Say a Little Prayer(62)

Julia gives a sad little smile. “Mine did, too. Except the thing is, I know it’s not true. There are things I can’t do, things that would absolutely make them stop loving me.”

I feel the conversation shift then, a tiny jolt under my feet. The chapel stage is big enough for us to sit comfortably, but here we are, Julia’s knee pressed against my thigh, my hand a breath away from hers. Drawn together by the same unknowable gravity that pushed us last night.

“Like what?” I ask.

Julia shrugs. “Like steal the communion wine.”

“You wouldn’t do that anyway. You think wine is gross.”

“Okay, true. But I also can’t miss curfew or sneak out to parties.”

“Boring. They’d totally forgive you for that. What else?”

I don’t mean for it to sound like a challenge, but there it is. Julia’s fingers slide over mine, the slightest, featherlight brush, and every cell in my body pulls taut.

“I can’t forget an assignment,” she says. “I can’t fail a class.”

There’s another confession here, I think, something delicate. I lean in, ignoring the flush creeping over my chest. “That’s all?”

“I can’t…” Julia’s gone still next to me, face indistinguishable from the carved busts staring down at us. A marble statue. A frozen saint. She clears her throat and tries again. “I can’t skip church. I can’t talk back, I can’t wear certain clothes, I can’t—”

She breaks off, biting her lip like she’s physically preventing the words from tumbling out. I tilt my head. “Can’t what?”

She’s touching me on purpose now, she must be. I know what her hands feel like. I’ve held them a hundred times, so when one of them slides up my thigh now, when I feel the heat of it all the way through my denim shorts, I don’t quite know what to make of it. In fact, I’m still looking down, distracted by the sight of her pale pink nails against my bare skin when Julia leans in, slips her other hand around the back of my neck, and kisses me.

It’s clumsy and fast, like she’s afraid I’m going to vanish beneath her. And even though part of me wondered, even though I hoped this might be where we were heading, I’m so surprised that I fully forget to kiss her back until she pulls away.

“Oh,” I say, brain gloriously, completely blank. “I see.”

Then I grab the front of her shirt and pull her toward me.

This kiss is softer, more hesitant. I slide my hand along the curve of Julia’s waist, pulse leaping when she leans into the touch. I wonder how long we’ve both wanted to do this, how long Julia’s been telling herself not to. Her thumb skims down the line of my throat, and I have the brief, terrible thought that she can probably feel the blood pumping embarrassingly fast under my skin before she pulls me against her.

There’s a certain irony, I think, to doing this in a chapel. There are a dozen different Jesus statues looking down on us. There’s a pulpit at Julia’s back with an open Bible on top. There are dozens of people who have told me, in explicit detail, how wrong this kind of desire is, and I do not care. I brace a hand against the carved wood as Julia’s mouth opens under mine. Her fingers skim up the back of my shirt, tracing the groove of my spine, and I think, briefly, that if this is lust, if this is some deadly, unforgivable sin, I’ll gladly burn for it.

Julia pulls back, breath shaky in my ear. I want to keep her like this. I want to memorize the wild look in her eyes and the feeling of her hair tangled between my fingers, but when she straightens, something cold slips into the space between us.

“Oh,” she whispers. Then, softer, “Oh no.”

She shoots to her feet, and I throw out a hand just in time to avoid toppling after her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Julia presses a trembling hand to her mouth. “It’s nothing, I just can’t. I’m sorry. This is a mistake.”

I flinch, surprised at how much the word stings. Mistake. I wait for her to stop, to realize how that sounds and correct herself, but Julia keeps pacing, each step more agitated than the last.

“This can’t happen,” she whispers. “If anyone knew…If my father…”

She trails off, and my chest squeezes into a fist. Because I remember how it felt last year to hear Pastor Young tell the entire congregation that it was impossible for gay people to enter the kingdom of Heaven. God simply wouldn’t allow it. It didn’t matter how many years I’d spent memorizing prayers or singing in the worship band. It didn’t matter that I’d done everything right. This was something I couldn’t control, something that would forever change the way certain people thought about me.

“It’s okay,” I say, sliding off the stage to join her. “I get it. He doesn’t have to know. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Julia ignores me, fingers twisting in her hair as she turns to pace another lap. “It doesn’t matter. It still happened.”

“And you think that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes! I’m not you, Riley! I can’t walk around kissing whoever I want.”

I suck in a sharp, surprised breath. Julia’s eyes widen. She stumbles to a halt, hands flying to her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s not what I meant.”