ROSALIE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 31
Three hours into the party, I could claw out my own eyes. Literally. Figuratively. Allegorically. Inside the neon cage of this church basement, the night is frozen in time, and I’m frozen along with it. Unable to move forward. Trapped in the sticky web of lies that both fill me with doubt and keep me alive. I burrow deeper behind the overstuffed coat rack as if the wall of polyester and wool might protect me. It’s only ten thirty. There’s still an eternity between this moment and the countdown to the ball drop, that saving grace that means we’ll all get to go home. Praise Jesus.
I breathe in the mix of damp wool fibers, sparkling cider, and dust, then I dig out my phone and shoot my girlfriend Paulina one last text.
See you next year!
I try to be happy. Pretend I’m not jealous of her night out dancing with her brother and his friends while I’m confined to the bowels of God’s Grace Fellowship of Christ to ring in the new year with the members of Jesus’ army.
It doesn’t work.
Paulina doesn’t text back. They must already be at the club, where it’s too loud to hear, and there’s probably no reception anyway. I slip my phone into the back pocket of my stiff dress slacks where I can feel it vibrate, just in case, then push myself up off the coat room floor. I’ve been hiding in here too long; people will notice. My parents will notice. I reach my arms toward the ceiling, stretch out the kinks. Then, hair check: still styled. Shirt check: slightly wrinkled, but passable. I slip off my glasses and rub the lenses against someone’s coat sleeve until they shine. Then I slip the boxy blue frames back across the bridge of my nose. Deep breath. I can do this.
Back in the event hall, I look around for my little sister, Lily. The finished basement beneath the titanic evangelical chapel isn’t fancy, but it’s proportionately big. And crowded. Pretty much every member of the Fellowship is here tonight, hundreds of believers mingling over cookies or stationed around card tables, chatting earnestly for hours on end. Which is to say, no one would have missed me tonight, but other plans were not an option. The church gathering is the only acceptable New Year’s celebration for the Bell daughters, and my parents’ word is law.
Finally, the rose-pink flash of Lily’s dress catches my eye. Two boys in miniature dress pants and miniature ties are chasing my sister and another girl. One catches the tail end of Lily’s sash in his hand, and she squeals before disappearing with her friends through the door to the kitchen.
For the second time tonight, I try not to be jealous. Of Lily’s youth. Her innocence. Her unfettered ability to just enjoy the party. Maybe she’ll be lucky. Maybe for her, the Fellowship’s path will be easy. Maybe she’ll never have to learn how rigid and airless these walls can be for anyone who doesn’t fit the scripture’s mold.
I believe in God. And I like girls. They’re not switches you can flip on or off, pieces of me you can take or leave. But the Fellowship of Christ isn’t just any Christian church. Some evangelical congregations are moderate or even progressive, but the FOC is one of the most reverent, most dogmatic. And the Fellowship teaches that love can only exist between a man and a woman, that it’s God’s plan. We believe scriptures are inspired by God, and to stray is to fall short of His glory. We. They. It’s not that simple.
With Lily out of sight, I’m forced to look around for someone else to talk to. Or somewhere else to hide. The event hall is absolutely packed with bodies, but I don’t have any friends here. Friends treat you like an equal, like a person. This congregation has only ever treated me with concern at best and fear at worst. For four years now, they’ve tried to cleanse me. To guide me on the path to eternal life. I used to believe—really believe—they had my best interests at heart. That their love was God’s love, and if I opened myself up to enough of it, it might save me.
On the worst days, I still can’t shake the voice that says, What if they’re right? What if you’re going to hell?
I walk over to the cookie and juice table to give myself something to do. All the women in the congregation baked for tonight. There must be ten different varieties of bars—lemon, pecan pie, coconut—and every possible chocolate chip option known to man: nuts, no nuts, gluten free, sugar free, vegan. I don’t have much of an appetite, so I grab a bottle of orange juice instead. The cap unscrews with a satisfying twist.
