Chapter 9: I Held Him and Would Not Let Him Go

I couldn’t stop staring at him.

We had spent the night at David’s house last night—Danny on the couch, and I, on the loveseat that was situated perpendicular to it. Now, Danny sat, listening as David’s mom, Ms. Angelica, explained to him the spiritual significance of numbers.

But I was only half-hearing their conversation, while my dream from the previous night played over in my mind’s eye.

~

Danny and I stood in an empty airplane hangar, the floor concrete, the walls gray. We were on some kind of military base, and though I could not see him, I knew David was asleep outside, away from the protection of the hangar. We had to find him, convince him to join us inside.

[Gap.]

David was with us, and with relief, I said, “Good. Now we’re all safe.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than an airplane crashed through the side of the hangar.

When the debris had cleared, I looked to my left. David was still there. Then, I looked to my right.

Danny was gone.

David and I searched desperately, calling his name, but there was no response.

Despair sank its claws deep in my heart. It was beyond hope. It was beyond—

[Gap.]

Danny. Crouched beneath the plane, eyes wide like a startled animal. Somehow, he had managed to find some niche that saved him from being crushed by the plane.

[Gap.]

I was on my knees as Danny carefully made his way out from under the plane. When he reached me, I threw my arms around him and held on tight. “You scared me so badly.”

At first, his response was automatic—he returned the hug, but the embrace was robotic. But when I continued to cling to him, he seemed to come to his senses. His grip tightened around me.

I pulled away, eyes intent on his face. He couldn’t hold my gaze; his narrow escape from death was sending him into shock.

“Danny, look at me.”

He brought his eyes up to meet mine for a few seconds, but they quickly dropped away again. I repeated the phrase several times, my eyes never leaving his face. I considered also telling him to breathe, but instead I breathed deeply myself in the hope he’d follow my lead.

I didn’t stop until he could hold my gaze.

~

Ms. Angelica’s voice jolted me back to the waking world. “Eight is the number for new beginnings.”

(The date was 8/8.)

~

The entire morning, I kept staring. All I wanted to do was give him a hug.

~

(There are certain moments in my life which feel inevitable even as they are happening—moments in which I am moved by something beyond myself—moments in which I am deeply struck by the realization that my story has already been written—and some people call this inevitability fate, but I have come to believe it is nothing less than the hand of God.)

~

He was standing by the front door, saying his goodbyes before he left for work.

“Danny.”

The impulse that caused me to rise (Danny uses words like sprang up or bounded when he describes it) from the loveseat was beyond my control.

His eyebrows were raised in a questioning expression as I took the two steps I needed to reach him. Then I lost sight of his face as I wrapped my arms around him and held.

If he was surprised, he recovered quickly. He returned my embrace—the only hug I had ever initiated.

~

We stepped away, and said our goodbyes, like everything was normal.

But something inside me was wrecked, and I couldn’t understand it.

~

I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, I know—that was the day I started to fall in love with Danny.

Chapter 8: Take This Sinking Boat and Point It Home; We’ve Still Got Time

We'd been planning for weeks now. When David had first suggested, one morning over donuts and coffee, a road trip to a conference in North Carolina, I had doubted very much that I’d be able to attend. I had just started a new job—a job I had been hired specifically to work weekends. During the dates of the conference, I’d still be in the middle of my training.

But God has a way of working these things out, despite my skepticism.

So here we were—David and Danny sleeping on my living room floor (Danny, please stop torturing David with the giant stuffed horse)—and I, painstakingly choosing my outfits for the next few days and cramming them in my suitcase as the hours drew nearer and nearer to morning, and a much-needed escape from Georgia.

~

Danny offered to drive, at least part of the way. I thanked him, with no intention of allowing him to.

~

Two states and a seven-hour drive later, we arrived in the sweeping, forest-bedecked embrace of Greensboro. I stepped outside and drank it in.

~

(North Carolina is a place that holds only happy memories for me. It makes me think things like I can breathe here. I once imagined calling it home, knowing even then, it would break the magic.)

