Page 10 of Gay for Pray
Theodore
SUNDAY IS MY FAVORITE day of the week. Even Jude can’t ruin that for me as I take my place in the university’s liturgical choir.
Mass starts right on time, ten o’clock on the dot. Jude and his friend, the guy with the dark hair, both look a bit bleary, but when we sing to welcome worshipers into the church, their voices ring out strong and true. I try not to notice, but I’m placed diagonally from both of them, and they linger in my peripheral vision. I thought it would be a relief to be far from Jude in the choir, but if he was directly in front of me it might actually be easier for me to ignore his presence. As we all sing, our voices cluttering the high ceilings while people shuffle into the pews, he smudges the edge of my vision, always there no matter how hard I try to dismiss him.
We take our seats after the congregation does, and the priest begins the service. I half-expect to find Jude whispering or fidgeting over there with his friend, but he sits quietly through the ceremony like everyone else, and the guilt I felt in that library study room wells up anew.
I didn’t know about him and his mom. He didn’t get into details, but he didn’t have to. It’s enough to know he had no choice but a school that would pay for his entire education. Then there’s the fact that his mother raised him alone. It’s something I’ve never had to think about. My parents have alwaysbeen together, not even a whiff of turbulence disturbing my upbringing. In some ways, I have the perfect family, me, Mom, Dad and Lucy forming one cohesive unit. I’ve never had to question the solidity and security of that arrangement, but Jude has, and he’s gotten himself into this prestigious university with a full scholarship regardless.
I try to shake off thoughts of Jude as we rise to sing again. We mostly perform a cappella, the range of voices represented in the choir providing all the instrumentation we need. I fall on the deeper end of the range, sometimes singing so low that I’m just a rumble under all the brighter voices. Like Jude’s. His voice rings out clear and smooth, and for an instant it’s like we’re the only people singing, my baritone providing the sturdy foundation for his lilting high notes.
Something seizes in my chest, like a rush of religious fervor except…except this isn’t religious at all. It isn’t about the words I’m singing. It isn’t about praising God. It’s about that flicker of connection with Jude, and it startles me so badly my voice cracks on a note before I can save it.
I stumble through the rest of the song, then sit down and attempt to listen to the priest’s sermon. The words flow right past me. I’m too stuck in the flutter beating inside my chest to focus on the lesson the priest intends to impart.
It’s worse than pathetic. It’s terrifying.
The service finishes, and we rise for a final song as people filter out. Many stay to listen until we finish our song, waiting for the echo of our interwoven voices to dissipate before they exit the church and go about the rest of their Sunday.
I linger as well.
The rest of the choir finishes up, quickly heading to our practice room in the back of the church to get their things and leave. Even students who are more religious than Jude are still young people eager to go about the remainder of their weekend.Some of them probably partied last night and want a nap or a cup of coffee.
I let them all flow past me, waiting it out until they’re finally gone. I head to the practice room to get my things, but then I linger yet more, hoping the others will exit without noticing me. Most do, but at the last moment Jude looks over his shoulder as though he might have forgotten something. Our eyes lock for one horrifying beat, and fear strikes deep into my chest, as though he can read my unholy thoughts in my gaze. No, that’s impossible. Completely impossible. He probably just wanted to unsettle me before he left.
Well, whether he intended to or not, he did. I leave the practice room shaky, even though I find the church beyond deserted. Even the priest is long gone, leaving the entire building empty aside from me.
My footsteps echo loudly as I make my way among the pews. I take a seat close to one of the arches at the side of the room, letting the shadows drape over me like a smothering blanket. I’m a few rows back, staring at the enormous depiction of Jesus mounted at the rear of the church. Nothing disturbs the cavernous space but my own breaths, though it feels like my heart is beating so hard it must be audible.
I thought I’d conquered this. I tried so hard. I did everything I was told. Why is it coming backnowof all times? And over a guy I don’t even like. Jude is brash and bold and doesn’t care about my faith at all. He’s everything I’m not and it’s…
“Ten Our Fathers and twenty Hail Marys,” the priest at my local church said when I told him.
I was a scared kid, barely ten, when I marched into that confessional booth at my dad’s church as though I was setting my neck in the guillotine.
“You can’t tell anyone what I say, right?” I asked the priest on the other side of the booth. I couldn’t see his face throughthe screen, yet I watched the perforations as though they might reveal something to me.
“I can’t,” he confirmed. “Whatever you say is between you and God, Theodore. I am simply a guide.”
Still, it took several deep breaths before I could gather myself enough to admit to him what the boy in my class made me feel. Toby was just a kid from down the street. He likely had no idea that my heart beat too hard when he grabbed my hand during a game of tag, but I knew, and I was scared God knew. Even at that age, the implications were hard to escape, and I didn’t know what to do with them. I agonized for months before deciding to go to confession, hoping the priest could guide me away from this particular sin, a sin I seemed to have no control over.
“I think I like someone in my class,” I said. “I think I like a boy in my class.”
The priest was silent for so long that I worried he’d left the confessional booth entirely. Then he issued that single cold pronouncement: “Ten Our Fathers and twenty Hail Marys.”
I spent the next month terrified that he was going to tell my father, a deacon at the same church, but nothing happened. Nothing happened at school either. I felt no differently about Toby no matter how many times I prayed. It was like I’d never gone to that confessional at all. The only thing that helped was moving on to high school. Toby went to the local public school while my parents sent me to the Catholic high school, and I never had to see him again.
I thought that was the end of it. In high school, I hunkered down and focused, doing every extracurricular I could, acing every test, taking as many AP classes as I could cram into my schedule. I thought I’d cured myself with hard work and focus, that my childish affectation went away on its own. I thought God answered my prayers after all.
So why is it all coming back now?
I sit in the pew in Arpor Sacred Sacrament University’s beautiful, grand church with my hands clasped between my knees so tightly the knuckles go white. And I pray. I fixate on that giant crucifix in the back of the building and pray for all I’m worth, asking Jesus why this is happening, why now, why this way? What have I done or failed to do to have this burden fall on my shoulders again? Why aren’t I fixed? Why does this keep happening?
My palms are sweaty from how I clasp my hands. I sit in the echoing silence and wait for some divine answer from on high, a sense that God is listening and will help me, but all I hear is my own heart pounding in my ears. Tears sting the backs of my eyes, and I scrub furiously before they can fall.
It has to be stress. Sophomore year is already harder than freshman year. Plus, everything that used to feel like a refuge has gotten tangled up with Jude. First it was the choir, then our group project. My body is stuck in a stress response, and it’s getting confused.
I cling to that thought, letting it steel me as I reach for the Bible tucked into the basket affixed to the back of the pew in front of me. I flip through looking for some of my favorite passages, and locate a section in the New Testament about Jesus driving merchants out of a temple. It has nothing to do with my current conundrum, but the cadence of the familiar story is enough to calm my racing heart.
