Across the Western Sky

by S. C. Armstrong

  22

  Lunch Date

  Curt didn’t need to wait long for that face to face conversation with Alexis. Even if he wanted to avoid her, Alexis would have never allowed that to happen. First thing in the morning, she approached his locker.

  “Hey,” Alexis said, standing next to him as she leaned against the neighboring locker. “Did you get my texts last night?”

  She inched closer to him, encroaching on his personal space. A tactile person, Alexis had always known how to leverage her touch to push their relationship in the direction she wanted.

  “I did.” Curt attempted to keep his tone non-committal, fighting off the undeniable pull Alexis’ touch exerted on him.

  Alexis waited for a more positive sign from Curt. When none came, she placed her hand gently on his shoulder.

  “What did you think?”

  The bell literally saved Curt, allowing a reasonable excuse to postpone the conversation. “I have to go now.”

  Granted, a few days ago, he’d loitered in the hallway with Hannah for minutes after the bell rang, which had earned him a tardy and a “where the hell have you been?” stare from his teacher.

  “Can we talk during lunch?” she asked, maintaining the contact between her hand and his shoulder.

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Great.” She leaned in for a one-armed hug and then disappeared into the stream of students flowing down the hallway.

  Curt turned around, where Hannah stood watching him. Their eyes met for a few seconds. Her irises revealed little. After neither said a word, Hannah walked the other direction toward her homeroom.

  At lunch, Curt and Alexis settled at an outdoor table in the back of the school, not far from where they’d shared their first kiss. Though the table tended to be a hotspot amongst the stoner crowd, today they had the area to themselves.

  “I don’t understand; what changed? Why do you suddenly want to get back together?” Curt asked after a brief exchange about how their days had gone so far.

  Alexis put down the turkey sandwich she’d been eating and swallowed the bite in her mouth. She proceeded to essentially confirm his suspicions from the previous night. Although she claimed to be having second thoughts about the cessation of their relationship already, Alexis confessed that the passing of his father opened a well of sympathy in her. She wanted to be there for Curt. And yes, the inexplicable moments between Hannah and him had stoked the fires of her affection, too, reminding her in a visceral way how much he meant to her.

  “You didn’t really answer the question,” Curt said after hearing her out. “Why have second thoughts now?”

  Alexis dropped her sandwich on the table. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the future. And I used to be really excited for graduation and what came next. Then I started to realize I wasn’t so excited, anymore. And it was because of you. I didn’t want to leave you.”

  Curt glanced at the table. “That didn’t seem to be the way you felt a few months ago.”

  Without explicitly saying so, during their break-up, Alexis had intimated that she wanted to see other people and that maybe Curt should, too.

  “I was wrong. Haven’t you ever been wrong before? I realized how well you treated me. And that you’re smart. And really cute.” She smiled and ruffled his hair with her hand, an action that threatened to consume the rest of his doubts on the spot.

  When Curt still didn’t respond, she leaned in closer. “I know. I hurt you. And now you don’t trust me. But I want to be there for you. Can you let me do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Curt stammered. Other considerations besides trust held him back in that moment.

  “Maybe we can start slow,” she said, her optimism undiminished. “We could hang out after school.”

  Hanging out after school in their relationship had become their equivalent of “Netflix and chill”. Most of their extracurricular activities together transpired in the late afternoon and early evening hours before her parents got home. Maybe Alexis had been counting on that when she made the seemingly innocuous invitation.

  “I don’t know. I was supposed to hang out with Kate after school.”

  That was a lie. Though it was not unusual for Curt and Kate to spend time together after school, the two hadn’t spoken since Kate texted Hannah’s number to him. Basically, he was invoking her name as an out.

  “Okay. Well, if you change your mind, text me, or come find me after school.” She placed her hand on his cheek. “I want us to work, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

  Curt swallowed hard. “Okay.”

  The two walked in together side by side. Alexis’ smile contained nary a hint of disappointment. Perhaps she thought that despite his hesitation, Curt was destined to cave in to her advances. She might have been right about that.

  The funny thing was that if she’d exhibited an ounce of the vulnerability that made her lips tremble before the first time they had sex, he would have been hers. Without a doubt.

  After the final bell rang, Curt was about to text Alexis. Kate had ignored him several times during the day, making her an unlikely companion for the afternoon. With no excuses and another lonely afternoon stretching out in front of him, Curt began texting Alexis.

  One thought stayed his hand. Curt saved the text as a draft and circled back to his locker so he could pass by Hannah’s once more. He wasn’t sure if she would even be there still or what such an action could accomplish if she was. However remote it was that walking past Hannah would lead to something more, it created a better chance than if he didn’t.

  As he navigated the sparsely populated hallways, Curt feared she’d already departed. When he reached their lockers, though, a small crowd congregated in front of Hannah’s. She was in the middle. Greg, Tom, and some others circled around her.

  “Do you like porn, too?” Greg asked, much to the delight of his audience.

  “What’s going on?” Curt asked, drawing the attention of the crowd.

  Greg shrugged. “Just conducting an organic, informal survey about people’s sexual preferences.”

