The One She Needed. **complete**

Chapter 12 **Who cares?

As soon as Darren had left, Kelsie stopped pretending to be asleep and called Scott.

"-ello?" He answered. Clearly, he really had been asleep.

"Hey Goober!!" Kelsie said brightly, "how come I'm hearing about the girlfriend through the grapevine? I thought I was your best friend!"

"Kelsie?" Scott said yawning, "why are you calling? What happened to your big romantic prom night?"

"I felt like crap, I couldn't eat, I'm pretty sure my date is enjoying the hotel after party without me and oh yeah, I found out my best friend is keeping secrets!" Kelsie said, feeling very cranky.

"Whoa Sweetie!" Scott said, suddenly very much awake. "I didn't keep it secret. I just didn't think about it. I mean, since I started dating her I've pretty much been thinking about you."

Kelsie laughed, "Dude!!! Do not tell her that!"

"You know what I mean." Scott said and Kelsie could picture him rolling his eyes. "Hell, you probably shouldn't even be out of the hospital and I really figured you'd let Crackerhead bully you into going ahead with his big prom plans. I just forgot that I hadn't mentioned Kristen. I wasn't trying to keep it from you."

"OK." Kelsie said, suddenly wondering why the worst part of her evening had been finding out about this girl. "I know it's late. I'm sorry I woke you up. I'll talk to you tomorrow OK? You can tell me all about your soulmate."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow." Scott said then added with another yawn. "She's not my soul mate. I'm just practicing that effort thing. Goodnight Sweetie!"

Kelsie was ready for church at 9 the next morning. Drake picked her up with donuts and chocolate milk. Then apologized for the entire ride to church after Kelsie told him that neither of those things were on her restricted diet.

When they got to church, it was such a pretty morning that the youth leader let the teens go outside and have "fellowship" which meant that she didn't want to teach, so she let them just go hang. Once they moved past Kelsie's hospital scare they all wanted to talk about prom. Drake began to tell the story of his date, whom had worn some sort of paste on bra because her dress wouldn't allow a regular bra.

When they had gotten back to the hotel for their after prom entertainment, she couldn't get the sticky bra cups removed. The entire youth group was laughing hysterically as Drake explained how his foreplay actually consisted of him rubbing baby oil on his date trying to remove what he called "this weird duct tape like bra thing."

Just when the group had started to calm down, one of the adults, Bruce, came out with a camera because they just looked too cute under the tree laughing together.

He told them how their tight bond made God proud because as long as they had each other the outside world would never be able to shake their faith. This got the entire group giggling again as they recalled the conversation they just had.

Kelsie realized as she went inside with the others for worship that she was thankful for this group. They gave her unconditional love and they looked out for her. God may not always be proud of the stuff they talked about, but she was pretty sure he was proud of the way they protected each other.

That day, at alter call, Kelsie went forward. Not to ask forgiveness or even for good health. Kelsie went forward to thank God for her youth group. Then, just before amen, Kelsie thanked God for Scott. She wasn't sure when but at some point he had become one of her most important allies.

After church Kelsie went for her dinner with Darren's family. She couldn't eat much, but she loved the company.

One of the guys who lived in the neighborhood called, to organize a football game. Kelsie and Darren happily met the group at the field. As Darren played, Kelsie sat with the other girlfriends and realized that she had missed this. When she started dating Darren these pickup games were a common thing. Sometimes as many as thirty kids would be out here playing, but as the kids began to graduate and grow up and move away, the games stopped and it was about that time that her relationship with Darren changed into the mess it was now. Really, the best memories with Darren all included a large group of people. The trouble seemed to start when they started being alone.