~

It was time to go exploring.

We visited the cabins (the guys' and girls' were separated by a long stretch of dirt path; we actually drove to avoid a long walk hauling sleeping bags and suitcases).

~

Between the cabin areas, there was a lake, complete with paddleboats.

Danny wanted me to go on one with him, but I said no.

~

A day later, David’s little brother, James, extended the same invitation. I hesitated, since I had rejected Danny’s request, but I eventually said yes, hoping Danny, who was talking with a few people nearby, wouldn’t notice.

(He did.)

~

“You’re going to bed already?”

It was the second night, and something was wrong. Danny was never the first to leave (the first to sleep, yes, but he never actually detached himself from the group in order to do so).

He wasn’t himself. At least, not the self I had become accustomed to.

(It’s the first time I remember seeing him sad.)

~

I felt heavy as he walked away into the dark. It felt a little like abandonment. Also, like fear.

~

Hours later, my mood not alleviated, I walked to my cabin alone.

~

The next day, Danny (somehow) found out. He tried to make me agree not to walk back by myself in the dark (he was going to bed early again), and when I wouldn’t, he enlisted James to ensure I’d have someone with me that night.

~

(Side note: Months later, I went to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in theaters. There was a quote—“You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.”

And as I sat next to Danny, his hand in mine, I thought to myself—I know.)

~

The final night of the conference, I was in the back of the sanctuary, on my knees—lost (but found) in the invisible, secret place, where my God meets with me.

Suddenly, someone knelt beside me, and began to speak. I opened my eyes to see Hannah, one of the young adults who belonged to the church hosting the conference.

“I think God wants me to tell you something,” she said. “If it’s completely off, let me know, but I believe this is from Him.” She paused, and I readied my heart.

“There’s this part of your heart that’s closed off from Him. It’s like it’s encased in ice. But God is gonna take that ice and turn it into a snow-cone.” 

Danny. I felt my heart resist as soon as the thought entered my mind, but I reminded myself of my promise—not my will, but Yours.

~

Still, I wasn’t ready to admit that the word was about Danny specifically. As I pondered it over the next few hours, I could admit the possibility. But it was more likely that God was referring to my suspicious attitude toward men and relationships in general.

(That was the best my still-cold heart could do.)

~

I never did ride with Danny in a paddleboat.

But our last afternoon, I joined him and James in the canoe that had been beckoning me since our arrival. Danny sat in front, and I, just behind. The summer sun shone, bright and warm on our exposed skin, the water parting silently before the boat’s metallic prow—our laughter, the loudest sound.

And even though I didn’t love him, it sure was good to see him smile again.

Chapter 7: Oh, Please Be Done. How Much Longer Can This Drama Afford to Run?

I felt a surge of relief when I received a text from Danny that announced he was considering talking to David (one of the few friends on whom Danny had yet to pour out his undying love for me).

David was one of the most straight-forward, no-nonsense people I knew. He was unafraid to speak his mind, and I was confident that he would come to my aid and be quick to inform Danny that he had clearly misheard God and should drop this whole Alyssa-obsession, ASAP.

My response to Danny was immediate: I think that’s a good idea.

~

As soon as Danny and David had a moment alone together, I texted Danny, inquiring how it went.

From what I gathered, David had done nothing whatsoever to deter Danny.

But Danny said I was welcome to talk to David if I liked (I had avoided discussing the situation with any of our friends thus far—I didn’t want to share what had transpired without his permission.)

So I texted David, and informed him we needed to talk.

~

That Wednesday, I picked up David for church. A few minutes into the drive, after the necessary small-talk, I finally burst.

I ranted for at least a full ten minutes about not being in love with Danny, and how the timing was all wrong, and why marrying Danny was a terrible idea, and how David should have told Danny that he was crazy and needed to move on rather than allowing him to maintain his impossible hope.

 

When I paused to take a breath, David took the opportunity to ask a question.