“Rosalie.” I feel my mom’s firm, steady presence even before she speaks. We look as unrelated as I feel. My petite frame, dark hair, and bad eyesight all come from my dad’s side, but then again, I don’t feel much of a hereditary bond there either. “There you are. Emily Masters is right over there. Why don’t you go say hello?”
I take a gulp of juice so I don’t have to answer.
Mom frowns, her mouth tugged down into those classic Julia Bell lines of disapproval that I know so well. “You need to make more of an effort, Rosalie.”
This is not a new conversation. Mom’s target is the daughter of one of the most esteemed ecclesiastical ministers across the entire Fellowship of Christ evangelical denomination. Brother Masters is revered nationally for his fervent and compassionate outreach to souls lost in sin. The reputation he developed through his landmark To Seek and Save program is the number one reason my family relocated to Culver Ridge almost four years ago. My mom has been dying to see Emily and me become friends since the instant the moving van pulled up.
The problem is, I have tried to be friendly, and despite what Mom thinks, Emily has zero interest in buddying up to the weird, “confused” girl whose affections might turn ungodly at the bat of an eye. I am the furthest thing from attracted to her, but I know exactly how she sees me. Ill. A pariah. Possibly contagious.
“I don’t think Emily and I have a lot in common,” I say quietly. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I’m causing trouble. I should just say okay and drop it.
Mom places her hands squarely on my shoulders and turns me to face her. Her touch makes me flinch. There’s a grit about her, a fierce righteousness that demands my focus. Emily is the church, and therefore Emily is good. The right kind of influence. Mom locks her eyes into mine. “I’d like to see you try to have more in common. Understood?”
I turn my gaze toward Emily. She’s sitting across the room on a plastic folding chair, talking to Beth Clark, a junior who follows her around like a puppy. I’ve always gotten the sense that Emily likes the attention more than she likes Beth, but who am I to judge. I don’t really know these girls. Emily lifts her hands to gather back her hair, then lets it fall down her shoulders. She has the kind of luscious blond tresses that I used to covet when I was too little to know anything about being my own person. Tonight her head sparkles almost unnaturally in the neon basement lights. I reach up automatically and touch my sharply frayed bangs. Now, I wouldn’t trade my short, jagged cut for anything. My parents don’t love it, but they haven’t made me grow it out yet either.
I could try my heart out, but Emily Masters and I will never be friends. I imagine looking into her pale blue eyes and perfect pink lips and telling her all my secrets. What happened in middle school. Why my parents pulled me out. How I was homeschooled for a year, why we moved across the state to Culver Ridge the summer before ninth grade.
I shudder thinking about the secrets she already knows—or thinks she knows. Emily made it perfectly clear as soon as we arrived in Culver Ridge that, as Brother Masters’s daughter, she knew all about my history. My “struggle.” Her tone, the way she reached for my shoulder as she spoke and almost—but didn’t quite—touch it, spoke volumes. I’m almost positive she’s the reason the whole congregation seemed to think they could see down to my very soul from the moment my parents guided me through the God’s Grace doors.
Emily might know some facts about me—the stints in counseling, the summer at Camp Eternal Light—but she doesn’t know the first thing about being Rosalie Bell. Emily’s never been made to feel subhuman by people who think they speak a higher truth, who fervently believe their principles come straight from God’s mouth. She’s only been on the other end of that spite.
Some days, I feel dead inside. And others—days like today—the anger courses like a current through my veins. I used to blame my parents for everything they put me through, everything they believe. Now I take the anger, curl it up into a ball inside my stomach, save it all for the Fellowship. It keeps me focused on living one more day, and another, and another, until eventually I can leave this place behind.
I turn back to my mom. “Understood.” I’ve put this off as long as possible. That I would go talk to Emily was never really up for debate.
Mom smiles. Julia Bell’s evangelical conviction that I’ve been cured, that I’ve received Christ’s gift of salvation, keeps her hopeful that her daughter might legitimately befriend a pastor’s daughter. Part of me feels guilty for deceiving her. The other part of me knows that deception is the only thing keeping me together with my family, with Lily, keeping me with Paulina, keeping a roof over my head, keeping me alive.
