Before

When he met the blue-eyed girl with dark hair, he knew she was there to test him in new ways. She was kind, the gentlest spirit he had met so far… and she was infatuated with him.

He took the naive girl from her tidy, unblemished world and swept her into a dustpan, then scattered her across a dark and unforgiving world that was completely unfamiliar to her. His callousness made her an outcast, exiled from her church first, then from her family. The gossip was harsh, the whispers traveling from one judgmental Bible-clutching woman to another. Her family wasn’t any better. She had no one, and she made the mistake of trusting him to be more than he was capable of being.

What he did to her was the last straw for his mother. Shipping him to America, to the state of Washington, to be with his would-be father, his treatment of Natalie got him exiled from his London homeland. The loneliness he’d felt all along was finally achieved in real life.

The church is packed today, rows and rows of us, all joined together to worship on a hot July afternoon. Every week, usually the same people, all of whom I can call by their first and last names.

My family lives like royalty here in one of Jesus’s smallest venues.

My younger sister, Cecily, is sitting next to me in the very front row, her small hands picking at the chipped wooden pew. Our church has just received a grant to renovate some of the interior, and our youth group has been helping gather the supplies donated by the local community. This week, our task is to obtain paint from locals and paint these pews over. I’ve been spending my evenings going from one hardware store to another, asking for donations.

As if to underscore the futility I feel about this task, I hear a faint snapping sound and look over to see that Cecily has broken off a small piece of wood from her seat. Her fingernails are painted pink to match the bow in her dark brown hair, but boy, can she be destructive.

“Cecily, we’re fixing these next week. Please don’t.” I gently take her small hands in mine, and she pouts just a little. “You can help paint them to make them beautiful again. You would like that, wouldn’t you?” I smile at her. She smiles back, an adorable missing-teeth smile, and nods her head. Her curls move with her, making my mum proud of her work with the iron this morning.

The pastor is almost finished with his sermon, and my parents are holding hands, staring toward the front of the small church. Sweat has been gathering on my neck, rolling in sticky drops down my back as words about sinning and suffering float around my head. It’s so hot in here that my mum’s makeup has started to shine down her neck and smear black rings around her eyes. This should be the last week without air-conditioning we have to suffer through. Or it better be; even I might feign illness to avoid this sweltering place if it’s not.

At the end of service, my mum stands to talk to the pastor’s wife. My mum admires that woman a lot—a little too much, if you ask me. Pauline, the first lady of our church, is a tough woman, with little empathy for others, so really I get why my mum would be drawn to her.

I wave to Thomas, the only boy my age who’s in the Youth Group. As he walks by, he and his entire family, following the line of people exiting the church, wave back to me. Ready to get some fresh air, I stand and wipe my hands on my pale blue dress.

“Can you take Cecily to the car?” my dad asks with a knowing smile.

He’s going to try to get my mum to stop talking, just like every Sunday. She’s one of those women who chat and chat after saying goodbye a minimum of three times.

I didn’t take after her in that way. Instead, I strive to take after my dad, whose few words usually hold a lifetime’s worth of meaning. And I know my dad loves how much of himself has been passed down to me, from his quiet demeanor, to his dark hair and pale blue eyes (the most obvious traits), to our height. Or lack of height. The pair of us barely stand five and a half feet, though he’s ever so slightly taller than me. Cecily will surpass both of us by age ten, my mum teases us.

I nod to my dad and take my sister’s hand. She walks quicker than me, the excitement of youth causing her to rush straight through the remainder of the small crowd. I want to pull her back, but she turns back to me with the biggest smile on her face, and I can’t bring myself to do anything but run with her. We break into a sprint, rushing down the stairs and onto the lawn. Cecily dodges an elderly couple, and I laugh when she shrieks and barely misses knocking down Tyler Kenton, the meanest boy in our church. The sun is bright and the air is thick in my lungs and I run faster and faster, chasing after her until she tumbles onto the grass. I drop down to my knees to check on her. I lean in and brush the hair back from her face. Little pools of tears are threatening to burst, and her bottom lip is trembling fiercely.

“My dress…” She pats her small hands on her white dress, focusing on the grass stains on the fabric. “It’s ruined!” She buries her face in her dirty hands, and I reach for them, pulling them down to her lap.

I smile and speak softly. “It’s not ruined. It can be washed, darling.”

I swipe my thumb across the tear trying to roll down her cheek. She sniffles, not ready to believe me.

“It happens all the time; it’s happened to me at least thirty times,” I assure her, even though it’s a lie.

The corners of her mouth turn upward, and she fights a smile. “Has not.” She calls me out for my fib. I wrap my arm around her and pull her up to stand. My eyes glance over her pale arms to make sure I didn’t miss anything. All clear. I keep my arm around her as we walk across the churchyard toward the parking lot. My parents are approaching us from that direction, my dad having finally gotten Mum to stop gossiping.

During the drive home, I sit in the backseat with Cecily, drawing little butterflies in her favorite coloring book while my dad talks to my mum about the raccoon problem we’ve been having in our bins out back. My dad leaves the car running when he parks in the driveway. Cecily gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and climbs out of the backseat. I follow her and hug my mum and get a peck on the cheek from my dad before I step into the driver’s seat.

My dad looks down at me. “Be careful now, Junebug. There are a lot of people out today with the sun.” He lifts his hand to shade his squinted eyes. It’s the sunniest day Hampstead has had in quite a while. We’ve had the heat, but no sun. I nod and promise my dad that I’ll be safe.