“Did God tell you that you aren’t going to marry Danny?”

I sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know. I never trust myself when it comes to guys. I get too emotionally involved.” Memories formed and dissolved in my mind in rapid sequence. “There are times in the past when I’ve thought I’ve heard from God, but it was really just my own desires.” I gripped the steering wheel more tightly.

“So no, I can’t say it’s from God. I just know what I feel.”

~

I’ve had people tell me that God wouldn’t tell you to marry someone you weren’t in love with. Over the course of the week, I had tried to comfort myself with this idea.

The trouble was, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it.

Because when I read the Bible, I saw God telling people to do a lot of things that didn’t seem to make any sense by human standards.

~

I thought of God telling the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. (Imagine explaining that one to your mother—here comes the sermon on being unequally yoked!)

The Bible doesn’t say whether or not Hosea loved Gomer initially. We only know that he was obedient.

~

I also thought of God telling Abraham to slaughter his only son—the son God had promised would be used to make Abraham’s descendants so numerous, they’d rival the stars in the sky.

How do you think the conversation would go if he had told anyone else what God had commanded? “Well, Abraham, if God told you to kill Isaac, you’d better follow His leading! Want me to help you hold him down?”

…Um, no. It’s more likely that DFCS would be breaking down Abraham’s front door to take Isaac away, with the cops close behind.

~

The thing is, God is God, and we are not. We can try to restrain Him in the manmade boxes of our preconceived notions, formulaic thinking, limited logic and experiences, fallible interpretations of Scripture, and our darkened-mirror theologies—but I believe it’s to our own detriment.

However much I wanted to, I could not put a limit on a God who demanded that I give up everything to follow Him. Who commanded that I pick up my cross daily. Who said that the only way to live, was to die.

~

“Alyssa, I don’t know if Danny is right, or if he’s not. But I do know that, unless God tells you specifically that you’re not supposed to marry Danny, you need to be open to whatever He has for you.”

~

I continued to argue with David for the remainder of the drive, and for a long while after we reached the church parking lot.

But I knew, in the depths of my Spirit, his words were true.

~

I had to accept the possibility of God telling me to marry a man I didn’t love.

The only real question was: If that was indeed what He would require of me,

Would I obey Him?

~

Alone in my bedroom that night, in another moment of profound and merciful surrender, I told God yes.

Even if it means marrying a man I don’t love, God. Not my will, but Yours be done.

~

I’d had a lot of beautiful ideas stored up in my mind of how my love story would unfold, and it broke my heart to release those futures for one that was unknown, with a plotline that was perhaps much more fractured and less picturesque than my romantic imaginings had always aspired to.

But after that release, I felt the guilt and anger and fear of the previous week slipping to the outskirts of my memory, like the muted colors of a bad dream.

Amen. I closed my eyes, and slept in peace.

Chapter 6: Humans Plan Their Way, but the LORD Determines Their Steps

(Rewind: Five months.)

In February, Mom and I had escaped the house for a few hours to enjoy a walk along the beach. On the drive home, with no provocation whatsoever, she asked:

“What’s the most important thing to you in a man? I know it’s random, but I’m just curious.”

My response was automatic. “That he loves God more than he’ll ever love me, and lives like it.”

She hadn’t quite heard. “And what?”

“Lives like it.” I repeated. When she hesitated, I explained further. “Not just someone who says he believes in God, but someone whose actions prove that it’s true.”

Mom paused for a moment, considering.

Then: “God’s waiting for him to be obedient.”

She stated it so simply, so matter-of-factly. I knew deep in my Spirit that this was important.

Searching for more, I prompted, “Yeah?

She took the bait, continuing in the same sure, steady tone. “It’s not an easy thing for a man. To put God first. Above his car, above his tools. And especially above a woman.” She smiled cheekily. “Because women are so awesome.”

I laughed. “We are pretty awesome.”

She grew serious again. “But once he’s obedient, God will bring him into your life. It’s not that he’s rebelling against God—like, he’s already saved and everything. He just needs to be obedient.”

