Jack
Jack was the middle ground between complete Orthodoxy and, well, living. I was compelled toward him because of his transparency and the way he trusted me with his secrets. Where the rest of the men in the congregation seemed to hide behind emotional turbulence, games, and fits of jealousy, Jack was constant and apologetically himself.
Apologetic for his sins as he confessed them to me under the moon in Picadilly Circus. We always found ourselves there. The words tumbled recklessly from his mouth, describing life before London, fleeing to escape the demands of our shared culture while our hometowns were half a world away.
“You talk about her a lot,” I noted, glancing down at our clasped hands as we sat outside the frozen yogurt shop. He told me to try passion fruit. I did.
“Do I?” He asked in surprise. It wasn’t hard to look directly into his eyes, they were seldom clouded with judgment.
“Yes,” I said, biting at the corner of my lip.
“I think you remind me of her,” He confessed and my stomach fell. I knew it then that there would be no going forward, not toward anything I thought counted; Marriage, children, growing old, and staying together for eternity.
Yet, he still mattered.
“I do?” I asked, “How so?”
“You kind of look alike, I guess. And you're an incredible person, she was too.” He clasped our hands tightly, sliding nearer. I let him.
“Why did you break up and move all the way to London? It sounds like you loved her a lot.” I couldn’t fathom it, the sincerity I felt from him, and the way he left an incredible person back home when our entire faith was precedented on finding and cultivating that type of love.
“From the moment we started dating, everyone was asking when we were going to get married. The pressure was — I had just gotten home from my mission and,” he paused and took a deep breath, “I was a really good missionary.” He looked directly into my eyes again and I wanted nothing more than to comfort the pleading I saw there.
I moved closer, drawing reassuring circles on the back of his hand. He continued, “I baptized so many people and I loved the people. I still love the people. I had the most baptisms in our area.” His spine straightened and the broadness of his chest puffed with pride but his eyes were still pleading with me to understand.
“I believe you,” I whispered. I wholeheartedly believed him and it pained me to think he thought otherwise. I didn’t have my head in the sand about Jack. He certainly wasn’t Jesus, but his flaws were so beautiful to me, so a part of who he was. His imperfections seamlessly weaved with all the good he had inside him. I wished he knew it, too.
“Well, I couldn’t take the pressure. I felt suffocated by it and all the people who knew every detail about my life. I — “ he paused, analyzing my face before he continued, “I moved away for uni and started partying. Dated someone new, and we moved in together.”
The Jack everyone else knew sat faithfully in the church pews each Sunday. After long grueling days at work, you could find him at the chapel for activities. He carried a well-worn Triple Combination with notes in the margins, highlighted portions, and color-coded tabs.
I swallowed hard.
“I just think you and I are the same,” He said, his eyes dipping down at the corners. I took a mental photograph of that look. The sadness, the need to be relieved of the burden he carried.
I never told him about my past. It wasn’t sex or alcohol that separated me from the others at church. It was something inside me, threaded through the fabric of my being, that whispered, this isn’t the path for you.
I wasn’t ready to confront that voice, but I wanted to be the same as Jack. Flawed and messy. Gritty and transparent. Well-loved like the bible he carried.
It wasn’t appropriate for me to tell him that’s what I liked about him most — loved, even. The moon chaperoned us frequently over the next few years as we met up wreathed in pain or chaos, desperate for reprieve from the demands of our faith. It didn’t matter to me that we wouldn’t grow old together. I didn’t need that from Jack. I just wanted to exist in the same space as him for a while, without judgment, without pressure, to say that I witnessed him for a fleeting moment on this mortal journey.
