“It Had To Be You”

Peter and Emily found each other at the Burger King in their hometown, when after years of babysitting, mowing yards and delivering morning newspapers, they were finally old enough to get a real job and both chose BK. BK was less than a mile away from where they each lived, which could be said for everything in Charlotte, MI. It was the place to work: steady hours, free food during every shift, and romance, lots of romance. The odds of hooking up with someone who worked there were huge; you couldn’t find a more stocked pond anywhere else in town. If it had been legal, BK could have paid below minimum wage and every teenager would still jump at the chance to work there for the fringe benefits.

Peter, a late bloomer whose confidence hadn’t caught up to the six inches he had gained in height since he was a freshman, wasn’t equipped with the most observant radar when it came to identifying interested girls. Amber, one of Emily’s friends, told Peter that Emily was into him, and during the next two shifts they worked together at BK, Emily and Peter made “hellllloooo” eye contact while Emily worked the drive-thru and Peter the hamburger grill. Peter got enough good vibes during those two shifts that he asked her out to a movie and Amber’s intel proved accurate – she accepted. Despite being a year younger than Peter, Emily was more “worldly” since she had already been with a guy. Their relationship developed quickly and soon Peter too became worldlier. But eight months after they started dating, Peter had to leave Charlotte to start school at Albion College.

In both their eyes, Peter’s move would not be their end. He made the 30 mile drive almost every Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with Emily and returned to Albion on Sunday in time to rush through whatever homework was due Monday. Despite the distance, they made it work and in November for her birthday, Peter gave Emily a pearl promise ring.

Peter worked at BK for two years, and before he had started dating Emily, he had gone out with another BK girl, Brenda, for three months. Brenda was his first girlfriend, his first kiss, basically his first everything, and when she split up with him, it hurt. In those days, hurt manifested itself in Peter as volcanic anger. He hid in his room and pouted for several days. He punched the wall of the garage on the way into the house, splitting the siding and snapping a tendon in his pinkie finger at the same time. He peed out the window of his bedroom in defiance of someone. He even quit his job at BK, but managed to get it back after talking to Jeremy (the manager) and telling him what had happened. Since Jeremy worked in a place where 90% of the employees were teenagers, he was used to having to deal with teen romance interfering with work.

Brenda immediately started dating Marty, another guy at BK, after she broke up with Peter and was still with him when Peter left for college. But one day in late November, Peter got a letter from Brenda. She had gotten pregnant and had had an abortion. Marty wasn’t ready for any of this, so he didn’t come with her to the abortion clinic and he treated her like she had done something wrong. Brenda said they were through. Peter wasn’t sure why she was telling him this at first. It seemed like a pretty personal thing to share with someone you hadn’t talked to in a year.

Things became both clearer and cloudier as Peter read more of her letter. Brenda wrote that she regretted breaking up with Peter who had always treated her well, unlike Marty. She wanted to see him again. Peter had never really gotten over her; she was his first, and she had ended things when he wouldn’t have. Peter should have agonized over what to do, but he didn’t. He called her and they agreed to have dinner in two weeks.

In the meantime, Peter accidentally left the letter in the glove compartment of his car and of course Emily found it. He tried to grab it but she pulled the letter away and he couldn’t reach it since he was driving. She read the letter and had one question for Peter: “Are you going to call her or did you already?” Peter was cornered and came clean. Yes, he did plan on seeing Brenda and, no, he didn’t know what that meant for them. He had hoped Emily wouldn’t find out, and once she did he had naively hoped she would understand. When neither of these things happened, Peter was stuck. He didn’t want to let go of a chance with Brenda, so he left Emily in tears at her house and they didn’t talk for a week.

Peter picked Brenda up at her parent’s home in Battle Creek. Whether it was the passage of time, the abortion, the hurt over their breakup, or Emily, Peter wasn’t sure, but when dinner was finished Brenda asked Peter to take her home after just over an hour together. The conversation was forced and unimportant, the tone was heavy and Peter unexpectedly felt unsympathetic toward her ordeal and it probably showed. Peter’s emotions were twisted up like a knot. Regret, anger, and embarrassment all coursed through him. Then Peter went back to Charlotte and Emily

Surprisingly, she took him back. With Christmas break just around the corner, Peter saw a hopeful path back to where he had been two weeks ago with Emily. The break came and flew by with all the family activities, but Peter and Emily saw each other as much as they could and Peter thought they would get past this drama. Then fate intervened.

