Left for Garbage

what it means to be religious. I don’t talk about God all the time, and I like music and going out sometimes, and sports and cars and girls - all of it. I’m not different, I’m just trying to live my life in a certain way, but not a judging way, because I don’t judge people. That’s a big part of what living Jesus’s word means, but it seems like they judge me, so it’s kind of ironic.
    I’m sorry, people probably don’t care about any of this stuff, but I need to say it so people will understand what I mean by her being a chameleon. We met at Universal Studios in August of oh-four. I’d just started there as a security guard working afternoons and I think she’d been there for a few months already, maybe longer. I saw her for the first time on my second day when walking through the park : that’s when we just make sure nothing funny is going on or if there’s like garbage dropped, we would call maintenance and stuff.
    She was taking pictures of people on the rides, the ones like Earthquake where everybody is screaming. There’s this machine Kodak has inside where they fire off a shot at the worst part of the ride, and when people finish the ride, there’s somebody waiting with some prints of them, and most of the time the people buy a copy, even though it’s like twenty-two dollars, but they still want it because, you know, it’s to show people when you get back home how much fun you had, and I’m sorry, I guess I’m tired. Let me get back on track. So, I saw her and I won’t lie, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, those big green eyes and her black hair, and she’s so little and delicate, but, well, really sexy, too. I’m sorry, but she is, and I’m a guy, a Christian guy, you bet, but like I said, that doesn’t make me different and I’m pretty sure what I felt when I saw Denise was the same as anybody else would when they see their dream girl, I mean, a totally hot girl, that’s what I meant to say.
    I don’t think I would have had the nerve to talk to her but she came over to my table at lunch, just like that, and asked if anyone was sitting there. So our first lunch went well because I sometimes get a little tongue-tied but she never does. We started talking all the time and after that, I don’t know, in like a couple weeks she was my girlfriend and this is where the chameleon stuff comes in.
    I told her almost right away about my beliefs and how my dad is a chaplain for the army , and she asked me, right that first week, if she could come to my house for one of our family’s prayer meetings. I know what people think: a beautiful girl like her, obviously popular all her life, she could have any guy she wanted, and I can see it now. I mean, I saw it a lot earlier than now, but back then, no, and I don’t think that makes me foolish or whatever. Like my dad was saying, I just thought it was like a miracle.
    This beautiful girl, maybe she hadn’t been on the path, but it was only because of her mom who said all Christians were crazy people, but Denise didn’t believe that and she wanted a chance to find out for herself. There was other stuff, too. I mentioned casually in passing once how I liked the Marlins, and the next thing I know, Denise’s bought us matching team jerseys and is telling me how we need to watch the game on Saturday and she’d bring over cookies or whatever. And I didn’t think it was funny or suspicious, I just thought I was the luckiest guy in the world, and for a little while there, I was. But then, well you see, we slept together right in her parents’ house while they were at work.
    I mean, that part’s not so strange. We were both still living at home, but my mom doesn’t work. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to have sex in my parents’ home, but Denise didn’t feel the same way about her folks’ place, and after it happened, and it was great, but it was wrong, too, I thought, and I told her too, that we were moving too fast.
    When I said it to her, well that was the first time I got to see she might not have been all sweetness and light , if you know what I’m saying, which made it easier to stay away from her because it kind of scared … I mean, not scared me, but took me aback a little and there was my dad saying to me, “Bobby, you’re twenty years old and you haven’t settled on a career and you have all these things to do before you start even thinking about marriage and stuff,” but of course he didn’t know we’d