The Alabaster Jar

Selah bit her lip and kept her eyes on the ground in front of her. She took in another breath and let it out, readjusting how she was sitting so she could be more comfortable. “Joseph Nathaniel Bradford and I met in college. He was charming, and handsome, and even though he had a crowd of women interested in him that he could have easily kept on a rotation if he wanted to, for some reason he picked me to be in a relationship with. We hung out in the same friend group, which caused us to be together a lot, and as time went on, we started talking and hanging out more on our own. We attended the Christian organization events on campus, participated in Christian events and ministries off campus, went to church together – all of it. It was so easy for us to talk to each other and it seemed we were on the same page about so many things, including our faith and desires to follow God. He eventually asked me out on an official date – the date where you dress up and go to a nice dinner. Neither of us had been seeing anyone else, but we weren’t “official” until we went on that special date.” Selah let out a soft chuckle. “His car broke down. My heel broke. And it was a hundred degrees plus humidity.” She smiled and shook her head. “Some first date, huh?” Her smile sombered as she continued her story. “I guess the mishaps of our first official date didn’t matter. We ended up dating all through college. I took Joe to that park once for a picnic because I wanted to share something that had meant a lot to me and my parents with him. It kind of became our spot after that. Joe and I would go down to that park for study dates and picnics all the time. Sometimes, he would nap while I read a book for fun. It was just a peaceful place we could go to get away from the craziness of college. Fast forward to our senior year. Joe convinced me to take a break from studying for finals and go on a picnic with him one Saturday. I was super stressed about studying, and we had both been working a lot and not seeing as much of each other as we used to, so I agreed. He was extremely nervous when he picked me up and kept touching his pocket all night to make sure something was still there.” “You thought he was going to propose,” Dylan interjected. Selah glanced at him. “Yes. I thought he was going to propose.” Selah turned her attention back to the ground and her features dimmed even further. Closing her eyes, she took in a shaky breath and let it out. Dylan continued to watch her, unsure of what could have been so bad about a proposal that hadn’t happened. Selah licked her lips and swallowed to get past the dryness that was settling in due to the anxiousness she was starting to feel before continuing. “We went down to our favorite spot by the stream. The stream that runs along the end of the road you and I didn’t take that day. Everything was normal, except for his unusual nervousness. Dinner was finished. The sun was setting. It would have been the perfect moment for him to pop the question. I saw him reach into his pocket and was psyching myself up for what he was going to pull out of his pocket, but we were interrupted by loud shouts coming from the other side of the stream.” Selah swallowed and licked her lips again. Keeping her eyes closed, her mind replayed the events that happened next as vividly as if they had happened yesterday. “We didn’t want to be seen by whoever was fighting, so we ducked into the trees along the bank. Joe held his arm protectively in front of me and kept me behind him. His body was so tense and his face had gone white. I had never seen him so scared in my life. He told me to get ready to try to sneak back up to the car so we could get out of there without being seen. The shouting grew louder. The two men across the stream were extremely angry at one another. One of them started pushing the other and it sounded like the one hadn’t come through on his end of some deal, or owed the other man something. I honestly don’t know. Joe was supposed to signal to me to head up the hill to the car, but he never did. He just kept watching the two men. I eventually felt his hand squeeze mine, and as I was about to turn to run, the one man that had seemed the angriest raised something up in his hand and he struck the other man in the head.” Selah paused as the memory played across her mind yet again. “The man that had been hit went limp, and collapsed to the ground. I gasped, and Joe gestured for me to get up the hill – and quickly – hoping my gasp hadn’t been heard across the stream. We snuck up to the car and got out of there as fast as we could. Everything changed after that night.” Dylan sat and listened to her story, surprised to say the least. She had already been through the extremely difficult circumstance of having her parents die in a tragic accident at an archeological dig site they were at when she was twelve. He couldn’t imagine what she must have gone through witnessing something like that in college. He still remembered the first time he had seen a dead body up close, and that was not something he wanted to re-live either. It never got easier, no matter how many times he saw something like that. “I’m so sorry, Selah. I had no idea,” he said after some moments of silence passed between them. Selah opened her eyes and looked at him. “You couldn’t have known. I’ve honestly never told anyone that story,” she admitted as she brushed a tear from her face.