Hana's POV

I just can't express how good it felt to be home and spend time with my family, my friends, and my friends' families. College was great for the learing, being independent, and meeting new friends aspect, but the long hours, stress, mediocre food, and the "not quite right" beds you get I could do without.

Mary seemed to have gotten over my accidental reading of her diary pretty quickly. We had hung out pretty much every day so far on break. Her siblings were a lot of fun to play with and we watched quite a few movies with her oldest younger siblings. I loved the business her house offered with all the people coming and going all the time, while I'm sure she much preferred the quiet of mine. 

Jae had been keeping me busy with wedding and shower planning, since I had gotten back too. It was really nice spending so much time with Jae because our age difference and with her being away at college for so long didn't allow us to see each other much. It was fun seeing her so happy and excited to get married to Robert -their meeting was so cute after all!

Robert and a friend were at a Christian music concert that Jae and a friend were at. Their groups just happened to run into each other and they ended up standing next to each other. The two of them visited a little bit in between songs. Jae's friend wanted to leave a little early so they could beat traffic, and Jae asked to borrow a pen from Robert.

She tried to scribble her number on his hand, but the pen didn't work. Embarassed she tried to run away from him, but he told her to wait and pulled out his phone. He got her number and they started talking the next day. It turned out Robert was also a Medical Student at her college only in the class ahead of her. They started dating, and the rest is history!

Matt seems to be keeping his promises of no drinking and has been pretty respectful. He wanted to come up to live by me for the summer, so Robert said he could stay at his place and finish out the lease he had after he gets married to Jae. He got a job at a local newspaper office as a intern helping edit the paper and doing some little articles under his supervisor's instruction. We either talked, skyped, or hung out in person almost every day too.

I invited Matt to church, but he always seemed to come up with an excuse to not go. I didn't really push it though because I had only made him promise to go to CRU with me. In the back of my mind I started thinking 'How will this ever work if we get married and have a family? I don't want to disobey God because it says not to marry an unbeliever, but what if Matt's my only chance at love? I don't want to end up alone. What should I do?'

We went to a few parties together with Mary and Kris that were with old high school friends. I was proud that Matt didn't attempt to drink, but he kept trying to persuade me one little drink wouldn't be all that bad. One night I was sick of his badgering and gave in. I regretted it the next day with the awful hangover I had. 

Mary didn't drink at all after what she had been through at Christmastime. Most people didn't know what had happened and they about being pregnant since she wasn't drinking. To make things worse they kept asking her and Kris how the two of them were doing -apperently they hadn't gotten the memo that Mary & Kris hadn't gotten back together even though they had come to the party as a part of our little group. Mary was having trouble hiding her emotions with each comment in passing. 

Matt and I stayed until 1 am, but Kris offered to take Mary home around 11 when she couldn't take the comments anymore. My parents were not too happy about how late Matt was keeping me out and especially that I had drank underaged. I fought with them that I was an adult and could do what I wanted. 'What is happening to me? I never used to be like this, and I never wanted to make my relationship with my parents go bad. I need to fix this fast, but how?'

I went out for lunch with Jae a few days later on one of her off days. We mostly talked about the wedding, but I finally worked up the courage to talk to her about what was happening.

"Jae, I need your advice." I said.

"What about Nana?" she asked -Nana was my nickname when I was little because I couldn't say the h sound until I was bigger.

"Mmmmm I don't really know where to begin." I said sighing.

"Boy troubles I'm assuming?" to which I nodded.

"Yeah, you know Matt's not a christian and I've been trying to get him to come with me to church and stuff, but he doesn't seem too interested. He agreed to come with to CRU after our little incident at the end of the semester, but I think he was going for more of the social aspect than anything. God doesn't want us to marry an unbeliever, but what if he's my only chance at love?"

"Incident? What incident?" she asked curiously. 

"I didn't tell you did I?" I said a little sheepishly -I hadn't told my family because I didn't want them to find out about what had happened and I wanted to deal with it on my own. 

"No, what happened?"

