"But I have called for you friends, from everything I asked for from my Father. John 15:15."
Blake sees Oliver kneeling at his locker the next morning once again. His necklace hangs there, a few centimeters from his chest and Blake feels the symbol imprinted on his retinas. He can't stop staring. It's such a tiny thing, the cross, but there could be various implications as to its home around Oliver's neck.
Blake wonders, absurdly, whether it would burn him if he touched it.
"It was a gift from my grandmother."
Oh hell, that's when Blake realizes that he's been staring so long that Oliver had actually stood and walked over to stand right in front of him. Blake has to tear his eyes away from the little pendant that sits, looking far too heavy, against Oliver's white t-shirt. As if willed by some higher power, Blake's hand reaches out of its own accord to brush ever so lightly along the edge of the cross.
When he doesn't feel any pain at all, he drops his hand, curiosity satisfied.
"It's nice," Blake chokes out.
"Thanks," Oliver says with this really slight smile and a pink tinge to his cheeks. He lifts his hand and catches the sleek edges between his thumb and forefinger. "She got it for me when I was fifteen."
"Ah."
"I guess that's when they figured I could be trusted with something expensive."
"Makes sense."
"It's just one of those things I never take off, you know?"
"Right," Blake says flatly because please, please, he'd do anything to stop thinking about the one object that had plagued his thoughts the entire night.
Oliver's smile grows and takes up half of his face for reasons Blake cannot pinpoint.
"So I'm excited about drama club and choir," Oliver says.
"Why's that?"
"Because it's choir! And I love singing. Like, a lot."
"I'm guessing you sing at..." Blake can't even get the word to come out of his mouth.
"At church, yeah. I was in the choir at my old church and when we moved here I auditioned right away. I just love it."
"Church or singing?" Blake asks.
"Both, I guess," Oliver says with a shrug.
Ah, but of course.
"What – what church do you go to?" Blake asks, very nearly cringing as he asks the question.
He can't help it, really. Religion just isn't something that sits well with him. He doesn't understand church, which kind of seems like a cult to him. He doesn't think that wearing something around your neck, something that symbolizes an ancient torture device, makes one a better person. Blake has tried, really he has; he's had multiple conversations with Tesla on the subject but, whereas he is stuck in his lack of religion, she wasn't willing to give into the idea that maybe God isn't real at all.
"First Baptist of Arnold," Oliver tells him. "It's a great church."
"I'm sure."
"Where do you go?"
Panic rises, thick and sick in Blake's throat. "I'm sorry?"
"What church do you go to?"
What to say, what to say. Why is he freaking out? Why does it matter? He's known Oliver for a single day, it's not like he has any obligation or any reason to prove himself to this boy.
YOU ARE READING
Sins of the Flesh
RomanceI'm sorry I am not made perfectly in your image. But maybe I wasn't supposed to be. --- He still prays every night. He still attends church every Sunday. He still believes. But he still cannot tell himself that he's gay. He can't write it. He ca...
