Page 12 of Loving the Sinner
“Youlikehim.” She says smugly.
I glare at her and scoff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Izzy groans. “Els bells don’t do this! You haven’t evenlookedat another man in eight months. You can’t let Packer win.”
“Packer won when he married Tiffany.” The familiar, bitter taste of rejection sits on my tongue. It’s not as prominent as it once was, but it’s definitely still there. .
Izzy rolls her eyes, “Imeanyou can’t let him keep you from finding your happiness. If you like Wes, you should go for it.”
I let out an exasperated sigh, wanting to be done with this conversation, “We should get some rest. Long day tomorrow. I’ll make up the bed for you.”
Izzy grumbles something I don’t understand under her breath, and stalks off to the bathroom to get ready for bed while I make up the sofa bed and retreat to my room.
As I’m getting myself ready for bed, I can faintly hear Izzy and Luke on FaceTime gushing to each other about how excited they are that she’s here, that she’s meeting his friends in person tomorrow. They listen to their song,Something to Believe InfromNewsies, and tell each other one thing they love about the other.
I’ve heard them do this almost every night for the past year, and usually it gets on my nerves, but tonight it brings tears to my eyes and makes me yearn. It makes me want to be blissfully in love like that.
If I cry myself to sleep thinking that love is just not something I’ll have, no one will ever know.
Chapter 5
Wes
Iwoke up with the memories of last night replaying over in my head, my conversation with Luke at the forefront.
Luke is waiting for me to unlock the car, eyebrows raised in suspicion as I approach. He looks at me expectantly as we get in, like we’re about to trade notes on how our dates went. I give him my best “what do you want?” face and he just chuckles and shakes his head.
We last approximately five minutes in silence before he says what he wants to say. “You like her.”
“No I don’t.”
“Then why were you staring at her all night?”
“D’know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout.” I mumble.
“Right.” He drags out the word, clearly being sarcastic. “I’m going to be honest, Wes. She’s not exactly your speed. Mormons have very high datingstandards and expectations. Not even just about the person they’re dating- about relationships in general. Izzy’s considered rebellious because of our relationship. From what she’s told me about Elli, Elli is a stickler for the rules. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I know he’s just looking out for me, and he has the best intentions. But damn it if that didn’t hurt a little bit. Of course the first girl I’ve been vaguely attracted to in almost two years has to be super religious and have high standards and expectations. Standards and expectations I most definitely couldn’t meet. It’ll be fine. After tomorrow, I probably won’t see her again and the feeling of wanting to be near her and learn everything about her will go away.
Right?
Then, I went down a deep rabbit hole of information about Mormons as soon as I got home, and didn’t fall asleep until around 2 AM.
I found out that they have their own religious texts-The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants,andThe Pearl of Great Price-that they read along with The King James version ofThe Bible.The leaders, “prophets” are these old men who stay as the leader until they die-their current one is ninety-nine years old! Their founder was fourteen when he started the church, and I pictured Luke, Ethan, Jack, or Dallin coming and telling me they saw God and they’re starting a religion. I would smack them upside the head and tell them they were out of their minds! That information alone was enough to make me shut my laptop before I got sucked in deeper.
So this morning, I’m standing at Luke’s door to ask him to give me the basics. When Luke answers, I don’t give him a chance to ask why I’m there. “I need you to tell me everything you know about Mormons.”
“Woah, okay. What do you want to know?” He holds up his hands in surrender.
“Everything you know.” I shrug.
“Okay… From what Izzy’s told me, they have a lot of rules they have to follow like no swearing, no smoking, no drugs, no drinking, no coffee, no tea, no tattoos, no piercings other than two in the ears, no dating until they’re sixteen-Izzy’s parents are more lenient on this with her because we’re long distance. They have to always wear long shorts, crew neck t-shirts, and no tank tops because of ‘modesty’ or whatever-they can’t even wear bikinis! Anything that has to do with sex-masturbating included-is considered really, really bad, unless you’re married. They aren’t even supposed to make out. When you’re eight, or if you join later, you get baptized, and then you get what they call ‘The Holy Ghost’ but I don’t really understand that.
“When boys turn eighteen they go on mandatory service missions for two years. Girls can go for eighteen months when they turn nineteen, but it’s not mandatory for them. They usually only date and marry other Mormons because they believe in order to get into Heaven you have to marry in their temple and you can only go in the temple if you’re a member. When you go to the temple you get this special underwear you have to wear all the time, which is another reason they dress the way they do. They get married super young, and super-fast usually. Like, less than six months from meeting to marriage fast. They used to have to go to church for three hours every Sunday, but they switched it to two hours in 2020, and every six months they have this big conference thing. That’s all I know.”
“That is… A lot. And Elli’s a stickler for theserules?”
Luke shrugs, “According to Izzy. Elli’s ex is the grandson of one of their leaders. Trust Fund kid, lots of power. He didn’t propose after six months of dating, sothey broke up. According to Izzy, he got married two months after he and Elli broke up.”