“Well, he should hurry up and be obedient then!” I joked.

Another pause. Suddenly, Mom said, “Wouldn’t it be great if God brought a prophet into your life to tell you about your future husband?”

I laughed again, this time at the irony of her statement. I hadn’t grown up immersed in the prophetic, but I had learned enough to know that her words were prophecy.

And she had no idea.

She misunderstood my laughter and tried to defend herself. “No, I mean like—”

“I think you’re the prophet,” I interrupted, trying to keep the mood light, though her words weighed heavy on me. “You sound pretty prophetic to me!”

Mom laughed with something not entirely disbelieving. “I guess we’ll find out when you meet him.”

~

In March, I sat with Danny and a few others in our first small group meeting. We were going around the circle, each offering a prayer request for ourselves.

When it was Danny’s turn, the first word from his mouth: “Obedience.”

The word transported me immediately to the conversation Mom and I had that previous month.

The words I had written down, even told a few of my friends.

The words that I knew to be prophecy.

But, after the half-second it took my heart to recover after hearing Danny say that word, I dismissed it.

I, who didn’t believe in coincidence. I, who believed the words my mother had spoken to be absolutely true.

Because there was no way her words could have been about Danny.

I did not love him. I never could.

Never, never, never.

~

Five months later, that conversation haunted me.

~

I have often warned my friends about God’s sense of humor. “Don’t tell God that something will never happen,” I’d say. “It’s a guarantee that it will.”

My mom once said she’d never have boys. (She had four.)

My friend Kayla once said she was never getting married. (Two years ago, I was a bridesmaid in her wedding.)

~

But my situation was different. Danny was one man out of a couple billion. The odds were in my favor.

It was safe to think it. Say it, even. Out loud. To my friends. To God.

I’ll never fall in love with Danny.

~

(I can hear it now: the sound of God laughing.)

Chapter 5: At Least Stone Doesn't Sling Like Blood, or Spill Like Guts Across the Floor

The week following my conversation with Danny, I was a wreck.

And he bombarded me daily with a slew of Facebook messages that only worsened my condition.

Eventually, I told him I didn’t know how to respond, and that I was really overwhelmed, so he backed off (but not before he sent several paragraphs explaining he didn’t mind waiting for me to come around, in that same attitude of unnerving, quiet confidence he had been using these past few days).

~

Guilt ravaged me. I didn’t want to hurt Danny, but this could only end in his heartbreak.

I knew what it was like to be in his position. As I’ve mentioned before, unrequited love had been my area of expertise for years now.

And it’s painful. People make light of it, and tell you to suck it up and move on, and think things like, How deeply can you possibly love someone who doesn’t love you? (or at least, I imagine they do)—but the feeling it creates of being unwanted, undesirable, not good enough—well, I’ll just say, that feeling is at the root of many of the insecurities I continue to live with.

I used to think, if I can just love this person enough, if I just keep being good to them regardless of how they treat me, one day they’ll love me back.

But they never did. And my heart bled.

~

I didn’t want to do that to Danny. He had a gentle heart. And he truly believed he was hearing from God. How would he react when he discovered he was wrong? What if he didn’t recover?

~

I used to hate those movies in which the female protagonist had a male best friend who obviously adored her and was clearly the greatest guy on the planet (albeit slightly on the socially-awkward end of the scale), but she still chose to be with the dude that treated her like dirt.

~

In college, while in the midst of one of my one-sided love messes, I remember thinking of Danny. I remember thinking how much easier my life could have been, if I could’ve loved him.

And for the first time, I felt a spark of sympathy for those girls in the movies, who couldn’t love the guys they should.

~

Now, years later, that spark reignited. And I hated myself for it.

Still, I could not make myself love him.

~

The other emotion that turned somersaults in my stomach was anger. It was irrational, I was keenly aware, but it was my only defense against the guilt.

