“He’s in pretty bad shape,” Mark said. “Look, I got a call from someone at the party where he was. They found him passed out in a bedroom and called 911. They rushed him to the hospital.”
“He’s fine, right?”
“No.”
“What did—did you call anyone else? His family?”
“Yes, well, I got in touch with his parents. They’re on their way, but it’ll take a little while. I’m at the hospital now.”
“And Erik—”
“I don’t know. They said he went into cardiac arrest.”
“From what? How?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Do you know if he was on anything? Taking any sort of drugs?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“What hospital are you at?” I demanded, angry at the insinuation.
“Westside Hospital. Know where it is?”
It was the same place Erik had taken me.
“I’m coming down there now. Listen, do you think… did they find him in time?”
“We can only pray.”
I grabbed my leather coat and rushed outside to the bitter cold night. It was shortly before midnight, and the frigid air felt impossible to inhale. In the shelter of my Honda, I felt numb and chilled. It took the car at least ten minutes to begin warming up.
Though it was March, winter still held its grip over Chicago. Scraps of snow, once beautifully soft and white, remained unmelted and dirty on portions of the ground. I drove down busy side streets and stopped at a red light. Its glow hypnotized me as I realized I was on my way to see one of the only friends I still had, one who had almost died tonight. What would happen to Erik? I didn’t know. What had he taken—and why had he taken so much? Was he trying…
A car horn behind me made me slam on the gas and go. I was lost on these streets with no names on them. I had nothing to say or think—though the thoughts kept running through my head anyway.
I wasn’t there for him.
“This isn’t your fault,” I told myself out loud, as if my actually saying it would make it true. I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t made him go out and party himself into a hospital.
I could have said something. I could have said more.
At least I had turned around on another stormy night instead of falling back into my old habits. But that hadn’t really helped Erik at all; if anything, it had made me pull away from him when he needed me. And looking back, I could see that Erik had needed me. Ever since the beating I took, he had seemed to blame himself, as if his not being there was the reason I got pummeled. Did this have anything to do with tonight?
I should have made more of an effort.
But an effort to do what? To tell Erik what a struggling and wandering Christian I was? Tell him how I confessed to believe in the Bible even though I didn’t read it? How I believed that God heard and answered prayers except for those coming from my own mouth?
Stop it.
What would I have been able to say to Erik? What could I have done to prevent this night?
I did as much as I always have. Nothing.
The people on the sidewalks smiled as they walked, probably on their way to bars or clubs. These were people who weren’t thinking about life and death and mortality and God and heaven and hell. They were people like Erik, just wanting to have a good time. People like I used to be.
I should have said more to him. I should have been there, at least.
I was terrified that once again I had blown a chance. What did Erik know about me anyway? Had I been an example to him? Had I showed any remote sign that I was living what I believed?
What do you believe, Sheridan?
Well, for a while I thought I had made progress, but that fell apart in a hurry. What if my past and my mistakes stayed with me forever?
Though your sins may be scarlet, I will make them white as snow.
Caught up in my inner dialogue, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge the new Voice that had entered the conversation. I continued arguing with myself as I passed a mound of snow that had been scraped to the side of the street. Even in the dim light of streetlights and headlights, it looked dirty and gray.
That’s me.
I reached the hospital and found the parking lot. Before getting out of the car, I fired off a message to the other side of that all-too-familiar door. “Please, Lord, help Erik be all right. Help him be okay. And help me, too.”
The nurses wouldn’t let anyone except immediate family see Erik. A lot of people, none of whom I knew, were walking around or sitting in the waiting area. I didn’t say a word to anyone but remained an outsider, someone with seemingly no ties to anyone there.
Just like I had been with Erik.
I overheard people talking and made out that Erik was in a coma, that his heart had actually stopped at one point because of a combination of drugs he had taken earlier that night. Drugs? What kind of drugs? Had I known about any drugs Erik was on?
I realized that it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Had I been that naive? Or so lost in my self-pity that I never noticed my own roommate had worse problems than I did?
I sat in my chair, drinking a cup of noxious hospital coffee, waiting for something. Not knowing what I was waiting for.
An man in his fifties with gray hair and a kind, sad-eyed face came over and sat beside me. “Excuse me. Are you Sheridan Blake?”
I nodded and said nothing.
“Sheridan, I’m Gerald Morrison, Erik’s father.”
“Hey, look, I’m so sorry about all this.”
“I understand you weren’t with him.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. This isn’t your fault. Erik’s made a lot of bad choices before, and this was obviously one of the worst. We just have to pray that his body will recover from what he’s done to it.”
I nodded and could feel my face flood with color. I spoke with the man for a while and realized that I was more distraught than he was. He had a strange peace about him. I couldn’t figure out how he had it. He mentioned prayer a few more times and something about God’s will. The references didn’t seem phony or trite. He actually believed in the words he was saying.
