I spent Saturday night with the girls in Layla’s bedroom—which had an actual four-poster bed with sheer white drapes—trying on makeup and clothes, gossiping, and posting our most vamped-up shots to Instagram. We ended the night getting sodas at Walmart, which was the only place in town still open by then. I wondered why the girls left their makeup on, then learned the answer when we came outside and found a group of kids from our school hanging out at the edge of the parking lot, cases of beers in the backs of their pickup trucks. I didn’t talk to many people, but I also didn’t feel uncomfortable, and Layla made it very clear to everyone I was a member of their group. It was one of the best Saturday nights I could remember. The only way it could’ve been better was if Grant had been there.
I slept deep and easy once I finally got home, which was rare for me. My phone chirped and I slowly rose from bed on stiff, creaking arms, blinking and groaning against the warm morning light. The phone chirped again. I slapped at it once, missed, and got it on the second try.
“Hello?” I croaked without bothering to check who was calling.
“Mornin’, Amanda!” Anna said in a voice that was excessively cheerful, even for her.
“Mm,” I groaned, stretching my back. “What’s up?”
“Oh, nothin’,” Anna said. “Just we’re about to head to church and I thought you’d like to come.” There was a strange pause, and then she quickly added, “Plus my parents wanna meet you.”
“Why?” I said, as I slapped my feet on the floor. “I mean, I don’t really go to church.”
“Didn’t you say you were Baptist?”
“Lapsed,” I reminded her. “I haven’t been to church since, like, middle school.”
“Oh,” Anna said, all her cheer gone. I paused. She didn’t just sound disappointed, she sounded worried. “But that’s just more reason to come, ain’t it?”
“Listen, thanks for the offer,” I said, “but I really don’t—”
“No, Amanda,” Anna whispered suddenly, “you really need to meet my parents. Like, really, really. Please?”
My stomach sank as I realized she needed me. I thought it over for a moment before saying, “Okay. I’ll get dressed.”
“Yay!” Anna said, all the cheer flooding back. “We’ll be there in a half hour.”
She hung up before I could respond. I sighed and dug through my luggage. I only had one church-appropriate outfit: a pastel-pink floral short-sleeve dress with a wide purple belt that used to be Mom’s, twenty-five years and ten dress sizes before. I stepped into the living room and found Dad at the kitchen table, rubbing his temples over a plate of greasy bacon. His eyes were closed and his skin was pale and blotchy.
“That’s not very healthy,” I said, wondering what happened to the Dad who ate salad for practically every meal.
“Hangover,” he replied, his voice groaning like an old door. “Greasy food helps.” He cracked his eyes and stared at me for a moment. “What’s with the outfit?”
“I’m going to church,” I said, leaning against the counter and checking my phone. Dad let out a hoarse laugh but cut it short when I crossed my arms and looked down.
“Oh,” he said. “You were serious.” He tore a strip of bacon in half and popped it in his mouth. “Sorry, it’s just I can’t imagine you sitting in with a bunch of holy rollers.”
“My friend Anna invited me. Why can’t you see me there?” I asked, though of course I knew why. I still believed in God, and for a long time my faith had been the only thing keeping me afloat. But I could never forget the day Mom had come home from seeing our pastor, red in her eyes from weeping and rage. I asked her what was wrong and heard a stream of curses, so strange in her normally sweet little voice, as she told me he’d had some suggestions: that I should be sent to a camp to fix me, that I should spend more time with a male role model, that I should maybe take some time away from the congregation until I found a way to fit in. We never went to church after that, though I did continue to pray.
“The text’s pretty hostile to people like you,” Dad finally replied, chewing slowly.
“But they don’t have to know everything about me, do they?”
“Just be careful,” he said. “This ain’t Atlanta, and it ain’t the suburbs. People around here seem nice, but you gotta be careful with who you trust.”
“I know,” I said flatly, feeling the scar above my ear. My phone buzzed and Anna’s name appeared above a message: we r outside
“My ride’s here. I gotta go.”
“Really, though,” Dad said. I turned as I was heading out the door and saw both bloodshot eyes open, a look of concern in his face. “Really. Please be careful.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, feeling a sudden, shaking wave of anxiety. “I know, Dad,” I said. “I will. Bye.”
