More than usual

Nate opened the door to find the room not as vacant and lifeless as it normally was. A few boys and girls and two instructors were sitting around a table in the center of the room, waving silently, one or two hellos. Not one of them smiled, not all of them frowned, but none of them smiled.

The cast of characters was a brief one as none of them knew each other that well. The two instructors were Mr. Smith and Ashley. Mr Smith was generally a pretty cool guy. He was sent here to liven up the youth group and to his credit he tried his best. Ashley was a woman who didn’t want to age. She insisted that everyone call her by her first name to avoid being “formal.” When Mr. Smith arrived she took it as a rivalry instead of a replacement, which is what it was. She saw herself as too hip for the people her age, sitting though sermons and all that. The group she was leading was actually mature enough to sit through the sermons but she feared that if she didn’t overcompensate someone might acknowledge that she was in her late thirties, a truth she was trying to hold off for as long as she could.

The late teens and early twenty year olds were generally uninterested to be there as the guilt and shame, mostly from their parents, hadn’t been completely crushed their spirit. First you had the ones who pretended they liked being there, the Wilson sisters. They were twins with matching dresses and everything. They weren’t devoutly religious, just innocent and naive through no fault of their own as nothing bad had every really happened to them to cause them to think otherwise. Then you had Alex, the tomboyish hipster. The one who prides herself of not being like everybody else complete with colorful died hair and the fact that she wore a hoodie to church rather than a dress. Rounding out the girls was Samantha, the shy girl. Her parents were overprotective but too soft to punish her directly, instead turning their outrage towards boys and girls her age, thinking them to be a bad influence, further separating her from others. Whatever hesitations the late teens’ Jesus freak parents had about romantic relationships went double for her. As a result she was quite isolated with little to no friends and had such social anxiety that her parents hired a therapist for her, rather than change their style.

The boys faired a bit more stable, but still not great. Nathan was a jock, attending college on a scholarship, although he hated that term. The term usually called up visions of high school bullies and Neanderthals, where as Nathan was a genuinely nice and person. When he and Nate first met, he offered to be called by his full name to avoid confusion between them, all of this without being asked. He was a right guy in a wrong world. On the other side of the spectrum you had Brad, the gamer. He was a willing recluse, a bit of a misanthrope and incel as well, one whose parents almost never told him no. He grew to be quite the tech wiz and preferred simulated life to the real thing. Nate could figure out why he even bothered to show up. Nate didn’t know too much about the other two. Nobody hung out with any one from the church outside of the church. One of them was Emmett, a pretty aimless dud with no goals or aspirations. He had moved out and quit religion before going broke and moving back into his parents’ basement rent free, on the condition that he regularly attend church. He was the oldest youth and next year he would join his parents in the sanctuary. Finally there was Oliver, yet another recluse, whom Nate new literally nothing about and honestly hardly ever noticed when he was there.

It seemed that with Nate’s arrival Ashley was finally satisfied with the turnout and gathered everyone’s attention.

“Good Morning everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful week, I know I did. Today we are going to wrapping up the discussion we had last week.”