Mom gives me a gentle shove on my behind like I’m a toddler, and I walk toward Emily and Beth, the orange juice bottle clutched so tight in my fists that the plastic bites my skin.
“Happy New Year,” I mumble, grateful for the stock conversation starter.
Beth keeps talking like she didn’t hear me, but Emily glances up and gives me a tight smile. She is nothing if not polite, at least on the surface.
“Have you made your resolutions, Rosalie?” Emily manages to make even the most standard question feel loaded. “I’m sure my father would be willing to meet, if you’re . . . struggling. His door is open to every member of God’s Grace.”
“I’m good, thanks.” It takes all my willpower not to tell her to shove her condescension where the sun doesn’t shine. But blowing up at Emily Masters would hurt me way more than it would hurt her. Within Fellowship walls, I can’t afford to make any mistakes. My everything depends on my ability to keep it together.
“How about you, Beth?” I turn to the younger girl, bringing her into the conversation as if we’re just three FOC kids having a regular chat.
“Yeah, sure.” She leans physically away from me, dismissing me with the whole of her being.
I can’t do this. I take a step back. “Well, have a nice evening,” I say. “I hope the new year brings you all of His blessings.”
As I turn, I’m pretty sure I hear them both laugh. I know Mom’s watching from across the room, silently admonishing me for not trying hard enough, for coming up short. Again. I need to get away from them, their laughter, the sear of Mom’s eyes on the back of my head. I’m letting my feet carry me fast toward the coat room, the bathroom, anywhere, when I feel my phone buzzing in my back pocket. I push through the door to the women’s room. It’s mercifully empty. I lock myself in a stall and check my texts.
Do you have any idea how much I miss you right now? 
Sweet. But definitely not Paulina. I hesitate before typing back.
There’s a church basement full of people out on Rural Route 12 just dying to meet you.
Which I can say only because he would never actually show up.
I wish I could whisk you away.
I laugh, picturing Carter Shaw rolling up here in his Mercedes to rescue me from the saved souls of Culver Ridge. In reality, Carter’s place is with his girlfriend, Amanda, at that superposh party their parents throw, and he knows it. Besides, Carter doesn’t actually want to be here. With me, sure. But not here. Twenty minutes outside Logansville, Culver Ridge calls itself a suburb, but it’s barely even that. More rural than suburban, the landscape is home to cows, chickens, and the mostly white, mostly working poor. There are three shops within walking distance from my house: a CVS; a liquor store that also sells ice cream out of a Plexiglas window in the summer; and Margarita’s, a take-out pizza joint home to West Virginia’s soggiest crust. O’Malley’s, the catch-all discount store, is a ten-minute drive, and there’s no grocery store, so whatever you can’t get at CVS or from a roadside stand means a trip into Logansville.
Carter does not belong here. Not in Culver Ridge, and certainly not in the basement of the most reverent fundamentalist Fellowship in northern Appalachia. What he wants is fun Rosalie. Date night Rosalie. Rock-show-going, junk-food-eating, devil-may-care Rosalie. His slice of adolescent deviance, his escape from all the responsibilities that come with being Carter Shaw: a college-to-career pipeline, money and property and prestige, Amanda Kelly.
It’s been almost exactly four months since we met, since Carter became the smoke screen keeping me out of the phony, destructive kind of “therapy” my parents think delivered me back to God’s path. In March, I’ll turn eighteen, and in May, I graduate. Staying far away from church counseling for a few more months is my number one priority. It has to be. Even though I’m deceiving Carter, who thinks we’re for real—and inclination for cheating aside, he is a pretty nice guy. Kind. Caring. Someone I might actually be friends with, if things were different. And there’s no denying how much pain I’d cause his girlfriend if she ever found out. Or how I’m putting Paulina in an impossible position, asking her to let things between Carter and me be okay for now, just for now. When I think about it too much, the guilt starts to slosh around in my gut, nestles up against the ball of anger I’m keeping there.
I draw in a deep breath that does nothing to quiet my jangling nerves. My phone is buzzing again.