After a few minutes, Mr. Morrison stood to return to his family. He thanked me for being there and for being Erik’s friend. I nodded and got up and tried to find the nearest place to escape.
I felt like throwing up.
Instead, I found myself wandering into an empty chapel.
Inside the dimly lit room, with the door shut behind me, I sat on a chair that faced a podium with a picture of Christ on the wall behind it. It was one of those pieces of art showing Jesus with a flock of sheep and making him look like a loving friend. It was a painting and nothing more. The real Christ stood beside me, waiting for me to say something. Waiting for my apology. Waiting for me to open my mouth and ask for forgiveness. Waiting for me to come to him.
I’ve hurt so many people, Lord.
I thought of the horrible night in the summer after my junior year and felt tears in my eyes. I thought my heart had hardened so much that tears were no longer an option. I had not cried since that first night after I woke up and discovered all I had done. So many years without a single tear.
They came now, though. They streamed down my face. I looked at my hands as they gripped each other and saw the tears splashing down on them.
That’s what you’ve been doing for the last ten years. Trying to hold yourself up. Trying to do it on your own. Trying to let your hands solve it all. Thinking that rubbing them together might rub away the sin and the hurt.
I had fooled myself, time and time again. And now everyone had left me—because I had forced them to. Every decent relationship that ever meant anything to me had ended up evaporating—not because of my failures, but because of my unbearable pride, my refusal to trust. So many, including Genevie. Now, I might even have helped Erik kill himself.
I have to change. Please God, help me.
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I clasped my wet hands together and prayed out loud. I didn’t care if someone came in. I didn’t care what I looked like.
“Dear Father, please help me. Please forgive me. I don’t know where to begin, but I’m scared. I’m so scared that I can’t be forgiven. I’m scared that I was never one of your children to begin with. I know I can’t ask for anything but… I need to. Please, God, forgive me. Be real to me. Please let these hands somehow be clean.”
More tears fell. No one saw them. I hated crying them, but they fell down to the carpeted floor as I prayed. My nose was running now. I could hardly breathe. I kept on crying.
“I abandoned you, Lord. Even recently, I had hope given to me, but then I left you again. My faith is horribly weak, Lord. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live this way. I need to change. I need to change so I don’t keep coming up short, wishing I could have done something, knowing I should have done something.”
I looked up again, through bleary eyes, at the picture of Christ on the wall. Who knew if that was what he truly looked like, but the picture still felt right to me—a gentle shepherd taking care of his sheep, seeking out the lost ones. That was me. I was not only lost, but had been savagely wounded and left for dead by the cunning enemy. And I was too afraid to cry out for help. Part of me feared that the shepherd would abandon me, too.
Please don’t leave me, Lord. Please forgive me and help me to get up.
But he wasn’t just a good shepherd, of course. He was a prophet, a priest, and a king. Words I had grown up knowing and listening to but never understanding started running through my mind. He was a loving and giving person who never once turned his back on those in need. He was also the Savior of the earth. The one who gave himself to be crucified. Because of me…
Forgive me for hurting you.
For the nails I drove into your hands and your feet.
Forgive me for denying you.
For every single time I decided to do something I knew I shouldn’t do. For giving up hope and for forgetting that you died for me.
Forgive me for failing to look at you, Lord.
My tears tasted salty as I remembered Christ’s words while on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
The very people who put him to death and spit in his face and despised and defied the Son of God—he said this about them. And about me.
I remembered a young boy who didn’t know much about the world and about growing up and failing and forgetting. The young boy saw the world as a large and unknown and exciting place. And he put his heart and his soul into Christ’s hands. He asked for forgiveness, for comfort, and he knew it could come. He believed with all his heart in Christ, the Son of God. That boy had accepted Christ on a long soul-searching night that ended with a simple prayer. Now so many years later, that same boy, grown older, was praying again: “Father, forgive me for all my many sins. I know you are my Lord and Savior, and I ask that you change me.”
It had taken so long to utter such a simple, sweet prayer again. I thank God that he waited.
And that he heard me.
Somehow, for the first time in many years, I knew he had.
I exited the chapel, unsure of how long I had been sitting inside praying. It was late at night, and my head felt like it was bobbing on top of water. I went to check on Erik and, as I walked toward the waiting area, I caught sight of Genevie. She was looking at me with a hurting smile that in some mystical way seemed to resemble the portrait of Christ in the hospital chapel. She looked like a beautiful, dark-eyed angel.
“Sheridan, I’m so sorry—,” she began as she stood up and let me come to her.
I buried myself in her arms.
February 20
Dear Amy,
I thank God for not giving up on me. He hasn’t—as I’m sure you know. I only hope that others haven’t given up on me as well.
Sheridan
twenty
“I need to tell you what happened after my junior year of college,” I said as I held a cup of coffee in my hands and looked into the rich chocolate eyes I hadn’t seen in over two months.