I wait until I’m out of the neighborhood to change the radio station. I turn the volume up and sing along to every song on my way to the center of the city. My goal is to get three buckets of paint from all the three shops I’m visiting. I’ll be happy with one from each, but my goal is to get three so we have enough to cover everything.

The first shop, Mark’s Paint and Supply, is known for being the cheapest in town. Mark, the owner, has a really good reputation in our area, and I’m delighted to meet him. I park in the nearly empty lot; only a classic-style car painted candy-apple red and a minivan are parked in the entire lot. The building is old, made out of wooden planks and unstable drywall. The sign is crooked, the M barely legible. When I open the wooden door, it creaks and a bell sounds. A cat jumps down from a cardboard box and lands on its feet in front of me. I pet the fur ball for a moment before making my way to the register.

The inside of the shop is just as untidy as the outside, and what with all the clutter, I can’t see the boy behind the register when I first approach. His presence there shocks me a little. He’s tall and broad-shouldered; he looks like the kind of boy who’s played sports for years.

“Mark…” I say, stumbling to remember his last name. Everyone just calls him Mark.

“I’m Mark,” a voice behind the athletic-looking boy says. Bending to the side a little, I notice another boy, sitting in a chair behind the desk, dressed in all black. His frame is much leaner than the first, and yet the presence he exudes is somehow larger than the other boy’s. His hair is dark, grown down the sides, leaving a swoop of hair across his forehead. His arms have tattoos on them, randomly scattered black ink patches in a sea of tan skin.

It’s not really my thing, but instead of being critical of him, all I can think is how everyone has a tan this summer except me.

“He’s not, I am,” a third voice says. Looking to the other side of the first boy, I find a kid of average height, thin build, with a very tight buzz cut. “I’m Mark Junior, though. If you’re looking for my old man, he’s not here today.”

The third boy has a few tattoos as well, though they’re more organized than the wild-haired boy’s, and he has a piercing in his eyebrow. I remember asking my family about getting my belly button pierced, and still to this day I have to laugh when I remember their horrified reactions.

“He’s the better of the two Marks,” the wild-haired boy intones, his voice deep and slow. He smiles, and two deep, beautiful dimples cut through his cheeks.

I laugh, suspecting this is not even close to the truth. “I somehow doubt that,” I tease. They all laugh along, and Mark Jr. steps closer, a smile on his lips.

The boy in the chair stands up. He’s so tall his presence is magnified even further. He comes forward and towers over me. He’s attractive; his face is strong. A sharp jawline, dark lashes, full brows. His nose is slender and his lips are a light pink. I stare at him and he stares at me.

“Are you looking for my dad for a reason?” Mark asks.

When I don’t immediately respond, Mark and the athlete both look back and forth between me and their friend.

Snapping back to the moment, and a little embarrassed to be caught staring, I begin my spiel. “I’m here from Hempstead Baptist and was wondering if you would like to donate paint or supplies to us. We’re remodeling our church and are in need of donations…”

I stop because the charming one with the pink lips is deep in discussion, whispering with his friends in a voice that is too low for me to hear. Then they stop, and the boys stare at me all at once, three smiles in a row.

Mark speaks first. “We can absolutely do that for you,” he says.

His smile reminds me of a feline of sorts. I can’t quite put my finger on why. I smile back and begin to thank him.

He turns to his friend with the giant ship tattooed on his biceps. “Hardin, how many cans are over there?”

Hardin? What a very strange name; I’ve never heard it before.

This Hardin’s black shirtsleeves barely cover the bottom half of the wooden ship. It’s nicely done; the detail and shading are attractively rendered. When I look up at his face, stopping for a beat on his lips, I can feel my cheeks get hot. He’s staring right at me, noticing my intense scrutiny of his face. I see Mark and Hardin make eye contact but miss what Mark mouths to him.

“How about a proposition?” Mark says, nodding toward Hardin.

I’m interested in hearing this. This Hardin seems funny—a little off, but I like him so far. “And what’s that?” I wrap my finger into the ends of my hair and wait. Hardin is still staring back at me. There’s something about him that’s guarded. I can sense it from across the small shop. I find myself very curious about this boy who’s trying awfully hard to look so tough. I cringe imagining what my parents would think, how they would react to me bringing him to our home. My mum thinks tattoos are evil, but I don’t know. They’re not entirely my thing, but I feel like they can be a form of self-expression, and there’s undoubtedly always beauty in that.

Mark scratches his smooth jaw. “If you go out on two dates with my friend Hardin here, I’ll give you ten gallons of paint.”

I look over to Hardin, who’s eyeing me with a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. Lips that are so pretty. His slightly feminine features make him more attractive than his black clothing or messy hair. I wonder if this is what they’re whispering about. Hardin liking me?

While I consider the idea, Mark ups the ante: “Any color. Any finish of your choice. On the house. Ten gallons.”

He’s a good salesman.

I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “One date,” I counter.

Hardin laughs; the lump in his throat moves with his laugh, and his dimples crease in his cheeks. Okay, he’s very, very hot. I can’t believe I didn’t notice just how hot he was when I first arrived. I was so focused on getting the paint that I barely noticed how green his eyes are under the fluorescent lights of the paint shop.

“One date works.” Hardin shoves his hand into his pocket, and Mark looks at the buzz-cut gentleman.

Feeling quite victorious at the success of my little haggling, I smile and list the colors I need for the pews, the walls, the stairs, all the while pretending that I’m not already anticipating my date with Hardin, the guarded, messy-haired boy who’s so innocent and shy that he’s willing to trade ten gallons of paint for one date.