Before I Break (8 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said to Avery. “That was wrong of me, and I realized that when I got home. I tried to text you but I got no response, not that I blame you. Please forgive me, Avery, and I’m not just saying that to be with Melissa, but because I want us to be friends.” The words were rushing from my mouth like a waterfall and I found them to be entirely true, even if they weren’t when I thought them in my head. Now that they were out, I felt my chest tighten up from embarrassment and hurt. Why was I suddenly getting all mushy? “Please.” The last part was a whisper, hoping no one else was hearing this conversation.

Avery sat there quietly while Melissa stared me down with her arms crossed over her chest, looking pretty mad. No one in the cafeteria was paying attention to us, even though I felt like they were. This was a conversation I really didn’t want to have right now, but I knew it needed to be had despite my wishes otherwise.

Finally Avery spoke. “Do you really mean it?”

I nodded vigorously. “Yes, I really do mean it. I want to be friends.”

He locked eyes with Melissa and they seemed to have some sort of telepathic conversation without me. Melissa grabbed her bag and said, “I need to go. I really can’t look at you right now.”

“’Lissa—”

“No,” she said, pulling away from my arm reaching toward her. “I need a break. Just a little longer. I understand that you apologized, and that’s fine, but you lied to me. That’s worse than anything else. Give me a few weeks and we can try this again, but for now, we need some time.” As she stormed off, Avery snorted.

“What?” I asked, but it wasn’t harsh. I couldn’t be rude to Avery because it
was
my fault for lying to Melissa. It was all my fault.

“She’s not happy,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I accept your apology, though. I understand that it can be a shock to people.”

I smiled, feeling something I had never felt before. “Thank you. I’ll really need a friend right now with Melissa and all—”

Avery held up his hand. “Wait, what? I never agreed to being friends.”

“But I apologized!” My mood went from happy to worried, to upset to angry in less than two minutes. Talk about an emotional roller coaster.

“I understand that, Cyril,” he went on. “Sorry doesn’t always fix things. Yes, I accept your apology, but right now, you really need time you figure yourself out. I know guys like you, and know why you do the things you do.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, grabbing his bag from his side. “It means I know guys like you. Don’t worry about it, though, we can maybe be friends eventually. That’s a big maybe, though. Goodbye.”

Avery left me all alone right as Jake walked up and sat next to me. “Hey man, sitting with the new guy?”

I wasn’t paying attention though. When Avery walked off, I saw something I wasn’t expecting to see, right on his arm. There were scars, all lining across his arm like tiger stripes. They were scars that resembled cuts, and my stomach seemed to drop. Avery cut himself? One thing I knew for sure after that was that Avery was probably in trouble. No one had scars like that unless something was wrong with them.

Those scars were all I could think for the rest of the day and I wondered what I should have done about it.

“Are you sure you guys aren’t going?”

It was 4:30 and I was getting ready to go to Youth Group. Dad still hadn’t come home, which wasn’t that unusual for him, but on Wednesdays he was always home by now. Calling earlier, he told me to tell Mom that he wouldn’t be home until 6. That was the weirdest thing of all, especially considering he never called me. I had a feeling something was going on that they weren’t telling me about and that worried me quite a bit.

“I’m sure, honey,” Mom said, giving me a hug. “Your father and I can miss a week, don’t you think?”

“I guess so,” I replied, not really feeling the truth here. “Well, I should get going. I like to get there to help in the book shop.”

“Good idea. I’ll see you tonight, then.”

Grabbing my phone off the counter and going out to the car, I still had the weird sense that something was wrong. Mom and Dad never missed group, so this was all new to me. Deciding it really wasn’t my business, I drove off down the road to get to church.

On the way there, I was listening to “Ain’t It Fun” by Paramore playing on the radio, and thought to myself,
No, it’s not fun. Nothing about this is fun.
I found myself humming along to the choir part, hoping to get into the church-like mood—not that singing about not crying to your mama would get me ready for church, but hey, I needed some fun tonight.
      

Jake texted me along the way saying that he was going to be a little late, as expected from him. He claimed that he liked going to church, but honestly, he had no personal relationship with God. For him, church was more like priority, or it used to be anyway. Thinking about it now, I didn’t really have a very personal relationship with God either, so who was I to judge? I knew what I believed, but that was about it when it came to me.

When I got to the church, there was still a little over an hour before church started. In the book shop we sold coffee, pastries, and books. I enjoyed making the coffees, and because I helped around, they told me I could make one whenever I wanted. Lauren, the other assistant smiled when I walked in.

“How are you, Cyril?” she asked as she put on her apron.

I smiled back. “Not so good, but thank you for asking. You need any help?”

“Not yet,” she said, and then snapped her fingers. “Actually, can you start up the ice machine for the iced coffee? I have a feeling a lot of people will be asking for it today because of the heat.”

Now that I thought about it, it was pretty hot outside, and inside, too. “I’ll get right on it.” Walking to the other side of the counter, I couldn’t keep myself from saying anything. “Can I ask you a question?”

Lauren turned to me. “Sure, why not? What’s up?”

“Pastor Morrison says that homosexuality is a sin, right? If we’re friends with gay people and support them, what does that mean for us?”

Lauren had a couple years on me, and was in her early twenties, so she did have a little more of a better mindset, I assumed. She looked at me and said, “Why do you ask such a thing? Homosexuality isn’t a sin.”

