ROSALIE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5
I sing Grace VanderWaal with Lily on the way to the bus stop. We hold hands and belt as loud as we dare, eyes flashing to the neighbors’ windows as we pass by. No one complains. They never do. Houses in Culver Ridge are spaced far apart and set back from the road in an uneven jigsaw of crumbling wood and siding, fenced-off dog runs, and the odd piece of farm equipment left out to rust. We keep to the sidewalk, then hug the outskirts of trampled lawns when the sidewalk runs out.
“She’s coming to Pittsburgh in May,” Lily says when we finish our off-key rendition. “On tour.”
My heart sinks. “You know we can’t go, right, Lils?” Unless it’s a Christian rock band touring the Fellowship circuit, transforming the God’s Grace mega-chapel into an arena for Jesus, concerts are strictly off-limits.
“I know.” Her voice is soft.
“Maybe they’ll make a TV special,” I suggest, halting our walk to squat down at eye level. Her mittened hands are warm in mine. Not that it’d be likely to air on local access. But I could probably get us permission to watch at a friend’s. “If they do, I’ll bake Rice Krispie treats. We’ll make it a party.”
She grins. “Deal.” We keep walking.
Culver Ridge isn’t populous enough to get its own school district, so we’re bussed even farther into the sticks with kids from four nearby townships to Greater Logansville elementary, middle, and high. The three schools share one plot of land—“the pasture”—in the township of Logan Mills. Not that it’s pastoral. Think lowest percentile rankings in most measures of academic success in the Northern Panhandle. Think shared lockers. Think five sports teams, one coach. The pasture is just a training ground for the next generation of West Virginia poor kids.
The little kids’ bus does its pickup twenty minutes before the bus to the high school. When we arrive at the stop, which services both the school and public routes, I’m surprised to see Miss Larkin waiting. The teachers mostly carpool, but she must not have a ride today. She beckons us over with a friendly wave.
Miss Larkin teaches fourth-grade science, which I only know because she’s former FOC. In Fellowship circles, that makes her infamous. Parishioners who publicly reject the Fellowship’s teachings are essentially exiled in a practice called Ecclesiastical Extradition. If the unbeliever is thought to be a poisonous influence, the church compels the family to sever ties.
Our first year in Culver Ridge, she reached out to me. I guess I’m a little infamous in FOC circles too. I stopped by her classroom, once. She told me she was Extradited from a congregation in Missouri. When I asked why she chose to make Culver Ridge her new home, she said it was for the job, and we left it at that. I’ve seen her with a guy, a boyfriend or fiancé, and I wonder if he’s Christian. If he’s the reason she left the church, denounced it, if it was worth it to never speak to her family again. She let me know she was there, if I ever wanted to talk. Mostly, I’ve been too nervous to be seen anywhere near her.
When I look at Miss Larkin, I see my future. Someday, I’ll slip up. Someday, I’ll no longer be able to keep my identity under wraps. I’m going to keep trying, for as long as I can, but someday, that shunned unbeliever could be me. I grasp Lily’s hand tight, hold on.
We chat for a couple minutes, and I’m overwhelmed by the same feeling that always hits when I see her: I want to ask her everything, and just as hard, I want to run far away. When their bus comes, she looks over her shoulder, her eyes repeating her offer: If you ever want to talk . . .
I get Lily on board with a kiss and a wave, then wait. Shivering in the cold bite of early January and burrowing deep into my coat, I stamp my feet back and forth, watch the storefronts across the street. It’s still early; neither CVS nor the liquor store is open, but there are already cars in the lot they share. Waiting. People need to fill prescriptions before work. People need bread and peanut butter. People need wine, vodka, rum.
Normally, I like this pause before the rest of the high schoolers arrive. It’s quiet, just me and the cars in the lot. There’s nothing to negotiate, no compromises. But today, skin still crackling and pricking with Carter’s touch, another unwanted memory starts to unspool.
I only went out with Donovan a few times, but I pretended we were still together for weeks after I’d admitted I didn’t like him the same way he liked me. I’d tell my parents I was seeing him, then hang out with Paulina instead. I got careless, forgot how small Culver Ridge is. When my mom ran into his mom in the CVS cosmetics aisle, my lie was exposed. Rosalie? We sure do miss her; it’s too bad things between her and Donovan didn’t work out.
That summer, my parents doubled down on their bid to save me. The familiar chill tingles along my spine, a cold far deeper than January and sharper than a blade of ice, until suddenly, I’m sweating in my winter coat.
