Matt squats down in front of my hiding place. He’s never been in this building before, and I’m on the second floor, outside the Sunday school rooms, under the costume rack.
“How did you find me?”
“God showed me the way.”
In spite of myself, I laugh. Matt scoots around and tucks himself in beside me. The coat racks up here are low, full of kid costumes, and deep underneath. Youth group kids hide here all the time when playing sardines during a lock-in sleepover. Some of the older kids even come here to make out. Now I’m here with Matt and the irony does not escape me.
Matt leans against the bin of nativity-play props beside me. He sits silent, waiting for me to speak, maybe.
“I can’t be here. I tried to tell them.”
“Your sister just died,” he says. “What do they expect?”
“It’s not about that,” I confess.
“Yeah, I know.”
Sitting in this place, memories assail me. Lock-ins. The nativity play. I used to love coming to church and doing all the things. I read scriptures at the Easter service. I gave the sermon last year on Youth Sunday. I’m the youngest person ever to serve on the worship committee. I’m little Mr. Church. Ask anyone.
My head rests on my knees. I barely know who I am without a handful of Sunday obligations to be excited about. It’s like a seventh of my life got erased of all meaning the moment Matt Rincorn first touched my shoulder and smiled.
Is that what makes this feeling a sin? To have encountered something so all-consuming it steals the very light of God from my eyes? Do straight people not get so completely caught up in each other?
“I get that you can’t be all buddy-buddy with God with all that shit going on,” Matt says.
“I used to be able to pretend. I used to try so hard to be right. To not think sinful thoughts. To never act on them.”
My body shakes with the chill of admitting these things, in the stillness, under the coats. Strains of what must be the final hymn vibrate the floor. When the service ends, the children will come running. It’s advent season, which means they’ll soon be assigned their roles in the nativity play. We have to get out of here.
“Wait, how did you really find me?”
“I followed you,” he says. “And once I knew where to find you, I went back to tell your folks everything was fine and you just had to go to the bathroom.”
“Thanks.” My forehead feels clammy against my palm. “I have to stop by the coffee hour.” The thought of the grinning elders, the handclaps on my shoulder, the awkward hugs and platitudes—it’s nearly unbearable.
“I’ll go,” Matt says. “I got this.”
“They’re gonna—”
Matt touches my cheek and my words disintegrate. He fishes his car keys out of his pocket. “No, really,” he says. “I got it. Go wait in the car.”