22

I TRACKED HIM DOWN. Showed up outside his dance studio this morning.

The building was a glass-walled space on a busy Bushwick street corner. Mirrors lined the far wall of the room so that passersby could see their own reflections behind those of the dancers. I stood there, watching myself watch Rashad. He darted back and forth at the front of the room, yelling to the people who leaped and spun in front of him. I caught his gaze and he jumped in surprise. Like he’d seen a ghost.

He squinted in my direction, then waved his arms at the dancers. They stopped and retreated to various corners of the room to grab their water bottles and stretch. Rashad clenched his jaw, exited the building, and marched toward me.

“What the hell are you doing here, Jonah?”

“I . . . I wanted to see you.”

“I know.” He sighed.

I’ve spent over a week in isolation. I’m losing my fucking mind. I have no job, no friends, no life, nothing to fill my days. All I have is time—infinite and empty and terrifying time. I needed someone, something, outside of my apartment. So I texted the one person who could, perhaps, restore my faith in humanity, my faith in anything other than a vengeful God. “You never returned my texts,” I murmured.

“I know,” he repeated, more firmly.

There were a few times Rashad contacted me over the years, attempting to reconnect. I deflected or ignored his every communication, hiding behind the emotional walls I’d erected after that summer. I preferred to watch his life unfold from a safe distance via various social media feeds. Rashad left Perdition shortly after I did. Petra—his indie-rapper roommate and artistic collaborator—parlayed her MySpace fame into a lucrative record deal and hired Rashad as her exclusive choreographer/creative director. Petra soared to international stardom, and Rashad became a minor celebrity in his own right, creating pieces for other pop stars and eventually opening his own dance studio. A pang of regret clamped my heart with each sighting of his smiling face on my phone or laptop, his social media posts celebrating yet another professional success or life milestone. A series of what-ifs always run through my mind: What if I’d never gone to the Hamptons that summer? What if I’d dated Rashad instead?

Who would I be without Richard?

Who could I have been with Rashad?

“I wanted to talk . . .” I continued, drifting off nervously.

“About what, Jonah?”

“I’m going through a hard time.”

“I’ve seen the headlines,” Rashad said, softening slightly.

“It’s not what you think. People have the story wrong. I—”

“What did he do to you, Jonah?”

“Who?” I asked. An unconvincing performance.

“Richard.”

“He . . . he . . .” What am I doing here? This is insane. I show up like some fucking stalker, show up after years of ignoring Rashad, begging for . . . well, what exactly? What do I want?

“Did he . . . hurt you?”

The question lit my heart on fire. Sobs bubbled in my throat, escaped in short wet bursts.

“Hey, hey . . . come here,” he said, pulling me into his embrace. I wanted to stay there forever. We’d be two figures locked together permanently, a statue on a Bushwick street corner. Safe, stable, cemented. I sighed, settling in his arms. Rashad stepped back.

“Maybe we could go somewhere and talk?” I asked.

“Jonah, I’m in the middle of class,” Rashad said, frustration returning.

“Oh . . .”

“You can’t just show up here out of the blue and expect me to drop everything.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Are you sorry? Because you’ve ignored me for years, Jonah. I’ve tried again and again to reach out, to be your friend. And you always blow me off. That’s why I didn’t return your texts. Because I’m done trying.”

“I just need . . . help . . .”

“You do need help, Jonah. But I’m sorry, you’re not gonna get it from me.” Rashad pulled out his iPhone and scrolled through his contacts. “Here, I’m texting you the number of a friend of mine. Jeremy’s a great therapist. He’s a trauma specialist with a lot of queer clients.”

I knew I wouldn’t call Jeremy. Therapy was not the answer here. If I’d learned anything, it was that therapists weren’t to be trusted. People weren’t to be trusted. Rashad, the one person I wanted to trust, was not to be trusted.

“I’m sorry. About everything,” I said, flushed with shame, embarrassed by this whole pathetic episode. “I’m not really good at . . . dealing with people.”

Rashad gave my shoulder a squeeze and shot me a pitying look. “Just see Jeremy, okay?”

“I will,” I lied and watched him retreat back to his studio, back to his life.

I arrived home to discover an e-mail from my father.

I got only as far as the subject line: I’m Praying for You.

He’s back from the dead, I thought as I slammed my laptop shut. Back to exact his revenge.

Four simple words—My father molested me—and he was gone forever. Redacted from our family. Banished from his church. His perfect Christian existence destroyed, decimated, dead, dead, dead. I felt profound relief in my father’s absence. Some divine force had bestowed mercy on me, removed the violence of my father’s disappointment, rescued me from conversion therapy, and delivered me from the brink of suicide. Whether it was God or Satan, I wasn’t sure. I almost didn’t care.

Almost.

If it was God who’d granted this mercy, what did that say about my father? That he’d been wrong all along? That God loved me as I was? Then there was the terrifying possibility that Satan had saved me. That I’d succumbed to homosexuality, to sin, and this earthly respite was only temporary, a prelude to the hell my father had promised. My unholy agreement with Evil.

I reopened my computer, shaking as the screen illuminated.

Jonah—

It was the first I’d heard from him in nine years. I read the letter over and over, attempting to find meaning in the space between sentences. His reemergence felt like a rip in time, one that revealed a parallel universe where my father was living and breathing and existing without me. It felt impossible that our two worlds should meet, something out of a scrapped episode of Star Trek, and yet there he was, fresh from another galaxy, praying for me.

Now, as I sit at my desk and write this, I wonder—have my father’s prayers protected me this whole time? All these years, was he begging God to keep me safe even as I sinned? Maybe I have my father to thank for my survival. Maybe God can save me from this nightmare. Maybe it’s time to return to His loving embrace.

Another painful question: What would’ve happened if conversion therapy had worked? Would we still be a family? Perhaps this is the only way to heal: To finally renounce what I am. To apologize to the man whose life I ruined. To ask my father for forgiveness. Ask the Father for forgiveness.

I feel sick. Dizzy. Vertigo again. I need to lie down. A terrible weight presses on my chest. Another panic attack?

Or maybe it’s Satan reminding me of our pact.

It’s three a.m. I can’t sleep. The trauma feels as fresh as it did that summer. Time collapses. I can’t endure this any longer, I can’t wallow in pain and self-pity and cheap wine, I can’t take another day trapped alone in my apartment.

I want out.