I’m sitting in the rec room at Camp Eternal Light, a prayer circle of twenty-six of us sinners. The hot metal folding chair presses against the backs of my legs, making my skin sweat and itch. The single ceiling fan’s thin blades do almost nothing to cut through the deep swelter of the Tennessee summer. My dark green camp shirt clings to my stomach and armpits, the cloth damp where the slogan reads: DELIVERANCE THROUGH GOD’S DESIGN. My parents took out a loan they can’t afford to send me here, a last-ditch investment in my salvation. It’s been three years since my first FOC counseling session, and this time, I know I’m not broken.
Pastor Ray is leading us sinners in prayer. I bow my head and pray for God to reset my moral compass (2 Corinthians 5:17–21). I pray that I might recognize my homosexual behavior as outside God’s plan (Romans 1:25–27, Leviticus 18:22, Genesis 2:24). I pray for the strength to live my life in conformity to scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9–10, 1 Timothy 1:9–10). I pray and pray, and beneath the words I say out loud, I pray for the strength to stay alive. The strength to lie.
I look up, and Pastor Ray’s eyes find mine. They’re filled with fire.
“Rosalie, hey!” Elissa’s voice snaps me back to the bus stop. She wraps her arm tight around my shoulders in a surprise side-hug, and my entire body goes stiff.
“You okay?” she asks, pulling away. Her tight blond curls bounce against her chin, but her face is etched with concern.
“Sorry, fine.” I force a half smile. “You just startled me.”
“Okay good, because I need your advice.” Elissa launches into her history group project woes, and I nod sympathetically until I can shake the memory off, be a good friend.
On the bus, Elissa checks her apps while I stare out the window and picture Carter and Amanda and their fancy friends driving their fancy cars to Logansville South this morning. I asked Carter once, early on, why he didn’t go to prep school. He said his family felt strongly about maintaining a presence in town, that sending their son off to boarding school delivered the wrong kind of message. I guess real estate is all about networking and messaging. I didn’t ask about Amanda because we don’t talk about Amanda. Not after that first time. But I assume she’s at Logansville South for the same reason. She’s part of the “family brand.” Or maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s just because wherever Carter is, that’s where Amanda is too. Don’t think too much.
• • •
Eight hours later, the dismissal bell is ringing and I’m scrambling to get to my locker like everyone else. I have a few friends here—mostly just Paulina and Elissa—but I keep a pretty low profile at school. The less people know about me, the more I blend into the background. It’s safe in the background.
I head out the main entrance and into the pasture. Kids are spilling into waiting busses out front, or walking toward the converted barn between the high school and middle school that houses the mat room and gym. No one’s just milling around outside today; it’s too cold for that. As I cross through the brown, patchy field, grass brittle and crunching beneath my feet, the school buildings grow smaller and smaller at my back. I guess this area could be farmland, but there’s nothing being farmed. It’s just beaten-up weeds, trampled by hundreds of feet, a parking lot, and then a ways out, past the school boundaries, the woods.
That’s where I’m headed today. I cut through the lot, which is practically empty because no one has a car here except some teachers and administrators. Then I’m officially off school grounds. When I’m sure no one’s looking, I slip into the woods. The last bus back to Culver Ridge—the one meant for athletes and other kids staying late for extracurriculars—leaves at six, which means I have almost three hours when I don’t have to be the person I am at school or at home or at church or with Carter. I can be the person I am with Pau. The real me.
There’s a little clearing about ten minutes into the woods. I know the route like it’s a map of my own face. Right before you arrive, there’s an old tree that got hit in a lightning storm years ago. Paulina and I have stashed all sorts of things in its hollowed-out trunk: two mats from the gym, a sleeping bag, pillows wrapped in plastic bags, flashlights. One mat and a pillow are already gone, so I know Pau’s beat me here. I grab a second pillow and head toward the clearing.
“Chyoo-chyoo-chyoo-tseee!” I whistle right before I push through the trees.
“Kicky-chew, kicky-chew, kicky-chew!” Pau whistles back.
Paulina and I both took acting as our elective in ninth grade. Mom thought acting class would be a good way for me to meet people at my new school, and turns out she was right. On the first day, the teacher made us sit in a circle and share one thing that made us special, some talent or skill. Pau and I both said we could do birdcalls. My dad taught me when I was little, and until Pau, I’d never met anyone else my age who knew how to call. Now, we always greet each other with the most ridiculous new calls we can learn. It’s our special thing, just like this clearing is our special place.
