Pieces of My Heart

Chapter 7

The next morning, I push myself out of bed. Will Sam go running with me today? Or will he have some excuse about how he doesn't have an alarm and his mom didn't wake him up?

My music starts playing, but it doesn't transport me away as it usually does. I jog down the street to Sam's house, just as he is coming at of the house. He glances up at me and raises his eyebrows in surprise. "I thought I was going to pick you up again..." His voice trails off.

I nod. "Yeah, that was kind of the plan. I didn't know if you were going to pick me up, so... I..."

"I'm sorry about yesterday morning." He sighs, takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "I told you I was sorry." Instead of sounding regretful, he begins to sound aggravated.

"Okay, just because you're sorry doesn't mean you'll do anything differently." My jaw clenches. I should know.

"But I got up. That should prove something, right?" He stuffs his hands in his pocket and pulls out his keys. "Do you want to go to the pond or not?"

"I don't know," I shrug and stare at the ground. The ends of my shoes are gray--having used to be white and changing color with age. They used to be so white, clean and pure, and then life happened.

"Can we just start over? Let's just go running around the park and then we can do the devotions." He puts his keys back in his pocket. "Okay?"

"Okay." Who knows if this is a good idea or not? I could just be setting myself up for disappointment again. "Let's go."

We start our jog around the park silently. I'm contemplating whether I should apologize to him, if maybe I'd offended him by not completely believing he'd pick me up this morning... but he starts talking first—as usual.

"At least this way," Sam says, panting beside me, "we don't glare at each other over what music we want to listen too."

"True." I smile--a small forced smile. I don't want him to be mad at me for still being mad at him.

I don't know if Sam senses my mood or not, but he is pretty quiet the entire run. Afterwards, we sit down on a bench. Sam prays and opens his Bible.

The next fifteen minutes pass slowly. The best part of the devotions is I can sit down after running, and not go home right away to Margie.

"Why do you believe in God?" I ask after a few minutes of silence.

"Because it's true."

"How do you know it's true?"

He pauses for moment. "How do you know you're parents love you?"