Chapter 8
SAMUEL
Isat on my bed, scriptures open but unread in my lap. The words blurred together, meaningless marks on paper. My hands had finally stopped shaking, but only because I'd clenched them into fists so tight my nails bit crescents into my palms.
I know exactly what I'm saying and it's killing me.
The confession echoed in my skull. Stupid. So incredibly stupid. All the prayers, all the fasting, all the desperate pleas for strength to keep this locked away—and I'd thrown it all out in a moment of weakness. To my companion. The worst possible person.
Except.
Except Vance hadn't followed me into the bedroom. Hadn't demanded answers. Hadn't run to President Dalton.
He'd just... asked.
You were talking about yourself, weren't you?
The question had been gentle. Almost kind.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until stars burst behind my lids.
This was it. This was how it ended. Vance would report me.
I'd be sent home in disgrace. My father would have to stand before the stake and explain why his son, the golden boy, the example to all the youth, had failed so spectacularly.
My mother would cry. My siblings would be mortified.
And I'd deserve it. All of it.
A soft knock on the door made me jerk upright.
"Price?" Vance's voice, muffled through the wood. "Can I come in?"
"No."
"I brought you water."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. Neither of us is fine." A pause. "Please."
I stared at the door. Every mission rule, every handbook directive, screamed at me to maintain the boundary. Keep the separation. Don't let him in, don't let anyone in, don't ever let them see.
"It's open," I said.
The door swung inward. Vance stood in the frame, two glasses of water in his hands. He'd taken off his tie, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. The casualness of it felt obscene somehow, like he'd stripped down to his undergarments.
He crossed to my bed, held out one of the glasses.
I took it. Our fingers didn't touch.
"You don't have to talk about it," Vance said. He sat on his own bed, facing me across the narrow gap between them. "But I'm not going to pretend I didn't hear what you said."
"Then what are you going to do?" The words came out flat, defeated. "Call Dalton? Kempton? Request a new companion?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I just—" I stopped. Swallowed. "Because I basically confessed to having same-sex attraction. That's a serious issue. It requires intervention."
"According to who?"
"The mission rules. The handbook."
"The handbook says you're supposed to talk to your mission president if you're struggling with 'impure thoughts.'" Vance's tone turned the phrase into a mockery. "It doesn't say your companion has to report you."
"You're supposed to—"
"I'm supposed to be your companion. Not your warden." He took a sip of water, watching me over the rim. "What you said back there. About it killing you. Did you mean it?"
Every instinct screamed at me to deflect. To lie. To reconstruct the careful walls I'd spent nineteen years building.
But I was so tired.
"Yes," I whispered.
Vance set down his glass. Leaned forward, elbows on knees. "How long have you known?"
"Since I was fourteen. Maybe before." The confession spilled out now, unstoppable. "I thought it was just... admiration. I looked up to the older boys in the ward. Wanted to be like them. But then I realized I didn't want to be like them. I wanted—" My voice cracked. "I wanted them."
"Have you told anyone?"
"My bishop. When I was sixteen." The memory tasted like bile. "He said it was a temptation from Satan. That I needed to pray more. Fast more. Study the scriptures more. He said if I had enough faith, if I was worthy enough, Heavenly Father would remove the temptation."
"And?"
"I tried. God, I tried." The laugh that escaped me was broken, ragged.
"I did everything right. I never looked at another boy.
I never acted on anything. I went to seminary every morning.
I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover five times.
I fasted every week. I prayed until my knees bled.
" I looked up, met Vance's eyes. "And it didn't change. Not even a little."
"So you decided to serve a mission."
"My bishop said it would help. That dedicating two years to the Lord would prove my commitment.
That it would... fix me." I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest, where the weight sat crushing and permanent.
"I believed him. I believed if I just worked hard enough, if I was obedient enough, righteous enough, then I'd come home and be able to marry a woman in the temple.
Have the family I'm supposed to have. Be the man I'm supposed to be. "
"And instead?"
"Instead I'm here, teaching doctrine that condemns me.
Telling people that what I feel is wrong, is broken, is a trial to overcome.
Promising them that if they're good enough, God will fix them in the next life.
" My voice rose. "And I don't even believe it anymore.
I don't think I ever believed it. But I have to teach it because if I don't, then everything I've sacrificed is for nothing. "
The words hung between us, raw and bleeding.
Vance didn't speak. Just watched me with those careful artist's eyes, seeing too much.
"You're going to report me," I said dully. "You should. I'm a liability. An unworthy missionary teaching the gospel I don't even—"
"I'm gay too."
The words hit like a physical blow.
I stared at him. "What?"
"I'm gay." Vance said it calmly, matter-of-fact, like he was commenting on the weather. "I've known since I was twelve. Maybe earlier."
My mind couldn't process it. Couldn't reconcile the casual confession with everything I knew, everything I'd been taught about how this worked. You didn't just... say it. Not like that. Not without shame.