I hurried downstairs, where the same van Anna had driven a few days ago stood parked outside the breezeway. I took a minute to actually read the bumper stickers this time, out of morbid curiosity: JESUS WAS A CONSERVATIVE, one read, and RIGHTS COME FROM GOD NOT GOVERNMENT; ILLEGAL ALIENS! EXACTLY WHICH PART DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? and I CAN’T HELP THAT I’M HOMOPHOBIC … I WAS BORN THAT WAY! I stood in place and swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. The side door slid open and Anna leaned out, smiling.
“Whatcha waitin’ for?” she said. “Hop on in.” A small copy of Anna with freckles and missing teeth leaned into view and waved excitedly.
I forced a smile as I climbed in the backseat, between a pair of short blond boys in matching white short-sleeve dress shirts. Their legs were both spread so far that their knees met in the middle and neither seemed interested in moving, leaving me to clamber awkwardly over them and squeeze myself in the space left over. Something touched my butt during the maneuver. I made myself assume it was an accident.
A rail-thin woman with blond hair sprayed into an updo that defied physics turned and beamed at me from the passenger seat.
“Anna, hon,” she said without breaking her perfect smile, “you’re being rude. Introduce me to your friend.”
“Oh!” Anna said, practically jumping out of her seat. I wondered again why she was acting so strangely. “Uh, Mom, this is my friend Amanda. Amanda, that’s my mom—”
“Call me Lorraine,” she bubbled, her smile still statue-perfect.
“And that’s my dad.”
A brick of a man grunted and gave me a brief, grudging glance in the rearview mirror.
“This is my sister Judith,” Anna said. Her sister turned and flashed me that same adorable smile and chirped, “I’m in fifth grade!” I stifled a laugh and agreed that that was very impressive. Lorraine’s smile faltered a little as she snapped to get Judith’s attention.
“Sit down and cross your legs!” Lorraine said. Judith immediately did as she was told. There was a moment of awkward silence before Anna continued. I wondered if they could see their sons’ postures in the backseat.
“And, uh, these are my brothers Simon and Matthew,” Anna continued. One was a little taller than the other, and the shorter one had braces and slightly darker hair, but otherwise they could have been twins. The shorter one grunted like his dad when Anna said their names but kept his gaze locked on the window. The other just played with his phone and acted like he hadn’t heard.
“Hi,” I said, making myself smile pleasantly at the one who had at least bothered to grunt. He turned and made brief eye contact before dropping his eyes to my chest.
“Nice dress,” he said. I started to thank him, but then he followed with, “It makes you look like a grandma.”
“Don’t be a jerk to my friend, Simon!” Anna said, turning to glare at her brother.
“Watch that tone, young lady!” Lorraine said. Anna’s cheeks burned red. She gave me an apologetic look and turned back around. Simon sniffed once and turned back to his phone.
“You girls have a nice time last night?” their dad said. Anna inhaled sharply and her shoulders tightened up. I looked from her back to the rearview mirror and found her dad staring pointedly at me between glances to the road.
“Yeah,” I said. “We had a lot of fun.”
“Not too much, I hope.”
“Why would you hope that?” I said slowly, my eyes once again darting from a paralyzed Anna to her dad’s unchanged stare.
“The word of the Lord is serious business,” he said. “At least in our house.”
“Um,” I said, blinking, “of course. Yeah. My house too.”
“Which verses did y’all study last night?” Lorraine said.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, confused. Anna seemed to shrink, and her dad’s eyes narrowed. Then it hit me—Anna had told them we were at Bible study. “Sorry, I haven’t had my coffee yet. We mostly focused on the Gospel of John.”
“Ah,” her dad said, nodding. “‘For the wages of sin is death.’”
I couldn’t help smiling; I might not have been to church in years, but I’d paid attention when I was there. “It’s definitely powerful, but that’s from Romans,” I said. “My favorite passage from John is, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish.’ It’s so life-focused, you know? So hopeful.”
“Can’t disagree,” her dad said, a note of grudging respect in his voice.
“Anna, dear, you did it!” Lorraine said, clapping happily.
Anna looked up, confused. “Did what?”
“You made friends with a good influence for once.”
I cleared my throat and looked out at the trees.
