Chapter 43: DMs

On that same morning, the wooden pews of Pinegrove Baptist Church were as familiar to Heidi Horner as her own bedroom. Sitting wedged between her mother and her younger sister, Leslie, with her father anchoring the aisle seat, Heidi usually found a comforting, predictable rhythm in the Sunday morning service.

But today, the rhythm was entirely broken.

At the pulpit, Pastor Miller wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with a pristine white handkerchief. “First Peter, chapter five, verse eight tells us to be sober-minded and watchful,” his voice boomed, echoing off the high, vaulted ceiling. “Because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. And how does he devour us, church? Through distractions. Through the sudden, unexpected temptations of the flesh that pull our eyes away from the Lord and toward the secular world!”

Usually, this was the part of the sermon where Heidi would uncap her pen and take diligent notes in the margins of her Bible.

Today, the pen remained capped in her lap. The words, which normally grounded her, just felt like empty noise washing over her head.

Distractions. Temptations. Heidi stared blankly at the stained-glass window behind the choir. She couldn’t help but wonder if Pastor Miller would consider Jalen Moss a temptation sent straight from the devil.

If she stood up right now and confessed that her mind had been consumed by a tattooed, smooth-talking Black contractor building their guest house, the entire congregation would probably hold a prayer circle for her soul.

But as Heidi sat there, her logical, law-student brain began to rebel against the sermon. How could Jalen possibly be an agent of the devil? He hadn’t done a single thing wrong. He had been nothing but completely respectful, polite, and professional to both her and her father.

He hadn’t tried to lure her into anything. If she was being completely honest with herself, she was the one pushing the conversations. She was the one lingering in the driveway. She was the one scrolling through his Instagram late at night.

If Jalen was a snare, she was the one actively trying to step into it.

Heidi subtly shifted in the hard wooden pew, her shoulder brushing against Leslie’s. The truth was, this restless, suffocating feeling hadn’t started with Jalen.

Long before his black truck ever pulled into their driveway, Heidi had felt like she was just drifting blindly through her own life.

She had spent twenty-four years keeping up appearances, molding herself into the exact shape that would make her parents proud. She stayed out of trouble. She didn’t associate with the kinds of people her parents disapproved of.

She was in the pew every single Sunday. She was even getting her law degree, though she knew full well her parents viewed it as a temporary placeholder, silently hoping she would just find a nice, wholesome Christian husband soon, settle down, and start having children.

She was doing everything “right,” but lately, there had been a hollowness in her chest that had been growing more and more noticeable. There was absolutely nothing about her life that truly invigorated her.

Worse, she’d grown increasingly tired of being constantly reminded at home and at church to make sure she wasn’t being anything that would make her an “ungodly” woman.

Her mother constantly ranted about the “sinful” Instagram models and celebrities out there flaunting their looks. The truth was, Heidi was often intrigued by this woman and made her more curious about her own body and sense of style.

She found that she liked dresses that were a bit shorter and more form-fitting to reveal more of her figure. She also liked to put on higher heels every so often.

She had a couple of these dresses hidden in her closet but she’d only worn them a couple of times because she knew her mother would likely find them scandalous somehow and immediately tell her to go change.

She also had a pair of nude high heeled pumps she’d occasionally wear, but only when she was going somewhere her parents wouldn’t be. She’d even learned to walk in them without falling which she was genuinely proud of.

Lately, Heidi had found herself wondering more and more about the things she was strictly told to avoid. She wondered what it actually felt like to engage in the kind of freedom, passion, and raw life she had only ever seen in movies, shows, or read about on the internet.

The curiosity had been building inside her for years. Jalen didn’t create the spark; he was just the gasoline.

Heidi looked back up at the pulpit. What if everyone here has it completely backward? she thought, her heart picking up a sudden, rebellious rhythm.

What if Jalen wasn’t God’s test of her restraint? What if Jalen was God’s way of intervening? What if God was trying to wake her up, using Jalen to show her that there was an entirely different side of life she was meant to embrace?

The moment the thought fully formed in her head, she almost laughed out loud. She quickly suppressed it, turning her head slightly to look at her father.

Tim Horner was nodding vigorously along with Pastor Miller’s warnings against the secular world, his jaw set with righteous conviction.

Heidi scoffed internally. Yeah, right. She knew her parents. She knew her father was deeply set in his ways. There was absolutely no universe where Tim Horner would ever look at Jalen Moss and see a divine blessing for his daughter. He would only ever see a contractor who didn’t belong in their world.

But as the choir stood up to begin the closing hymn, Heidi realized she didn’t care what her father saw. She only cared about what she felt, and what she felt was a magnetic, terrifying pull that she couldn’t ignore anymore.