I bet you smell amazing. I can’t wait to see you again.
Yup, see you Thursday
Then I wonder if my text sounded a little harsh, so I add a green heart emoji.
I’ll text you again before midnight, okay?
Before midnight. Of course. Not at midnight, because then he’ll be with Amanda. Pressing his lips against her lips and guzzling Dom Pérignon from crystal champagne flutes with Logansville’s old-money Republicans in their lavish dresses and suits. I tell myself they’re so steeped with privilege, so untouchable, I could never possibly hurt them. That whatever arrangement they have, Amanda’s okay with it. But I know a lie when I hear one. The guilt gives another slosh, just for good measure.
Don’t get in trouble.
The clock on my phone reads 11:29. I should probably actually pee and then get back out to the party. One more half hour, and then we can finally go home.
But when I open the door, I know I can’t face the event hall again. I can see my dad across the room, twirling Lily in circles. She spins around, and around, and around, her giggles pitched high with delight. I want to run over to them. I want to laugh like that, dizzy and delirious. But I can’t fake happy anymore tonight. I can feel my mask slipping and my resolve slipping with it. If I were a better person, maybe I could figure out how to just be content and grateful to be here tonight with my family.
The thought stops me in my tracks. Those aren’t my words. A cold chill runs down my spine, the familiar premonition of an old memory that wants to be shaken loose. A memory belonging to a cold church office or sweltering camp rec room, both options equally petrifying. Both threatening to drag my mind somewhere I can’t let it take me. Not now. Not with all these people around. I jam my fingertips into my temples, will the memories to stay lodged deep in the recesses of my mind where they belong.
Before I can lose this fight, I turn around and take the hall all the way to the end. I don’t even stop to grab my coat before running up the stairs. At the top, I turn away from the mega-chapel and head instead for the doors at the back. Outside, the cold air is a shock to my bare arms. It’s always too hot in the basement, but out here it’s appropriately freezing for the last day of December. I don’t mind. I lean back against the concrete wall of the church and watch my breath stream out in front of me in white wisps, then disappear. My glasses fill with fog, and I take them off, close my eyes. I draw the air in, then out, try to get my breathing under control. My mind back in the present. In, then out. The cold air makes me feel clean. Like I’m freshly scrubbed, and each breath is polishing my insides until they shine. I picture my body stretching out across the blue glass surface of a winter lake. It’s just me, and no one’s poking or prodding or judging. It’s all going to be okay. It’s silent. It’s perfect.
The door bangs behind me, snapping me back to reality. I nod to Mr. Hagan, stepping outside for a smoke.
“Rosalie,” he says.
“Happy New Year, Mr. Hagan. Did you and Mrs. Hagan have a good trip to Baltimore?”
“We did.” He keeps a good five feet between us. “She’s still there with the kids. Marcy and Brian gave us a new grandbaby for the holidays. Born right on Jesus’ birthday. A real miracle.”
“You must feel very blessed.”
“We are,” he replies, staring straight at me. “Family is a blessing. New life is a blessing.” He stops there, but his unspoken words hang in the air between us: A union between a man and a woman is a blessing.
“Well, happy New Year,” I say again. Mercifully, he nods and continues on away from the church, into the parking lot, to light up his cigarette.
Alone again, I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes until my phone buzzes, a text from Carter, as promised, wishing me a happy New Year. I tap out a quick reply. Maybe someday, when all of this is behind us and I’m living in Pittsburgh with Paulina, maybe Carter and I could really be friends. But probably not.
It’s 11:55. All up and down the East Coast, people are cozying up to their loved ones at house parties or bars, fingers laced with fingers, bare skin brushing against bare skin, setting off sparks. Champagne breath mingling with champagne breath.
Carter doesn’t write back, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not Carter I want here with me tonight. Downstairs, the giant flat screen is switched on. Cheers and the bright chime of bells filter out into the night air. My family is gathering together to watch the ball descend on Times Square. I should go in. I should join them. But it’s easier out here, alone. It’s midnight, and for a moment, I don’t have to pretend. Out here, the world is perfectly still.