Pau’s sitting on the mat, back pressed up against a tree and a cigarette pressed between her lips. Her long, dark hair spills out around her scarf and coat in loose ringlets. Her jeans are cuffed at the ankles, revealing a row of lace eyelets at the top of her socks. Pau calls her style femme-boy, as in half femme, half tomboy. It’s supercute. She takes a drag and blows the smoke out the side of her mouth. I hate that Pau smokes cigarettes, but I don’t really have a bargaining chip.
She plucks the cigarette away from her lips with two bare fingers and waves it abstractly toward the sky. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”
I don’t say the obvious, that she’d be better off stubbing out that cigarette and putting on some gloves. Instead, I plop down next to her and unzip my backpack.
“I brought Smart Pop.”
“Great, I’m starving.”
The two of us can go through a large bag in one sitting. I don’t know how she can eat and smoke at the same time, but I let that slide too.
For a moment, we just sit together on the mat, crunching on popcorn and not talking. I breathe in and out, and it feels like the first real breath I’ve taken all day. When Paulina finishes her cigarette, she leans her head against my shoulder. Her body melts into mine, butter into warm bread.
“Long week?” I ask.
“Technically, I guess it was a short week,” she says. “Only four days. But it felt like an eternity.”
I turn my head and Pau lifts hers from my shoulder, then her lips find mine. Kissing Paulina is like a warm bath on a winter night. A welcoming. A relief. Her lips taste like they always taste—salt and smoke.
“I missed you, Lee-Lee.”
“I know.” I kiss her again, deeper this time. I haven’t seen Pau since Tuesday. Not really, not like this. Wednesday I watched Lily after school and Thursday we both know I was with Carter.
“What did you two do last night?” she asks between flickers of lips and teeth and tongue.
I stop.
“Let’s not do this. Just this once.”
Paulina pulls away and leans back on the mat.
“I hate that you have to have a beard like it’s the freaking nineteen twenties. But I hate not knowing even more.”
“I just don’t see why you need the play-by-play.” My mouth is dry, coated in a thin film of popcorn dust that tastes suddenly stale. I spit into the dry mud and pine needles. One more negotiation.
Paulina reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out her pack. She taps it briskly against the palm of her hand, then slides a fresh cigarette between her fingers and lights it.
“Because,” she says, exhaling a slow stream of smoke, “at least if I know everything, I don’t have to imagine it.”
I sigh deeply and run my gloved fingers through my hair until the strands stick out to the sides. I hate that she’s right. If I had my way, I’d keep Carter Shaw and Paulina Flores completely separate. Carter flung across my body like a human shield, and Pau sealed up tight in the chambers of my heart. I owe Paulina better than Carter and secret clearings in the woods and stories about dates we didn’t go on together. But for now, this is how it has to be. So that in five short months, it can be much, much better.
“We ate cheese fries,” I start. “At the ‘O.’ Then we drove to the South Side to hear this really bad electro-pop band. The show was crap, but you would have liked the scene. A bunch of indie kids, and not all white either. A couple of black guys and even one Latina chick.”
“Cool.” Paulina’s voice is noncommittal, but she really would have liked Milk & Honey. She puts up a tough front, but I know she’s constantly reminded of how white it is in Culver Ridge. She’s practically the only Latinx kid at school now that her older brothers have both graduated. Most of West Virginia is really white. Paulina’s parents are both Mexican-American; her mom’s family has been in the area for decades and her dad moved here for school. They met in college and settled in Culver Ridge for some incomprehensible reason.
“And then what?”
“Huh?” I fiddle with the zipper on my backpack. Paulina knows I’m stalling.
“After the bad electro-pop show with the marginally diverse audience. Then what?”
I stare at the cracked gym mat beneath us, the brown grass poking up through dirt and pine needles. “Then he drove me home. End of story.”
“And?” Paulina presses.
I snap my head up and force myself to look at her. “He kissed me good night. One short kiss. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes. It is.” Paulina smashes her cigarette into the dirt even though it’s only half gone and stares back at me. “Anything else?”
“No!” I practically shout. “That other stuff, it’s just for us, okay? You know that.”
Pau slips her hand into mine. Her bare fingers slide easily between my gloved ones. We fit—sand and salt air, moon and stars. Her voice is soft when she speaks again. “I know you wouldn’t. But trusting you doesn’t mean trusting him. And I don’t trust him around you for one second.”
I squeeze her hand. “Carter Shaw is a cheater and a liar and he’s probably really confused and tortured about how hard it is to be the blond-haired, blue-eyed, cis-het heir to the family fortune.” I grin, and then Paulina giggles, loosening up a bit. “But I know how to handle him, okay?”
Paulina squeezes my hand back. “I know you’re tough, Rosalie. I know you’re a survivor, and you can take care of yourself. But this isn’t about me being jealous, I promise.”