How could Danny do this to me? I knew what it was like to have feelings for someone who didn’t return them—I had shed my fair share of bitter tears, I had spent my fair share of sleepless nights, desiring a future that I knew could never be (yes, my thought patterns really are this overdramatic when I let my emotions hold sway). But eventually, I had let those feelings go; I had moved on. Why hadn’t he?

~

And, of course, he had approached me at a time when I was finally secure in my singleness, trying to step in when it was just me and God taking on the world together, stirring up trouble when I had finally abandoned my pity party and started to open my eyes to the others around me in need.

Why did he have to cause all this turmoil?  If he really loved me, why couldn’t he just let me be?

~

The final emotion that tore at my gut’s deepest pit was fear. Because, in spite of my adamant denials and stubborn refusals, there lingered a tiny seed of doubt that had sprouted into a small shoot of terror that whispered—

What if Danny is right?

~

That night, Danny had said that he didn’t mind loving me before I loved him, because God had loved him before he loved God.

He never intended for me to take the analogy further, of course, but it came as the natural progression of my English-major thought-process.

If Danny was God in this scenario, then I was Israel. The harlot. Refusing, running, ignoring. Rejecting, over and over—yet, he wouldn’t let go. After seven years, during which time any sane man would have given up and retreated with whatever was left of his broken pride, Danny was pursuing me once again. In spite of all my denials, he still thought I was worth the risk.

This wasn’t the love story I wanted. To have refused him, ignored him. When he had only ever been sweet and good and gentle. What kind of person would that make me? If this was indeed to be my story, if there was even the most miniscule chance (there wasn’t, there couldn’t be)—how could I even hold my head up when I told it?

If this was to be my story (it wasn’t, it couldn’t be), surely it would reveal me to be little more than a stubborn, selfish jerk.

~

Not that it mattered. This wasn’t my love story.

Because Danny wasn’t right. He couldn’t be.

~

(Yet, that whisper, striking fear—)

But what if he is?

Chapter 4: The Colossal Vitality of His Illusion

Danny and I once had a conversation about The Great Gatsby. It’s one of his favorite books.

I was forced to read it in both high school and college, and hated it both times.

~

“I just can’t stand any of the characters,” I explained.

“What about Gatsby?” Danny countered.

I paused to consider. “I mean, he was a nice guy. But he spent years crafting Daisy into this perfect person in his mind, until he was blind to her faults. You have to be able to acknowledge people’s flaws—not pretend like they don’t exist. When you put someone on a pedestal like that, you turn them into an idol.”

He nodded in assent, looking out across the water. “But I like that he never gave up hope.”

~

Now, weeks later, as I listened to Danny lay his exposed heart into my unwilling hands, it occurred to me—

It’s no wonder he likes Gatsby; they’re the same person.

~

(And if Danny was Gatsby, that made me Daisy. The source of his hope—and the cause of his destruction.)

~

Danny had said from the very beginning that I didn’t have to respond immediately to what he was telling me. I was thankful, because I didn’t have the slightest notion of what to say.

I’m not sure what I had expected, exactly. For him to say he still had feelings for me, sure. Then I, like a reasonable adult, could explain why it would never work, and he, like a reasonable adult, would agree to move on.

But I hadn’t expected this. His overwhelming tidal wave of conviction that we were meant to be together. His unshakeable belief that his pursuit of me was God-ordained. His self-assurance that this was the right time to approach me.

When clearly, he couldn’t be more wrong.

~

I did try to explain. I told him about my season of singleness, and about how we needed to be completely focused on God, not on relationships. I even had him read a text from our mutual friend David that I had saved earlier that year as a reminder to myself, hoping it would resolve the issue.

We should make sure that we as a group keep boundaries in our friendships. We don’t want any of the girls to start to get distracted with romantic feelings and we don’t want the guys to either. We have to all stay focused on the common goal which is edifying our brothers and sisters. Now, if God specifically were to tell [Person A] that [Person B] was the one for him to marry, that would be different, but otherwise we can’t let ourselves get caught up in feelings and get distracted.

