We Were Real, page 1
We Were Real
Nadine C. Keels
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2022 by Nadine C. Keels
Cover Design:
Nadine C. Keels
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is not intended.
Scripture verses are indirectly quoted or paraphrased from the King James Version of The Holy Bible.
Find Nadine online at:
www.prismaticprospects.wordpress.com
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Contents
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
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There’s More
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Chapter One
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“I just…I miss us, Nikki. You know?”
Here she was, traveling alone through moderate traffic this summer morning in her crossover vehicle, one with windows sufficiently tinted to keep plenty of the vehicle’s contents out of outsiders’ plain sight.
Driving down this street followed by that avenue, she was alone in the sense of having no real passengers with her—except for currently silent Rosa, if she counted. Wonderful as that precious girl could be for company, Rosa wasn’t good for conversation en route like this, as her voice required hands-on connection for release. Not that Rosa wasn’t real, but her possible status as a passenger would be an arguable point, what with her being a smooth, curvaceous, mellow creation fashioned for chords, rhythm, vibration, and soul.
A gorgeous guitar. My manifest heartstrings.
Yet, even if there weren’t any passengers in this vehicle, simmering memories, old and new, were an almost palpable presence.
“I just…I miss us, Nikki.”
Down she drove over another road paved through this place she had a hard time thinking of as her hometown. This place she’d once assumed she wouldn’t return to, not even for a visit. It was technically out of her way today; she would have to be back out of town late this afternoon to head for the next county where she was booked to appear onstage at an amphitheater the following night, scheduled to perform some of her original titles, including the best from her latest independent album.
She’d balked at the idea of promoting this as a farewell tour, since she wasn’t retiring. Her songwriting was still on fire, she planned to remain an active life and music vlogger, and she certainly hadn’t ruled touring out of her future.
All the same, the essence of “farewell” already resided in her driving around solo like this. The members of her band had come to some crucial decisions of late. The next step they’d agreed upon for after tomorrow’s last stop on this tour was possibly a breakup by another name. The possibility had been in their eyes at every recent rehearsal and concert, and she doubted those eyes would read differently once she went and met back up with the band after her day of solitary detouring.
In the meantime, she’d soon be expected at a baseball field, but just now, she was on her way to a new car dealership. A dealership at which she wouldn’t be looking to buy a car.
Of course, she’d never been to the business establishment in question before. Its grand opening had been only a few months back, and she’d left this town behind her years ago. But she didn’t need directions to the location, or even a reminder of the address for reference.
Barring that any drastic changes had been made to one of the roads ahead since she’d last been here, she knew exactly how to get where she was going.
A niggling bittersweetness crept over her as she handled the steering wheel, switching a specific lane here and making a specific turn there, all with the ease of muscle memory.
Hm. That part. How amazing and unsettling. To remember so easily.
One of her loose, black curls slipped down over her bronzy brow when she gave her head a slight shake. Her light gray eyes misted, and a petition came whispering through her plump, quivery lips. “My God. Please.”
She had two more turns to go.
~*~
Chapter Two
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For the first eighteen years of her life, Nikkita Creighton had lived in this town with her parents.
There. She passed the corner that led down to her old high school, one of two secondary education institutions in this district. That school was where, during her sophomore year, she’d received a certain invitation from an upbeat, super-social classmate of hers. Jayme.
“So! Nikkita!” Jayme had called, bounding up while Nikkita was standing at her open locker in a bustling hallway. “We’re having a thing at my youth group this Wednesday night. It’ll be fun. Wanna come?”
Nikkita’s forehead wrinkled at the unexpected invite. “A thing?” Youth group. On a Wednesday night. Oh. Her forehead cleared. “You mean a church service.”
“Well, yeahhh,” Jayme admitted with a nod toward one shrugging shoulder, her strawberry-blond messy bun bouncing high on her head. “But it’s not like on Sundays with all the adults. They’re in their quiet little Bible study classes on Wednesdays, but we let loose in youth group.”
“Let loose? How loose?” Nikkita glanced down at her dark pair of flared jeans complementing the fairly ample hips of her pear figure. “Would I have to wear a dress?”
“No, youth group is nice and casual. Me and my mom can pick you up. Wait—you don’t drive yet, do you?”
“Yes and no. Got my learner’s permit.”
“I figured. Me too. So we’ll give you a ride. Wanna come?”
“Um, don’t know.” Nikkita almost shook her head, rummaging around in her locker for her math book. “Does letting loose mean there won’t be a sermon to sit through?”
“Aww, come on,” Jayme urged, lifting her arm that was free of textbooks and reaching out to take an imploring hold of Nikkita’s elbow for a second. “The message won’t be boring or anything, I promise. Our youth pastor, Pastor Tyler—he’s awesome. Like, really awesome. The youth praise team is great too, and I know you like music ’cause the talent show.” She whipped her hand out to the side, palm upward. “So! Wanna come?”
