Other Worlds - The Wilds

Chapter 34

Note: Long ass chapter for you lot (well long for me at least haha). Enjoy! Bare in mind lots of talk of conversion therapy in this one. Lots of love! Also, this is Shelby's pov x

There was no other option. No matter how much she circled around it in her head she always came to the same conclusion.

  The same list rotated in her head over and over until she was dizzy.

Family that would help? No.

  Begging for another option? No use.

  Taking the car and running away? Tempting, but no money, no high-school diploma, no accommodation. No.

  Tell someone? And either get put in foster care or in more trouble with her dad. Absolutely not.

  Appeal to her mother? Wouldn't help.

  Plead temporary loss of sanity and act straight until she could safely break away from her family? Too late for that.

She always came back to the same option. The only option. Actually going to the camp, checking the boxes and being the perfect little church girl that she always was for a little while. Come back 'healed' and the second the she graduates school, jet off to the furthest university she can. Her parents would pay for her to go to university if she kept all her shit together and made it through the next couple years being convincingly straight. She did it for years, she knew she could do it again.

  "Okay, we can figure this out," Toni said frantically, handing the phone back to Shelby, fumbling as she nearly dropped it in the process. "There is a way around this. Just... Let me think."

  "Toni-"

  Toni either didn't hear her or didn't care to hear her rebuttals. "We have the car? Right? I have some things at Carol's. Not much but some. We can drive somewhere. Live somewhere else."

  Shelby sighed," Ton-"

  "Or, uh, you could live with Martha!" She gestured wildly outside the window where Martha's house was. "Bernice would have you in a heartbeat. As long as no one alerts social services. It could at least buy you time. Oh! What about your mother? She seems nice? Maybe? It could-"

  "Toni!" Shelby shouted, frustrated by Toni's useless rambling. "Would you just listen to me for one minute. Jesus-"

"No! Because I know what you're going to say and I think it is totally ridiculous. There must be something."

  "There's nothing," Shelby said gently. Her voice wavering slightly.

  The furious look on Toni's face was one that Shelby had seen many times before. Often directed at her as well. "So you're just going to give up then?"

  Shelby didn't have it in her to remind Toni that she was doing the exact same thing with Carol. She was too tired and too sad to even fight back at this point. 

  Toni hadn't stopped  "...Go off and get brainwashed? Resurrect 2 dimensional, bible thumping, pageant winning Shelby? Everyone just loved her."

  It stung. She was kind of right, but also totally wrong. "No. You loved her. Only you. And I wouldn't be sitting here today, arguing with my girlfriend abut how to avoid conversion therapy if you hadn't."

  After a moment of shocked silence Toni finally responded. "Doesn't really feel like I did you any favours."

  "Maybe not right now. But I think repressed, God-fearing, people-pleasing Shelby might have thanked you. Because here's what I think would have happened to her." Shelby took a deep breath and tried not to cry as she listed what were once her biggest fears. "I think she would have lost her virginity to Andrew after a few too many guilt trips and her dad would have found out. Then, she would have had to marry him. She would have become a lonely drunken housewife that felt joy when he was too busy with his mistresses to come home after work... because she could at least have a few more hours fantasising about that one girl in high school that made her feel things that she never would never feel outside of the comfort of her own imagination."