Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Shea
“Da, where are you taking me?” I asked with a childlike giggle.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it?”
I only laughed again. I was exhausted and truly just wanted to go back to bed, but secret adventures with Theo?
That was better than caffeine. After dinner, Theo dressed me in long pants and hiking boots and led me away from the bonfire.
I wasn’t even mad about missing out—the private time with them was worth it
Gravel crunched underfoot as we made our way across the camp, past the lake, and into the woods beyond.
Crickets chirped around us, and cicadas sang loudly.
I hadn’t realized I missed Georgia so much—not until I returned.
It wasn’t just Theo. I missed the sounds, the smell of honeysuckle in the spring.
Yes, Kentucky got honeysuckle too—but it was different. I’d bet my life on it. Twigs snapped beneath each step, and Theo led me by a tight, secure grip on my hand.
I never wanted them to let go.
Finally, they slowed down, taking the next few feet of the trail carefully, then paused by an opening in the forest and allowed me to walk ahead of them.
I emerged into a small clearing, barely big enough for the two of us, but I could appreciate why Theo loved it.
It was quiet out here, so quiet that each breath we took seemed to echo around us.
The opening emerged onto a hill overlooking the camp.
Lights dotted the air like fireflies, all circling around the bonfire in the middle.
Laughs and cheers filtered through the thick, humid air, barely relieved by the setting sun.
Theo dropped their backpack and spread a blanket over the ground.
They took off their shoes and socks, and I followed their lead.
When we sat down, the ground surprisingly cool against our heated skin, they gestured at the sky. “That’s why I brought you here.”
I followed their line of sight, a soft gasp bursting out of my chest. Stars danced across the night sky, so many that it almost seemed like a silver blanket across a sea of navy.
I’d never seen so many of them before. The town we moved to, though quite rural, was still too close to the city.
There were some stars, but not this many. Not even close.
Tears sprung to my eyes. Theo brought me here because they knew the things that calmed me the most: the cool ground beneath me, the solitude of the night around us, and the stars scattered across the night sky like confetti. It was time for me to talk.
Bracing myself, I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I hated it, T. I hated every second of it.”
I sobbed the entire drive from Georgia to Kentucky. I tried refusing to move, but my parents manipulated one of my brothers into carrying me to the car. My brothers were saints for putting up with me; not that my parents gave them much of a choice. I refused to eat, refused to sleep.
I didn’t want this, I thought for every second. I want—
They had a different name back then, one I almost got tattooed beneath the headstone, but they’d talked me out of it, and now I knew why.
We were only in the new house for a few nights before everything went to hell.
I’d finally passed out from exhaustion—later to find out that sleeping pills were crushed up and put into the water I kept at my bedside. Though nothing could have made me sleep through whatever happened next.
My bedroom door burst open, and I bolted upright in bed. I was groggy, confused. I tried to speak, only for my tongue to feel like it was made of lead.
Two people dressed in black grabbed me by either arm.
I kicked and fought, sluggish from the drugs in my system.
I managed to bite one of them, and that earned me a slap across the face.
That woke me up, and it was then that I noticed my parents watched me from the hallway.
Mom cried, Dad stood next to her with his hand on her shoulder.
The screaming and commotion woke my brothers, and they were frightened back to bed with the silent threats of what would happen to them if they misbehaved.
At the stairs, I head-butted one of my captors in the jaw, kicking my leg out to strike the other one in the knee.
I collapsed to the ground, and a sharp pinch in my arm rendered me unable to call for help before unconsciousness swept over me.
“I’d call it a conversion camp, but that’s too nice.
It was like… the worst boot camp but with bible classes.
From sunup to sundown, it was scripture.
We ran drills, shouting bible verses until we lost our voices.
If you disobeyed, or if you got a single word wrong, you were denied dinner.
If you rebelled, or sinned, you’d be forced to write lines until your hand fell off. If it kept up… “
I trailed off, unable to finish the thought, but Theo could fill the gaps. They shuffled closer, cautiously laying an arm around me, only tightening their grip once I relaxed.
“I ran away after six months. There was a new guard— ‘disciples,’ they called them. Children of Christ. But this new one… he wasn’t cut out for it.
He was too skittish, too paranoid. He’d practically wet himself if one of us moved too fast. So one night, I just got out of bed.
I packed what could fit in my backpack, and I left.
Something in my face must have told him not to mess with me, because he just watched me go.
“I walked to the main road, then followed it until I found a diner. There, I borrowed someone’s phone and found a youth shelter just over the border in Tennessee.
I found someone to drive me there. It may have been my death sentence, but even that would have been better than going back to that place. ”
Theo made an odd noise, a strange cross between a gag and a sob, but the words needed to be said. They needed to know everything, no matter how heartbreaking.
“I made it to the shelter, and that’s where I met my best friend, Sophie.
She was only a year older than me, and one of the volunteers there.
That place saved me. Housed me, fed me, taught me everything I now know about myself.
It’s because of them that I was able to start therapy, and begin my physical transition, even though I’d been living as Shea since I arrived.
Sophie was actually the first person to ask me for my true name and my pronouns.
When I aged out of the shelter, I moved in with her and that’s where I’ve been ever since. ”
“Shea…”
“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” I pleaded, scrubbing tears from my eyes. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop them.”
“I could have protected you!” Theo cried, openly sobbing. Tears tracked down their cheeks, paled to a color that made me worry they’d be sick. “The night we got caught I could have taken you and—”
“Let your parents get charged for harboring a runaway? T, you were a teenager. We were teenagers. Neither of us deserved that.”
“I looked for you,” they confessed. “For years I looked for you.”
“I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to find you, but it was too risky. I had to lay low until I turned eighteen. Then my parents couldn’t get the police involved. By then, I was sure that you moved on.”
Silence fell between us. Theo held onto me tightly, like I’d slip right through their fingers.
I allowed it. I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain, so I laid on their shoulder, feeling the hitch of their chest as they cried.
Tears dampened my hair and trailed down my cheek, but I didn’t care.
Theo never cried, so I let them; I let them work through every gut-wrenching and life-changing emotion they must have been feeling, because I could only imagine what would be going through my mind if the roles were reversed.
I didn’t have any tears left to shed for what I went through. I’d learned long ago that crying wouldn’t fix it. I couldn’t rewind time and undo the events of my past, but I could vow that I would never let them happen again.
I didn’t tell Theo, but my parents found me the week after my eighteenth birthday—a private investigator.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but they sure as hell weren’t expecting me to simply…
refuse. I was eighteen, and didn’t have to go anywhere.
I was my own person now, and far from the submissive daughter they’d imagined me to be.
Eventually, with one deep, shuddering breath, Theo raised their head. We untangled from each other and I twisted to wipe the tears from Theo’s face. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”
“Don’t you dare apologize.” Theo grabbed some tissues from their bag and cleaned their face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you see that.”
“Oh, shut up,” I laughed. “We’re a team, remember?”
Theo didn’t answer, only let me take the tissue and scrub at the spots where they’d missed.
Their skin, though irritated from crying, was soft beneath my touch.
I let the Kleenex fall to the ground in favor of feeling their silky-soft cheek beneath my thumb.
A harsh breath rushed out of me. Even post-meltdown, they were stunning.
This close, I could make out the individual freckles scattered across their nose and cheeks.
I noticed a scar beneath their left eyebrow that hadn’t been there when we met.
Something in the air shifted between us, tension building and heat gathering in my core.
“T…” I hushed.
Tears dangled from their lashes, glittering in the moonlight. “Yeah?”
“Are you going to kiss me or not?”