* * *
“Thanks,” Anna whispered twenty minutes later as we sidled into a red-upholstered pew near the front. The inside of the church was small and painted stark-white, but the red carpeting and upholstery and the light pouring in through the abstract stained-glass windows made it much more beautiful than it seemed from outside. “Sorry I didn’t warn you,” she continued as we sat. “They were listening when I called.”
“Of course,” I whispered in reply, touching her wrist and smiling. “Don’t worry about it.”
The adults milled about in the pews, smiling and slapping each other on the back while Anna and I sat quietly with our hands in our laps. After a few minutes, an ancient man with skin like wrinkled marble and owl eyes strode up to the pulpit, an old leather Bible tucked under his arm, and everyone grew quiet. Despite his age he moved with military grace as he silently dropped the Good Book on the lectern and flipped to the appropriate page.
“Therefore, seeing we have this ministry,” the pastor said, in a huge, youthful voice that filled the church without the aid of speakers, “as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” He removed his reading glasses and looked up to survey the congregation.
“That’s 2 Corinthians 4:1 and 4:2, if y’all’s interested.” He cleared his throat and closed his Bible, the thump resounding in the silence of the sanctuary. “Lotta good lines in Corinthians, I’ve always found. ‘Through a glass darkly’ and ‘childish things’ and so on, but that line I just read’s got as much meat as any of the others.”
My eyes drifted up to the window behind him, and the rippling grass on the hillside. Lots of the girls in the support group back home had called transitioning “living our truth,” and maybe that was true. My eyes turned up just a little more and there, hanging above the window and the green grass, was a small wooden cross.
“’Fore I go any further, though, I’d like to tell a joke. Stop me if y’all’ve heard this’n: What’s the difference ’tween a Southern Baptist and a Methodist?” A smile twitched onto his lips and he looked around expectantly, but nobody made a sound. “The Methodist says ‘Hello’ in a liquor store!” A few people chuckled awkwardly, but most just shifted in their seats.
“You see, we got a bit of a image problem in our church,” the pastor said, growing suddenly serious. “Not that we got a bad image, mind; no, in fact it’s the opposite: we’re too concerned with image. We’re too concerned with the external, with our appearances, with what others think of us, when we should be concerned with the internal, with our hearts, and with what God thinks of us. Radical honesty and radical faith are the heart of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen.
“I’ve lived that life. I’ve been in homes where that life is lived—perfect homes like you see on TV, full of smiling family photos and clean carpets and a cross on every wall, and it don’t mean nothin’. Think of the Apostles, and what folks must’ve thought of ’em—a buncha dirty, ramblin’, touchy-feely vagrants! But the Apostles knew they were walkin’ in righteousness, and they knew so long as they were honest and true and walked with the Lord, then the Lord walked with them.”
My fingers dug into my thighs and I stared at the back of the pew in front of me, feeling my heart beating. Sometimes it didn’t feel like God walked with me anymore. I remembered waking up in the hospital after my suicide attempt and feeling a hollow place in my heart where my faith had been. Transitioning had reawakened it a little, but it was hard to place too much hope in a God so many people said hated me.
“Radical honesty means you keep no secrets, damn the consequences. You talk about the booze, the drugs, the fornication, and the disappointments. Radical faith means you trust that the Lord visited these weaknesses and sorrows on you as part of His plan, and that as you walk with the Lord and speak honesty and demonstrate the redemption of Him others will see this, and you’ll find your life enriched. A dishonest life is a life half-lived, brothers and sisters, and it’s a life with one foot already in the Pit.”
As the pastor went on, his words kept repeating in my brain—a dishonest life is a life half-lived. Was it really true? Would my friendships and relationships always be dishonest if I was forever hiding my past? My eyes scanned the crowd around me, falling on Anna’s parents, so rigid-backed and attentive, and her brothers, fidgeting in their seats, before landing on Anna herself. Everyone around me, I realized, was living some kind of lie. Anna going out at night and telling her parents it was Bible study, her parents turning a blind eye to their sons’ bad behavior. Chloe and her relationship with Bee. Maybe secrets and lies were a part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.
I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason. I decided that the people who had said God didn’t love me, who said that I didn’t have a place on Earth—they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that.