Chapter 14 #2
His hands fell away. He stood, his face carefully blank. "Right. We can't."
He left the room, and I was alone again.
The knock on the apartment door came at 4:47 p.m.
Eli and I had been sitting at opposite ends of the couch, our planning session a stilted, painful exercise in avoidance. When the knock echoed through the apartment, we both froze.
It wasn't the polite knock of an investigator or another missionary stopping by. It was authoritative. Demanding.
I stood and opened the door.
Elder Kempton stood in the hallway, his expression carved from stone.
"Elder Price," he said. "May I come in?"
It wasn't really a question. I stepped aside, and he entered, his eyes immediately sweeping the apartment. He took in the clean kitchen, the closed bedroom door, the two of us standing awkwardly in the living area.
"Elder Vance," Kempton said, his tone clipped.
"Elder Kempton." Eli's voice was flat.
Kempton walked slowly through the space, his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped in front of the bookshelf, where my pristine scriptures sat next to Eli's worn, annotated copies. He picked up one of Eli's, flipping through it.
"Interesting notes," he said mildly. "Very... interpretive."
Eli said nothing.
Kempton set the book down and turned to face us. "I came to check on you both. There have been some concerns."
"Concerns?" I echoed.
"About the spirit in this apartment." His eyes moved between us. "Or rather, the lack of it."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
"I'm not sure what you mean," I said carefully.
Kempton smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "Elder Price, I've been a missionary for nearly two years. I know what a companionship looks like when the Spirit is present. And I know what it looks like when something... else... has taken its place." He paused. "This apartment feels dead."
Eli's jaw clenched, but he kept his mouth shut.
"We've been working hard," I said. "Maybe we're just tired."
"Tired." Kempton repeated the word like it was foreign. "Or distracted?"
"We're not distracted."
"No?" He moved closer, his gaze fixed on me. "Then why have your statistics dropped? Why have you stopped bearing testimony in district meetings? Why do you look at your companion like—" He stopped himself, but the implication hung in the air.
My heart was a drum in my chest.
"I don't know what you think you see, Elder Kempton," I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. "But we're doing the work. We're following the rules."
"Are you?" He glanced at the bedroom door. "May I?"
Before I could answer, he crossed to the door and opened it. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, surveying the room. Two beds, neatly made. My scriptures on the nightstand. Eli's sketchbook on his desk.
But Kempton's eyes narrowed. He stepped inside and crossed to Eli's bed, crouching down. He reached under the bed and pulled out the small bottle of lubricant.
Time stopped.
Kempton stood slowly, holding the bottle between two fingers like it was contaminated. His face had gone pale, then flushed red.
"What," he said, his voice shaking, "is this?"
Neither of us spoke.
"Answer me!" The shout echoed through the apartment.
"It's mine," Eli said quietly.
Kempton's head snapped toward him. "Yours."
"Yes."
"And what, exactly, were you using it for?"
Eli's eyes met mine. In them, I saw the choice he was making. The sacrifice.
"Personal use," Eli said.
Kempton's lip curled. "Personal use." He turned to me. "Elder Price, did you know about this?"
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed.
"Elder Price!"
"I—" My voice cracked. "I didn't—"
"He didn't know," Eli interrupted. "I kept it hidden."
Kempton stared at him, disgust etched into every line of his face. Then he looked at me, and I saw the question there. The suspicion.
"Both of you," Kempton said, his voice cold. "Pack whatever you need for the night. You're coming with me. President Dalton will want to speak with both of you immediately."
My stomach dropped. "Elder Kempton, please—"
"I said pack your things, Elder Price." He turned those ice-chip eyes on me. "Unless you'd like to tell me right now that you had no knowledge of what's been happening in this apartment?"
The question hung in the air like a noose. I could lie. I could tell him Eli had been acting alone, that I was innocent, that I had no idea. He might even believe me—the golden boy, the stake president's son, led astray by his wayward companion.
But when I opened my mouth, I found I couldn't do it. I couldn't let Eli take this fall alone.
"I'll pack," I whispered.
Eli's eyes found mine across the room. In them I saw surprise, fear, and something else—something that looked almost like pride.
We moved in silence, gathering our things under Kempton's watchful gaze. My hands shook as I folded my white shirts, as I packed my scriptures and journal. This was it. The moment everything came crashing down.
Fifteen minutes later, we followed Kempton out of the apartment. He walked between us, ensuring we couldn't speak to each other, couldn't even look at each other.
As we descended the stairs into the Barcelona evening, I realized I might never see this apartment again. Never wake up to Eli's alarm. Never sit across from him at the small kitchen table.
Never feel his arms around me in the dark.
I was about to lose everything, and the thought that broke me—the one I couldn't untangle from the shame—was that I might never sleep beside him again.
Not the transgression itself, though that memory was seared into me.
But the after. The quiet intimacy of his breath against my shoulder, his warmth against my back, the safety of being held.
I was about to lose everything, and all I could mourn was him.