Chapter 9:
Sunday morning felt like penance.
Elias sat stiffly beside his mother in their usual pew, dressed in starched slacks and a tie so tight it choked. Pastor David's voice echoed from the pulpit, confident and unyielding.
"Temptation comes in many forms. The enemy is clever. He wraps sin in beauty. In music. In affection. In identity."
Elias flinched.
His mother didn't look at him, but her hand clamped around his wrist, just slightly. As if anchoring him to her idea of salvation.
After the service, Sister Monica greeted him with a too-bright smile.
"You're such a good boy, Elias. I'm praying for your strength during this important season."
She handed him another pamphlet.
This one read:
From Struggle to Salvation: One Man's Journey Away from Same-Sex Attraction.
Elias took it without a word.
He didn't talk to Rowan all weekend. Couldn't. Not with the weight of the pamphlet burning a hole in his pocket.
But by Monday, silence had turned to ache.
During lunch, Elias found Rowan leaning against the courtyard wall, earbuds in, scribbling in a sketchpad. Not homework. Art. Lines of ink forming something soft and shadowed—a face, half-finished, almost familiar.
Elias didn't speak at first. Just sat down.
Rowan looked up slowly. "Hey."
"Hey."
"I missed you."
Elias stared at the sketch. "What is that?"
"You."
Elias blinked. "Me?"
"Not finished." Rowan scratched at a smudge. "You're hard to draw when you keep hiding."
Elias looked away. "Do you ever wish you could just be normal?"
Rowan paused. "No."
Elias blinked. "Really?"
"Normal's a moving target. I'd rather be honest."
"But isn't it easier to just... fit in?"
Rowan gave him a sad smile. "Easier? Maybe. But survival isn't the same as living."
That night, Elias couldn't sleep.
His mom had left the pamphlet on his pillow.
He opened it, read it cover to cover. A man describing how he'd "prayed the feelings away," how "God filled the space where temptation used to live." But Elias didn't feel inspired. He felt hollow.
He pulled out his notebook. The one for English.
And he began to write.
Not a paper.
A confession.
"I am a boy who loves boys. Or maybe just one boy, right now. I don't know what that makes me. I only know how it makes me feel. And it doesn't feel like sin. It feels like breathing. Like I've been underwater my whole life and someone finally pulled me up."
The next day, he handed it to Mrs. Hargrove.
She looked surprised. "Finished already?"
Elias nodded. "Can I turn it in early?"
"Of course."
She smiled.
But he couldn't. Not really.
Because it wasn't just a paper anymore. It was the first time he'd said it out loud—even if only on paper.
After school, he met Rowan by the back steps of the auditorium.
They didn't speak for a while.
Then Elias whispered, "I wrote about you."
Rowan turned, brows lifting gently. "What did you say?"
"I said I was drowning."
"And now?"
Elias looked at him. The boy with stars in his eyes and ink on his fingers.
"Now I think I want to swim."
Rowan smiled. "Then come on, Romeo. Curtain's almost up."