Chapter Four

Wow, I suck at updating! Sorry about the wait, school has been crazy! But I'm on break so I was excited to update! And thanks for the feedback!



It was a beautiful, summer day. You could hear birds singing, the white lilies dancing with the wind. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The grass was greener than ever, and the excitement on people’s faces was contagious as they walked into a building connected to the room that I occupied.

As I continued to look out the window, I couldn’t help myself but wonder what the occasion was.

“They’re ready whenever you are, sweetheart.”

I turned away from the window to see my dad smiling at me with a hint of sadness and fear in his face. He was wearing a black tuxedo that fit him nicely. I became confused. As I started to look around the room, I realized that I was standing in the parlor of my church. I looked to my left where a beautiful bouquet of white roses was laying innocently on the wooden table.

‘I must be at a wedding,’ I thought. I assumed the church asked me to sing again for another ceremony. But I couldn’t help but continue to notice my dad’s look on his face. The kind of look that couldn’t be more proud of you, but at the same time, it looks like he’s about to lose something.

I hesitantly asked, “Who’s getting married?”
My dad’s eyes got wide, and he started laughing. “You’re not that nervous, are you? You act like you haven’t been planning your own wedding for over a year.”

I froze. ‘No way,’ I thought as I slowly looked down at myself and gasped. I was wearing a strapless, white dress with beading across my chest. Right at my waist, the dress was cinched to show off my figure. I lifted up my dress to reveal the short, white heels with crystals circling around the opening of the shoe where my feet occupied. I raised my arms to touch my head only to feel the material of a veil. I finally looked to my left to look into the mirror. Sure enough, it was me in the reflection.

“I’m getting married..”
“Rachel, it’s time to go!”

I turned around towards the door of the parlor where a lady dressed in a suit with a head set smiled. I assumed she was my wedding planner.

I hesitantly took my dad’s arm and held onto it tightly as we walked out of the parlor and towards the back of the church where two closed doors separated the sanctuary. I couldn’t catch my breath.

‘How did this happen? Who’s all here? Where are my bridesmaids? …Who am I getting married to?’

An organ started playing as I continued to hold onto my dad’s arm. The two doors opened, and the shocked look on my face couldn’t be hidden as people awed at me.

On the end of each pew were flowers wrapped around the branches of the poles that held lit candles. The center of the aisle was covered in white rose petals. As my dad and I walked down the aisle, I couldn’t help but notice the tightened grip on my hand. I looked up towards my dad to see him crying. I didn’t know what to do.

I looked to the right to see my family and friends looking at me with adoration. I saw my mother standing in the front pew beaming with pride and crying as well.

But when I looked to my left to see my future family, my vision was blurry. I could make out different figures and different colors of their clothing, but it was all a blur. I immediately thought I had lost my vision, but when I looked towards my family again, my vision was clear.

‘This is so strange,’ I thought and became frustrated and scared. Why could I only see my family and friends clearly?

We then reached towards the end of the aisle. I looked to my right to see my sister as my maid of honor and five of my closest friends standing behind her with excited smiles. I smiled back at them, and then I felt my dad take my hand off of his arm and place it in a strong but gentle hand as it wrapped around mine. I automatically felt electricity as if love had sparked into me suddenly. I looked up to see the man I was to marry.

He was just a blur.

“GOOOOOD MORNINGGG!!”

I instantly woke up to find myself sleeping on the air mattress with my sleeping bag wrapped around me tightly. I looked around the crowded room where other girls were waking up and looked up to see my friend, Samantha smirking at me as she continued to try to get me out of bed.

