Page 53 of The Confidant
“Ready.”
“Is your mom in town this weekend?” I asked Scarlett as we headed down the elevator, passing the fifth floor where her mom lived.
“She and Rodney went to visit his family in Georgia,” Scarlett said. “That’s why she came to visit me last weekend.”
“I bet it’s nice to escape the cold for a few days.”
“That’s what they were thinking.”
The elevator made it to the main level, and we walked out into the cool February night. And despite the traffic being busy, the lightly falling snow made it seem calmer.
Definitely not like the quiet that came on a snowy evening in Eden Falls, but nice.
Scarlett and I headed toward the parsonage that was about a five-minute walk from my house. As we made footprints in the snow that would most likely be melted by morning, I allowed myself to think over tonight’s events.
Despite Bash coming in and ruining the moment I’d almost had with Scarlett, it had been a pretty good night. We’d enjoyed each other’s company. And even though I hadn’t gotten the kiss I’d been craving, I had been able to hold her in my arms for a few minutes.
Which was something I hadn’t done in way too long.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be another ten months before it happened again. Hopefully, tonight was just the first of many dates—non-consecutive if need be.
“It’s so nice out here,” Scarlett said, stopping briefly under a streetlight and looking up. “Kind of makes you miss living here during the winter, doesn’t it?”
“A little, I guess,” I said.
“You sound unsure about that,” she said, chuckling. “Does that mean you like Eden Falls more?”
“It’s grown on me.” I shrugged. “What about you?”
“I do like Eden Falls. A lot more than I thought I would since I was pretty homesick my freshman year.”
“You were homesick?” I asked, never having heard of that.
She nodded. “I didn’t really have friends that year. Partly because I was a little too intense about everything—sports, grades, church…” She looked up at me. “And partly because I felt like no one really understood me.”
“You had a hard time connecting with our classmates back then?” I asked.
“I grew up so differently from a lot of the people at school,” she said. “Most people would probably say my world was very small since even though I came from one of the biggest cities in the world, I only really spent time with members of The Fold.”
“Me too.” My life, like Scarlett’s, had revolved around the church. Before going to Eden Falls Academy, I had a handful of friends from school and sports that came from other faiths or none at all, but they were all more at the acquaintance level. I never did things with them outside of those activities, though. If I was going to hang out with a friend after school or on the weekends, it was usually one of the guys from my youth group.
“But you seemed to do fine when we got to Eden Falls,” Scarlett said. “You made friends with Carter, Mack, and Nash pretty quickly and were able to fit in. Where I—” She sighed. “—I was always fighting with my roommate because she wouldn’t stop throwing crosses at me and telling me I was brainwashed and part of a religious cult.”
“Wait, she actually said that?” I asked, surprised. Despite being quite the fanatic for my previous religion, no one had ever done anything like that to me.
Scarlett nodded. “Yeah, I think she was in one of those religions that goes around talking bad about The Fold. The ones that travel to the church pageants so they can hand out those anti-Fold pamphlets to people.”
“Yikes,” I said. “That was not a good pairing on the school’s part.”
“It was a rough year.” She looked ahead as we passed a couple walking down the street. “Which is why I told my mom that if she was forcing me to come back to school the next year, she would have to get me a single room.”
“You almost didn’t come back?” I raised my eyebrows.
How had I not known this?
“I basically spent the whole summer after freshman year begging my parents to let me switch to a school closer to home. Or at least let me switch to online school because I didn’t want to go back.”
“I had no idea.” I thought back to my impressions of Scarlett before we became friends. “I remember thinking you were always by yourself because you were so focused on studying to get straight A’s and didn’t have time for friends.”
