Chapter 19
Lauren
Her stomach sank the second she heard the words.
Oh no. She hadn’t said that out loud had she? The delirium of sleep still clung to her, and her breath rasped past the tightening of her throat.
Zach’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his jaw tightened. “I’ll leave you alone then.”
“Zach, wait.”
She was still coming down from the panic of her nightmare, and reality was blending with the dream world. Zach hadn’t hurt her. Not today, at least. He hadn’t deserved the arrow she shot at him.
The argument they’d had a few days ago had cooled off, and she’d planned to call him. Instead, she’d labeled him the worst and pushed him away.
Just like everyone else. She was just as bad as the rest of the world. She’d taken away his chance to change things—stripped away the hope she’d been planting for weeks.
She reached for him, but he moved fast. His long strides took him out of her bedroom and down the hallway, and she couldn’t keep up. Her T-shirt was damp with cold sweat and clung to her body as she scrambled through the house.
“Zach, I’m sorry. Please stop.”
He’d just reached for the knob on the front door when she caught up to him. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, and he stilled.
There was a coldness in his eyes she hadn’t seen in years, and the urge to shrink away from him was strong. Still, she kept her hold, praying he didn’t pull away this time, begging him to let her fix what she’d broken.
He glanced down at her hand, then up to her eyes. “Let me go, and I’ll do the same for you.”
No. That wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to erase the fights. She wanted her composure back. She wanted sleep and safety and their fragile friendship.
She was a joke. What kind of counselor would she be to others if she couldn’t fix herself?
“Please don’t go,” she whispered past the lump clogging her throat.
Gently, Zach pulled his arm away from her and walked out the door. He didn’t slam it behind him or stomp away. He just walked out.
The pathway between them closed, and she was left cold and alone—furious with herself for hitting him where it hurt most.
The sun’s early morning rays streamed through the windows as tears welled in her eyes and spilled over. What time was it? She wiped her face and walked back to the bedroom to retrieve her phone.
The numbers lit up on the screen, and she tossed it onto the bed. She was behind schedule. What happened to her alarm? She must have turned it off in her fitful nightmare.
Wait. There was something else. She picked up the phone again. She had a missed call from Zach. He’d called her half an hour ago, well before he pulled her out of her nightmare.
But why? What would make him show up before dawn when they hadn’t talked in days?
She turned and fell onto the bed, staring at the ceiling as she waited for the tears to run dry. Maybe if she got it all out now, she could make it through the day without falling into crying fits whenever she had to speak to someone.
When her eyes were dry, she called her coworker to let her know she’d be coming in later than usual. They had a trainee at the library, and she needed to be there.
That meant she had to get up from her pity party and get ready, though, there might not be any hope of saving her red and puffy face and eyes. They were a casualty of war at this point.
She used the freedom of the shower to get the rest of the tears out.
She’d been holding them in for so long, and apparently there was a backup in the lines.
All the stress of work, worry over Anthony, and trying to make things right with Zach knotted together to create a perfect storm of emotions that left her ragged and exhausted.
She’d just poured a cup of coffee from the carafe like a zombie when the idea struck her. Hadley.
A minute later, she located her phone and pressed the button to call her friend. If anyone would know what to do, it was Hadley.
“Good morning!” Hadley sang.
Lauren sniffed. “Morning.”
“Uh-oh. That sounds like a bad morning. What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Well, not everything, but it feels like everything,” Lauren said.
A door closed on Hadley’s end of the line. “Okay. I’m ready. Start at the beginning.”
“The real beginning was years ago, so let’s start with this week.” Lauren went through the date with Wes and Zach’s terrible reaction, along with the fact that Wes hadn’t called her, and she hadn’t tried to call him either.
“I had a nightmare this morning, and Zach heard me screaming and woke me up. Then I said something terrible to him, and he left.”
“Like, he left for good, or he walked out on the conversation?”
“I don’t know. I was so wound up from my nightmare that I took it out on him.” She trudged back to the bathroom and put the call on speaker so she could try to cover up the evidence of the terrible morning with makeup. “What was it like when you were starting to trust Gage?”
“Scary. Terrifying. Everybody warned me about him, but…I don’t know. There were a few times when I saw something different in him from what everybody else saw.”