“It’s time to rise and shine! It’s gonna be ninety-two degrees in good old Tennessee today! A perfect day to work on a home!”
“Five more minutes..” I groaned as I pulled my sleeping bag over my head. My request was declined as the sleeping bag was pulled away from me, and I automatically stood up from the sudden coldness I felt from the room’s air conditioner being blasted way too high.
Samantha snickered, “I love waking you up. It’s the highlight of my day!”
“Pretty soon, the highlight of your day will be trying to wash the paint out of your hair that I’ll dump on you when we get to the work site.”
“You’re so lovely in the morning,” Jen joked with me as she started to get out her clothes for the day and her toothbrush to head to the bathroom. I stuck my tongue out at her as I did the same.

It was our last, full day of mission work in Tennessee. I traveled with my youth group for a week long mission trip to help people in the community. Whether it be traveling to a nursing home to sing worship or to work on people’s own homes, it was a blessing to give back to people who were so gracious for us coming to help.

The lady’s home that my group has been working on needed a new coat of paint badly as well as some work needed done inside. So yesterday, we scraped off the old paint and painted one new coat. Today, we were going back to complete the second coat.

As Jen and I walked into the bathroom of the community center we were staying at, I couldn’t help but wonder about that dream I had. It was so weird. What was it trying to tell me? That my future husband is closer than I think? I’m not even seventeen yet (less than two months away though). Why in the world would I have a dream about my wedding?

“You seem lost in thought. What’s up?” Jen asked as she began to brush her teeth.
“It’s nothing .. just this weird dream I had last night. I was getting married, but I couldn’t see who I was being married to. He was blurry.”
“That is weird,” Jen replied as she finished brushing her teeth and went onto pulling her hair up. “What do you think could have triggered that?”
“I don’t know,” I replied as I washed my face.
“Got it bad for a boy?” she asked with a grin.
“No,” I replied honestly. “I don’t like any guys right now. I’m just trying to focus on myself and what I want.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Jen said. “It doesn’t hurt to have a boyfriend though.”
“I know, but when I think about it, if I’m eventually going to be with someone, I might as well enjoy being on my own while I can.”
“Wish I had that outlook on life,” Jen responded. “I admire you for that though. Good for you.”


“..and never forget what you have done here. You have left such an impact on the community that they will be forever grateful towards your hard work and compassion for serving. I wish you all a safe trip home, and thanks for an awesome week!”

The group of us cheered as we started to say our goodbyes to the other groups that had worked with us. This week has been such an eye-opening experience, and I’m even more thankful for what I have at home. Once our goodbyes are said and the final pictures are taken, we are in the van heading for the beach to relax after a hard week of work. Our youth leader hands us our cell phones back when we reach the van. When we had reached the site, we had to hand them in so that we could focus on what we were there to do.

I turned on my phone not expecting to receive any messages. Everyone knew that I was on this trip and that I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of.

10 new messages.

“What the heck?” I said out loud.

I went to my inbox to see who had texted me during the week and hoped that none of the messages contained bad news.

All ten of them were from Sidney.

I scrolled down to the first one he sent me and opened it. It was a picture of the ocean at sunset with the message “Wish you were here.” Ryan and Abby had told me that they were going to the Dominican Republic with Sid, some of his friends from home, and a couple of the guys from the team. They had asked me to come with them, but I declined since the mission trip was the same week. I couldn’t help but smile at the text and got excited to read the other ones.
“Hey, what are you up to?”
“The bar I’m at just played a Justin Timberlake song. I’m dreading the day his new album comes out since I’m sure that’s all you’ll listen to for the next year.”
“Are you getting my messages?”
I rolled my eyes. I had told Ryan and Abby that I most likely wouldn’t be able to answer my phone throughout the week. I take it that they didn’t pass the message on to Sid.

I read quickly through the rest of the messages, but when I reached the last one, I was caught off guard.

“I wish you knew.”

Wish I knew what? I immediately became worried. Was he okay? The message was sent last night, but I felt like it was too late and awkward for me to respond to him. I really needed to call Abby to see what was going on, but I couldn’t have this conversation with fourteen other people listening to me in the van.

We finally arrived at the beach. I laid my towel on the sand, laid on my stomach and dialed her number.

