Chapter 14
JESSE
The car ride home felt like a funeral procession.
I sat in the backseat, watching familiar streets blur past through rain-streaked windows, and knew I was looking at them for the last time.
My father's knuckles were white against the steering wheel, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
My mother wept quietly in the passenger seat, the kind of broken, silent crying that somehow hurt worse than screaming.
Nobody spoke. What was there to say? I'd kissed a man in front of two hundred people. On camera. In a debate about marriage equality that I'd argued with passion and conviction, every word true and from the heart.
I'd destroyed everything in ten seconds, and I wasn't even sorry.
That was the part that scared me most. I should feel guilty, should want to take it back, should be begging God for forgiveness.
Instead, all I could think about was the moment before Adrian's lips touched mine—the look in his eyes, the way the world had narrowed to just us, the rightness of it that had overwhelmed every defence I'd built.
For ten seconds, I'd been completely myself. Now I was going to pay for it.
The house looked the same as always when we pulled into the driveway—neat lawn, white picket fence, cross hanging in the front window. Picture-perfect Christian home. The kind of place that should feel like sanctuary.
It felt like a tomb.
"Phone," my father said the moment we stepped inside. His first words since the auditorium.
I handed it over without argument. He switched it off and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
"David, the others are here," my mother said quietly, and I noticed Pastor Caldwell's car in the street. My stomach dropped.
They were already waiting in the living room—Pastor Caldwell and two church elders, Brother Matthews and Brother Klein. All three men I'd known my entire life, who'd watched me grow up, who'd praised my devotion and held me up as an example to other youth.
Now they looked at me like I was something diseased.
"Sit," Pastor Caldwell commanded, pointing to the chair across from them. The arrangement felt deliberate—me alone on one side, them forming a wall of judgment on the other.
I sat. My parents flanked the elders like guards.
"Jesse." Pastor Caldwell's voice was soft, disappointed. Somehow that was worse than anger. "After everything we've done for you. Everything your parents have sacrificed. All that progress we made, and this is how you repay us?"
I opened my mouth to speak, to try to explain, but my father cut me off.
"Silence. You've said enough for one day."
Brother Matthews leaned forward, his grey beard wagging as he shook his head. "The Devil has his claws in deep this time, David. Deeper than before."
Before. They were talking about before.
My mother's sob was audible. "After everything we did. After all that progress. How could you—" She couldn't finish, dissolved into tears.
"The boy needs fixing," Brother Klein said bluntly. "Real fixing this time. Not half-measures."
Pastor Caldwell nodded gravely. "I've spoken with Dr. Harrison at Restoration Ridge. They have an opening. Given the... public nature of this relapse, he's agreed to an extended program."
My blood turned to ice. Restoration Ridge. The name hit me like a physical blow, bringing with it a rush of memories I'd spent years trying to suppress.
"How long?" my father asked.
"A full year minimum. Dr. Harrison believes that with sustained treatment, they can ensure this never happens again."
A year. I barely survived eight months the first time. A year would kill me.
"He leaves Saturday morning," Pastor Caldwell continued. "I'll take him myself to ensure there are no... complications."
Saturday. Tomorrow was Friday. I had less than two days.
The room spun. I gripped the arms of my chair, trying to breathe, trying not to let them see my panic.
"What if it doesn't work this time?" my mother whispered. "What if he's too far gone?"
My father's voice was stone. "Then we keep him there until it does. However long it takes."
"And if that's not enough?" Brother Matthews asked quietly.
The silence stretched until my father spoke again, each word a nail in my coffin. "Then he's dead to us anyway."
I must have made a sound—a gasp, a whimper, something—because all eyes turned to me.
"Do you have something to say, son?" Pastor Caldwell asked.
I tried to speak, tried to find words, but my throat had closed completely. My vision was tunnelling, black spots dancing at the edges.
"I think he understands," my father said with satisfaction. "Brother Klein, would you help me escort him to his room? He needs time to pray and reflect on what he's done."
They flanked me up the stairs like I was a prisoner being led to execution. Maybe I was.
My childhood bedroom door stood open. They'd been busy while we were on our way back—everything was gone. My computer, my phone charger, my books, even my Bible. The shelves stood empty, the desk bare.
