“Why?”
He sighed patiently. “I like the way it looks better.”
“Oh.” And there it was again—that I-don’t-understand-you-at-all “Oh.”
“Did you finish your English essay?” she asked, and he jumped.
She stood close beside him, watching his greasy fingers move about the engine, pulling on wires and adjusting bolts. How did he not hear her sidle up to him?
“No,” he replied, and looked down at her.
“I chose the second essay question. The one about defining satire,” she went on.
He noticed she’d finally cleaned her face, but a stray swipe of icing hung back on her cheekbone, and he was tempted to dab it. He glanced at his filthy hands. Perhaps not.
“I’m doing that one, too,” he said, though he hadn’t bothered to read over the question options yet.
“Cool. Maybe we can compare notes,” Regan offered.
“Maybe.”
And that was her cue to leave. Her face went hot with embarrassment at his blatant rejection. He didn’t want to compare notes with her. Shit. He probably didn’t want her in his garage in the first place. What was she thinking coming here? This was his personal space—his place away from school and all the jerks in it. She probably stood as an annoying reminder of all the things he hated.
“I better go,” she said quickly. “I have tons of homework.”
He couldn’t understand her abrupt change in attitude. Weren’t they having a nice conversation? Did he say or do something wrong? That wouldn’t surprise him. She made him nervous, and he couldn’t be sure he didn’t accidentally pass gas in front of her. Oh God, did he fart in front of Regan Walters and not realize it?
“Jeremy?”
He whipped his head to the side, looking at her standing in the garage doorway.
“I said bye, like, ten times,” she said.
“Oh,” he replied. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Um, okaaaay.”
“I was wondering why you want to leave,” he explained. He lifted the front of his shirt to his nose. “Do I smell or something?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“Did I say something wrong?”
She continued shaking her head.
“I’ll take you up on your offer. Comparing our essays? If you have time, anyway. I know it’s due at the end of the week.”
Wow. That was a total misread. She relaxed.
“Okay,” she replied. “How about tomorrow?”
He nodded.
“Here?”
He nodded again.
His heart continued to beat loud and painfully inside his chest long after she’d left. The fantasy of kissing her flashed inside his brain once more, but this time, he wasn’t holding a gun to her head.
***
Fiant sicut paleae ante faciem venti.
Regan typed the English translation into Google: Let them be like chaff before the wind. A list of Bible resource websites popped up, and she randomly chose the fourth. She read to herself. It was a verse from the book of Psalm: “Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord scattering them.” She had no idea what that meant, and there wasn’t an explanation accompanying the verse.
She started at the beginning.
What is chaff in the Bible? she typed into the search bar. She learned it was the outer casing of grain seeds—useless for human consumption. A waste material.
Well, that makes sense, she thought. “Them” must refer to Jeremy’s tormentors, and he saw them as chaff. Useless. A waste. Waste of space. Waste of air. She might have agreed if she didn’t believe that every person had at least one redeemable quality.
She reread the verse. Who’s speaking? Who’s upset? Who wants vengeance, and why? She thought these questions would help her better understand Jeremy, so she specified her search: What is “let them be like chaff before the wind” about? Not the best search phrase, but it landed her more information.
She learned that the psalms were divided into categories based on praises of thanksgiving, songs of love, and petitions. Some Bible scholars believed the “petition” psalms seeking retribution were written by King David after he fled Jerusalem upon his third son, Absalom’s betrayal. Jeremy’s tattoo was definitely a petition, so she researched David.
Why did King David flee Jerusalem? Answer: Absalom decided to declare himself king over David. Why? Because he was pissed off. Why? Because his sister was raped, and David did nothing about it. Bitterness. Resentment. The stuff that fuels hatred. And revenge.
“Whoa,” Regan said, sitting back in her chair. “This mess is heavy.”
She superimposed her very basic, limited picture of King David onto Jeremy. The two didn’t match. Jeremy wasn’t the bad guy here. He didn’t wrong his bullies in the past. He did nothing to invite abuse. She believed Absalom had a legitimate reason to rebel against his father, so his father’s cries for vengeance made no sense to her.
She sighed in frustration and tossed David’s story altogether. It didn’t make sense for why Jeremy chose to brand himself with that verse. No, she decided David wasn’t the author of Psalm 35 after all. Just like that—like she’d been studying theology for decades when in actuality she’d never held a Bible in her hands.
Psalm 35, she typed into Google. She read the entire passage. And then again. And again. They were words of a broken man. A man crying out for mercy. A man pleading to God for help. A man who couldn’t contend against his enemies alone. A man seeking justice from a righteous deity—someone who could do what he could not: annihilate the wicked.