“It isn’t?” I asked, feeling confusion sweep through me. “But I thought—”

“Pastor Morrison is old,” Lauren explained, brewing a nice pot of coffee. “The old ways are different. Now, that doesn’t mean the Bible changes, but the interpretation does. I do not think there is a literal translation into English, or any other language, for 100% truth. For example, some scholars believe that in Genesis, when it says ‘In the beginning’ it actually translates to ‘In a beginning.’”

“There’s a difference?”

“To some people, not really,” she went on. “To others, quite a bit. If it says ‘In a beginning,’ that means that there are multiple beginnings. People believe that this may actually support the idea of aliens, while ‘In
the
beginning’ would disprove that. Little differences like that have been argued since the Bible was written, I’d imagine, and since no translation is exactly the same, there can be minor mistakes, but there is no mistaking the one thing the Bible teaches us.”

“And that would be?” I asked.

She smiled. “Love. It’s all about love, Cyril, whether black or white, gay or straight, and Christian or Muslim. Jesus preached love, not hate. Now, come on, people are starting to arrive.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said as the guests came in for some coffee. Several people today were buying Bibles—newcomers, I suspected, mostly because of their shyness when checking out—and it made me feel a little better after having that conversation with Lauren. Lauren could have easily been wrong, though. What Pastor Morrison said was happening could literally be happening now, and Satan was trying to pull me to his side.

The service was five minutes away when we shut down shop and would reopen after service as well. Closing up, Lauren said, “Thanks for feeling comfortable asking me that question back there. I hope I helped.”

I nodded but didn’t say a word.

“Trust your heart,” she said, patting my back. “If it feels wrong, don’t do it. If it feels right, it most likely is.” Heading into the chapel, I followed behind.

Our Youth Group was not held in the main chapel, but in a loft upstairs. It one of the coolest places I’d ever been, with a huge stage in the middle, flashing lights during worship, and about six singers onstage with about five people playing instruments. They had already started. I walked down the aisles, trying to find somewhere to sit. There had to be at least two hundred people here tonight, which was a big improvement for us. As I walked down the aisle, I saw two familiar people in the front.

Oh God, no.

Please tell me this isn’t happening.

Sure enough, it was the two people who hated me most right now—Melissa and Avery, sitting together in the front, smiling and talking over the loud music. Making my way through, I got to the front, noticing an empty seat beside them. Taking the seat, which was next to Avery, I said, “What is going on here?” over the music.

Avery smiled. “She invited me,” he shouted. “I didn’t know this was the church you came to. Nice to see you.” Turning back to Melissa, he pointed me out and she frowned, ignoring me.

The worship went on for about fifteen more minutes, and when it ended, Pastor Morrison walked up on stage, waving at the crowd as the cheering began. Glancing at Avery, I could tell he looked uncomfortable, which wasn’t a shock. I didn’t blame him either, though he didn’t know about Pastor Morrison’s homosexual beliefs. I had no idea we were both in for a surprise that night.

“Good evening,” he shouted to everyone. Taking the microphone from one of the singers, he said, “How are you all feeling in the House of God tonight?”

Cheers erupted all over the room

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” Pastor Morrison went on. “Tonight is going to be a very special night for all of us because I am leaving the service up to
you
. I wanted to try this out because I feel like you youngsters never really have much of a say, I’ll be answering any questions you have. Everyone text your questions to the number on the board and I will answer the ones I feel best suits this evening. You have two minutes.”

Everyone pulled out their phones or tablets, sending a text to the number on the board while I sat there, watching as Melissa typed hers quickly, putting her phone down when she finished. I could think of a few things I wanted to say, so I pulled out my phone and texted the question that had been bothering me for three days: “Is homosexuality really a sin?” When the two minutes was up, Pastor Morrison went on.

“Well, there were some interesting questions tonight, but there were two in particular that I feel go hand in hand with each other. It’s a topic that has been touched briefly before, but we have never once had a full service on it before, so I believe it should be the first topic we speak about.

“Many of you are young, feeling the need to have sex with other people your age, which is normal, according to God. The question I got tonight is ‘When will we know that the end of the world is here?’ How does this tie into sex? The answer is that the Bible tells us not to have sex before marriage, which God claims is a sin. Statistically, at least half of you have probably already engaged in sexual activity, and while it’s a sin, it can be forgiven. Now, God says that the end will come when the sexually immoral start taking over. On TV every day, we see that sex is taking over our country, and while that is true, it is better to have sex before marriage than to be an abomination in God’s eyes.”

My heart suddenly stopped because I knew exactly where this was going. This was not going to be about sex before marriage, I knew that. Looking at Melissa, she shrugged and continued to listen.

“There are two verses in Leviticus, very close to each other, speaking about the cons of homosexuality. Leviticus 18:22 says, ‘Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as one does with a woman. It is a detestable sin.’ The other is Leviticus 20: 13 that says, ‘If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are both guilty of a capital sin.’ These two verses alone, while there are many others, prove that homosexuality is wrong.

“So how do we know that this is a sign of the end? Over the last twenty years, even more the last five, there has been a homosexual explosion, and all around us our friends, family, and enemies are having sex with the same gender. It is no coincidence that homosexuality is just now rising after so long when there was no homosexuality. Satan is using their lust to lure them to him by committing these detestable acts with each other.”

My whole body began to shake as I listened to what he was saying. Avery was sitting beside me, his fists clenched tightly, and I wondered what he was thinking right now. It was true that those two verses said that homosexuality is an abomination and that they should be put to death—so why did it suddenly feel so wrong?