A Promise Is A Promise

[25] Kayla

When I got to Claire's house, she sat me down at her desk and knelt in front of me to do my makeup. It had taken so much lying to my parents to get here and now that I was, I felt so on-edge. I didn't like to lie, but that was all I'd been doing for as long as I could remember. There was hardly anything I could tell the full truth about, even in Confession. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone. I was always looking over my shoulder, always checking to make sure that the wrong people weren't listening or watching too closely. One tiny mistake, or sign, or hint and the rest of my world would crash and burn.

I tried to forget about all of it as Claire swept her brushes over my cheeks and her sponges over my skin, but the reality of our situation circled me, unceasing. My father had ripped into me when he'd gotten home and my mother and brother had let him without so much as batting an eye. He'd been livid and his mood hadn't improved even marginally since he'd initially found out.

"Kayla?" My girlfriend's hands dropped from my face and I flinched at the sudden noise and loss of contact. "Did you hear anything I just said?"

"Um, what? Sorry, I was..." My head shook once. Things had been strange between us since we went on spring break together, but she'd apologized for everything earlier this week. I forgave her, of course, not wanting to think about how lonely I'd feel without her around. "What did you say?"

"I just asked if you were nervous." She laughed softly and lightly kissed my cheek. "I'm guessing the answer's yes?"

"What would I have to be nervous for?" I joked. "I'm only standing in front of my entire church, thanking them for their guidance and support, and promising that once I graduate, I won't let the earthly influences persuade me to do anything that God would hate, even though I'm sitting here, in my girlfriend's house, lying to them, and to my parents, and to—"

Her lips cut off my rambling, but they did nothing to calm me down. The graduate's banquet was the single most important event for the seniors that went to my church. It was the third Sunday in May every year and it was supposed to be a celebration for us, but its actual purpose was for us to proclaim our allegiance to the Catholic faith once more before we ran off into the temptation-filled world that was college and real adulthood. Besides a service that consisted of a slideshow of a collection of pictures from each of our childhoods, a sermon focused on how to disregard what other people are trying to convince you to do, and a speech in which we individually swore our commitment before telling everyone what our future plans consisted of, we also got a meal dedicated to us. Normally, there was nothing better than a bunch of food made by church ladies, but I was finding it hard to look forward to even that. 

"Hey." She cupped my cheeks with her hands, but kept her fingers still so she wouldn't smudge her work. "Kayla, it's okay. I bet you anything that you aren't the first lesbian to go there and you won't be the last. And who cares that you are one of them? You can believe in God without being a carbon copy of Henrietta the Holy."

That time, she got a laugh out of me, and I felt myself relax minimally. "Mrs. Alston is just really confident in her faith," I mockingly defended. She was the most devout woman I'd ever met, almost to the point where it was shocking she hadn't ended up as a nun.

"That seems like a particularly nice way to put it, considering she practically thinks holding hands before marriage is a sin. Michael, Benjamin, Elizabeth, John, don't you ever let me catch you doing something so outlandish," she pretended to scold, pitching her voice higher to get in character. "That woman is psychotic, I swear."

We stayed quiet while she continued with my makeup and she was nearly done when something seemed to pop into her head. "I wonder how she'll react when she finds out you're gay."