Peter Li-Chapter 2

Chapter 2-Graphite Dreaming

Peter: HELP!! MY PARENTS ARE SHIPPING ME OFF TO PUBLIC SCHOOL

Sam: OOF

        tbh tho there’s nothing to worry about! we might even be classmates!! public school can be a little daunting               and some of the kids have no souls, but seeing other people irl is nice

Peter: Good to know! Minus the souls part xD. Still kinda freaking out, though :panic: :panic:

Sam: dw about it :))

         actually, can you meet up tomorrow at Gong Cha to catch up?

Peter: Sure!

          I’d do anything for bubble tea xDD

Sam: lolll

         does 3 pm work?

Peter: Yup!

***

“Remember the first time we had bubble tea together?” Sam asks. I frown as I realize he ordered black sugar milk tea, his go-to anxiety medicine.

“Um, yeah. It was back in, fifth grade, right? When my mom finally started giving me allowance.” I smile ruefully. “I had to save up for, like, four months to buy boba for both of us.”

“The good ol’ days.” Sam cackles a little and stirs his tea pensively. “So, how’s your summer been?”

“Alright. My grandma’s actually staying with us now, which means I woke up at 6 am today to the sound of Korean opera and glass shattering.”

Sam smirks and rolls his eyes. “Oof. Well, at least your dad isn’t blasting CCM 24/7.”

“Ha ha,” I mumble. “True.”

My conscience wilts. Halmuni’s slight tone-deafness pales to the dozens of fresh battle lines Sam and his dad have drawn in the sand. Last June, Sam would occasionally drop by my house to hone his Mario Kart skills, or film comedy skits for Mark’s Youtube channel. I still remember how a grinning Sam would joke about his dad’s imperviousness to sarcasm as he waited for Mark to finish drawing on his fake mustache. At 5 p.m. sharp, he always returned home for dinner. However, by the end of the summer, Sam would often dump his backpack of unfinished sketches and broken pencils onto our living room floor. As graphite dwindled under our fingertips, Sam would occasionally break the silence to curse his dad’s inability to talk without arguing. Hours after we ate dinner together, he’d loiter by the door and kick the gravel pathway, joking about how his dad’s eyes reflected the pebbles’ lifeless gray. Eventually, when Sam mentioned sleeping over, I’d grab his arm and steer him away from our porch. Then we’d walk the twenty minutes to his front door. I almost ask about his dad, but silence is the best invite for elaboration, so I sip my bubble tea and wait.

For a moment, Sam looks as if he’s about to spill his thoughts, but he asks instead, “So… how were finals? I’m so glad the school year’s finally over.”

“Yeahhh, same,” I admit. If he doesn’t want to talk about his dad, that’s fine with me. “Finals were super stressful. I actually started dreaming that StudyPlace crashed and I couldn’t submit any of my tests. Total nightmare, and also me totally over-thinking ‘cause it was fine.”

“Dude, that’s intense.” Sam’s eyes crinkle in sympathy.

As he sips his tea aimlessly, I stir my drink, and our conversation dwindles into an awkward silence. I cough. “Umm, well, to celebrate the demise of tests and the return of free time, do you want to visit Jackson’s? Maybe we could buy some pencils?” Jackson’s, our second home, houses kaleidoscopes of paint, libraries of sketch pads, and caverns of charcoal. We’ve spent so much time there that Mrs. Jackson, the proprietor, can recognize us by our footsteps.

Sam grins, shoving his baseball cap over his brown curls. “Let’s do it.”

In sync, we slip outside. June’s budding heat soaks my skin, but I walk with a skip in my step underneath the cloudless, cobalt sky.

During the school year, I missed roaming 2nd Street with Sam, working our way through each flavor of bubble tea at Gong Cha, and sketching ludicrous caricatures of each other. Even though we still met up at church every now and then, Sam and I never really carved out time to hang out. Now, though, I feel like we were both doodling in our math books from September to June. We never stopped dreaming in graphite, even if we dreamed alone.

Suddenly, I catch someone shouting in the distance. At first, I brush it off, but the yelling persists. “What’s that?”

Sam frowns. “I’m not sure.”

We venture closer, and I soon spot a disheveled man on the side of the street. Clutching a bible under one arm, he accosts passersby. “You could die at any moment. And what happens when you die? If you don’t believe in Jesus, you go to Hell. Just think about that, please!”

Storm clouds darken Sam’s gaze. “Jeez, these people.”

I flinch, wishing I could dive into a hole. These people, stringing up Christianity like a punching bag. These people, these people. Then again, why would someone expose themselves like this unless they cared about their crowd? Or maybe they’re just attention-starved?

The man takes a breath to wipe sweat from his forehead, then continues. “Because of Jesus, I now live free of sin. I have attained perfection.”

Red alarms blare in my mind, and Sam rolls his eyes. “Umm, pretty sure that’s unbiblical,” I mutter. “I don’t think we’re truly free from sin until we go to heaven.”

Sam laughs a little. “Yeah. This guy clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.” He pauses. Finally, after a sip of courage from his drink, Sam continues, “But then again, I feel like a lot of Christians these days don’t know what they’re saying.”

“True.” I shrug, anxiety gnawing at my conscience. I’m not like that, right? I don’t smash people over the head with half-truths and arrogance? Then again, how much do I actually know about Christianity?

Sam tenses. “I mean, the Bible says to love your neighbor, but then Christians will belittle people who’re different, especially people of color and other minorities.” As Sam takes off and begins kneading his baseball cap, his voice rises. “I just don’t think a God who tells Israel to, like, murder entire people groups can be a good god.”

As I listen, unease crawls across my skin. I’ve never heard anyone, much less Sam, talk like this before.

Sam barrels onwards. “I mean, how do we know the Bible is true? How do we know Jesus actually died and rose again? How do we trust a seemingly just God who lets people go to Hell?” Vengefully, he begins scuffing his shoes on the pavement.

I open my mouth, waiting for my brain cell to supply some type of answer. None comes. Frantically, my mind parses through fourteen years of Sunday school lessons and church services, but explanations still elude me. How in over a decade of “knowing” Christ have I never seriously considered these questions? What the heck am I supposed to say? 

Finally, Sam pivots to face me, his eyes boring into mine. Is he toeing the Rubicon? Or torching the bridge behind him? “Peter, I don’t know if the Christian God exists anymore.”

Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/painter-paint-artist-brush-tool-1937575/