Finding Us (Christian Interracial Romance)

The Old Has Gone

Jeremy

I sit on my bed, the glow from my laptop casting blue light across my room. The air feels heavy, thick with the weight of change. It's a pressure in my chest that has been building for months, a slow-rolling thunder  that I've tried to ignore the scripts, awards, and the noise of the industry. But tonight, the thunder has finally broken. 

And this is why I have made a commitment—a real one this time. My heart beats in a rhythmic, frantic sync with the thought: I'm going to follow Christ. No more halfway measures, no more double lives where I pray the Rosary with my father on Christmas but spend the rest of the year "channeling" darkness for a paycheck. No more shadows. 

On my screen, I've pulled up the latest episode of The Trinity Talk. I see Stella, Lizzy, and Reagan—Cecilia's cousins I've just seen recently. They look so grounded, so sure of themselves. Watching them now feels like looking at a lifeboat from the middle of a dark ocean.

"...and that brings us to the Spiritual Housecleaning Guide," Stella says, her voice coming through the speakers with a clarity that stings. "Because once you pray that prayer of renunciation, family, you can't leave the house empty. You have to sweep it. You have to protect your gates—the Eye Gate and the Ear Gate."

Lizzy nods, her expression serious. "It's about legal ground. If you're still keeping the things that invite the enemy in, you're basically leaving the back door unlocked after you've changed the front door's deadbolt."

I hit pause. The silence that follows is deafening. I look around my bedroom. It's a nice room, expensive, but it feels like a museum of a man I don't want to be anymore. On my nightstand sits a small, stylized statuette from a horror festival—a twisted, skeletal figure. I've always thought of it as "art." Now, under the light of what the sisters just said, it looks like an invitation.

I turn back to the laptop and click on the play button, resuming the video. 

"The first step to our guide begins with your phone because your phone is the most common entry point for spiritual debris. If you're subscribed to darkness, you're actually inviting it into your pocket." Stella reasons, her eyes softening. 

"Go through your Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube Music. Delete any artists who openly mock God, use the Bible pages as a monthly prop, or promote a spirit of chaos and ritual at their concerts. There's an interview where John Lennon made a comment to a reporter and stated, they're 'more popular than Jesus.' And months later, that quote was republished in a teen magazine Datebook—here in the States." 

Reagan's eyes narrow, her hands flying to her head. "Yo, that's right! I've heard that after it got out, disc jockeys refused to play the Beatles' music on the radio and people were protesting and they brought their Beatles memorabilia for destruction—they've used a tree grinding machine, ripped the pictures of the band off magazines, and threw them into the bonfire."

Lizzy gives Reagan a slow, concurring nod. "That's right, Rae, because on one of their performances following the controversy—an audience member threw a firecracker onto the stage and they felt like they have been shot at." 

A cold, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, much like hearing the bad news about a loved one. My immediate reaction is denial or looking for context—did he really say that? 

I pause the video and exit YouTube, typing the words on the Google search box and, yes—it's confirmed to be true.

Ah, crap. 

I have downloaded John Lennon's music as a solo artist on my iPod as well as on my phone. I remember hearing the Beatles for the first time playing at my uncle's house when I nine and he bought me their CD's on my birthdays and Christmases.