Chapter 18 #3
"President Dalton is expecting you," she said quietly. "Go on in, dear.”
I knocked on his door. Heard his voice call, "Come in."
President Dalton sat behind his desk, hands folded, expression carefully neutral. He looked older than I remembered—tired lines around his eyes, grey threading his temples.
"Sit down, Elder Price."
I sat.
"Elder Kempton called," he said. "Told me about district meeting. And that you left without permission afterward."
"Yes."
"Where did you go?"
"To see an investigator. Maria. The one Elder Vance and I were teaching before... before everything."
His eyebrows rose slightly. "Alone?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I needed to apologise to her. For teaching her things I'm not sure I believe anymore. For trying to convert her to a gospel that destroys people like me."
President Dalton's expression didn't change. "What did you tell her?"
"The truth," I said. "All of it. About Eli. About us. About what happened and who took the blame and why."
"I see." He leaned back in his chair. "Elder Kempton is concerned you're having a spiritual crisis. That you're rejecting the repentance process. Is that accurate?"
"I'm not rejecting repentance," I said. "I'm rejecting the idea that I need to repent for loving someone."
"Samuel—"
"And I'm rejecting the lie that Elder Vance manipulated me. The lie that he was a predator and I was a victim. The lie that only one of us is responsible for what happened between us."
President Dalton's face had gone very still. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying everything Elder Vance confessed to you was a lie," I said clearly. "He didn't manipulate me. He didn't seduce me. He didn't take advantage of my faith crisis or emotional vulnerability. We were both willing participants. We both made choices. We both fell in love."
"Then why did he—"
"Because he knew what you'd do to us. He knew the church would destroy us both.
So he took all the blame, made himself the villain, sacrificed his reputation and his standing and his entire future because he loved me more than he loved himself.
" My voice broke. "That's what Christ did.
That's what we're supposed to be teaching. And I repaid him by staying silent."
President Dalton stood slowly. Walked to the window overlooking Carrer de Balmes. "You understand what you're confessing to."
"Yes."
"And you're doing it anyway."
"Yes."
"Why now? You had a chance to move forward. To rebuild your testimony. To finish your mission honourably."
"Because his sacrifice deserves better than my cowardice," I said. "Because I can't bear testimony to something I don't believe. Because I can't keep pretending to have faith in a God who would condemn the only holy thing I've ever experienced."
He turned back to me. "The only holy thing you've experienced was a same-sex relationship that violated temple covenants, mission rules, and the law of chastity?"
"The only holy thing I've experienced was being loved unconditionally," I said. "By someone who saw all of me—including the parts I've been taught to hate—and didn't ask me to change. Who listened when I was lonely and held me when I was breaking and gave up everything to save me."
"That wasn't love. That was—"
"Don't." I stood. "Don't reduce what we had to transgression and sin.
Yes, you heard his confession—the lie he told to protect me.
But you didn't see what came before. You didn't see the way he looked at me when we were alone, or hear the things he said when no one else was listening.
You didn't witness the months of him fighting his own feelings to keep me safe.
You only saw the end—the sacrifice he made to give me a second chance. "
"He confessed to serious transgression—"
"He confessed to a lie to protect me!" My voice rose. "And I let him because I was too afraid to lose my family, my standing, my eternal salvation. But I've lost all of that anyway. The only question now is whether I lost it for his lie or for our truth."
President Dalton returned to his desk. Sat down heavily. "What are you asking for, Elder Price?"
"I want to request early release from my mission," I said. "Voluntary. Immediate. I can't serve a gospel I don't believe. Can't teach investigators to join a church that would destroy them for being honest about who they are. Can't pretend to have a testimony of a God whose love is conditional."
He opened a drawer. Pulled out a form I recognized—the official request for early release from mission service.
Slid it across the desk with a pen.
"If you sign this," he said quietly, "while unrepentant, while openly rejecting church doctrine... the church will convene a disciplinary council. You will be excommunicated."
"I know."
"Your father will be devastated. Your family will be ashamed. You'll lose your standing in the church, your temple blessings, your eternal family."
"I'll lose a family whose love is conditional," I said.
"A church that makes people choose between authenticity and belonging.
A God who asks me to hate the best part of myself.
" I picked up the pen. "And I'll gain the truth.
And maybe—if I'm lucky—I'll find Eli and apologise and spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of what he did for me. "
"He's already been excommunicated," President Dalton said. "The disciplinary council convened three days after he returned home."
The words hit like a physical blow. Eli had already faced the council. Already been cast out. Already lost everything. They wanted him gone. They scrubbed him out like a stain.
While I'd been bearing false testimony in district meeting.
While I'd been too afraid to tell the truth.
"Then I'm even more in his debt," I said. My hand shook as I signed the form. Dated it. Pushed it back across the desk.
President Dalton looked at it for a long moment. "What will you do?"
"Go home. Face the disciplinary council. Tell the truth." I stood. "And then I'll find him. Tell him I'm sorry. That his sacrifice wasn't wasted. That I finally chose him."
"The doctrine won't change, Samuel. The church's position on homosexuality is clear. You're choosing a path that leads away from God."
"I'm choosing a path that leads toward love," I said. "Real, honest, unconditional love. If your God can't tell the difference between that and sin, then He's not a God worth serving."
President Dalton stood. Extended his hand. "I'm sorry, Elder Price. Truly. I had hoped to save you."
I shook his hand. "You can't save someone from the truth, President. You can only help them hide from it."
I walked to the door. Paused with my hand on the knob.
"I hope someday the church realizes that love—real, sacrificial, honest love—is never a sin. No matter who it's between."
"I'll pray for you," President Dalton said.
"Pray for Eli instead," I said. "He's the one who deserves it."
I opened the door. Sister Roig looked up from her desk as I passed, her expression carefully neutral, even as she handed me a ziplock bag containing my phone and a return ticket to Salt Lake City.
Outside, the Barcelona sun was bright and warm. I stood on the steps of the mission office and breathed in the city air.
No companion. No calling. No mission.
Just myself. Finally, honestly, completely myself.
I pulled out my phone—the personal one I'd locked away for eighteen months—and turned it on.
Hundreds of notifications flooded in. Messages from my father. My mother. My siblings. Ward members. Friends from high school.
I scrolled through them. Didn't read them.
Because none of them would say what I needed to hear.
None of them would tell me where Eli was. How to find him. Whether he was okay.
I opened a search browser. Typed "Elias Vance Las Vegas."
Nothing useful. A few social media profiles that weren't him. A LinkedIn for someone forty years older.
He'd said once that he didn't do social media. That he preferred to exist in the real world, not the performed one.
I closed the browser.
Somewhere out there, Eli was facing his own consequences. His own family's disappointment. His own future in the ruins of what the church had made of him.
And I had no way to tell him I'd finally chosen him.
No way to say I was sorry.
No way to prove his sacrifice hadn't been wasted.
But I would find him.
However long it took. Whatever it cost.
I would find him.
Because his love had saved me.
And I needed to show him that salvation hadn't been in vain.