I Got Jesus

"Who is she?" I asked Mackenzie nodding towards a girl in the cafeteria. She stood in front of a table with multiple kids, taking several selfies.

"Who?" Mackenzie looked up from her lunch tray and found where I was looking. The girl had long, silky, bleach blonde hair. She wore a black & white striped crop-top with high waisted, faded jeans. "That's Emily." she said, taking a bite of her sandwhich, "She's in my art class."

"She takes a lot of selfies. Like I see her in the halls taking them a lot." I took a sip of my water bottle.

"Yeah. I feel bad for her cause her Instagram means so much to her and it basically controls her life." Mackenzie shrugged. I watched as she stopped taking pictures and looked as if she were scrolling through them on her phone, then she simply walked away. "She's coming our way." Mackenzie motioned.

I stood up before she could pass us. "I'm Chloe. Who are you?" Mackenzie stared at me as if I were crazy.

"Emily, now if you'd excuse me I have more selfies to take before the lunch period is over." She raised her head high.

"You have Instagram? What is it? I'd love to follow you." I smiled, pulling out my phone. She raised and eyebrow and looked unsure.

"Emily underscore Thomson."

I opened the Instagram app and searched for her user. It showed up, it was a public account and she had twenty thousand followers. I clicked the 'follow' button and then put my phone away, smiling at her. "I followed you. If you want you can hangout with Mackenzie and I at lunch or whenever."

"Um-whatever. I usually have things to do at lunch anyway."

"Okay, well the invitation will always be open." I smiled softly.

"Cool." She replied and then sashayed off. I sat down and began tapping on the table with my nails.

"Hey, I've been here for a month and we haven't hung out once out of school." I noted to Mackenzie. "Think you can hangout tonight?"

"Probably not. I have to go to this stupid family thing with my mom and dad...and my sister." She rolled her eyes.

"And you're not happy about being able to do something with your family together?" I felt a lump grow in my throat thinking about my parents.

"Well I mean-it's just some dumb family thing. So whatever. I'd rather stay home and work on my art project."

"Mackenzie, you should be thankful that you can do things with your family together and that your family is happy doing things together." I replied.

"I mean I guess. But I have better things to do." I looked at my phone and saw a notification pop up. "What's up with you? Is something wrong?" She asked.

I looked up at her and then back at my phone, Emily requested to follow me back. "Emily just requested to follow me back." I tried dodging her question.

"Really? She literally never follows anyone back. If you look at who she follows they're all like celebrities and hot dudes." Mackenzie rolled her eyes. I chuckled. "Are you going to accept it?"

"Yeah, why not?" I replied clicking 'accept'.

"Cool!" She sighed. "Maybe we can hangout in Saturday."

"Okay, I'll-uh talk to my mom." I replied.

"Chloe right?" I turned around to be face to face with Emily.

"Yeah, that's my name." I smiled.

"Thanks for inviting me to sit with you. That was cool I guess. If you really really want me to, I could probably sit with you and your friend tomorrow, you know if I decide not to hangout with my other loads of friends." She rubbed her arm nervously.

"Sounds good." I chuckled.

"Cool." She hesitated for a second, looking like she wanted to continue the conversation, but then shook her head slightly and walked past me.

Mrs. Lavender leaned against her desk with a paper in hand. Once the bell rang, she walked over to me and slammed the paper on the desk in front of me.

"So for some reason you decided that it would be humorous if you added your own answers on what you believe to them instead of facts that I taught you. Is it really that funny when you fail the test, Bakers?" She stood up straight and folded her arms.

"I didn't ever think it would be humorous, I'm just sticking to my beliefs. Is there something wrong with that? We're in America and we all have freedom of belief and freedom of speech." I leaned back in my chair and looked around at the students, "Did you wait until everyone was in the classroom to talk to me about it? Because I was one of the first in here before the bell rang, you could of talked to me about it four minutes ago. Are you trying to put on some show for everyone? Try to prove me wrong in front of everyone- which won't work by the way. I don't find that very humorous Mrs. Lavender." I scoffed.

"Ms. Bakers. Conform to my classroom rules and what I teach you or you will fail this class. I don't think you'd like to be back here in summer."

"You're right, I wouldn't want to be back here in summer, but if I have to 'conform' to the lies of science then I will fail this class and continue to fail it."

"Bakers you are really pushing it." She picked up the test. "It's Thursday, I'd like to know how your week has been. What's gone on this week for you? Anything new? I never ask you so why not now?" She smirked.

"Why would you care? Don't you have a class to lie to right now?" I folded my arms.

"I went to the lake with my husband and daughters, they're twins. During the weekend and I've been grading projects and tests all week since. What about you?"

"The usual. School and homework and stuff." I looked at my shoes and shuffled them. She placed the paper on the table and got down on her knees so that we were face to face. She leaned her head on the table and looked at me.

"Chloe, I know your parents are getting a divorce," she whispered. "I have a question." She said aloud and stood up. "Why would a loving God do this to you? Clearly you read his word, you pray, you believe in him. So why would he have your parents divorce? That must be really hard on you." She folded her arms again.

I looked up at her and down at my hands blinking back tears.

"Oh come on. You don't need to tell the whole class what's going on in her personal life. That's her business." Maxwell said aloud.

"It's fine," I mumbled. I gulped and looked up at Mrs. Lavender. "There's something you must know and everyone else must know. God didn't cause my parents to divorce, that's their choice. But God does give us trials so that our faith will grow stronger in him. The definition of Christian is not a perfect life. I could have no family, no friends, no house, no food, no... anything. But I would still know that He loves me and He has a future for me. I know...despite everything that's happening, I still got Jesus." I looked around and gulped looking back at her.

"Chloe, you can come in after school to retake this test and fill out the correct answers or you will fail this test." I nodded slowly and leaned back looking down at my hands.