Chapter Fifteen : Scared Stiff

A week passed and I tried to avoid the topic of when and where we were going to get together to discuss the first chapter. Darin asked me daily if I had completed that night’s homework and so I knew it was bound to come to blows – and I was going to have brave up and do this thing.

Inevitably, it happened.

“Hey,” he started in as we were in class, “we need to get together before next week starts and we have to start chapter two, when should I come over?”

“Oh, just whenever is fine with me,” I replied cool as a cucumber. “I’ve got something going on tonight, though." I was way too much of a planner to do this spur of the moment. I was hoping he would forget and we could forgo this ‘get together and discuss’ portion altogether.

“How about tomorrow night then?” Darin said. Boy, this guy was adamant.

“Err, okay…sounds great. See you at seven? Just come over after supper,” I replied.

I had a little over twenty-four hours to prepare myself mentally for this. I had to make sure I had studied my lesson thoroughly so I didn’t look like a complete idiot if he brought out a point I didn’t notice. I poured over that chapter and wrote things out to the side. I hoped I would remember to talk if I went completely blank when he looked at me with those eyes. Oh, those eyes. I worked myself up and convinced myself I could do it. I had to be alone with a boy eventually, so why not just get used to it. There was no better time than now.
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The next morning came, and it was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I toyed around with the idea of being “sick” that day and not going to school. If I didn’t go to school, I couldn’t have company over that night. No, that was too obvious, and I couldn’t play the sick card every week. I crawled out of bed, looked in the mirror and put on my game face. “I can do this,” I said aloud.

I kind of forgot about it once I got to school. There was something calming about being with Darin. Why couldn’t I remember that when I was at home panicking? The mere thought of awkward silence and humiliating slip ups while we were alone had me terrified. I don’t know why I feared silence – we never shut up when we were together. I didn’t see him at our lockers after school that day and as I pushed open the big red doors of the High School to go home and fret some more and nervously bounce my legs up and down, I heard him say, “Hey Whitney, are we still on for tonight?”

“We sure are!! See ya in a few!" I shouted.
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Mom made roast for supper that night. I could not take a bite. She knew I was nervous and I begged her, “Mom, please stay in the kitchen the entire time so you can come rescue me if I need it”. She laughed at me. But I made her promise.

The doorbell rang.

I wanted to bolt out the backdoor and run away. Far away out in the woods where no one would ever find me.

I drifted calmly to the front door and he stood in the doorway holding his Bible and his Covenant study. “Hey” he said. I loved it when he said that.

I nervously ushered him into the kitchen so mom could take some pressure off of me. She was still cleaning up from dinner and we all stood there and talked for a long time. So long, in fact, that it was 8:30 and we had not even began discussing our study. Darin suggested we start and since we were already in the kitchen, I said, “let’s just sit at the kitchen table and do it”. I was so sneaky. I knew Mom still had things to do in there. He looked hesitantly at me and took a seat. We had a pretty good conversation, the three of us. I knew this was not what Darin was imagining, but it helped ease me into it. And I knew that next week, I would be a lot more comfortable.