It's Only Because I Love You

Chapter Twelve- Finally

Twelve-Fast Forward

          The weeks following my first visit at church, I had become better friends with Derek. We started hanging out during our off time at school, and on the weekends we would go to the park or hang out around downtown. I wasn’t sure if it was because Derek liked me, or he didn’t have any other friends in New Haven.

Either way, I guess it didn’t matter. We were spending a lot of time together, and that’s all I cared about. I was able to manage keeping my friendship affair a secret from my dad, since he leaves early for work, then gets home really late. It was starting to become a thing Jonah, Mom and I were used to. He wouldn’t come home for lunch like he used too, and sometimes he wouldn’t make it to dinner. However, when he did, he often had explosions like he did that Sunday at church.

Derek had been talking to me a lot about church and what was going through my head about God. I had been to church three times since my first time. I liked it, really, I enjoyed it. Though, for some reason, something was holding me back from fully embracing it.

So, I wasn’t able to hide my friendship with Derek from my dad for too long, it abruptly came to an end in four weeks into my church-going era, when Derek walked me to the door, and before I even opened the door to go inside, my dad opened it to reveal Derek just about to walk away back to his car.

“Excuse me, son, not so fast,” my dad said when he opened the door.

“Oh, Bethany, this must be your father!” Derek said delighted. I hadn’t told him that my dad said I couldn’t see him, considering my dad wasn’t a part of my life five out of seven days of the week when he would come home after I was in bed.

“Didn’t Bethany tell you that she couldn’t see you anymore?”

“Dad, he’s only a-”

“-What?” Derek interrupted.

“Bethany, that was over a month ago. How long have you been disobedient to me?”

“Bethany, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Derek asked.

“I would if I knew,” I said as I plowed through my front door, making my dad move aside, and I ran up to my bedroom. I started crying as I pounded on Jonah’s door. “Jonah, open up, please!” I said panicked, with a tear rolling down my face. I had become so afraid of my dad over the last month, I was scared to know what he would do to me.

“Bethany, what’s going on?” Jonah said as he opened his door concerned. I propelled myself into his arms. Jonah was so comforting, it was times like these that I was happy he was my brother. I knew he would always protect me. “Dad is at the front door saying I’m being disobedient to him because I’m hanging out with Derek!” I said into his chest. “What’s he going to do to me?”

“Is Derek here?” Jonah asked.

“Yeah, he was dropping me off, and Dad opened the door to outside before I did,” Jonah let go of me and ran downstairs. I slinked toward the stairwell and tried to listen through the vents.

“Hey Dad,” I heard Jonah say.

“Jonah, what are you doing down here?” Dad asked.

“Well, I do live here. Plus I just wanted to see what was going on,” Jonah paused. “Hi, Derek!” I leaned forward, but I couldn’t hear if Derek replied because he was outside. “I was going down to the soccer fields later, if you wanted to come and kick the ball around with me?”

I couldn’t believe what Jonah was doing. I wasn’t surprised that Jonah wasn’t sticking up for me, but I was surprised in the manner in which he was doing it.