Page 18 of The Confidant
I scratched my neck, feeling somewhat uncomfortable since the last time I’d talked about this hadn’t exactly gone well.
I cleared my throat. “Basically, I discovered that there were a lot of disturbing things that happened when the church was founded that I hadn’t been told about. And I was also shocked by certain practices and beliefs in the church’s past.”Some of the things the founder had done with teenage girls, all under the“command of God,” were frankly disgusting. “After learning about those things and seeing more of the full picture, I just couldn’t believe everything like I used to.”
“Is that why you and Scarlett broke up?”
“No…” I said. “I actually don’t think she knows how I feel about the church. I mean, she knows I’ve stopped going to all the meetings and activities. But she probably thinks it’s because I’m just being lazy.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “That’s kind of what everyone in The Fold assumes when people stop coming. That we’re lazy or just didn’t have a strong enough faith. Or that we were deceived by the devil.”
My conversation with my mom during Thanksgiving break, where she’d basically told me I had been contaminated by Satan, still stung all these months later.
“But you stopped going because of some information that you found?” Addison asked curiously, like she hadn’t ever talked to anyone about leaving a high-demand religion before. “Stuff that actually happened with your church? Things Scarlett probably doesn’t know about?”
“Yeah, the church’s founder did a lot of sketchy stuff.” Stuff that had actually been validated and documented by church historians on the church’s own website.
It was just difficult to find the information since they’d hidden it and whitewashed it so much that you had to click on the footnotes to get the real details.
“Learning that the founder essentially had a long history of being a conman got me questioning everything. And then, the more I dug, the more problems I found…”
I looked at Addison, wondering if she would think I was as weak-minded and easily fooled as my parents and Pastor Caldwell thought I was.
But instead of looking at me like she thought I had bad judgement, she said, “That actually sounds similar to something my parents went through.”
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows, not expecting her to relate to my story at all. “Were they religious?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But they had a similar thing happen with a company they were involved with.”
“Oh, interesting.”
“Yeah…” She lifted a shoulder. “They were pretty invested in it. But it turned out to have a bunch of skeletons in its closet, and they realized they needed to get out.”
“Which company is it?” I asked, curious if I’d heard of it since I’d just watched a documentary about an MLM with some pretty big issues.
She bit her lip, as if unsure what to say. “It’s actually pretty crazy and—"
“We probably shouldn’t be talking about this, Addie.” A deep voice interrupted her from behind. When I turned around, I found her stepbrother standing on the row behind us.
Since when did Evan get here?
Had he been listening to us this whole time?
“Yeah, sorry. You’re right.” Addison’s face paled. “I probably said too much already…”
Really?
When I looked concerned, she shrugged and waved her hand like it was no biggie and said, “It was basically just some business stuff gone wrong.”
* * *
The game ended just beforenine o’clock, with Eden Falls barely squeaking by with a win—the final score being fifty-seven to fifty-six.
I took notes here and there to add into my sports update in tomorrow morning’s newspaper, but when I wasn’t doing that, Addison and I were chatting. She asked me how I’d liked growing up in New York City and about my interest in rock climbing.
She didn’t say a whole lot about where she came from—only mentioning that she and Evan had come here from Arizona and that she had one other sibling, a brother who was four years older than her.
And even though my feelings for Scarlett weren’t going anywhere soon, I had to admit that it was kind of nice having an easy conversation with someone whom I could have a fresh start with.
