My blood runs cold at the thought. The thought of Matt alone in his room, angry, hurt, and self-destructing.
What if he doesn’t love God? I know he thinks God doesn’t love him and he’s angry with God. But people get angry at those they love all the time, and continue right along loving them.
What if he doesn’t love God, though? How will things work together for him then?
Epilogue
Kennedy.
It’s been six weeks since Matt’s talked to me. Get out were his last words.
He’s never talking to me again.
If I weren’t getting powdered down by Today Show makeup people again, I’d probably try texting him again. I text him every single day. Once in the morning and once at night. I remind him that I love him and care about him, and he never responds. That’s okay though. I’ll keep doing it until he finally does talk to me or one of us dies because, even if he changes his number, I’ll find out.
Roland and Buck sat down with school counseling to arrange intensive sessions with Matt in order for him to be able to finish out the year. Per my request, and Roland’s understanding, they kept Dean Baker out of it. Chills race down my spine at the thought of what Weeble Baker would do with that information on Matt.
I’ve seen him though, even though he won’t talk to me. We have Roland’s New Testament class together, which is weird and awkward on a number of levels. I haven’t tried to talk to him in person yet because I need him to know that while I care deeply, I also respect his wishes to not speak to me, kind of. I don’t want him changing out of the class, so I walk the line I guess.
Oh, the Today Show, right.
Well, apparently Jahara—Roland’s assistant—forgot to tell Roland she’d set up an interview with us and them at the family conference thing we were going to in Georgia. Only, Jonah, Matt, and I never made it to the conference. Roland and Buck excused us from it given all the “excitement” from the day before, and when they ran into Dean Baker, as expected, they simply told him we got food poisoning from the Chinese dinner we’d had a day and a half earlier. Still, that left the matter of the Today Show hanging in the air. I flat out refused to go on camera until school was back in session. I needed to chill out after all the emotions of the break, and the last thing I needed was a national camera up my a—butt. Alas, here we are, a couple of weeks into my second semester at CU, with another national interview on deck.
While Mom isn’t by my side for this one, I did get to see her at the end of break, as planned, at Roland’s house. I waited until then to tell her about what had happened with Matt. Casting a wide-eyed glance to Roland, she quickly looked back at me and said, “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.” That was it. Things are still a little weird for us, but I think that’s just kind of part of growing up. Sure, there are different challenges in our way than a normal mother-daughter relationship, but we’ve never been particularly normal as it is.
“Lift your chin,” a nameless makeup artist says softly.
I comply and take a deep breath.
“You look so pretty,” Eden says, fussing with my hair and smiling at me in the mirror.
“Lucky!” Bridgette fake-whines of all the attention I’m receiving.
Nameless makeup artist grins and looks up. “I’ll do you girls once she’s on camera.”
They squeal in unison and the artist winks before painting tinted gloss on my lips.
On the drive back from Georgia, Jonah and I had a long talk about telling Eden what went down at The Pink Pony. I said I had to talk with her about it. That I needed her not only as a friend, but a prayer confidant. Sure, I told Mollie and we talked about all the depression and sadness of the whole thing, but Eden would understand at a different level, I argued. I knew that it would be asking a lot of Jonah to be that kind of vulnerable with Eden when talking about what happened, but he wants to be friends with her still anyway, so we agreed to talk with her together.
I didn’t tell Bridgette, though, and I don’t plan to. Not yet, anyway, and Eden gets it. She won’t tell, either. None of us can control who Matt will tell, if anyone, but we figure he’s not likely to talk.
Because not only is he not talking to me, he’s not really talking to Jonah, either. Jonah’s been able to get a few words out of him, but they’re mostly in grunt-form. I’m getting the brunt of Matt’s silent treatment, I’m guessing, because I’m the one that involved our dads, which brought everything to a whole other level.
“You’re ready,” the makeup artist says, assessing me from a few feet back.