“They’ve removed anything you might use to harm yourself or contact the outside world," my father explained. "Dr. Harrison's recommendations."
Brother Klein nodded approvingly. "Wise precautions."
They ushered me inside. The lock clicked behind me—a sound I remembered from before, from the first time.
I was alone.
The room looked like a shrine to someone who'd died young.
My childhood bed with its navy blue comforter.
The awards covering one wall—"Most Devoted Youth," "Perfect Attendance," "Scripture Memory Champion.
" Photos from before I turned fourteen, showing a smiling, innocent boy who believed everything he was told.
Nothing from after Restoration Ridge. They'd erased that version of me, the one who'd survived and learned to perform their expectations perfectly. Now they'd erase this version too—the one who'd dared to think for himself, to feel something real.
I walked to the window, testing the frame out of habit. Nailed shut. When had they done that?
The single lightbulb cast harsh shadows. The walls felt closer than they should, the ceiling lower. This was my cage until Saturday morning.
I sat on the bed, and the memories hit like a freight train.
Age fourteen.
I sat on my childhood bed, the same creaky twin mattress with the navy blue comforter, my hands clenched in my lap. The house was eerily quiet now, but the echoes of my mother’s screams still rang in my ears.
She’d found them.
I swallowed hard, my pulse thudding in my throat. My laptop was gone—she’d taken it. The videos were gone too.
Not that it mattered. I couldn’t unsee them.
I hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. I’d only been curious. That’s what my father always said was important—seeking answers, learning truth. But this wasn’t the kind of truth they wanted me to find.
My fingers trembled as I pressed them to my lips, remembering.
The videos had been explicit. Gay porn.
I’d stumbled across them after weeks of deliberate searching—nights spent with my headphones plugged in, the screen brightness turned low, my heart racing every time I clicked on something new. I told myself it was curiosity, that I just wanted to understand.
But then I’d watched two men—naked, unashamed, their bodies pressed together in ways that made my breath catch. The way one had wrapped his hand around the other, the way their mouths met, hungry and searching. The low, guttural moans that sent heat spilling through my veins.
I’d flushed, my cheeks burning, and I’d hated myself for it. But I hadn’t stopped. I’d watched, transfixed, as they moved together, their hands roaming, their voices tangled in gasps of pleasure.
And then it happened—that coil of heat in my stomach, the way my body tightened, the way my breath hitched. I was excited, and that knowledge twisted something in my chest.
It was wrong. An abomination. I’d heard my father preach it, heard the venom in his voice when he talked about men like the ones in those videos.
But why did it feel good? Why had my pulse tripped when one of the men whispered, “You’re beautiful”? Why did my hands shake when I imagined what it would feel like to touch someone like that, to be touched?
Shame clawed up my throat, bitter and suffocating. I was disgusting. Broken.
And my mother knew.
The bedroom door flew open, crashing against the wall. My father stood in the doorway, his face livid, his breath sharp with rage. My mother hovered behind him, her eyes red and raw with tears.
“Is it true?” His voice was low, lethal. “What your mother says?”
I opened my mouth to lie, to deny, to beg forgiveness—but nothing came out.
He didn’t need an answer.
His palm cracked across my face, sharp enough to snap my head to the side. My mother sobbed louder, muffling it with her hands.
“We can fix this,” she whispered, frantic, as if she could stitch my soul back to righteousness with sheer will. “Before it’s too late. Before anyone else knows.”
The words slipped through me like cold water.
Fix me.
As if I wasn’t human anymore. As if I was something to be repaired.
But the worst part?
Part of me wanted to be fixed. Because the alternative—the truth—terrified me more than anything.
The seven hour flight to Montana. Suffocating silence broken only by my mother's occasional prayers and my father's angry muttering about "nipping this in the bud."
Restoration Ridge from the outside looked like a church camp—log buildings nestled in pine trees, a welcome sign proclaiming "Hope and Healing for Families."
The locked doors only became apparent once you were inside.
Intake process. Stripped, examined, humiliated. Doctors poking and prodding while I shook with shame and terror.
"You're sick son,” Dr. Harrison explained kindly, like he was diagnosing the flu. "But we're going to make you well."
The memories kept coming, each one a fresh wound.