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on a ski retreat that his youth group was having the weekend after next. I shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?” thinking he probably wasn’t serious. Then he promised to bring me all the sign-up information tomorrow.
    “Is Jenny coming too?” I asked, figuring this was a no-brainer.
    “No,” he said. “She thinks church is stupid. I can never get her to come to anything. It’s one of the many things we don’t agree on.” I nodded dumbly, but I really wanted to ask, if you don’t agree on so many things, then why do you two stay together? But then Jenny is a good (almost best) friend. How could I say something like that to her boyfriend?
    But now I’m wondering, should I tell Jenny about this upcoming ski trip? Did Josh even ask her to come? And what if she gets jealous or mad? Maybe I better just keep my mouth shut. I mean, it’s not like Josh is asking me to go out with him or anything. He just saw me sitting there reading about religion and he wanted to help out. All he did was tell me about his youth group and a retreat I might enjoy. What’s wrong with that?
    But I’ll be honest and tell you exactly what’s wrong with that—my motives. It’s like the Valentine’s Dance all over again. I’m not going on that retreat to learn moreabout God (well, not completely anyway). I’m going because I want Josh to notice me. I want him to forget all about Jenny and to fall head over heels in love with me. And for that reason I think I’m totally despicable.
February 25, Sunday (Stephie’s church)
    We went to church with Aunt Stephie today. I wanted to bail, but Stephie wouldn’t hear of it, and I could tell Mom wanted us to all go together. Especially after what happened last night.
    You see, my dad came over to the house to talk with all of us. My mom just totally blew up at him. I suppose it was my fault because I let the whole Belinda thing out of the bag and she, like me, just naturally assumed that my dad was sleeping with the little tramp. In fact, even now, I’m not totally sure he’s not. However, he swore up and down that he was not having an actual affair with her. (Poor Benjamin had to hear the whole thing too, but then he’s not a baby anymore—welcome to the adult world, baby brother!) But Dad did admit that he had been tempted to, and was trying to figure everything all out (I’m getting so sick and tired of hearing that!).
    He kept saying he didn’t want to lose everything—his family, his church, his home. But finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I blurted out, “You mean you just want to have it all, Dad? You think you can be a good husband, a good dad, and then just keep your little girlfriend on the side?” Well, as you can imagine, he didn’t say anything to that. Then I stormed off to my room. It’sthe only way to hide the tears (and they were about to pour). Then I heard Mom take it from there, and pretty soon even Benjamin was yelling too.
    I almost felt sorry for Dad. But only for a few seconds. And suddenly, I wondered, who is this Belinda person anyway? What sort of woman would want to come between my parents and mess up my happy home? Didn’t she know he was a married man? I’ve never seen him take off his ring. Not even now. I was filled with a poisonous hatred for her—whoever she was, I knew I could never forgive her for what she had done to us.
    After all that, I couldn’t very well not go to church with my family (despite the cruddy things bubbling inside of me). But it’s like we went through this ugly battle together and I didn’t want to make any more waves. Besides, Aunt Stephie was being so helpful and supportive about everything, I figured it couldn’t hurt to just play along.
    But what was really surprising was that I actually liked her church. I mean it was kind of weird meeting in a grade school gymnasium without any pews or stained glass windows or organ playing. But their music was pretty cool, and the people did seem to be real, and I