Peter was the classic poor college student so when his 1972 Mustang broke down near the end of Christmas break, he took it to a repair shop in Charlotte and learned it would cost $1500 to fix, $1500 he didn’t have. Instead, Peter sold the car to a local junkyard for $300. Now Peter had no easy way to get back and forth on the weekends to see Emily. He told her he was sure he could catch a ride with a friend some weekends, and could get his parents to being him back on others. And maybe some weekends, Emily could drive over and spend a day at Albion with him. The sad look in Emily’s eyes told him more than her simple response: “OK”. Their bond had been weakened and was soon to completely break.

Two weeks after returning to school, Emily called at 9:00 one Thursday evening. She was in tears and kept telling him it was over. When he pressed her over and over for a reason, he eventually got it. Emily had been at Leach Lake at a party that past Saturday and after several beers, she and a classmate of hers named Steve had had sex in Steve’s car. 

Peter lost it. He told Emily he was coming home, right now and they were going to fix things. Without thinking, he put on his coat and started walking. In the middle of January. In Michigan. Walking.

Peter had walked four miles and was passing the last signs of commercialization in Albion on the road to Charlotte. As he moved past the Meijer and the McDonalds, he could see little of the road ahead. No street lights, no moonlight and no headlights on the road at this hour, just a two-lane highway that seemed to be swallowed up by darkness a quarter mile ahead. Peter kept moving forward for another half mile and then he heard it.

“Hey, what are you doing out there?”

He stopped dead and looked behind him. He looked on all sides. Once he left the city, he had very quickly encountered farmland on either side of the road, so all around him was flat land that was devoid of crops at this time of year. He saw nothing. But Peter knew what he had heard. A chill. From the cold or the voice? He didn’t know.

But hearing the voice caused him to stop, and in stopping he realized the danger he was putting himself in and the hopelessness of the situation. The odds of making it another 25 miles at night without freezing or getting hit by a car were not good, and neither were the prospects of salvaging things with Emily. He stood there and didn’t advance to Emily or retreat from her for several minutes, trying to figure out what to do. But his resolve had been broken. He turned around and started walking back to Albion. He stopped in the McDonalds to use the bathroom and warm up for a minute and when he did, he saw one of his classmates who was just getting off work. He caught a ride back to campus and returned to many questions from his roommate about where he had been.

Peter and Emily didn’t make it. Peter called Emily when he got back to his dorm that night and told her he wasn’t coming home and he thought it was best that they break up. He didn’t go home again that semester but when he returned to Charlotte for the summer and saw her, she seemed to be flirting with him and his feelings for her stirred. But whether he misread her or she misled him, in the end there was no rekindling for them. Peter never saw Emily again after that summer.

Peter went through four or five relationships over the next decade that were meaningless to him other than the female companionship they provided. He longed for love but invested little of himself in others. He had become selfish to avoid being hurt again, and he lived on a rollercoaster of seeking, starting and ending relationships that left tomorrow always uncertain.

But one thing Peter knew with certainty was on that night on a dark road, he heard a voice that caused him to stop and reconsider his actions. Peter eventually realized whose voice he had heard. God had called out to Peter. It was the only answer that made sense to Peter even though he didn’t really believe in God.

Somehow, that realization caused Peter to start seeing his life differently. It wasn’t a dramatic change, but it was enough to open his eyes to Katherine. Without deciding to, he treated her with respect and caring from the beginning and gave his heart to her wholly. Katherine not only loved Peter but she modeled for him a loving relationship with God, and eventually she helped him find God himself. Peter realized he had held guilt, shame and pain inside that he needed to release; when he answered God’s call and God healed his heart, Peter was able to love completely.