Chapter 10: News
A month went by, and then two, and then three. Before Lizzie knew it, it was September, or almost September. She didn't have any way of really knowing except by the seasons. The leaves were beginning to change color, and the grounds put on a beautiful color show. Lizzie thought about how beautiful of a postcard the mansion would make with the trees in the background. She could send it to Matt. Lizzie wondered if Matt and Malina were married yet. Maybe Malina was pregnant. That would make Lizzie an aunt. In fact, Lizzie would be their child's only aunt.
Lizzie also knew that her friends were returning to West Coast University for their junior year. Lizzie wondered how Ronny and Ethan were doing, and if Gordo had a good time in Los Angeles. She also wondered if Claire was okay and if Tudge was going to go back to school. And what about Miranda? Lizzie's heart sank at the thought of her former best friend. She didn't even know if Miranda was alive. A hot tear trickled down Lizzie's face. She looked outside of her window, where the beautiful colors of Autumn were blurred by her tears. Then, Lizzie let out a sob, followed by another, and another. Lizzie wondered about her family. She wondered if her mother and father were still together and if her mother had ever come to terms with Matt's engagement. And what about herself? Had her family and friends forgotten her? Had they all moved on with their lives without her?
A fresh wave of sobs shook Lizzie. She missed her old life so much that it hurt for her to breathe.
"Lizzie?" Kate's concerned voice inquired from the door. After one look at Lizzie's blotchy, tear-stained face, Kate quickly shut the door and ran over to Lizzie to give her a hug. "Lizzie, what's wrong?" she asked.
Lizzie told Kate about how she missed her friends and family, and how she wondered if they were okay. Kate sat there and listened to Lizzie, but not one tear stole its way down Kate's face. "Aren't you at least a little bit homesick?" Lizzie finally asked Kate.
"This is home," Kate calmly replied.
"Yeah, but don't you ever wonder about your old life and what's become of it?"
"When I chose to come here, I chose to forget it. All of it."
"You can't just erase the past."
"I'm not worried about the past. I'm too busy being excited about what's to come."
"What do you mean by that?" Kate seemed so calm that she was nearly glowing.
"I'm getting married," Kate replied, smiling.
"What!" Lizzie screeched. She wasn't sure if her what had been out of happiness or alarm, though.
"Yup. Sal asked me just before I came up here."
"But what about the eight months rule?"
"Sal said that God said that we were to be the exception. What's wrong?"
Lizzie was still skeptical, though. "So, he loves you?"
"Love isn't what matters. God wants us together. Love will come in its own time."
Lizzie didn't like that answer. Kate was undoubtedly hiding something. "What aren't you telling me, Kate?"
"I wouldn't hide anything from you," Kate replied, sounding offended.
"Kate, I'm your best friend. You know that anything you say won't leave this room."
"Fine. You want to know the truth? Well, here it is. I'm pregnant. That's right. Pregnant. With Sal's baby. So we decided that the best solution to this mishap is to wed tomorrow. Then we can tell everybody that is was conceived after we were married. Look, I know that God warns against fornication in the bible, but we were alone, and temptation got the best of us."
All Lizzie could do to soften the blow of Kate's news was to sit there bug-eyed, staring at Kate.
All that Lizzie could think about during dinner was Kate, and every time Lizzie looked at Kate, she saw Malina, which made Lizzie wonder if she would get to be an aunt soon. The thought of being an aunt reminded Lizzie of her family. Lizzie's family reminded her of Hildredge, and her friends… The thoughts were screaming through Lizzie's head all through dinner. The silence in the spacious dining room only seemed to make the screams in her head louder, and all Lizzie wanted to do was scream out loud and run until she couldn't breathe or run any longer.
Lizzie hardly even noticed when Sal stood up and announced his and Kate's wedding that would happen the very next afternoon right after the afternoon service.
The Wedding was a big, boisterous occasion for Lamb of God. It was a crisp, clear, sunny day. Everybody was talking loudly, laughing heartily, and smiling. Lizzie just couldn't get into the spirit of the occasion, though. While everybody else was surrounding the soon to be wed couple, Lizzie was in her room reading her bible. She read Matthew four over and over again. It was the story where Satan tried to tempt Jesus after he had fasted in the desert for forty days and forty nights. She already had it memorized better than the size of her shoe, but reading it, rather than reciting the story seemed to make it more real.
The chapel bell rang for lunch. Lizzie took her assigned seat next to Kate. The two ate in silence, but every time Lizzie looked at her friend, she wanted to stand up and scream. Lizzie desperately want to tell Kate to dump Sal, and that she was going to marry him for all of the wrong reasons, but Lizzie kept her mouth shut.
At the end of lunch, Sal invited Kate to come up and sit in one of the three empty chairs at his table, still donned in the pure white tablecloth.
Lizzie kept quiet throughout the entire wedding ceremony held in the chapel. After the ceremony was over, Lizzie quickly stole away to her room. Kate's two other uniforms were folded neatly in a pile. Her bible was on top of the pile, still perfectly intact. Lizzie's bible, on the other hand, was so used, the binding was coming undone and loose pages were shoved between the proper page numbers. Lizzie stared at Kate's bed. Besides that pile of Kate's possessions, was only the mattress.
Looking at the mattress reminded Lizzie of something. Lizzie lifted the bottom corner of her own mattress up, and the two pictures she had hidden there the day Lizzie arrived, lay unscathed in their hiding place. She sat on her bed and stared at the picture of her and Matt, and the other one of her, Miranda, and Gordo. Tears cascaded down Lizzie's face as she wished so hard that it hurt that they were all okay. As Lizzie looked at the pictures, her tears of homesickness turned to tears of rage. Lizzie clenched her teeth and her fists, crumpling the pictures.
Lizzie's head screamed at her, "Why?" over and over again until Lizzie couldn't bear it any longer. She violently ripped both pictures to shreds and flushed them down the toilet. With one simple gurgle, the only evidence Lizzie had of her former life was gone. Vanished. All she had left were a few battered memories.
Lizzie sat back down on her bed and stared out her window. The trees seemed even more brilliantly colored than before. It was at that spot that Lizzie asked God to forgive her for keeping those pictures of her old life. Lizzie asked God for guidance, and prayed with all of her heart that she would follow Sal until the day she died.
A/N: Review, review, review!