“Hey girl!! How’s your trip going?!” Abby answered.
“Hey, it was awesome! I loved every minute of it. I’m kinda sad that it’s over to be honest.”
“Well, there’s always plenty of opportunities to go on more. You have to tell me everything that you did, what you saw, how many nails you hammered in your hand..”
“Shut up, that didn’t happen!” I responded, but then got to the point of my phone call. “Abby, .. Is everything with Sid all right?”
She paused, “Yeah .. he seems to be having a good time down here .. why?”
“He sent me a lot of messages while I didn’t have my phone during the week. There’s nothing wrong with them until one he sent me last night that said ‘I wish you knew.’”
Abby sighed, “I knew he would do something stupid.”
I became confused, “What do you mean?”
“Rach .. he really misses you..”
I shrugged, “Well, I mean that’s nice. He’ll be back soon enough for me to prank him again.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say. He really misses you. He’s been trying to get your attention for so long and doesn’t understand why you’re not getting it..”
“Getting what?” I asked irritated.
“He really likes you. Ever since you guys met, I think he’s had it bad for you, but now it’s worse. He says he’s tried dropping hints to you about his feelings, but you never seem to get what he’s trying to say. Which I said to him that he personally needs to use the balls he has to tell you how he feels if this is gonna go anywhere. So when you weren’t responding to him throughout the week, he thought that you were ignoring him to get him off your back. Ryan and I told him that you probably weren’t allowed to use your phone, but he didn’t listen. Needless to say..” she stopped hesitantly.

I took all of this information in slowly and unsure. People had pointed out many times that maybe Sidney was looking for more than friendship, but I just ignored it saying that how we acted was just the way we were around each other. But everything makes so much sense now: the texting, the flirty gestures, the whole thing with Aaron, our conversation on the porch..

I was the one who had no idea.

“I’m not sure if I should be telling you this yet alone everything else I just said-”
“Just spit it out, Abby,” I replied nervously.
Abby sighed, “We were at a bar last night. He had a little too much to drink, and this girl casually bumped into him at the bar pretending that she didn’t know who he was which was a complete act of bullshit. Sidney was still upset about you, and I think he used this girl to drown out the feelings he had about everything. She was paying attention to him and when you do that to any drunk guy, it never ends without pleasure.
“What are you trying to say?” I asked even though I was sure I knew the answer.
“I’m not saying this is exactly what happened. But he left with her, and they came out of his room this morning to walk to the pool area. But I’m pretty sure they slept together.”

I immediately became angry. I shouldn’t be this upset. It’s not like we were dating or anything. Yet, just because he wasn’t getting his way, he just moved on to someone who was an easy lay because he was Sidney Crosby.

Exactly the kind of guy I thought he was.

“Rach, are you there? ..I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”
I quickly wiped a tear, “No, I appreciate that you told me. Because now I know who he really is. And I thought he was a friend of mine.”
“He is, Rach. Please don’t cut him off. I’m outside watching him with the group right now and he’s staying as far away from the girl as he can. He looks guilty and disgusted with himself. He was drunk -”
“Being drunk isn’t an excuse for his actions, Abby! If he’s doing this right now, what would he do if we did get in a relationship?! I would never trust him!”
“Rach, just calm down. You can’t let Sid know that you know about this. It would kill him.”
“Good, he needs to know that he can’t have it all. Listen, Abby, I really appreciate you telling me, but I’m gonna go. I’m not mad at you. I just..hate him.”
“Don’t hang up -”
Too late. I put my phone back into my bag that I carried with me to the beach. I stood up and looked towards the ocean. I walked until my feet touched the water and breathed. I hate that he was making me feel this way. I just had one of the most amazing experiences of my life and he took that joy away from me.

My group of friends yelled at me to come in deeper with them. I joined them and as the waves hit me, I let them wash away the friendship that Sidney and I had and what we maybe could have had.