I crunch down on a bite of popcorn and raise my eyebrows.
“Okay, it’s not just me being jealous. You being with Carter—it’s not healthy. It’s, it’s . . .” Her voice trails off and her face twists up. “It’s sick that you have to do something so harmful to keep yourself safe.”
“You’re right,” I say quietly. Because it is harmful. Even though I only see him a few times a month. Even though I keep our dates strictly PG. There’s no way I’m coming out of this unscathed. But whatever harm I’m inflicting pales in comparison to the alternative. My lies are my shield, protecting me from the kind of “therapy” I can never go through again.
“I can’t watch you do this to yourself for five more months,” Pau says. “That’s practically forever.”
“It’s not,” I insist. “You and me, we’re forever. Carter’s just until graduation.”
“What would really happen if you ditched him?” Paulina asks. “There’s a million freaking miles between staying in the closet to protect yourself at home and having a real, live boyfriend.” Her voice is strained, and her lips start to tremble. “I’m just so scared for you.”
I lean in and wrap my arms around her tight. Then I whisper, “I know. But just saying I’m straight now isn’t enough. Carter makes them believe it.”
She pulls away and wipes at her eyes. “This sucks.”
“Trust me, if I broke up with him, the fallout would suck much worse.” My words are bitter, acid and blood. We’re both silent for a moment, thinking about the summer after Donovan, how my missteps triggered all my parents’ fears.
“They can’t send you away again,” Pau says. “Not once you’re eighteen; it’s not legal.”
“There’s ex-gay ministry right here at God’s Grace. And I can’t—” My voice breaks.
“Of course not.” Pau grabs my hands, holds them tight. “I will never let that happen to you again, ever.” Her voice is fierce; it zips straight down my spine. I squeeze her hands back.
I’m alone in the almost-dark. One dim bulb flickers in a plastic fixture overhead. Today, there’s a new wasp trapped inside. It flies into the hot glass, then falls back stunned. I watch it stumble around in a daze for a minute, two, until it falls still next to the bodies of its sisters. My eyes smart from staring into the light. There are four tiny bodies outlined now against the plastic shell. I guess alone is relative.
I stare at the notebook in my hand. Through the light spots dancing across the page, I can barely read the verse I’ve copied out, again and again. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. . . . I flip through the pages. I’ve copied this verse from Romans 1 twenty-eight times now. It’s not nearly enough to earn my passage out of this locked, airless room. My hand throbs, and my legs and butt ache from sitting on the concrete floor. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. Someone brought me breakfast, but they forgot about me at lunch. Forgot or chose to forget. I scoot up against the door and press my ear to the metal. Outside, I can hear voices coming from the chapel. I can’t tell what they’re singing, they’re too far away. My stomach cramps up, and I wrap my arms around my waist. Singing means it’s almost dinnertime. They have to take me to the bathroom, let me eat.
Above me, the new wasp stirs, buzzes, thrashes angrily against her plastic cage. She’s still alive. But the truth convulses in my throat: She’s going to die in there.
I pick up my pen, balance the notebook on top of my knees, and start to write. The wrath of God . . .
Paulina and I hold hands and stare into the trees, remembering. Those dead months—me in Tennessee, her here and no way to reach me—hang in the air around us. Paulina shivers, and I fold her into my chest. Through the padded fabric of my coat, her cheek is a perfect fit against my collarbone.
“You know you can come live with us,” she says finally. It’s not the first time she’s offered her brother Ramon’s old room as a refuge. “In March, the second you’re eighteen.”
“I wish I could.” Pau’s family has always been more than welcoming; I know they’d help me however they can. But leaving home would break my family forever. The Fellowship would turn them against me.
I would lose Lily.
In five months, I’ll be independent. I have enough saved. I’ll move out and start college, keep my family and my personal life far, far apart. It’s going to work because it has to.
Paulina sighs and rests her head back against the tree. “I can’t tell you what to do, and I’m there for you no matter what. But the offer stands.”
“I love you, you know? Only you.”
“I love you too,” Paulina says back, and I know she means it. My parents’ love is laced with fear, but Pau’s love is unconditional. “How much more time do we have?”
I click my phone on to check. “Almost two hours.”
“Wait here.” Paulina disappears for a minute, then returns carrying our sleeping bag from the hollowed-out tree. “That’s plenty of time.”
It’s freezing when I slide off my coat, even under the sleeping bag. In a few minutes, I don’t feel the cold anymore. What I feel is warm and shuddering and loved. Paulina’s lips move across my skin and her hair tickles my legs. I feel free. Finally, for the first time in days, I feel like myself.