IF HEAVEN WON'T TAKE US

In 1996, inside the cold stone walls of St. Magdalene Seminary, a boy who believes in heaven with his whole heart meets a boy who has stopped believing in anything at all.
Tanrak has spent four years earning his place on the road to God. He prays before sunrise. He follows every rule. He keeps himself clean and correct and careful, because heaven is not a dream to him. It is a plan. His parents are waiting there, and he will reach them.
Barth arrives with a split lip and a suitcase and a silence that has the weight of someone who has been failed by every single person who was supposed to hold him.
In a place where loving the wrong person is called a disease, a sin, a thing to be driven out by prayer and punishment and shame, they find each other anyway.
This is what it costs.
This is the saddest thing I know how to write.