I Am My Own Cousin.

Chapter 32: Happily Ever After

"Your teeth are like a flock of sheep

  coming up from the washing.

 Each has its twin, 

not one of them is missing." 

    Song of Songs 6:6

Before I reached the halfway point on my mad trek to see Jason Helbert I began to have doubts. This wasn't as romantic as I had imagined when I devised the plan. Instead of a rom-com movie style bicycle ride where I effortlessly rode the 6 miles into town and ended up looking like Audrey Hepburn. I was about to have a heat stroke and looked gross, sweaty, and disheveled. I hadn't taken into account that no sidewalks were on the route from the house to the church. Most of the journey it was up steep hills. So I had to push my bike up gravel most of the way, coal trucks speed by and covered me in dust. What would Jason think when I showed up looking like a crazy person on a bike? He would probably think I was an insane stalker psycho. I thought about turning back but I couldn't stand the thought of not knowing if he would respond to my letter.

When I finally reached the church the parking lot was full of cars and service had already started. I stealthily crept through the hallway and into the bathroom, thankful that no one saw me. After I tamed my crazy fro a bit with water and used bathroom soap to clean up as best as I could, I snuck my way into the main sanctuary. I spotted Jason sitting in one of the pews near the front. As nonchalantly as possible I plopped beside him, feigning surprise at seeing him there. "Oh hey Jason, how's it going?" I whispered. "Good thanks." He smiled at me and I felt relief wash over me. He didn't appear freaked out by my appearance or weirder out by the five page letter I had written him.

When the sermon ended he shyly handed me a folded up piece of paper, "I wrote you back." I tried to act nonplussed; I didn't want to appear TOO eager to read it. What if the letter said that he just thought of us as friends? Jason walked me outside to the bus and chatted about his week. I told him that it was such a pretty day outside that I had ridden my bike to church. It was a lie and I felt guilty about it, but better a white lie than him thinking I was crazy. He didn't seem to think anything of it; probably because he had no clue that I lived so far away. It was dark outside and I didn't want to look like a weirdo riding my bike off into the night. So I let him help me load it into the back of the church van. I would just ask the driver to let me off below the house, so my family wouldn't know what I had done.

I waited until the church bus had pulled out of sight before opening the letter, maintaining my detached air. Jason's letter was extremely short, only a couple paragraphs long. His handwriting was so atrocious that it took me a few moments to make out what he said. My heart soared when I read the contents. He thanked me for writing him such a nice letter and said that he thought I seemed like a cool person. That he wanted to get to know me better. He gave me his phone number and told me to feel free to call him sometime so we could talk because he wasn't much of a writer. He apologized for having bad handwriting and for the letter being so short.

For the rest of the ride I was on cloud nine. No guy I ever had a crush on had ever responded favorably to my advances. My flirting style was as evolved as a nine year old boy; if I really liked someone then I would make fun of them. I would make wisecracks about them to their face or completely ignore them. Not only had Jason not been scared off but he wrote me back and wanted to get to know me better! This is what normal girls must feel like when guys showed interest in them. The bus dropped me off at the halfway point up the mountain. I was so excited I didn't even think about the fact that the bus then continued up the road and turned around in our driveway.

When I had finally huffed and puffed my way the rest of the way to the house I saw Mom sitting on the back porch. Ah oh. She didn't give me a chance to get into my whole spiel about how I had ridden further than expected and lost track of time. "Jacqui did you ride your bicycle to that church?" I was caught red handed. No way would I be able to lie my way out of a direct question like that, I was a horrible liar. "Yes." "What are you insane? Why would you do something like that?" I couldn't let them know that I had done it because of a boy; they would never let me live it down. I decided to play the religion card because it was true 99.999% of the time, this one rebellion just happened to be an anomaly for a different reason. "Because it's not right that you wouldn't let me go and be closer to God. What if I had received the baptism of the Holy spirit?" Mom knew good and well that I was obsessed with receiving the baptism and it really bothered me that I hadn't yet. I had written her letters begging her to let me go to church, terrified that I would miss my chance. "I can't believe you would do something that stupid. You can forget about that church for a while. You are grounded for an entire month, no TV, nothing after school, no church. You will only be allowed to go to school, work, and sit in your room."