I took a deep breath "Matt saw me giving Kris a hug because I was happy that he had accepted Christ as his Savior. He got mad, beat up kris, and just about me because he was drunk."

"How could he? How dare he think about even coming near you again? You need to break up with him now! Why didn't you tell this to me before?" her face was a mixture of shock and anger.

"I was afraid of how you'd react and I wanted to figure this out myself." I said with teary eyes.

She came over to my side of the booth and put her arm around me "Cry it out Nana, cry it out. Nana, I know you want to spread your wings and try to do things on your own, but God gave you family to lean on and get advice from for a reason."

"I know." I sniffled.

"I'm going to tell mom and dad about what happened."

"No! Don't!" I pleaded.

"It's for your own good." she firmly told me

"No it's NOT! Why does everyone think they know what's best for me?" I stormed off in tears. 

She followed after me and grabbed my arm "Nana! NAna! NANA STOP! Let's talk about this."

"No! I don't want to! You all are the same!" I icily jerked my arm away.

"Please Nana. We're doing this because we care about you."

I stood there with my eyes closed and took a big breath -'I didn't want to be astranged from Jae too.' "Fine." I reluctantly agreed.

"Let's go to the park." she stated walking toward the nearest one we always used to go to when she took me on sister dates. We found a bench and sat in silence for a few moments until she started speaking.

"Nana, aren't you afraid Matt will do something like that again?"

"A little, but that's why I made an agreement with him about us staying together only if he follows my rules."

"Still Nana, like you said God doesn't want Christians to be unequally yolked for good reason. We have different morals and beliefs than them and being involved with them can cause us to stray from God."

"Yeah, but what if Matt's my only chance at love?"

"If God truly wants you and Matt to be together he'll bring Matt to Christ somehow, but I don't think you should stay with him until he's made that comittment in word and deeds. Who knows? Maybe God has someone else in mind for you instead, and being in a relationship with Matt has blinded you to their exhistance?"

"How can I break up with Matt? I don't want to be alone!"

"You can and how many years have you survived without a boyfriend?"

"A lot, but now it's different!"

"Yeah, it's tough getting out of a bad relationship, but if you want to find someone who's God's choice you need to focus on your relationship with Him first. Do you remember Josh that I used to date?"

"Yeah?"

"His relationship with me was similar to yours and Matt's. At first he was all nice and sweet, but then he became controlling. I should have known when it escalated to verbal abuse and before I knew it he was physically assaulting me too. Mom and dad begged me to leave him, but I didn't listen because I was afraid to be alone like you.

"One night he was drunk and had beaten me up pretty badly. Then he me." Jae started crying -I had never seen her so emotional and now I realized why she had worn long sleeves all the time that year. "He stripped me of my clothes. Taped my mouth shut, so I couldn't scream, and took advantage of me."

"I broke off contact with him after that, and I found myself pregnant 6 weeks later. I had an abortion." she started sobbing. "I just found out last week that because of the abortion my uterus was damaged to the point that it's unlikely I'll ever be able to have another child. I've told Robert and he's been so understanding about this. We're hoping to adopt several children a couple years after we get married."

"Do mom and dad know about all of that?"

"I told mom about the abortion, but I haven't told her I probably won't be able to have kids yet. -I don't know how to tell her that the only chance of having a grandbaby from me was the child that I foolishly got rid of years ago."

"You have time to tell her and I'm sure she'll understand Jae"

"Do you understand now why I'm concerned about your safety and want to tell mom about what happened with Matt?"

"Yes. Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't want to ruin your perception of men and Matt seemed like an okay guy. Promise me you'll consider breaking up with Matt for a while. The right guy should bring you closer to God and not make you drift farther away."

"I will Jae, I will." I agreed. 'I'll just stick out the relationship until we're back into the school year and then see where we're at. What harm could there be in that? I can seek God on my own and hopefully some of it will rub off on Matt. Maybe he'll start to go to church if I pester him enough? I'm going to try to fix things with my parents too -I hope they understand where I'm coming from.'