  People snickered. Besides Tom, the small group was comprised of people who identified as atheists, though probably more so because it seemed an edgy and rebellious position to take than they had done the mental legwork to adequately determine their point of view on the matter. Most of these probably dismissed religion out of hand. Tom avoided eye contact with Curt, a tacit admission that what they were doing was wrong.

  Curt eyed Hannah, who kept her own gaze focused on her books, as she fumbled through the items she needed to take home.

  “Why don’t you leave her alone?” Curt asked, inserting himself between Greg and Hannah. “It’s not like you don’t watch porn. All of the time.”

  “Yeah, I love porn,” Greg said grinning. “But I’m not out there telling people they’re going to burn in hell because of it.”

  “Look, even if the email people got about her dad is true, which it might not be, this has nothing to do with Hannah,” Curt said.

  Greg shook his head. “Sure it does. She believes the same shit her dad does. She should know it’s shit, too. I’m trying to liberate her.”

  Curt didn’t see the connection. Unless Greg was playing the whole “Christians are all hypocrites, so that’s why you shouldn’t believe their message” card. Hypocrisy itself didn’t mean something was untrue, though.

  He stepped closer to Hannah, poised to defend her honor. Curt had never fought anyone before, a byproduct of being an only child. Greg was shorter, a little stockier. Curt had filled out over the last year, becoming less scrawny, mainly due to his father’s encouragement to lift weights and do some basic exercises. Greg smirked at Curt, as an awkward tension governed the small circle of people.

  “Come on guys,” Tom said, stuck in the middle of Greg and Curt, again. “You don’t have to fight.”

  Hannah shoved the rest of the books into her bag and pushed through the circle. Curt bac
kpedaled after her, watching Greg to see if he’d follow. Tom glanced apologetically at Curt, a hint of shame creasing his mouth.

  “Bye, Hannah. See you soon,” Greg called.

  At least for now, he seemed reticent to pursue them. Curt spun around and lengthened his strides to keep pace with Hannah. They turned down an empty hallway. Suddenly, Hannah stopped in the middle of the hallway and began pounding her fists against a locker as she screamed. Curt stepped back, allowing her to express her anger. She’d earned that right. If anything, Curt was encouraged she released her frustration rather than bottling it up.

  “Hey!” bellowed a deep, masculine voice. One of the school’s younger custodians—a pot-bellied man with a beard—had appeared at the mouth of the hallway.

  Hannah, looking startled, ceased her barrage of lockers. Curt guessed that adults didn’t frequently yell at her.

  Curt waved and smiled at the custodian. “Sorry. We were just leaving.”

  He grabbed Hannah’s shoulders and escorted her out the closest door, which led to the back of the school.

  “Are you okay?” Curt asked, relinquishing his grip on her shoulders once they’d cleared the building.

  She stared ahead at a small patch of woods. “Why can’t they just leave me alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Truth be known, Curt understood Greg’s harassment on a certain level. Sure, it was misplaced and inappropriate, but a kernel of it made sense. Christians told other people how to live all the time. They lobbied for laws based on their values, forcing others to live by their standards. Then, when criticized by atheists, threw up their arms and cried persecution. Only a part of that applied to Hannah’s situation, though.

  The other half of the equation had to do with the kind of person Greg was. Greg was what other people imagined when they thought of atheists: strident, dismissive, and outspoken. In other words, he was an asshole. Curt never considered him a friend. When Greg was in your group, you could kind of appreciate him on a certain level. He was your asshole. But when Greg was opposing you, then you would be hard-pressed not to hate him.

  Hannah’s cheeks were flushed but not from embarrassment this time.

  “Do you have any way you like to blow off steam?” Curt asked.

  Hannah cast her eyes to the fields in the distance, then looked at Curt.

  “What?” he asked.

  Clearly, she had an idea.

  23

  His Arms

  Ten minutes later, Curt stood at home plate on the softball field, awkwardly holding an aluminum bat. Hannah occupied the familiar confines of the pitcher’s mound. They’d borrowed the necessary equipment from her softball coach then spent a few minutes warming up. Tosses had started off soft, gaining velocity and distance with each successive throw.

  As Curt waited for the pitch, he murmured something to the effect of “Why am I doing this?”

  Ignoring his discomfort, Hannah wound up and whipped her arm forward in a windmill motion. Curt dropped the bat and retreated from the plate as the ball sailed toward the metal backstop, striking it with a ping. He nearly trembled as he looked back at Hannah.

  “I really thought I was going to die for a minute,” he said.

  The entire spectacle caused Hannah to double over in laughter. In her mind, Curt was an avatar for atheism and scaring him away from the plate felt like a win for Christianity. Of course, that was silly. His failure to stand against her fastball demonstrated nothing about the validity of his arguments. Nevertheless, Hannah enjoyed the release.

  “What if Greg was standing here, instead of me? Would you have taken his head off?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Probably not. The thought might have occurred, though.”

  Curt smiled. “Why Hannah Wilson, you are more dangerous than I would have expected.”

  She grinned, enjoying the ability to surprise Curt, who probably expected some monologue on loving her enemies and turning the other cheek.