Yes, Nikkita had picked a song and sung her grieving teenage heart out of the tender lyrics while standing in the spotlight of her school’s talent show earlier that year. She’d been the finale of the program and earned a standing ovation followed by a whirlwind week of sudden popularity before she faded back to the outskirts of most of her schoolmates’ attention.
Something told her that whatever music they’d “let loose” to at Jayme’s church wouldn’t quite match any kind of music Nikkita was truly into.
She wasn’t unaccustomed to being the odd girl out on one level or another, though. Unlike seemingly all the other girls she knew, Nikkita hated talking on the phone. She spent far more time seriously immersed in music than she spent watching TV or hanging out at the mall. She only went to parties that were family related: out-of-town get-togethers where she could cut up with her generation of cousins, most of whom were still alive. And going to school in this rather homogenous area, she was used to being one of only one or two brown-skinned kids in her proximity on most days.
It would probably be the same way at Jayme’s youth group. But Jayme was friendly enough, and it felt pretty nice to be singled out and invited somewhere.
Nikkita decided she might as well be game. “Okay, sure. Thanks. I’ll go.”
“Yes!” That earned a grin from Jayme. “It’ll be great! They’re gonna have pri—”
Cut off by the warning bell for the upcoming start of classes, Jayme bid Nikkita a rushed goodbye for now and scampered off.
That Wednesday evening, it didn’t take Nikkita long to gain a better understanding of what she’d agreed to. Jayme’s mom did indeed swing by Nikkita’s house to pick her up, but Jayme herself wasn’t in the minivan filled with five other girls, two of the others also students from Nikkita’s school. It turned out that Jayme was riding to the church with her dad and another carful of passengers that had to go in a different direction to make the rest of the pick-ups.
“Outreach Nite!” a fluorescent banner above the closed sanctuary doors enthused as Nikkita stepped from outside and into the church foyer with Jayme’s pack of invitees. While standing in the growing crowd of teenagers milling around as they waited for the sanctuary doors to open, Nikkita pieced together the nature of the event through snatches of laughter and chitchat as Jayme made introductions.
On this particular night, the three youth group members who brought the most first-time visitors to church would be the big winners.
“Three prize boxes full of goodies! Maybe some gift cards,” Jayme gushed in the foyer, having done her part in rounding up and bringing in a bunch of youn
“Ah. Maybe.” Nikkita was on a team, then. Go, team. She went with the flow in the foyer for a while, being included in a round of introductions that felt more like an exhibition.
“And look! I even outreached to get this one to come, and she’s Black. Beat that.”
Well, no, that wasn’t what Jayme said as she placed a presenting hand on Nikkita’s shoulder. What Jayme did say to everyone, in a loud, perfectly overpronounced manner she hadn’t used for her other guests, was “And this is one more I brought! Her name is Ni-KEET-ta.”
Heat had begun to rise in Nikkita’s cheeks.
That introduction got a small shake of the head from one of Jayme’s listeners: a brown-haired guy with sandy-toned skin and a husky build. His hands were parked in the pockets of his jeans, and the essence of an apology shone in his dark eyes as they met Nikkita’s.
She took a step back. A break was in order. She asked Jayme where the nearest restroom was.
Minutes later, on her trip down the hall and around a corner, away from the noisy foyer, Nikkita toyed with the idea of wandering around the building for the rest of the evening, but she paused when her hearing was met by the rise and fall of faint chords from piano keys.
She followed the sound and soon found the open doors of a chapel room. “Pre-Service Prayer” the sign beside the doorway read. The smattering of people inside, all adults, were spread about in different rows of cushioned chairs under the room’s softly dimmed lights. A couple of the chapel’s occupants were kneeling at their seats, but the others were sitting, most of them with bowed heads. Up on the room’s dais before the chapel’s front wall of large windows stood a piano, where a woman sat playing, the look on her upturned face beatific even with her eyes closed and no smile on her lips.
Nikkita was familiar with a general sound to traditional hymns, and she’d bet her bi-weekly allowance (but not in church, of course) that the peaceful chords of a hymn were what she heard now, a song embellished with apparent improvisation by the enraptured woman at the keys.
Slipping into the room, Nikkita chose a chair near a wall where she could stare toward the evening’s fading light glowing through the windows. In the midst of pre-service prayer, she simply sat there.
But she didn’t simply sit. It was a natural habit of Nikkita’s to allow music—all that was within, beneath, and around it—to speak to her. Hence, she kept her gaze toward the windows and sat waiting. Listening. Wondering. Seeking. Absorbing. Sensing.
And…knowing?
Was that what this was, this subtle but distinctly different stirring that had begun at her very core, something she couldn’t recall feeling in this way before? Could she be wondering something while somehow knowing it all at once?
