He scoffed. “Like a college reference letter? ‘Dear Kiera, Delbert Rainey is a fine student and an innovative thinker.’”

No. I mean, yes. It sounded dumb when he put it that way. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

At that, he flinched. I didn’t know if it was what I said, how I said it, or that I’d said it in church, but he squeezed his eyes shut a second, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, “Look. Let’s get through this class first, then we can talk about it. Can you give me a ride home?”

“Cool.”

In my head, I heard his mom yelling, “Get your disrespectful butt straight home.”

So, I’d probably have to drive fast.

“Welcome to Purity Pledge!” Sister Vanessa bounced on her toes in front of a wall-to-wall whiteboard, a blue dry-erase marker in her hand, uncapped and ready.

We were in a wood-paneled Sunday school classroom at the back of First Missionary. Mostly empty corkboards lined the walls with the exception of a giddy cartoon Jesus poster that had Our Lord and Savior sitting on a rock, surrounded by cartoon kids of at least three ethnicities. There was a white kid, a brown kid, a Simpsons-yellow Asian kid and, for some reason, a happy goat. There was an aggressively bright sun with sunshine spokes shooting over Jesus’s head, and a rainbow. The bubble print overlaying the blue sky read: Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know! It seemed encouraging, blasphemous, and racist all at the same time.

Rows of worktables aligned in a way that mirrored the pew setup in the main sanctuary, creating an aisle in the middle of the room, separating all the Purity Pledgers by gender. Boys on the left, girls on the right. Sister Vanessa said, “Who wants to lead us in prayer?”

No one raised a hand.

I didn’t know any prayers other than the “God is great, God is good” one I learned as a kid, and wasn’t confident I could go off the top of my head like a bunch of people in the church seemed to do. It’s like being at a party and someone asked you to rap when you’re not a rapper.

The tense “no volunteers” moment stretched another half second before Kiera rose from her neatly organized workstation that occupied most of an entire table on the girls’ side of the room. She had a fresh white binder with P. Pledge written on the side in black Sharpie, three different highlighters, and multiple pens—all making my single dull pencil feel inadequate. She joined Sister Vanessa at the front of the room, clutching her worn Bible with colorful tabs protruding from the pages like the flags of tiny pastel countries. “Dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity to gather and discuss the temples you constructed, our bodies, and . . .”

Everyone’s heads dipped, their eyes sealed. I slipped my phone from my pocket and checked Instagram.

I scrolled through several of my favorite model accounts, and saw a couple of funny memes while Kiera got winded by such fervent prayer. “. . . oh Lord, please guard over all the innocents in the room, so that they won’t be corrupted by the predatory influences around them . . .”