“I tried swim team in high school and loved it, trained hard wanting to make the Yale team. Now I’m hooked.”
“You made the team, didn’t you?”
He smirks and shrugs. “Yes. Not that it mattered.”
“Is there anything you can’t achieve?” I tease.
He shoots me a look.
I put my hair behind my shoulders and pretend not to notice. “Do you miss the competition side? Of swimming?”
“I do, but intramurals are fun. And swimming is still my favorite stress reliever. The rhythm and the sounds and the work.” He navigates north through Pinecrest, a city made up of an affluent north side and an underprivileged south side. The buildings grow starkly more suburban as we drive.
“You’re at the pool every morning?” I ask.
“I swim three times a week, but I’m there every day, even on weightlifting days. The pool is reliably empty if I show up early enough, so I bring my Bible and journal and sit on the plastic chairs.” He half laughs. “The things I have to do for some time to myself.”
“How early do you have to get there to have it to yourself?”
“Six thirty.”
My lips part. So much discipline. For exercise, I’d beimpressed. For time alone with Jesus? I have goosebumps. “You’d better keep walking me back early so you can get enough sleep,” I say coyly.
His lips quirk. “I’d better. Are you protecting a morning routine with your early bedtime? Or just staying one step ahead of the rest of us?”
“That’s funny coming from my favorite over-achiever,” I tease. “I just wake up early without meaning to, way before the others, so I have the lounge to myself for a while. We have a pretty view of the pine trees and sunrise, and I read my Bible in there with my coffee.”
“Sounds perfect—except for the waking up part. You can’t sleep in?”
I try not to grimace. Can’t go there. “Well, no, but?—“
Just then, someone cuts him off, and we jerk forward in our seats.
A growl escapes his throat, but then he pulls a hand across the back of his neck, relaxing again. He’s praying? I like him more with every minute.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I try to lighten the tension in the car. “You mentioned you bring a journal? To the pool?”
“Yes, I like praying by writing,” he says. “It helps me crystallize my thoughts. Plus, I can check back and see answered prayers.”
“I love that. When did you meet him? Jesus, I mean.”
His eyes smile like my badgering is endearing, but something else lingers there. Weariness.
“Well, Veronica,” he jokes, “It was my senior year of high school. I … started looking for answers. Life didn’t make any sense. I had a friend who seemed like the only one who wasn’t miserable, and I asked him what his deal was. I wasn’t buying it at first, but the answers are all there if you look into it.” He pats the phone in his pocket. “Really, believing in God started as just the most reasonable answer, and now I know Jesus as a person.”
The grin plastered on my face is going nowhere. I’m Buddy the Elf today. My favorite person is telling me all the things.
He turns to me at a stoplight, and searching eyes tour my face. “I love seeing you like this. You look … free.”
My mouth opens, but no words.
“Can I hear your story?” he asks.
“Oh, my story? I don’t have that dramatic moment. The ‘I was one way, and now I’m completely different, and the thing that happened in between was him.’”
