Young Adult / Coming of Age / Christian
Date Published: April 14, 2026
Publisher: Clay Bridges Press
When Jay finally seizes a moment of boldness with Nicole, he steps into new territory—only to discover her life is far more complicated than he ever imagined. Maybe he should just focus on basketball. Except Coach Mays seems blind to Jay’s potential, harping only on his flaws.
Caught between pressure, failure, and secrets no one talks about at Sunday school, Jay is forced to wrestle with deeper questions—about who he is, what he believes, and what it really means to be seen, to love, and to become someone worth noticing . . . no matter what.
What makes it unique:
This book provides a practical way for teens to engage with difficult questions and feel seen in the struggles they’re facing, while also being educational and presenting hard truths everyone will have to wrestle with. It helps the reader ask tough questions about who they are, who they want to be, where they want to go in life, and who they want to bring along on the journey.
The engaging characters and witty conversation pull in the reader and command attention and focus. This is not a story that will be read and quickly forgotten. Unlike generic "coming of age" books, No Matter What tackles the struggles of adolescence with taste and decency, allowing the reader to think and feel throughout the story without becoming unnecessarily uncomfortable or awkward.
We threw out and discussed a few more names, but my mind
started to wander back to who I really liked. I got quiet for a few moments,
then looked at John and asked, “What do you think about… Nicole Ellis?”
“She was
my neighbor when I was in kindergarten through third grade, so I used to know
her really well,” John replied. “She moved to a new house with her mom after
her parents got divorced and switched elementary schools. I haven’t been around
her much since we’ve been going to the same school again.”
Now I had
to decide whether to play her off as just another name or to reveal what I was
really feeling. “Well,” I stammered, “I’ve had a lot of classes with her the
last couple of years. I think she’s pretty, um…” I gulped. “Solid.”
John
stared out the window as he spoke, using the same tone he had for the last few
names we brought out. “Yeah, she’s smart. And I think every guy has liked her
at some point. I think that she’s…”
Our eyes
finally met and he stopped. Suddenly he knew that she wasn’t just another name
I was tossing out. I was breaking out of theory and the hypothetical and
getting real. I averted my eyes and chuckled nervously.
After a
few moments of awkward silence, John grinned. “So Nicole Ellis, huh? How long
has this been going on?”
“Um, to
tell you the truth,” I confessed, “probably most of the last five years.
Especially the last year or so, since we’ve been in classes so much together.”
Even though we’d never opened up about this type of thing before, I was sort of
embarrassed my best friend didn’t know about something that had been weighing
so heavily on my heart for so long.
John
didn’t seem offended, just thoughtful. “I hear she’s a good girl,” he said,
finally nodding his head in approval. “Kat still knows her pretty well. I don’t
think she’s a big partier. She’s dated a few different guys, but she hasn’t
gotten too serious with any of them.”
A feeling
of relief came over me. Relief from getting this out to someone other than just
Roger, from having John’s endorsement, and, I had to admit, from hearing a
report on what she was like outside of school, something I realized in that
moment I knew nothing about.
Relief
turned into an outpouring of words. The dam of privacy and pride had been
breached, and I told John everything—the first meeting in the cafeteria line,
the way her smile made me feel then and now, how she had been kind to me when I
still had my glasses, and how laughing with her in class was the highlight of
my day. (I stopped short of telling him about the Letter, though. I was still
trying to convince myself that it never happened.)
As I
finished with all this gushing, all John could do was smile, but he wasn’t
making fun of me. “Wow, you’ve really got it bad,” he said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
One thing
that made John a good friend is that he would never leave me hanging. I had
opened up my heart to him, and, as hard as it was for him, he wasn’t going to
leave me out there alone in my vulnerability. His eyebrows suddenly lowered as
he looked down, deep in thought.
“Do you
remember Rachel Mathis?” he asked. Sure, I remembered Rachel. She started
attending my old church, where John still went, right before my family
switched.
“The
soccer player? Does she still go to Memorial Baptist?” Rachel was about an inch
shorter than John, well-built and athletic, with light brown hair in tight
curls cut just above her shoulders. I
thought she was cute when I met her, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to get to
know her.
“Yeah,
she still goes most of the time.” John was back to mumbling through his teeth.
“I tutored her in math a little bit last spring. She had a boyfriend at the
time, and it kind of pissed him off. Nothing was going on, but it did help me
to get to know her better.”
“So are
you telling me you like her?”
John let
out an exasperated sigh, fighting to open up and admit to me—and maybe to
himself—for the first time that he really did like someone. “I mean, yeah, I
guess. She works hard, stays in shape, gets good grades, and we go to church
together. She smiles at me a lot, but it never seems like she’s smiling about
how quiet I am or anything. And, uh…” (for some reason this last part seemed to
pain him to most to say out loud) “I like her hair.”
I
couldn’t help but laugh. Then he started laughing, too. It was the kind of
cathartic laugh that only two best friends who understood the unspoken context
around a situation could have. We were awkward and we were clueless, but we
knew we were safe with each other.
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