we trekking through the snowdrifts again?” Julia called out to them, pulling her boots back up with effort with each step she took.
“Because,” Elliott called back to her, “it has the best snow for snowballs!” He punctuated this comment with a swift illustration, sending a loosely packed pile of snow sailing towards Lexi.
“Hey!” Lexi exclaimed, shaking the chunks of ice out of her long hair. But she quickly retaliated by scooping up an armful of snow and heaving it at Elliott. The snowball fight escalated quickly, and Julia shrieked and tried to get out of their way.
“That’s no way to defend yourself,” she heard the familiar voice say.
Turning around she stared up to where Wynn was standing at the edge of the snowdrift, watching them with an amused expression. She felt her world spin, and she hated her own weak and foolish heart for that.
She had seen him earlier in the chapel, but he had already been sitting with his friends on the opposite side of the room, his baseball cap tugged down low over his eyes
making her wonder if he was half asleep.
“I’m not getting into their snowball fight, they play dirty! I’m an innocent bystander,” Julia said, keeping one eye out for any wayward snowballs.
From her lower position, she could see his eyes from beneath the cap. He was grinning at her as he reached one arm down. Relief flooded through her and she gladly took his hand as he pulled her back up to solid ground. They walked in silence but the moment he pushed open the cafeteria door, it was like entering a whole other world.
Inside the large mess hall the heater was blowing its warm air creating a cozy but stuffy atmosphere. Julia instantly felt claustrophobic. The noise level was loud with people shouting over each other, saving seats, locating friends, bustling about. Leading the way, Wynn glanced back at her, and Julia smiled gratefully at him as he used his height to scan the crowd for some empty chairs.
“Julia, you’re sitting with us,” Suzy announced, squeezing past a crammed row of tables to reach her. Behind her was a girl named Gracie Chan from their freshmen girls Bible study. “You’re in our small group, and Alison is our leader. Our table’s over there.”
Julia looked at Wynn, but couldn’t read his expression. The baseball cap effectively hid his eyes. “I’ll see you around,” he said and disappeared into the crowd.
After shedding their layers of outer clothing and dumping them over the back of their chairs, Julia once again followed the girls back into the crowd, weaving through the tables until they made their way to the end of the buffet line.
“There’s Elliott,” Suzy said, nudging Julia to attention.
“How did you get in line before us?” Julia asked him incredulously as he passed by them, hair wet for the recent snowball fight. His tray was already laden with an overflowing pile of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, a bowl of oatmeal, and two boxes of cereal. “And save some food for us,” she teased him.
“Here, catch,” Elliott said. Balancing the tray in one arm, he tossed his extra box of cereal to Julia, much to Suzy’s pleasure. Julia took a step back as Suzy practically pounced at her.
Snatching the small box from her hands, Suzy ripped the carton open and declared, “I love Fruit Loops!”
After breakfast, everyone reconvened in the chapel for the morning message. Julia felt a bit lost as she searched for Lexi and Elliott but to no avail. There were just too many people crammed into the wood paneled building.
Afterwards, she followed her small group back to their leader Alison’s cabin. As they went through the questions printed in the retreat handbook, Julia noticed some conflicting qualities about her small group leader.
Alison was seemingly demure on the outside with her porcelain baby doll appearance, but it was juxtaposed with her insincere and sarcastic personality. It bothered her that Alison focused more on getting the juicy scoop on the girls in her group using the discussion questions as bait, rather than delving into the meaning of the Bible passage they were reading.
“What about you, Julia,” Alison practically sneered at her, although a smile remained plastered across her face. “You’re so quiet I keep forgetting you’re there.”
Julia looked up from where she was sitting on the bottom bunk bed next to Gracie, her back leaning against the cold wall. The other girls turned to look at her as well, and Gracie wordlessly passed a bag of Gummy bears to her.
Taking a red Gummy bear, Julia squeezed it between her fingers and tried to remember what the original question was. They had gone so far off topic she wasn’t sure how to respond. It didn’t help matters that she couldn’t seem to stop daydreaming about Wynn either. Before she could collect her thoughts, Alison let out an annoyed sigh and stood up.
“Alright,” she said bitingly. “If no one else has anything to add, then we should move on to the next thing on our agenda, which is to prepare for our Talent Show.”
The girls met this announcement with a mix of squeals of delight and groans.
“Do we have to all be in it?”
“Yes,” Alison stated, casting the girl who was sprawled on the top bunk a glare. “The Talent Show is on the last night, which means we have to figure out what we’ll be doing now so we can use today and tomorrow’s free time to practice.”
“Let’s do a skit.”
“No, Body Worship.”
“Everyone always does Body Worship.”
“Whatever, everyone always does a skit.”
“Stop,” Alison barked, effectively shushing up the two upperclassmen Julia barely knew. “I was thinking we could do a dance to Leona Lewis’ song ‘Bleeding Love.’”
