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“Want me to buckle you in?” Willow asked.
Kennedy lowered herself carefully into the passenger seat of her roommate’s car. “No, I can get it.” She grimaced as she twisted around to grab the seatbelt.
“You’ve got to learn to accept a little help sometimes, you know.” Willow plopped into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.
Kennedy smiled. “Maybe next semester.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Maybe after the apocalypse, you mean. Wait, is that a real thing? Is that like actually in the Bible? Do I need to do anything to get ready for it?”
“It’s in the Bible, but maybe we can save that topic for later.” Kennedy held her breath as Willow bounced the car over a speed bump and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. The sun was just starting to set, glorious hues of pink and orange highlighting the oversized cumulus clouds.
It felt so good to finally be out of Providence.
“I talked to your pastor’s wife,” Willow said. “She made me promise to find you something nutritious for dinner on campus and make sure you get some good rest and actually go to sleep. I don’t remember entirely. I think there might have been something about tucking you in and kissing you goodnight too.”
Kennedy smiled through her pain. “Thanks for being with me.”
“Hey, what are friends for? Besides, if it hadn’t been for you, I would have never met Nick.”
“I thought you were going to say without me you would have never met Jesus.”
“Oh, well, there’s that too. But Nick ... Man. Why didn’t you tell me about him years ago?”
Kennedy let out an awkward chuckle. Would she ever remember what it felt like to laugh naturally? She took in a deep breath, thankful for the fresh air whipping across her face.
Willow turned up the radio so they could hear the music over the breeze roaring in through the open windows as they sped toward campus. “Please don’t tell me I have to give up my classic rock station now that I’m a Christian.”
Kennedy wasn’t sure if she was serious or not.
They listened in silence. Here I Go Again on my Own. Ironic song choice now that Dominic was gone. Except Kennedy wasn’t alone. She had Willow, her best friend and sister in the Lord. She had Carl and Sandy, who had thankfully both been released from isolation and cleared of any Nipah scare. She had her mom and dad, even though they were on the other side of the world. From the time she woke up in Providence, not an hour had gone by where at least one of her parents hadn’t called to check in on her. Smother her with love and care. It didn’t bother Kennedy at all. She didn’t even mind when her dad told her she should check her temperature a few times during the night just to make sure she really hadn’t caught whatever Woong had.
Poor Woong. Kennedy and Willow had stopped to check on him before they headed back to campus. Whatever energy he’d found to play Xbox earlier was clearly expended. When Kennedy went over to visit, he was lying half-awake in bed while Sandy read him the last chapter of The Boxcar Children through the window of his room. Even though Carl and Sandy had been cleared, the doctors were still holding Woong in quarantine until his test results came back.
There were so many things Kennedy had to worry about, had to process. She was glad she wouldn’t be spending the night alone. She would have been infinitely more comfortable at the Lindgrens’ than at her dorm, but with Woong being so sick, nobody was allowed into their house until they found out if he really had Nipah or not.
“What do you want to have for dinner?” Willow asked. “You know you have to eat more than your usual craisins and Cheerios.”
Kennedy didn’t want to think about anything. “We’ll figure something out when we get to campus.”
“What do you want to do after that? It’s not that late. We could watch a movie or play some cards or take a little walk. It’s a nice evening.”
It felt so wrong to be here. Sitting next to her friend, the wind whipping through their hair. The sunset so soul-hauntingly glorious. So intense. The kind of scene you’d expect to see on a postcard or movie trailer. Not in real life.
The world was so stinking beautiful. But ever since she’d learned about Dominic’s death, Kennedy’s soul had been longing for those things to come. That glorious rapture, that heavenly melody that would one day beckon to her as it had to her boyfriend.
When Jesus is my portion; my constant friend is he.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.
She’d heard her whole life that heaven was her true home, but she never fully realized what that meant until now.
“Well? What sounds good?” Willow interrupted her thoughts, her voice full of forced cheer. “We could even call Nick and invite him over if you feel up for some company. I bet he’d be willing to pick us up a pizza from Angelo’s or something.”
Kennedy knew exactly what Willow was doing. Trying to distract her. Trying to keep her mind off the pain. Off the loss.
Reminding her that life on earth was here for the living. Heaven was the prize for those who had already passed.