(I would never have allowed him to read it, had I known how my plan would backfire.)

~

Danny had stilled by this point, his concentration on my phone in his hand. When he finished reading, he slipped it back to me.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then—“This is scary.”

There was a longer pause this time. He may have been looking at me (I had long-since stopped looking at him).

“I do believe God has said you’re the one I’m going to marry.”

~

As a teenager, my Sunday School teacher once told us a story about two college friends of hers, a girl and a guy who had been close for years, but purely platonically.

One day, God told the guy that the girl was supposed to be his wife. The guy relayed the message to the girl. The girl resisted at first, but after praying, realized the guy was right. So they were happily married.

After hearing that story, I remember thinking it would be nice if my own love story played out like that. Dating had seemed silly to me for some time. After all, I wouldn’t want to date someone unless I knew it was God’s will; and why would it be God’s will for me to date someone but not to marry him?

Obviously, you’d have to make sure the guy was legit and not just saying things to take advantage of you. But all in all, it seemed much easier than trying out different guys in an attempt to find a compatible one.

~

My opinions on this, however, changed immediately when it actually happened to me.

I knew Danny well enough to know he wasn’t saying any of this to manipulate me. I believed he was being entirely genuine.

I also believed he was very genuinely wrong.

Because there wasn’t a chance in the universe that I would ever to marry this man.

Chapter 3: Is That the Light at the Far End of the Tunnel, or Just the Train?

July 8^th, 2013. We met after I got off work that night, probably around 9:30. Danny arrived at the waterfront first, then came to find me when I texted.

As he reached me, he gave me a hug, a little more tightly than usual. “Would it be alright if we talked over on the swings?”

(Danny knew I loved swings. He memorized everything he learned I loved.)

“Sure,” I answered with a shrug.

I followed him to the playground, already beginning to feel nauseous.

~

Once we were seated, he began pumping his legs hard, back and forth, back and forth, propelling the swing forward with far more strength than was necessary.

(I, meanwhile, was barely swaying.)

I considered telling him to calm down—probably more for my sake than his; his movement was making my stomach churn.

I don’t remember when he began to speak, or what words he started with. But when the words did come, they kept coming, with the same rapid, forced rhythm of his legs.

He told me about how I had first caught his eye back in high school. How I went to all the Christian groups and events, just because I wanted to.

He told me he talked to everyone about me: his friends, his pastors. (He talked about me so much, some friends were eventually annoyed with being around him.)

He told me about a blog post I had written a couple years back that he thought might’ve been about him (I didn’t remember the blog post, but I doubted very much that I’d written it with him in mind).

He told me he had secret nicknames he used to talk about me with his friends. One of those names was Acceleration.

He told me that recently, our mutual friend David (who didn’t know about the nicknames), had prayed for an increase in acceleration in Danny’s life.

He told me when we had gone on a picnic with friends the previous month, he noticed I had a freckle on my toe.

He told me how beautiful and amazing and wonderful I was.

He told me he didn’t mind that he had liked me before I liked him, because God had loved him before he loved God. 

He told me he believed we had a future together.

He told and told and told, and I sat, merely listening, not knowing how to tell him I hated every word he spoke.

~

It was like a scene from a movie, the final dramatic climax that most girls dream of—only, in my mind, the genre was all wrong: this wasn’t a romance; it was a tragedy. Even as I sat, staring at the ground as I listened, knowing that there was probably not another man on Earth who would ever love me the way Danny did—knowing there was no one on this planet who would ever treat me better—

I couldn’t make myself love him.

~

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I said at length, dragging my feet in the sand.

“Yeah, I feel like that, too,” Danny agreed.

But for completely different reasons, I thought miserably.

~

Every load he released from his heart was landing heavily on mine. The weight was suffocating me.

~

That night, in the span of an hour or two, Danny unleashed seven years of pent-up emotion. And by the time it was finally over, I was reeling.