Caleb + Kate by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

Author:Cindy Martinusen-Coloma
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2010-05-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Twelfth Night (Act 1, Scene 5)

CALEB

My hands push into the gloves, I touch the punching bag once and hit play on my iPod, sending a metal band blaring through my ears.

I hit the bag, jabbing right, then left. I push the power through my shoulders and arms into each impact. Before long, the sweat gathers on my forehead and my muscles ache, but still I hit the bag.

Some people don’t fight with guilt like I do. At times, I wish I could be like Finn or half the guys I knew in Hawaii. They could lie, cheat, drop the same lines to a dozen girls, and they never seemed remorseful, never cared at all.

I’ve always been one of those guilt-ridden kids. As a boy, I stomped on a line of ants and then cried for ten minutes, thinking about how they were just out on a nice afternoon, gathering food for their family, until my shoe dropped from the sky like a nuclear bomb. It’s probably my mother’s fault. She ingrained in me that guilt was God’s way of telling me something.

But God isn’t telling me anything about Kate. I haven’t done anything to be guilty about. What’s wrong with staying away from someone?

I step back from the bag and pull off my T-shirt, which is soaked and stuck to my back. I stretch my arms out and face the bag again. Images keep coming that I force to the surface and then pound out.

Today at school, Ted walked by and said loudly to his sidekick, “Can’t go, man. I’m taking Kate out Friday night.”

I picture Ted as the punching bag. Anger management, that’s what this is. My muscles ache as I punch again, harder, faster, feign, jab, hit, right, left, step back, feign left, upper cut, left, and round-about kick.

Now I see Kate at the hotel. As I was fixing a sprinkler along a row of hedges, she walked by, didn’t see me as she was giving an elderly couple a tour of the grounds. The couple was complaining. No matter what Kate did or said, they had something to say about it.

The back of the old lady’s dress was folded up, revealing her thick pantyhose—an alarming sight. My thought was, Ha, serves the old grouch right. When Kate noticed it, she carefully reached over just as the woman said, “At the Hilton . . .” and smoothed out the dress. The old lady was completely unaware. The couple left their empty drinks on a stone ledge and Kate returned after their tour to clean up the mess. Traits of kindness. Proof that she wasn’t the stereotype I wanted to put her in.

Harder and harder, I pound the bag, willing the images of Kate out of my head. She won’t go, I can’t get her out.

Words whisper through the pounding and the music. I should pay attention to them, not just rely on my own plan. I want what God wants, eventually.

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