Finally My Forever Read Free Page B

out. It took me a second to realize he was crying. He made this sound as he breathed out and then he took a shaky breath in. Once again, a long, wheezing cry came out with his face still covered by his hand.
    I glanced at Joan desperate for some help, but she kept right on painting. Thomas let out a few more high-pitched wails before wiping his eyes and trying to compose himself.
    He regarded me with a pitiful, tear-soaked face.
    "Behold…" he said. Another long, wheezing wail. "John said, Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." His face was contorted with the effort to hold back tears and his voice was much higher than normal as he said the last part of that verse. He regarded me afterward as if he was gauging how affected I was.
    "Is that the whole verse?" I asked. I didn't know what else to say. It seemed really short, and I honestly didn't understand how he was so touched by the simple line he'd just recited.
    "Didn't you hear it?" he asked, looking at me as if he was wondering why I wasn't crying.
    "Was it just that John saw Jesus and said, Behold, the—"
    Thomas cut in, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the…" He lowered his head and breathed out a wheezing cry again. "The world," he concluded after that cry was out of his system.
    I glanced at Joan, who still had her back to us being no help whatsoever.
    "That's pretty cool," I said.
    "It's the most beautiful Bible verse ever," he said. "It's the only thing we need to believe—the one truth we need most of all." He stared at me as if trying to see if I suddenly understood. "God could have been born a big tough guy like with muscles like Micah. He coulda come to earth and punched everybody out who didn't listen to Him." He paused, but continued, "But instead he chose to be born a lamb—" And there it went again. He sank his face into his hand and let out that high-pitched wail.
    Joan was still no help, and I looked around wondering what in the world I could do or say.
    "Was Micah another person in the Bible?" I asked, in an attempt to distract him. I knew there was a guy in the Bible who was known for his strength, and I assumed after what Thomas said, that he was talking about Micah, which sounded like a Bible name. It was my best bet for trying to distract him from this Lamb verse that made him cry so much.
    He had tears streaming down his face, but he looked at me with a big smile. "Micah's in the Bible, but I was talking about my baby brother."
    "Oh, you have a baby brother named Micah?" I asked. He smiled and nodded, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his face. I had a towel hanging from my back pocket that Mr. Bennett had given me for drips. I hadn't used it for paint, so I took it out and used it to dry Thomas' cheeks. I sort of expected him to take it from me and do it himself, but he just waited while I patted the tears from his face.
    "I wouldn't call Micah a baby," Joan chimed in, finally.
    Thomas glanced her way. "He's fifteen months younger than me," he said. "He's nineteen and I'm twenty."
    "Yeah but that doesn't make him a baby," she said.
    "I'm turning twenty-one soon," he said, trying to strengthen his case. Joan just kept painting and Thomas looked at me. "Do you know my baby brother?"
    I shook my head indicating that I didn't, and without hesitation, he grabbed me by the hand.

 
    Chapter 3
     
     
    I really didn’t feel like being there in the first place, much less being dragged across the house to play meet and greet. I had been so frustrated with my parents about making me come that I'd barely even looked in a mirror beforehand.
    "My brother's outside making the patio," Thomas said, pulling me down the hallway. "The stones are really heavy, so I can't help with that. My dad said I have to stay out of his way."
    "It sounds like he's busy," I said. "Maybe I can just meet him later."
    "No, you can meet him now," he assured me. "We just can't help with the stones. But that's okay because you still have more