“got together.” The Russells, Angela’s whole family, went to our church, too. So it would be that much more wonderful. YR. Sorry: Yeah Right.
So I went with Angela—who was actually a pretty nice girl—out for our forced march. It would have been awkward even if I’d been interested in her, because both of us knew our folks had set this up, and there were expectations. To her credit, and although it took about two minutes, she was the one who broke the ice.
“Feels pretty weird, getting shoved out the door like that, doesn’t it.” Not a question.
“Weird? How about retarded?”
She laughed. It was a pretty laugh, and I got a little worried. Was she interested in me and just trying to put me at ease so I’d feel like I could make a move? I risked looking at her.
She stopped walking. “You hate this, don’t you.” Also not a question. “I’m not happy about it, either. I mean, I like you, Taylor. You seem like a nice guy. And maybe that’s why I’m going to trust you with something. Is that okay?”
“Trust me?”
“With a secret. Because I think you deserve to know. Especially if you ever thought that we, you know, might come to something. So…is it okay?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.” I could floor her with a secret of my own, but I wasn’t sure she deserved to know mine. She turned and started walking again, and I fell into step.
“I have a boyfriend. Well, I can’t really call him that. Not in front of anyone. My parents don’t want me to see him. That’s why they want us—you and me—to get together. They think I’ll forget about him.”
Wow. We have something in common, Angela and I, besides meddling parents. “Why not?”
“He’s not saved. And he doesn’t want to be. His parents are freethinkers.”
It was my turn to stop dead in my tracks. “Atheists?” The idea that there were people who didn’t believe in God had always been a startling one to me. Sure, I knew they were out there, but I didn’t talk to them. I’d heard only terrible things about them.
“No, they’re not atheists, exactly. They would say they’re god-centered, but they wouldn’t capitalize god in writing. They believe in rational approach. To everything.” She kind of giggled. “Danny says—that’s my boyfriend—he says that when you don’t have to make sense, you can say anything at all!”
“What does that mean, not making sense?”
“Think about it, Taylor. How many times have you been told something that made no sense at all, but the church insists you take it on faith?”
I got the concept, all right—like, why would God make me gay and then tell me it’s a sin to be gay? But the freethinkers were confusing me. “I don’t get it. They have no religion, but they sort of believe in God, but they don’t believe in faith?”
“No, no, they have faith. It’s just much more—I don’t know, more free-form. So they don’t have a scripture they follow. And they don’t go to any church.”
“Wait. How can you have faith and not have a religion?”
“Well, Taylor, they aren’t the same thing. A religion is just a specific way of applying faith.”
This didn’t synch up with anything I’d ever heard before. I started shaking my head, sure she was just repeating pat phrases she’d heard from this Danny character.
Angela must have decided we’d gotten too far off the track she wanted to be on. “Anyway, what I’m saying is, I can’t be interested in you. And since you’re a nice boy, it seemed unfair to lead you on, in case…you know.”
“Okay. Thanks.” And I moved forward again.
For the next minute or so of our walk, I was going round and round in my head about whether I could tell her about me. In the end, I approached it a little sideways.
“So, Danny’s parents. What would they say about homosexuality?”
“Oh that. Such a fuss. There are so many things in the Bible that we ignore, and everybody seems to make their own decisions about what things those ought to be. Danny’s folks would just say, Who cares? As long as people aren’t hurting each other—and it doesn’t hurt you if someone else is gay, does it?—then leave the gays alone.” I guess I was quiet too long, and she said, “That upsets you, doesn’t it? I’m sorry. That must sound like sacrilege to you. I just get so into these discussions with Danny. His parents have always encouraged him to question everything—”
“No, that’s not it.” But that’s as far as I got before I froze.
“What is it, then?” She stopped walking. Again. I stopped and turned toward her. “Oh my God, you’re gay! Taylor, are you gay?”
Well, that got me moving again. “Will you be quiet? Is there anyone on the street who didn’t just hear you say that?”
“Taylor, I was practically whispering. You barely heard me. I’m right, aren’t I? This is so cool! I don’t think I know anybody who’s gay. Except you, of course.”
“Oh yes you do.”
“Who? Tell me!”
“No way. I’d never tell that about anyone else. Especially given how everyone in church feels about it.” Which reminded me I hadn’t extracted any promises. “So, you wouldn’t, like, tell anyone, would you?”
“Oh, Taylor, of course not. You’d be crucified. And besides, you have my secret, too.”
She took my hand. It was a weird moment. But she held it most of the way back to the house, and it felt a lot less weird by then and a lot more like friendship.
So it’s kind of ironic that it was Angela who outed me to my folks. Not directly; she didn’t do anything wrong. But after the Russells left that night, there was all this pressure from my folks to tell them how much I liked her.
“She’s great. A real sweet girl. We had a nice walk.”
Mom asked, “So do you think you’ll see her again? Will you ask her out on a date?”
I felt like there was a bat in the room. You know how they fly? Sort of all over the place, and it’s impossible to know how to duck to avoid them. All I could say was, “Maybe sometime.”
“Sometime?” Dad bellowed. “Sometime? Taylor, there’s nothing wrong with the girl, is there? She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s Christian,” by which he meant our kind of Christian, “she’s polite, her parents are fine people—what more could you want in a girl?”
“Nothing, I guess.” I headed for the stairs, hoping to make it up to my room and bring this inquisition to an end. But no. Dad was right behind me, with Mom behind him; he had more to say, and he wasn’t letting me avoid it.
“Do you have any idea how rude that is? How inconsiderate? To make a girl think you like her and then leave her hanging like that?”
I wheeled, nearly ducking to avoid that bat in the air. “Look, I’m not the one who suggested this little get-together, so she doesn’t have any reason to think I’m interested in her that way. If anyone has led her on, it’s you.” I stood there, my back to the stairs and relative safety, my folks in front of me and looking about as sad and confused as I’d ever seen them. Into the silence, I said, “So I want both of you to stop pestering me about asking girls out. I have to do what’s right for me.”
Almost whining, my mom asked, “Taylor, isn’t there anyone you’re interested in?”
I took a breath. Then another. I clenched my hands into fists, balling up the fabric of my pants. I released the fabric. Gathered it again. I ground my teeth.
“Yeah. There is.”
Mom stepped