"You can't be," I said stupidly.
"Pretty sure I can be, since I am."
"But you—you argued with me about the doctrine. You called it cruel."
"Because it is cruel."
"If you're—if you struggle with this too, then you know why we have to teach it. You know the plan of salvation—"
"The plan of salvation is wrong."
The blasphemy of it stole my breath. "You can't say that."
"I just did." Vance leaned back against the wall, utterly relaxed. "I don't believe being gay is a trial, Price. I don't believe it's a temptation or a test or something that needs to be fixed. It's just... me. It's who I am."
"But the Church—"
"The Church is wrong about this. Just like it was wrong about Black people. Just like it was wrong about women. Just like it's been wrong about a lot of things."
"Then why are you here?" The question burst out of me. "If you don't believe, why are you serving a mission?"
"For my mom." His expression softened slightly. "She needed me to do this. And I owed her that much. But I'm not going to pretend I believe doctrine that condemns people for existing."
I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. "You don't feel guilty? You don't pray for it to change?"
"Why would I pray for that?"
"Because—" I gestured helplessly. "Because we're supposed to want to be like God. To achieve our divine potential. And we can't do that if we're—if we have these feelings."
"According to the Church."
"According to the plan of salvation!"
"Or according to a bunch of old men who can't imagine God's love being bigger than their prejudice."
The words should have sparked anger. Should have driven me to defend the doctrine, the prophets, the truth I'd been taught since birth.
Instead, they cracked something open inside me.
"It's not a trial for you," I said slowly. "You don't see it as something to overcome."
"No."
"You're not... ashamed."
"No."
"How?" The question came out broken. "How can you just... accept it? How can you not hate yourself?"
Vance was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentler than I'd ever heard it.
"Because hating myself doesn't change who I am. It just makes me miserable." He met my eyes. "You've spent your whole life trying to pray this away. Trying to be worthy enough that God will fix you. Has it worked?"
"No."
"Then maybe you're not broken."
The words landed like a revelation. Like blasphemy. Like both at once.
"I can't—" My throat closed. "I can't think like that. If I start believing that it's okay, that it's not something to overcome, then everything I've done, everything I've sacrificed—"
"Will still matter," Vance interrupted. "You're still here. You're still trying. You're still the person who read the Book of Mormon five times and prayed until your knees bled. That doesn't disappear just because you stop hating yourself."
"But my family—"
"Will either love you or they won't. But that's about them, not about you."
"The Church—"
"Will have to figure out how to reconcile a gay member with their doctrine. That's not your job to do for them."
I pressed both hands over my face. My whole body was shaking now, trembling with the weight of everything he was offering. Permission. Acceptance. The possibility that maybe, maybe I wasn't broken.
"I'm scared," I whispered.
"I know."
"If I admit this—if I stop trying to change it—then I lose everything. My family. My faith. My entire future."
"Maybe." Vance's voice stayed steady. "Or maybe you lose a version of your future that was never really yours to begin with."
I looked up at him through my fingers. He sat there, calm and certain, like he'd already walked the path I was terrified to even glimpse.
"How are you so sure?" I asked.
"I'm not sure about much. But I'm sure about this." He met my eyes. "And now you know. We both know. About each other."
The enormity of it settled between us. A secret. A weapon. A bond.
"We can't tell anyone," I said.
"I know."
"If anyone finds out—"
"They won't. Not from me."
"Kempton already suspects you're not fully committed. If he even thinks—"
"Let me worry about Kempton." Vance stood, moved to the door. "You should sleep. We have district meeting tomorrow."
He was giving me space. Letting me process.
“Van…Eli.”
He paused, hand on the doorframe.
"Thank you," I said. "For not reporting me. For... understanding."
Something shifted in his expression. Something almost like warmth.
"We're companions, Samuel. That means something." He hesitated. "And for what it's worth? You're not broken. You never were."
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
I sat alone in the dark, his words echoing.
You're not broken.
I'd spent years being told I was. Years believing it. Years praying desperately for God to fix the fundamental flaw in my nature.
And here was Vance—actually Eli, I corrected myself again—who looked at the same feelings and saw nothing that needed fixing.
I pulled out my journal, stared at the blank page. Every entry for the past six months had been the same: prayers for strength, gratitude for opportunities to serve, carefully documented teaching moments and scripture insights.
Nothing real. Nothing true.
I picked up my pen.
Eli knows. I told him—or close enough. And he told me. We're the same.
My hand shook as I wrote.
He says I'm not broken. I don't know if I can believe that yet. But maybe I don't have to be alone with this anymore.
I closed the journal, turned off the light.
In the dark, I could almost pretend it was true. That I wasn't fundamentally flawed. That maybe God's plan was bigger than I'd been taught.
That maybe, just maybe, I could stop killing myself trying to be someone I'd never been.