“Like what?” She needed evidence. Something concrete to hold on to.
“He wasn’t mean. He was just guarded. I could respect that considering all that he was going through with his family. It took a lot of days with no pushing, but it also took some pushing at the right times. I don’t know. I just knew there was hope for him, and I didn’t want to give up.”
Hope. That was what Lauren wanted for Zach. It was what she wanted for herself and her search for Anthony, but now she knew Zach wasn’t the answer to that problem. He’d refused to help her, and she had to respect that decision.
Zach wasn’t the only reason for her sleepless nights. In fact, she’d started out as a kid in last night’s dream. She’d watched with chained wrists as Anthony took the beating for her, but by the time the dream ended, she was defending herself against Zach as an adult.
“I don’t want to give up on him, but I think I messed everything up. Tell me all this is worth it. What if I can’t help him? Why does it feel so personal?”
“Because you’ve made it personal. You have a huge heart, and I love that about you. I can tell you for sure that even if Zach doesn’t turn his life around, what you’re doing for him is good. He’ll always know that at least one person cared about him.”
Lauren slid the makeup sponge over her cheeks, watching as the powder covered most of the redness. “I didn’t give him that impression this morning.”
“It’s not going to be easy, friend. It wasn’t easy with Gage by any means. There were times when I thought I’d ruined any chance between us. We hurt each other. We hurt other people. We had a lot to learn, and we still do.”
“But Gage is a completely new person. He’s in church, he has two jobs, and he absolutely loves you with all his heart.” Lauren lowered the makeup sponge and hung her head. She didn’t want to look at herself. Not like this. “What if there isn’t any hope for Zach?”
Hadley chuckled. “You’re not the type to give up. Did you pray about this before you called me?”
Lauren slowly lowered herself until she sat on the edge of the bathtub. Hadley’s blow hit harder than any she’d taken in her dreams. “I didn’t. I haven’t…I haven’t had the words in days. Weeks, maybe.”
“Oh, honey,” Hadley whispered, soothing and caring like she was consoling an abused puppy instead of a confused friend. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Lauren pushed a hand through her hair, but her fingers tangled in the knots from her fitful sleep. The pressure in her chest pushed against her rib cage, threatening to explode. “I’m a mess. I’m ashamed. I’m worried about too many things that I can’t control, and I’m losing my grip.”
Hadley let out a soft sigh. “That’s when you call me.
If you can’t pray for yourself, I’ll pray for you.
We don’t always have the words, but the Lord knows our hearts.
All we have to do is kneel at His feet and give Him our troubles.
We can’t control everything, but He’s the Almighty who loves you at your darkest the same as He loves you when you’re on top of the mountain. ”
The muscles in Lauren’s neck tightened. She knew all of those things, but she needed to hear them again. Other people struggled. Lauren had always prided herself on managing multiple things well. Maybe she needed to be knocked off her pedestal to know exactly how little she could actually control.
“I know that,” Lauren whispered.
“But you’re trying to save the world. You’re the most selfless woman I know, but you’ve got to stop thinking the things you’re managing will crumble without you.
I’m not saying the work you do isn’t important.
I know that it is. I’m just saying it’s okay to ask for help, especially if you’re asking the Lord to walk beside you. ”
Lauren leaned over, propping her elbows on her knees. “What if I’m not doing what I’m meant to do? How do I know if I’m doing the right work? I don’t mean to dump all of my problems on you this morning, but I’ve struggled with this.”
Hadley chuckled. “Obviously. You have three graduate degrees, you work multiple jobs, and you volunteer in all of your remaining time. Maybe God wants you to slow down, so you can hear Him and His plan for you.”
The silence on both ends of the call said Hadley was right. Lauren had been living with the noise for so long, but the constant push and pull inside her head wasn’t from the Lord. It was all the earthly things she’d deemed important vying for her attention.
“You’re right. I need to back off,” Lauren said.
“Can we have a girls’ night? Do you want to go to Barn Sour and dance the night away?”
Lauren lifted her head and pushed her shoulders back. “That sounds great. Let’s plan that for Friday. Today, I need to have a meeting with my boss.”