Part 21 (1/2)

”I was thinking what if you kissed me,” Dawn said. She was breathless now, whirling downstream on a dark, fast current.

Justin sat back down on the log, a slight crease between his eyebrows. ”I ... don't know if that's a good idea,” he said, and Dawn's dark current became a whirlpool of shame, but then he leaned over and kissed her. His lips were chapped, and she didn't feel anything at first. Then he licked her bottom lip and her mouth opened. His tongue lapped against hers and heat went through her, softening her arms, which opened on their own accord. She put her hand on the back of his neck, where it was warm and damp, and he put his hand over her breast. She felt her nipples harden against the inside of her T-s.h.i.+rt. He took her other hand and pressed it between his legs. He pushed her off the log into the soft earth and began kissing her throat while his fingers pulled at the zipper of her jeans. She struggled to help him. He pulled up her T-s.h.i.+rt and squeezed one breast while his tongue circled her other nipple. She gasped. ”I love you, Justin,” she said.

”I love you too,” he said automatically. ”Lift your legs.”

But then he stopped and pushed himself up. ”Shh! Listen!”

Krista was calling her. Suddenly, Justin was standing above her. ”Get up,” he hissed. She scrambled up and did up her jeans, her fingers stiff and trembling with cold. Justin brushed off her back.

”Dawn?” Krista called.

”It's okay,” Justin told her. ”You're fine. Just go.”

”But-” She was desperate for a better ending, anything but ”Just go.”

”We'll talk about it later,” he said, and gave her a gentle push.

Krista was waiting for her on the front porch. ”Dawn! Where were you?”

”I was helping Justin chop wood,” she said. Her voice sounded odd in her head, like she had a cold. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and pulled uselessly at her T-s.h.i.+rt.

”Tonight is your closed-door with Andre! Isn't that wonderful?”

Dawn gulped in air and said it was. Krista told her to go and help carry pamphlets to the van.

Dawn looked back towards the barn. ”Should I go get Justin?”

”No,” Krista said. ”He has work to do here.”

”I-I was just talking to him and he's feeling much stronger in his commitment. He-”

”Never mind Justin,” Krista said curtly. ”Just go.”

All day on Yonge Street, she replayed it, from the beginning of the kiss to his declaration. At last, she thought. At last, at last: she had a boyfriend. Not some pimply, wheezing debate team co-captain, either, but Justin, who was twenty-two and looked like a movie star and loved her. She remembered every time he had touched her, from the first day. This was the real reason she had found her way to Lighthouse. The only thing that worried her was the way he had said, ”We'll talk about it later.” She didn't like the ”it” part. But he had also said, ”I love you too.” Would he have said that if he hadn't meant it? If Krista hadn't called her, they would have had s.e.x right there behind the barn.

When they got back to the farmhouse in the evening, Krista was waiting to take her to Andre. ”Now?” Dawn said. ”But I just got back. I-”

”Now,” Krista said firmly, and led her upstairs.

The session was not what she had expected. Neither was Andre. She had had only glimpses of him, usually getting in or out of a turquoise Oldsmobile in the evenings. Up close, he was short and slight, with thin, greying hair and gla.s.ses and a spotless white s.h.i.+rt tucked into jeans. Sitting at a wooden desk with a pad of paper, pencils, a calculator, he looked like a high-school princ.i.p.al. Dawn sat in a folding chair across from Andre. Krista angled her chair so that she could see them both.

”Welcome, Dawn,” Andre said. ”Krista tells me you have remarkable potential.”

Dawn dipped her head and tried to arrange her features into an expression of humility.

Andre said he and Krista wanted to talk about her future with Lighthouse, where she saw herself in five years. They wanted to know about her commitment. Did she see herself travelling along the path at higher and higher levels? Dawn said she did.

”Excellent. Now, I understand you haven't yet paid your fee.”

Dawn looked at Krista for help. Before they'd left Sault Ste. Marie, she had explained to Krista about her university fund, and Krista had told her not to worry, they would work it out after the retreat. But now, Krista was looking at her the same way Andre was: expectantly. Dawn explained again that she had no way of getting the money because it was in an account her mother had set up for her.

Andre said, ”Is the money in your name?” Dawn thought it was. ”And you're eighteen?” Dawn said, ”Seventeen.” Andre asked if she knew the account number, but Dawn only knew the bank name. Andre said they had someone at a branch in Toronto who could look into it. If Dawn had proper ID, something could probably be done. Tomorrow, when they went into the city, Krista would take Dawn to the bank. Dawn could pay all the money she owed at once: the retreat money, plus all the members.h.i.+p and meeting fees Krista had kindly deferred.

That was the end of her session. ”Be a beacon,” Andre said.

Dawn went to sit on the wooden bench on the porch. It had happened so fast she hadn't had time to protest. No, that wasn't true. She wouldn't have protested even if it had gone slowly, because even after all the weekly meetings and the closed-doors and the open floors, she was still bound by fear. She was afraid that Andre and Krista would be disappointed. Worse than disappointed. But she was also afraid to go to the bank in the city tomorrow. Even if the money was in her name, it hadn't actually been given to her. Even if it had been given to her, it was for university. And if she failed math and didn't graduate, it wasn't right to use it for something else. She didn't want to be arrested for whatever you got arrested for when you took money that was in your name but wasn't technically yours.

But if it was? If it turned out to be hers technically and legally and completely?

She didn't want to give it to them. Her head was full of murk and sludge, but that one thought was clear. She didn't want to give them the money, and she didn't have to, and that's all there was to it. She didn't have to be afraid of Krista's disappointment or Andre's judgment. No judgment, no fear. That was the message of UC, and finally, finally it had sunk in!

She got up and went inside to tell Krista that she had solved her own blockage.

Krista was going over a column of figures at the kitchen table. She didn't even look up when Dawn told her. ”I understand,” she said.

Dawn said, ”I knew you would! After all this time, I finally-”

But Krista went on. ”I understand your fear. But you've already committed that money to Andre.”

”But it's not my money to commit.”

”If it's in your name-”

”But it's still not exactly mine.”

Krista said, ”Technicalities. You're obscuring the real issue with technicalities.”

”The real issue?”

Krista threw down her pencil and folded her arms. Her eyes were cold and narrow. ”Your commitment. Is extremely weak.”

”But-”

”No. No buts. No excuses, Dawn. Either you're with us or you're gone. You commit fully or you leave.”

”Leave?”

”Yes, leave. I'm tired of having to carry people who can't carry themselves.”

”You mean-leave the retreat? Or leave Lighthouse?”

”They're the same thing.”

Dawn said, ”But I have no way of getting home.”

”Well, then, stay and honour your commitments,” Krista said coldly. Then she sighed. ”Look, Dawn, I don't want to lose another of my pract.i.tioners.”

”Another?”

”Justin left this afternoon.”