Free Chloe by Cleveland McLeish

whether to laugh or cry, pitched
headlong into a storming sea of emotions. It would be a dream come true for her
to affect even one heart, let alone the entire world.
    This seems too good to be true. James must have sold her
out. He is the only one, aside from her mother, who knows the extent of her
passion.
    Chloe chances another glance back at James, leveling him
with a fleeting glare. He knows the question she is asking and responds with a
shake of his head. Chloe’s stomach lurches. She blinks rapidly.
    This cannot be happening. Chloe looks back up at Phil.
    “No one here knows you better than God,” he declares,
gleaning her doubts from her glances at James. “God told me everything Chloe.”
    Chloe fists her hands defiantly, setting her lips into a
grim line. This has gone far enough. “I don’t even believe in God.”
    He fixes her in a perceptive leer, haloed in a glow she
feels rather than sees. It is slowly worming its way through her willpower,
like a whistle and call to a stray dog—a shepard’s open arms to a lost sheep.
“You want that to be true. But you know better. You have always known better.
He has only one question for you as well.” Phil steps off the platform to stand
directly in front of Chloe.
    Here comes the kicker.
    “Will you follow Him?”
    Chloe tries to suppress the emotions swelling up inside her.
She almost chokes on her tears. To follow someone is to need them. Chloe has
lived her life without that luxury. She could not afford it. Memories of her
childhood flood her mind: growing up in the absence of the father she should
have known, now to be presented with the idea that she has an eternal father
and was never really alone.
    If this father is anything like Trevor, she wants nothing to
do with him. But the feeling of peace threading through the air is coloring her
prejudice with fallacy. God is nothing like Trevor. She wants to believe it.
    Phil strikes while the iron is hot. “He needs you to
accomplish a great task. He has a purpose for you and the gift he has given
you. You only need to lift those hands and surrender.” Surrender sounds an
awful lot like giving up. “Stop running,” he soothes. “Stop hiding. Stop
resisting. Begin to walk in your true purpose.”
    Chloe sets her jaw, cursing the tears that spring to her
eyes. Giving up does not mean losing the battle. Giving up means gaining hope.
She stands upon the precipice of something she knows is a life altering
decision. The fight leaves her.
    She’s tired.
    Chloe answers him with a shallow nod. Phil takes her hands
and raises them up high. When he lets go, Chloe does not put them down. Back in
the pews, James is also in tears.

Chapter 6
    James sits with Chloe on the front bench. The service is
over. People are still filing out of the Church. Chloe stares ahead,
floundering in sensations she cannot describe because she has never felt them
before.
    After a few long moments, “Not sure what just happened.”
    James turns to gaze at her, adopting a proud and loving
smirk. “I think you just gave your heart to Jesus,” he guides.
    Chloe blinks. “Whatever I did,” she fumbles for the right
word, “I’ve never been more at peace.” It is as though Chloe’s happiness is
buoyed by something unsinkable.
    James nudges her arm affectionately. “Come over for dinner.
Mom insists.” Chloe flashes him a sidelong smile. James takes Chloe by the hand
as they stand up and come together for a hug.
    As they embrace, Chloe looks over James’ shoulder to see a
man standing by the door, swaddled in soft white light. Time stands still. He
has very familiar face, a face she has seen staring back at her from her
computer screen many times before for many years. What could be Patrick’s
doppelganger, his identical twin mirror, smiles at her. Her heart soars into
her throat. This somehow feels like a defining moment—another life altering
epiphany, a new revelation, in a matter of an hour. Chloe suddenly realizes
that his smile