Bad Religion

✞ twenty three ✞

Soren's POV
I don't regret running away with Rocco.

For the first time in my life, I felt in absolute control of my own life. My time with him was exhilarating, daring and overall, the most blissful and special moments of my entire life. Yes, Rocco is awaiting trail for the murder of Nikki because we were found but I know that if I think positive and trust in God, Rocco will get the justice he deserves and won't get sent to juvie.

I'm not regretful with running away with Rocco, aren't I?

I felt sick to my stomach as my father preaches about how homosexuality is disgusting and the most sinful thing in God's eyes. In fact, he was calling out all the minorities of the Mormon religion: LGBT, women (more specifically, feminists), any other race than Caucasian, and poor people.

Regret washed over me like the long slow waves on a shallow beach. Each wave was icy cold and sent shivers down my spine as my father preached with his booming voice which everyone respected. How I longed to go back and take a different path, but now that was impossible. There was no way back. There was no way to make it right. Maybe because a part of me didn't want to make it right. I felt... so happy while with Rocco. So safe and secure. Still, the remorse of me going against my Father, Lord Jesus Christ, would eat at me everyday of my pathetic life.

There are times my brain fries up, especially now. It's no excuse I know; I own my my sinful behavior. It's just sometimes... I attempt to ignore my feelings of regret because I feel happy. I try to be good in God's eyes while committing homosexual acts with Rocco, but then a trigger is flicked. My emotions turn fearful and anxious... I back away, flee or strike out at myself.

That explains my newest scars on my wrists and arms because of how guilty and stuck I was feeling last night, especially since my father had beat me for running off with Rocco and my mother hit me senseless with a frying pan in my sleep. I wasn't really sleeping though, more like crying silently in my pillow and cutting myself even more. In these moments, I am least proud of who I am, for I fail to be the warrior I was supposed to be born as; a strong man and future leader of the Mormon congregation with no heart. Instead I show the frightened child within, damaged and afraid, the one still hiding in the dark, awaiting the next beating.

I know these are things for me to work on, not for others to mitigate, I am 17 years old after all. Yet I ask for consideration, that my fear triggers are left alone until my body stops living in a state of flight or fight, until I find a way back to being calm and steady.

I have been stable a few years in my early childhood, caring for others, pouring out love without measure, yet never knowing how to ask for it. It is the only medicine that can heal this fractured soul. So like a stupid child, I hold out for love, wide eyes and shaking limbs, still looking for that dark place all over again, but praying for the light.

My eyesight fogs with my upcoming tears but I suck it up and continue to listen to my father's preachers speech on a touchy subject that pained me even more than I already was.

But still, I don't regret running away with Rocco. I don't regret having jumping trains with him. I don't regret ducking cops with him. And I definitely don't regret having sex with him or waking up to his sweet kisses along my neck.

But maybe I do regret, since I'm feeling so broken down? Even if I do regret it or don't, the only thing I know for sure is that I'm in love with him. I can't lie in a church, so I won't. I love Rocco Stone.