Page 13 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Everything all right here, guys?” he asked.

“Yep,” Ethan said, smirking again.

“Other than him harassing Darla and teaching Nate a new word, yeah,” I clipped out, still suppressing the urge to hit something.

“A new word?”

“What? I just think parents have a right to know that the sweet, innocent girl teaching crafts hangs out withgays,” the little punk sneered.

“Ethan, go to the main service,” Peter instructed.

“Are you serious?She’sthe one who hangs out with gays!” he exclaimed.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Jesus commanded us to love one another. That includes people who are different from us. As far as I’m concerned, she’s doing as the Lord instructed. You, on the other hand, have absolutely no business speaking like that in front of impressionable young children. Now, you can either go into the main service yourself or I’ll personally escort you there. Your choice.”

“Faggot lovers,” he muttered under his breath as he turned and left the room.

My jaw ticked and I balled my hand into a fist, wishing I was somewhere where I could just let it fly. I really,reallyhoped Nathan hadn’t heardthatword. “Gays” was easy enough to explain away to him as “happy people.” “Faggot”? Not so much.

“Brendan, why don’t you go get some air?” Peter said.

“I’m fine,” I grunted.

“I know. But I still think you should get some air for a few minutes. Nate’s fine. He’s watchingVeggieTales. I’m going to regroup and teach a lesson about how Jesus taught us to loveeveryone, and I’ll talk to Ethan’s parents after the service,” he told me.

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back.”

Taking a deep breath to calm my jittery nerves, I headed out the door and toward the parking lot. My thoughts were going at a million miles an hour, but I couldn’t actually distinguish any of them…other than disgust toward Ethan for treating Darla that way. She’d done absolutelynothingto deserve it. She was the kindest, most soft-spoken, and most beautiful girl in the world, and for some reason, he’d decided to single her out as a target for his abuse and hatred.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even notice Pastor Jones approaching me until I literally walked right into him.

“Crap,” I muttered. “I’m so sorry, Pastor Jones. I didn’t see you there.”

“You and I need to have a talk, Mr. Carter,” he said sternly.

Wait, what? What had I done wrong? Other than stop Ethan from teaching hateful language to a bunch of kids? With his conservative views, I was sure—

Oh, shit. If Ethan had gone straight to Pastor Jones as retaliation for my standing up to him, that meant he knew about Darla’s new friends now. And I had a feeling he’d be furious with her for making friends with anyone who was different.

But I couldn’t say that out loud. If that wasn’t what this was about, I couldn’t betray Darla’s trust by inadvertently telling him about it. She needed to know that she could trust me. That even if no one else in this church understood her befriending Kate and Ashton or supported her, I did.

“What can I do for you, sir?” I asked politely.

“You and my daughter seem to have gotten pretty friendly recently,” he said, like he was accusing me of something.

Damn it. It wasn’t about Ethan’s stunt. It was about something much worse. Something that, despite how hard I’d been trying, I couldn’t control. Every time I looked at Darla, every time I talked to her, my feelings toward her only got stronger and deeper. It was taking everything in me to do the moral and right thing and keep things platonic with her when everything in me wanted so much more.

“We’ve been friends for a long time, sir,” I choked out.

“She may be attending the same school as you now, Mr. Carter, but Darla has the mind of a child. She doesn’t understand how the world works, or what certain people’s expectations of her are. You’d do well to remember that, and to keep your distance from her. Remember what the Lord said in the Book of Matthew. ‘But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.’”

I was too stunned to respond, so, with a parting glare, he walked away, and I was left with my head spinning.

The mind of a child? Was he serious? Darla had always been one of the smartest people I knew. She’d shared her class schedule with me at lunch on the first day of school, and she was in all honors classes. She most definitely didnothave the mind of a child. Was she sheltered and maybe a little naïve? Yes, of course, but that had to do with her upbringing, not with her lack of understanding or comprehension.

So why on Earth was he trying to get me to believe that someone I’d known for basically my entire life was incompetent? Did he actually think that I’d just take what he told me at face value and not question it? Andwhyhad he just threatened me in an attempt to get me to stay away from her? I could read between the lines and pick out the unspoken threat in that Bible verse.

Was it just because he didn’t want her dating? He clearly thought being around me would make her sin, and there was one glaringly obvious thing I could think of that he’d want to prevent her from doing now that she was attending a public high school. Maybe he thought he could prevent it by telling any boys who seemed to be interested in her that she wasn’t mentally competent. It was a stupid plan, because anyone who’d known her for longer than two seconds would know he was lying, but it only had to make sense to him.

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