There's Always Tomorrow (Prequel to BWYDT)

Chapter 6

A/N: Just a short note tonight. While this and at least the next chapter are pretty much 'the day after' the previous, there will be little time jumps like there was at the beginning of a week here or there.

So thank you for reading and especially for the comments. It is such motivation. Hope you enjoy.

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"I couldn't even get through it." Adrianne looked up from the papers on her desk to find Lauren standing in front of her, full of energy. As if someone had given her a new reason to live. She hadn't heard from the raven-haired all weekend long. Lauren had been held up in her room and Adrianne was beginning to think that things were going to be more difficult to navigate in order just to rescue their friendship. "I actually found myself completely pissed off at it."

"The Bible?"

"Yeah. I felt horrible about it at first." She continued, sitting down next to the brunette who reclined back in her chair to listen intently to what her crush had to say. "I felt like a truly horrible Catholic because I was getting mad at the word of God, but... I just can't see it as the word of God, who is supposed to be all loving. Instead of loving His children as they are, it tells you countless things that you can't do in order to continue to be loved by Him. The book doesn't match the image I was raised with."

"That's because the image you were raised with, you were shown to make it more appealing. If you feel guilty for not listening and obeying, then when you're told to do something that you don't agree with, you aren't going to question it because you feel guilty for even considering disobeying. Religion... now whether this was what it was intended for or not, I don't know. This is just my opinion. But religion seems to be nothing more or has become nothing more, than a tool of manipulation. It's a way to control people. If you can control their guilt and control their fear, then you have complete control over the person."

Lauren stared at her for a second as her mind raced back to high school. That was what she did. That's how she kept everyone in place at the beginning of her high school life. She played on people's insecurities and fears of not being accepted in order to keep herself on top. But that had changed at the end of her Junior year and into her Senior year. She had gotten tired of it and no longer saw the benefit of it because it made her unhappy. Now she found herself in the same position. She doesn't believe what the book says, only what people had once told her it said. So does she continue to live by someone else's manipulation, or follow her own beliefs again?

"Would you like to go out on a date with me?"

Adrianne sat in silence as she replayed the question in her mind. "I'm sorry, what?"

Lauren sat forward, very confident in her body language. "I asked if you would like to go out on a date with me."

"You're serious?"

"Well, if you don't want to, that's fine. I won't take it too personally. I just thought after you kissed me and your reaction to when I kissed you, that you would be more interested."

"I am," Adrianne assured her quickly not wanting to blow her chance. "I'm just... I was expecting you to take more time to accept... this."

"I'm not completely comfortable with it. And I'll probably spend most of the date looking around and worrying if people think we are actually dating, but... I know what direction I'm heading in. It just may take me some time to get there."

"And this is your first step?"

The raven-haired shrugged. "As long as you don't have anything against waiting as I stumble my way there."

Adrianne sat back and smiled as she studied the younger woman before her. "When you decide something, you go all out for it, don't you?"

"That was one lesson my parents taught me that I think I might keep. If you want something, go get it. I want to be happy. I want to find that inner peace, and I can honestly say, I've never been closer to it than when I'm around you."