“That’s not a Christian song.”
“It’s called a metaphor, like how Jesus bled on the cross because He loved us.”
“But the lyrics are talking about how the love cuts her open and she’s bleeding love.”
“So?” Alison retorted, already plugging in a tiny stereo and popping in her Leona Lewis CD.
“Well, it doesn’t make sense. Are we supposed to be the ones bleeding, or is it supposed to represent God?”
“You are thinking way too much about this, Jane. Relax.”
“Shouldn’t we vote on this?” Jane Ngo insisted. “Some of us want to do skits.”
“Look, we don’t have a whole lot of time to be arguing about this. I already have a routine worked out, so all you have to do is learn it and it will be amazing.”
If Lexi had been sitting next to her maybe Julia would’ve been brave enough to laugh. But as it was she just struggled to keep her face expressionless and watched with amusement as Alison started showing them her moves in the narrow space between the bunk beds. She was actually pretty good but most of the routine looked really difficult.
“She’s on the dance team at school,” Jane muttered as way of explanation at the awed expressions on the freshmen girls’ faces.
“Ok, now you try it,” Alison ordered after the song ended.
“There’s no room in this cabin.”
“Fine, it’s almost lunch time, but afterwards everyone meet again in the chapel for rehearsals.”
“But isn’t that our free time?” Suzy complained.
“Do you want to be the only small group who’s not ready on Talent Show night? I get it, you’re a freshman and it’s your first time at retreat. But I’m being your best friend right now when I’m telling you: Talent Show is a big deal. Every year everyone goes all out and I don’t want my small group to be the one that falls flat.”
“In that case I should probably be in charge of pressing play on the stereo,” Jane said. “You know I don’t dance.”
“I’ll help her with that,” Julia quickly added.
Alison threw her a disgusted look. “No one needs to press play. Wynn will be taking care of all the sound and media stuff.”
At the mention of his name, Julia froze. For sure now she was definitely not going to be up in front dancing. It was bad enough he’d already seen her diary, no need for further embarrassment.
Opening the cabin door as way of ending their small group time, Alison turned around and said, “Jane, you can stand in the back, no one will notice you.”
What about me? Julia wanted to say.
But before she could, Alison spat out, “The rest of you, just suck it up.”
* * *
By the time Julia and the girls from her small group entered the cafeteria for lunch, it was crowded and everyone was already eating. Since there was limited seating left, they couldn’t all sit together, and the other girls soon dispersed leaving Julia to fend for herself.
She approached the buffet cart and grimaced at the sparse leftovers. There were a few scoops of ground beef, a sprinkle of shredded cheese, and half of a cracked taco shell. Unsure of where to sit, she left a surge of relief when Geoff spotted her and waved her over to his table.
“Hey, Julia, come sit over here,” he hollered from across the room, a big grin in place. It wasn’t until she was standing in front of him that she rea
lized there wasn’t any empty space at his table.
She did however notice that Wynn was sitting a couple seats down from Geoff, making her hesitated. Everyone at the table looked around confused, not understanding where Geoff meant for Julia to sit down.
“C’mon, guys,” Geoff reprimanded them. “Dan, aren’t you done eating?”
Dan shook his head in disbelief, and pushed back his chair. “Here, Julia, you can take my seat. I guess I’m done eating,” he said, picking up his half finished plate.
“No, Dan, it’s alright,” Julia quickly reassured him, trying to get him to sit back down.
“It’s no big deal,” he mumbled and left the table.
“Thank you,” Julia called after him weakly.
Geoff gallantly kicked the empty chair back as way of offering it to her, and Julia silently slid into it feeling guilty about doing so. Sneaking a peak at Wynn, Julia saw him smothering back a laugh. For some reason whenever he was around his friends he tended to act a little differently and she wasn’t sure if she liked that. For a split second their eyes met and the smirk disappeared from his face.
Looking down at his plate, he nonchalantly began stuffing his mouth with an overstuffed beef taco. Across from her, Geoff was holding court, cracking jokes and making the guys roar with laughter. Julia settled into her seat letting the easy-going banter flow around her without having to take part of it. She was sipping her cup of Jasmine tea when she felt a pair of eyes on her.
“Is that all you’re eating?” Wynn asked in a low voice. He was staring at the measly portion on her plate.
“There wasn’t much left by the time we got here,” she explained.
“Here,” he said, pushing his plate towards her. There wasn’t much left except for an apple, some beef drippings, leftover salsa, cheese crumbs, and the last bite of the taco he had yet to finish eating.
Julia hesitated. It was really sweet he was offering what he had, but it was also kind of unappetizing. Just then Geoff noticed Wynn shoving his plate towards her.
“Didn’t you get enough food to eat? Why didn’t you tell me you were still hungry?” Geoff demanded and started looking around at other people’s plates.