“It’s late, Sheridan. You don’t have to do that now. It’s okay.”
“No, I need to. Now might not be the best time. I just—I don’t know when I’ll see you again. And you need to know this.”
It was close to one in the morning. We had said little except for Genevie’s explanation of hearing the news about Erik from a girl on her dorm floor who had been at the party. She had come immediately to the hospital. I hadn’t asked her why, nor had I tried to explain my red and tear-filled eyes. I simply led her to the dimly lit and mostly empty cafeteria, where I knew I would tell her everything. Even if it didn’t change anything between us, my explanation was long overdue.
“I’ve gone for seven years trying to keep this from as many people as possible, including God. I know I should have told you all about this a long time ago. Now there’s nothing left for me to lose. I already feel like I’ve lost everything.”
“Sheridan—”
“No, please, just hear me out, okay? Then say whatever you like, make whatever judgment you need to.”
She nodded and let me continue. I was unsure how to begin.
“I’ve told you I was different in college, that I made some mistakes. That seems to put it way too lightly. I made a lot of mistakes leading up to my senior year of college. That summer—what happened that summer could never be called simply a mistake.”
Genevie sat across from me, listening, not moving at all, her dark eyes solemn.
“I had a best friend named Chad. We had pretty much done everything together for three years. We were roommates our sophomore and junior years at Covenant, and we were going to get an apartment our senior year. That summer, both of us were bums who basically did nothing. Chad was living downtown with some older guys who had just graduated, and I spent a lot of time with them, doing nothing really except getting drunk and wasting my time away.
“One night, some weekday night when nothing was happening, Chad and I decided to drive to a local bar and play some pool and darts and have a few drinks. Nothing unusual. I think we went there around eight, which for us was pretty early. I remember playing darts for a couple of hours and talking with Chad and drinking a lot. And I mean a lot. My tolerance for booze back then was insane, Gen. I drank every day, and I usually got drunk every day too, and it took a lot of stuff to get me there. So this wasn’t anything abnormal—this was my life back then. I’m not proud of it, but that’s the way it was.
“Anyway, the place we went to was maybe fifteen or twenty minutes across town. As usual, I had driven us there. By the time we were leaving, I could barely stand. Chad ended up disappearing with some lady friend he had just met. I guess this ticked me off, since I promptly got in the car and sped off. I didn’t think anything of driving home drunk—I’d done it hundreds of times before.”
Gen looked at me with no expression, with no surprise or concern. She waited for more of the story.
“I told you there was an accident. You probably see this coming, don’t you? Driving my car at maybe eleven or twelve at night—not extremely late for Chicago. I don’t exactly remember the car ride, but I remember bits and pieces, like a dream you wake up from the next day with only flashes of recollection. All I know for sure is that I left the bar angry and plastered, and the next thing I remember I was in the hospital and someone else was dead.”
I breathed in and took a sip of coffee, not quite believing I had said it. Then I continued.
“They told me after I woke up. I had a broken leg, and my face and arms were gashed up a bit. You know how they say someone has ‘minor cuts and bruises’? That was me. I hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. Yet I wasn’t hurt that badly. My hands—my hands made it out in perfect shape. The only thing I ever really cared about—my hands.
“The other driver never had a chance.”
Gen’s beautiful eyes teared up
when I said that, yet she said nothing. Not a word.
“What I had done—what it turned out I had done—was drive my car into another car at an intersection where she had a green light and I didn’t. She was turning, and I just plowed through her. That’s what they told me, anyway. I still don’t remember anything about the accident. It was like one minute I got into the car and the next minute I was in the hospital and my entire life was over. I was still drunk too. I had to hear all this news and face my parents and many others all while I was still drunk. The other driver—a girl who wasn’t even twenty—lasted until she got to the hospital.”
“What was her name?”
“Amy. Amy Larsen.”
“I’m so sorry, Sheridan.” Gen held my hand. “It was a horrible accident.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you see? It wasn’t an accident at all. It might as well have been murder. I got drunk and went out driving and someone ended up dead. That someone should have been me.”
“It wasn’t your—” she began, and apparently thought better of it. But I knew what she had been about to say.
“It was all my fault. I drove. I was the one who came up with the idea to go in the first place. It was my car. Everything about it was my fault.”
Her face never changed expression. “What happened? Were you arrested?”
“Yes. That’s the worst part about the whole thing, I think. I was charged with reckless homicide. But because of my parents’ money and clout and the expensive lawyer they got me, we managed to get the charge reduced. I had this spotless record, you see. I mean, a child prodigy gifted with playing the piano could never be put into jail, could he? It was horrible, the whole thing. It was almost like my lawyer made me into some hero who had had one mishap happen to him.”
“So you never went to jail?”
“No. Just counseling for several years. Lost my license for about five. I was on probation for three years. Had a probation officer. But none of that felt like justice. I still feel guilty.”
“But that was so long ago.”
The Watermark Page 14
