Molly’s lip quivers as we await the nurse’s answer. “You’re joining Nightlight Ministries to be brought closer to God, and in doing so—embrace a straight life.”
Molly’s eyes squeeze shut, and the bottom drops out of my heart. A Pray the Gay Away hellhole? “Those”—the back of my hand wipes at my streaming nose—“those places don’t exist anymore.”
They don’t happen. Queer boys make cheesy coming-out videos where their moms hug them, and dads are even starting to write blogs about taking the journey with their daughters as they transition. I know things are still bad for some queer people like me, but I thought it was getting better. This doesn’t happen!
It can’t happen…
Ramona strokes painted nails along her medical bag and says, “If a family wants it enough, if they’re desperate enough, they can find us.” Her smile long gone, Ramona jabs the Recently Deleted folder of Ario’s pictures. “He is distraction and temptation. Cleanse yourself of him. Now.”
A low hiss of electricity rests inside Briggs’s taser, waiting to assault me.
I’m not deleting Ario, I’m deleting his pictures. I’m not deleting him, it’s just pictures.
Delete All.
Briggs and Molly wait outside while I strip to my waist in Ramona’s office for a physical. As my blood travels through a needle into a vial, harsh fluorescents sting my eyes. The room blurs by the time she’s finished; I haven’t eaten since my last supper at home. Ramona scribbles notes, glancing up and down at me, the specimen. After all that’s happened, I’m weirdly more self-conscious about being half-naked than about what she plans to do to me.
“What’s this whistle about?” Ramona asks, feeling under my jaw for lymph nodes. Ario’s bamboo recorder clings to the scant bits of matted hair on my chest as a chill snakes through my stomach. Once I deleted Ario’s pictures, she made me delete our text history, his number, even the nineties playlist he made me. She won’t take his recorder.
“It’s a family thing,” I blurt. Ramona tilts her blank, pink face at me. Don’t cry. If I cry, she’ll know what the recorder means and take it away.
“That’s all you can tell me about it? Is it…secret?”
“It means faith.” I seal the deal with a lie: “It’s Celtic.”
Ramona’s smirk freezes into a sneer. She retreats to a stack of legal pads on her desk to find a gray, metallic rod—another Pez dispenser taser. “Working here as long as I have, you learn to spot a liar,” she says, raising her weapon. My heart recoils inside my chest. “The breath shortens. The lips tense. The words come out short and choppy. Then there’s that split-second delay before answering; you really see that in young liars.”
“It’s really nothing,” I blurt. “It’s my dad’s; I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Sure it isn’t from your boyfriend?”
“I’d tell you! You took away everything of my boyfriend’s. I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I tell you? Please, I’m just so tired. I’m gonna have slow answers.”