Page 49 of My Vows Are Sealed

“Yeah, but we already know we’re adorable. And we’re old news,” Ashton quipped.

“Old news?” Darla asked as she emerged from hiding. “You guys haven’t even been dating for a month yet.”

“Hey, that’s like a whole year in high school time,” they snickered.

“Wow, Ash. We’ve only been going out for a few weeks and it feels like a year?” Kate laughed. “You make it sound like torture.”

“Nah. You’re stuck with me, sunshine,” they said, kissing her cheek.

Chapter 14

Darla

Love Liberty Disco

“Hey, Darla,” Marie said with a smile when I walked into the children’s room.

“Hey,” I sighed, sinking down into the first available chair.

My shoulder was feeling a lot better, but my rib was still throbbing, even with the proper wrapping. Honestly, the ibuprofen Brendan had smuggled me was pretty much the only thing getting me through school. Well, that and the fact that he refused to let me carry my backpack except for lugging it off the bus in the morning and back on the bus in the afternoon.

“How are you feeling?” she asked me.

“A little better. My arm’s getting there, but I’m still sore,” I told her, trying to skirt the truth as much as possible.

I’d thought so many times about telling her the truth about what my dad had done to me on Saturday night. But there were just too many things that could go wrong. She could end up not believing me because my dad was the pastor and there was no way he’d hurt his daughter. She could end up believing me, but then whoever investigated it would end up falling for my dad’s line. And then my dad would ask me how they found out, and it would end up being worse for me in the end.

The long and short of it was, I was scared, and I had nowhere to turn if my dad didn’t get arrested. Plus, there was what my mom had said. If hedidget arrested, we’d end up losing everything because she couldn’t afford to support us. So, basically, I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

“Well, this might make you feel even better,” Marie chuckled as she sat down next to me at the craft table. “Peter talked to your dad about you coming to the Jars of Clay concert with the youth group next Saturday because we still have an extra ticket. I think he’s going to talk to you about it later tonight, but it sounds like you’re coming with us.”

I couldn’t help it. I let out a squeal. I was only allowed to listen to Christian music, and Jars of Clay was one of my favorite groups. When Peter and Marie started gauging interest in getting a block of seats to their concert here in Charleston for the youth group, I was elated. I’d never actually been to a concert before, and for it to be one of my favorite bands was icing on the cake.

But that was around the time when Ethan told my dad about Kate and Ashton, and my dad had told me to forget about it. Even though my “restriction,” as he called it, had been lifted, I still hadn’t been brave enough to ask him again. Especially not after the nightmare surrounding the homecoming dance.

She laughed. “Thought you might be happy about that.”

“That’s awesome!” Heather, who was already in the room, exclaimed. “Chris is coming with us too. She was hoping you were going to be there. She really wants another chance to hang out with you.”

“Really?” I asked, shocked that she’d invite her girlfriend to a church function.

“Yeah. Her family goes to St. Andrew’s on the other side of town,” she told me. “But their youth group doesn’t do many outings like that. She was all excited when I told her our group was going to that show. She loves Jars of Clay.”

The door opened, and my favorite four-year-old bundle of energy came barreling into the room, making a beeline for me. I smiled and turned toward Nathan…and his older brother, who really needed to get a little better about controlling his facial expressions around me at church. My dad would pick up that something was different in a nanosecond if he saw how Brendan was looking at me right now.

I mean, I wasn’t complaining because it gave me butterflies and made my heart do a somersault in my chest, but it wasn’t exactly ideal for us keeping a low profile at church around the kids. We’d talked about this at school today and agreed we needed to act like nothing had changed while we were working with the kids, because they might blurt something out without realizing what they were saying. I knew he hated keeping our relationship from Nathan, but it was for the best right now. At least until Nathan was a little older and we could explain to him why we needed to keep it a secret.

“Darla!” Nathan squealed.

“Hey, little man,” I giggled, holding out my good arm for a hug.

Nathan gave me the gentlest hug in the world, and then I felt another, much bigger, hand squeeze my shoulder. I looked up at Brendan, who was smiling at both of us, with those dimples I’d gotten so attached to on full display. I wished my free arm wasn’t in a sling because I really wanted to reach up and squeeze his hand, but my mom had given me strict instructions that I needed to keep it immobilized tonight. So instead, I leaned into his side just a little, which earned me another squeeze on the shoulder, and then he let go of me and took a few steps back.

When Nathan pulled back, he handed me a folded piece of paper that I hadn’t realized he was holding. I looked at the front and sawGet Well Soonscrawled across the front in his four-year-old handwriting, with some green scribbles at the bottom that looked like they were supposed to be grass, blue scribbles that were probably supposed to be the sky, and then a yellow circle with lines coming off it that looked like the sun. I opened it, and he’d writtenLove, Nathanon the inside with a big smiley face.

“Did you make this all by yourself?” I asked.

“Brendan helped me spell the words. But I colored it.”

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