  “Do you want to try again?” she offered as Curt retrieved the ball.

  “Uh, no thanks. I’m good.” Curt lobbed the ball back to Hannah, left the bat in the dirt, and walked toward her.

  She eased into a sitting position from her crouch, leaning her elbows against the dirt of the pitcher’s mound. Curt joined her, sitting a few feet away on the dirt with his knees scrunched toward his chest.

  “Sorry, I don’t sport,” he confessed.

  “Not even a little?”

  Curt thumbed the outside of his nose. “Did a stint in peewee soccer. I was that kid who stands on the edge of the field, spinning in circles or picking flowers while the rest of the kids run around him. Played little league baseball for a season.” He nodded toward home plate. “Standing there against you brought back a lot of bad memories. Sometimes, I closed my eyes when I swung, just hoping I could get a piece of the ball.”

  Hannah grinned. “I bet that was less than effective.”

  Curt chuckled. “Yeah. Didn’t get a lot of hits that way. Of course, I didn’t get a lot of hits, anyway. It might have been a wash.”

  “Did your dad make you play?”

  He glanced at the ground. “Yeah, to some extent. He was never very athletic, either, so he had no illusions I would be this great athlete. I think he just wanted me to try different things.”

  Curt looked up again, but his gaze became distant, inflected with a shadow of sorrow.

  “What do you like to do for fun?” Hannah asked, trying to draw Curt away from the grief that no doubt lurked just beneath his surface.

  “I don’t know. Go to SSA meetings. Talk to people. Read books. Look at the stars. Watch religion videos on Youtube.” He snorted. “Wow, I’m really boring, aren’t I? I think a lot of fathers would be disappointed if they had boys like me.”

  “You shouldn’t say that. Everyone likes different things. I don’t think there’s one version of manhood.”

  Granted, that wasn’t true in Beaumont Baptist Church where Jake Ankiel was the archetypal man: strong, physical, decisive. For some reason, that vision of manhood had never captivated Hannah.

  “Good. Because I definitely would have failed if there was only the one version.”

  Curt ran his fingers through the grass, which hadn’t been mowed that week. Hannah studied his face. There were moments when his mere presence and unbelief threatened her. But he also represented a source of knowledge, different from the Christian worldview everyone around her espoused. Sometimes she wanted that knowledge, to see the world through a different set of eyes. Hannah inched closer to him and lowered her voice.

  “What does sex feel like?” she asked.

  Curt did a double-take at her. “Woah. Where did that come from?”

  “Just because I’m a Christian doesn’t mean I don’t think about sex.”

  “Yeah, but we had this conversation a few days ago, and it seemed to upset you.”

  “I’m over that.”

  Mostly that was true. She’d stewed over Curt’s sexual past before the curiosity got the best of her. She could have found peers at church who’d been sexually active. But they might struggle to admit that or paint the experience with guilt and remorse, even if they had other feelings.

  “Look, I’m a really curious person. I like to know how things work.”

  Curt gave her a quizzical look and stifled a laugh.

  “What?” she asked, her tone becoming defensive.

  “I don’t know. It just seems like you’re in the wrong religion if you’re curious and want to know how stuff works.”

  Hannah tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “You have a closed theological system, right? Doesn’t the Bible get the final word on everything? It just seems like you don’t get both certainty and curiosity—you get one or the other.”

  “Maybe that’s true. I just look at it differently. We know some things about God for certain, but not everything. The Bible doesn’t tell us everything. So there is room for curiosity and learn
ing what the world is like.”

  “Do you think your father would agree with what you just said?”

  She scrunched her mouth in thought. “Maybe not all of it. But I think he’d agree at least a little.”

  On second thought, Hannah wondered if he would. In fact, such a declaration might have frightened him. She brushed off the idea.

  “So what does sex feel like? And I don’t mean the mechanics.”

  Though that part intrigued her, too. Such an inquiry felt too personal. Besides, she wanted to know the emotions of it. Something told her Curt would be honest about his experience.

  “Why are you asking me this? I’m hardly an expert. I can’t tell you what it feels like from a woman’s perspective. And you could probably just google this.”

  This was true. She had indeed googled this very topic on multiple occasions. Each time, she’d been in the school library, shielding her screen from any gawkers. Of course, she viewed more educational sites and not porn. But after she and Curt had broached the topic of sex, she wondered what he really thought of it. Hannah found his perspective interesting. He wasn’t the sex-crazed hedonist people in her church projected atheists to be. Neither was he the person in her church who would tout the company line of abstinence before marriage.

  “I want to hear it from your perspective.”

  He inhaled. “Well, sometimes sex is no big deal, honestly. It’s kind of like eating. You’re hungry and you really want to eat, then you do, and that desire has been met. You move on with the rest of the day.”

  “You make it sound anticlimactic,” she said.

  “Sometimes it kind of is. But then there are other times…” He trailed off as if remembering a particularly powerful experience. “You feel so loved and valued and wanted. It’s like all these boundaries that separate us as people get stripped away. And you’re naked before your partner, both physically and emotionally. But you’re not ashamed. And you reach a kind of…”