Chapter 9
SAMUEL
The days that followed were a tightrope walk over a chasm I had never known existed. Before, the ground beneath my feet had been solid, paved with scripture and the unwavering certainty of my testimony. Now, the world was a void, and the only other person on the rope was Eli.
We moved around each other with a strange, new gravity, a careful choreography of avoidance.
The small apartment, once a sanctuary of order, became a minefield.
I would find myself frozen in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him make his forbidden illicit coffee, cataloguing the way his shoulders curved as he spooned grounds into the filter, the efficient economy of his movements.
His rolled-up tube of art paper on the floor—once an irritant, a sign of his carelessness—now felt like a secret he kept in plain sight, a talisman of the life he wanted but couldn't have.
My rows of scripture commentaries on the shelf felt less like a library of truth and more like a wall I had built around myself, brick by leather-bound brick.
We spoke of logistics. We planned our days with meticulous, empty precision.
We discussed the weather, the menu for the week, the fastest metro route to our next appointment.
We spoke of everything except the one thing that filled every silence, that pressed against the walls, that made the air between us shimmer with unspoken truth.
Eli knew. I knew. We shared the same affliction, the same flaw in our design, but we approached it from opposite ends of a universe.
He, with a quiet acceptance that felt like both a betrayal and a relief—a door I didn't know I was allowed to walk through.
I, with a terror that clawed at the edges of every prayer, that turned my nightly pleading into a kind of spiritual white noise.
I would kneel by my bed, the familiar words of supplication catching in my throat like stones, my pleas to Heavenly Father sounding hollow even to my own ears.
Who was I praying to? A God who made me this way only to condemn me for it?
Or a God Eli believed in, one who did not make mistakes?
The dissonance was a constant, low-frequency hum in my brain, a tinnitus of the soul.
On Wednesday, the hum became a siren.
Elder Kempton appeared at our door at precisely eight-thirty, his tie perfectly knotted, his posture a ramrod of self-righteousness. He stood in our doorway like an Old Testament prophet come to root out the sin in Sodom.
"Elders," he announced, his gaze sweeping over our apartment with hawkish disapproval, cataloguing every minor infraction: the breakfast dishes still in the sink, the slightly rumpled throw blanket on the couch, Eli's sketchbook on the coffee table.
"Ready for a productive day in the Lord's service? "
My stomach sank. A split. He was doing a companions' split, and I knew, with sickening certainty, who his focus would be.
"President Dalton thought it would be beneficial for me to spend the day with Elder Price.
" Kempton's smile did not touch his eyes.
He addressed me but looked at Eli, his gaze sharp and assessing, a predator marking prey.
"To get a sense of how the district's finest companionship functions. And to offer support where needed."
The implication hung in the air, thick and foul. He would work with me to observe Eli. To find the weakness, the rot he was so convinced was festering beneath the surface.
Eli just nodded, his expression a blank canvas. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell Kempton to get out, that he had no right to judge us, to dissect us like specimens under glass. But I said nothing. I was a good missionary. Good missionaries did not question their leaders.
"Sounds great, Elder Kempton," Eli said, his voice devoid of any inflection. He picked up his shoulder bag, the bag he used for his scriptures, and slung it over his shoulder with the same weary resignation a prisoner might show when collecting his chains.
"We'll work the area around the university today," Kempton declared, taking charge as if it were his own companionship, as if I were just another interchangeable part in the great machine of the mission. "Full of impressionable minds, many away from home for the first time. Fertile ground."
He clapped me on the shoulder, a gesture meant to signal camaraderie, but it felt like he was marking his territory, branding me.
He was claiming me for his side, the side of obedience and righteousness, separating me from the tainted influence of my companion.
For a flicker of a moment, I saw myself through Kempton's eyes: the faithful soldier, the golden boy, temporarily saddled with a project, a problem to be fixed or discarded.
The image used to be my source of strength, my identity.
Now, it felt like a costume that no longer fit, itchy and ill-made.
The day was an exercise in methodical cruelty.
Kempton was a machine of missionary work, relentless and utterly without compassion.
Every interaction was a numbers game, every soul a potential statistic for his weekly report to President Dalton.
With me at his side, he approached students on the bustling Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, his Spanish sharp and formal, his smile unwavering and utterly insincere.
He directed me, critiqued me, perfected me like a sculptor chipping away at marble, determined to reveal the ideal missionary beneath my flawed exterior.
"Elder Price, your posture. Stand taller. You represent the Lord's restored church, not a tourist asking for directions."
"A little more urgency in your voice, Elder. We have the most important message in the world. We should sound like it."
I obeyed. I stood taller. I injected urgency. I performed. And with every correction, every adjustment, I felt myself becoming more hollow, a ventriloquist's dummy mouthing words I was beginning to doubt.
But Kempton saved his most potent venom for Eli.
Every hour, on the hour, we met at a pre-designated corner—a café, a metro entrance, a park bench—for Kempton to receive a report from Eli, who worked the opposite side of the street, alone.
Each meeting was a miniature inquisition, a public shaming disguised as pastoral concern.
"How many conversations, Elder Vance?" Kempton asked at the ten o'clock check-in, his pen poised over his pocket notebook like a sword over a neck.
"About a dozen." Eli's gaze was fixed somewhere over Kempton's shoulder, at the middle distance, at nothing.
"And how many copies of the Book of Mormon placed?"
"None."
Kempton made a small, theatrical sigh, as if Eli's failure was a personal wound. "None. And why do you suppose that is?"
"People weren't interested."
"Or perhaps your approach lacks conviction, Elder.
" Kempton's voice dripped with condescension, each word a small, precise cut.
"Perhaps they sense your own doubts. Faith is a principle of action, but it is also a palpable energy.
If you do not radiate it, you cannot expect others to feel it.
You cannot share what you do not possess. "
I stood beside Kempton, a silent, unwilling accomplice.
My jaw was so tight my teeth ached. I watched Eli take the verbal blows.
He didn't flinch. He didn't argue. He just stood there, absorbing the sanctimonious lecture, his face a mask of calm, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
But I saw the tension in his shoulders, the slight tightening of his jaw, the way his gaze went even more distant, retreating inward to some fortified place Kempton couldn't reach.
He was enduring, just like he endured everything—his parents' divorce, his mother's desperate faith, the mission he never wanted.
He endured because he had no other choice.
At the eleven o'clock meeting, it was worse.
"I observed your last interaction, Elder Vance," Kempton began, not even waiting for a report.
"From across the street. Your body language was…
passive. Slumped. You let the contact lead the conversation.
You must take control. You are the one with the moral authority.
You are the representative of the Lord. Act like it. "
My own lie from the district meeting echoed in my head.
He uses it as an icebreaker. I had defended him once, instinctively, without even understanding why.
Now, standing here in the cold wind, watching Kempton strip away Eli's dignity piece by piece, I felt that same impulse surge again, a hot, protective wave that burned away the fog of obedience.
Kempton didn't see a person standing before him.
He saw a set of statistics, a failure on a spreadsheet, a weak link in the chain.
He didn't see the young man who cried in the dark over his broken family, who carried his mother's pain like a stone in his chest. He didn't see the person who had looked at my deepest, most shameful secret and called it unbroken.
"He was engaging with someone who was upset," I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them, before I could weigh the consequences. "He was listening. Sometimes that's more important than speaking."
Kempton turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing, a predator sensing defiance. It was the first time I had ever contradicted a leader. The first time I had ever stepped out of line. The air crackled with the weight of my transgression.