In time, the music drifted to a close. The room remained still, the air bearing no sound but occasional whispers of lingering prayer lifting into the atmosphere.
It wasn’t until the others in the room began to rise and make their way out of the chapel, likely heading to their Bible study classes, that Nikkita became fully aware of the warm drop that had slipped through her lower lashes to make a trail down her face, clear to her chin.
She didn’t end up wandering around for the rest of the evening. She went and met up with Jayme’s “team” in the sanctuary and respected the rocking music and joyous singing in the room for what it was, though she didn’t jump around or throw her hands in the air as many of the others did. The youth pastor who eventually ran up to the platform with a cordless mic looked to be somewhere in his thirties. Whatever he said in his sermon might have been awesome in accordance with Jayme’s recommendation, but Nikkita couldn’t tell either way.
Her mind had stolen away from the room, going back to wait, to wonder, and to rest in the church’s chapel.
It took the shifting of gears near the end of the service to reclaim her attention. The band began playing a slow song, and Pastor Tyler was saying, “Those of you who know me know that my heart is to see you healed. Healed and thriving. Too many adults think that young people these days don’t go through anything real. I guess a lot of adults in every generation feel that way, but unfortunately, it’s either due to their forgetfulness, ignorance, or arrogance. Fear, stress, heartbreak, tragedy—those things don’t have an age minimum attached. God doesn’t discount what you feel and go through just because you’re young.
“If any of you want prayer for healing tonight, you’re welcome to come forward. Our altar workers are here for you…”
Some of the service’s attendees left their seats to go up and stand before the platform, Jayme accompanying two of her guests up there. While Nikkita watched as those identified as altar workers began listening to people’s prayer requests and placing their hands on people’s shoulders to pray for them, no urge to join them came over Nikkita. So she remained at her seat. Thinking about the chapel.
“So! Nikkita! Wasn’t it great?” Jayme wanted to know after the service was over, as she was pocketing her restaurant and department store gift cards and passing out some packs of her prize box’s candy to the bunch of young souls who’d won her a share of the night’s honors.
Nikkita’s head moved vaguely up and down as a pack of sweet ’n’ sour gumdrops slapped down into her hand. “Actually, yes. I think so.”
Her answer got a gratified squeal out of Jayme, who couldn’t know what her first-time visitor was really referring to.
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Chapter Three
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“Well. It could be a good opportunity to make friends” and “Being involved in something like that will be a plus on your academic résumé when you start applying to colleges” were the main positive but slow responses from Nikkita’s mom and dad after she told them over dinner one evening that she was joining the youth choir at church. Those slow responses followed the married Creighton couple’s initial confusion, given that their daughter had only visited the church twice.
“All right, now,” Nikkita’s dad spoke again from his place at the dinner table, a questioning line between his eyebrows as he started unpeeling a banana, “what led to this decision, again?”
Nikkita had never understood her dad’s affinity for eating bananas with anything, even meatloaf and mashed potatoes. She shrugged, setting her fork down on her half-full plate. “Trying something new. It’d be more interesting than only going to sit in church services, I think. And I wouldn’t have to carry as much weight in the choir as I would on the smaller, um, praise team, they call it.”
She left it at that for fear of sounding strange. Though she would have liked to give her parents a better explanation, she didn’t have the words to clarify what was drawing her to do this.
Perhaps if her parents had been there and felt it. In the chapel…
It wasn’t long before Nikkita was making her regular way to church for Sunday morning services, Wednesday night youth group, and youth choir practices every other Saturday afternoon. She was grateful for the cooperation of her parents who took turns riding down there with her while she still only had her learner’s permit. Once she earned her driver’s license, she started borrowing her mom’s car to make her way to church by herself.
“So! Nikkita! I’m so glad that, like, out of everybody I asked, you stuck,” Jayme rejoiced at one point, her words giving Nikkita a quick visual of a cook testing the readiness of long, boiled noodles by tossing some of the strings against a wall. “Good thing I invited you that day, huh? High-five to Pastor Tyler for coming up with the outreach idea in the first place. Totally a God thing.”
Jayme tilted her head, her gaze veering off and her next comment riding a dreamy sigh floating from her mouth. “But, hey. He’s so awesome.”
Nikkita smiled a bit, nearly replying with a melodic line from a song they sometimes sang in youth group about the awesomeness of God. But she paused, realizing she couldn’t tell which “he” Jayme was talking about just then.
Except for special occasions such as the church’s annual Christmas and Holy Week programs, the youth choir’s schedule was to sing one song a month for services, once on a Wednesday and a repeat the following Sunday. While the various pieces of contemporary music arranged for the choir weren’t necessarily pieces Nikkita would choose to listen to as an individual, singing those arrangements with a group under the guidance of a professionally trained director, Minister Kate, was a learning experience for Nikkita.
