Chapter 13
13
W ednesday came quickly, and before I knew it, I was packing up a bag because my ride was coming to pick me up for our drive to Remi’s hometown. In the car would be Remi, Sam, Julia, Liam, and Lia. Liam’s older brothers were meeting us there, as was our group of friends. Julia had left the younger boys with her parents. I looked through my closet, wondering what one wore to a funeral since I had never attended one before, let alone one for the grandfather of the boy I liked. I knew to choose something black, and I assumed a dress would be the most appropriate option. I ended up picking a dress that I had gotten on a social media marketplace secondhand but had never had any events to wear it to before. The dress had long sleeves and a tight high-necked bodice that closed with pearl buttons around the back of my neck. It was open just a bit across the back, and my favorite part of the dress was that it flared out really puffy from the waist down. I felt like a sexy cupcake in it, and I hoped sexy cupcake would still be a respectful vibe. I brought black stockings and a pair of black heels that were a good four inches tall, but I didn’t own anything shorter than that. I saw that my phone had buzzed with an ETA text from Liam saying I had fifteen minutes. I proceeded to throw underwear, pajamas, hair care, skin care, makeup, and clothes for the way home into my overnight bag. I then shoved my AirPods and charger into my crossbody purse and ran downstairs to wait for the car.
When they drove up and stopped in front of me, Julia popped the trunk, and I put my bag in with the pile of other travel bags that were already there.
“Hi, Shaen,” Sam, Liam’s dad, greeted me as I got into the car. He always said my name with extra vowels. It came out Shayennnnn instead of the correct way to say it, which was Shane, and it always made me laugh.
“Hi, Dr. Hennessy,” I responded in my most respectful voice.
“It’s Sam,” he corrected me like he always did.
“Mm-hmm,” I murmured, which made everyone laugh. Remi was sitting in the back, so I squeezed between Lia and Liam, who were in the middle bucket seats, and I sat down next to him. He surprised me by laying a kiss smack on my mouth and then reached over to buckle me in. I looked up guiltily and caught Julia’s eye as she was turned around watching us. She smiled and said, “If I had a dollar for every time my nephew tried to casually ask about you, I would have a lot of money.” She laughed. Remi groaned as his aunt outed him. “So this is a surprise, but it makes a lot of sense, and I’m so happy that my two favorite people are finally together.”
“Hey,” both Sam and Liam exclaimed together.
“It is what it is. I don’t make the rules,” she deadpanned. Liam pretended to cry, which made all of us laugh. As Sam merged onto the highway, Remi took my hand and held it tight.
“I’m more anxious about my dad ruining something with us than burying my grandfather,” he admitted to me.
“I know.” I squeezed his hand.
“Please don’t let him get between us. He will certainly try. He isn’t… a nice man.” He sounded so nervous that I suggested that we listen to music. I handed him one of my AirPods and told him that we had to choose a song for each other to listen to that said something we wanted the other person to hear. He agreed. I chose the first song, which was “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones, but it was a cover sung by Miley Cyrus. He seemed confused at first, but then when he heard the words “wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” he understood my intent, and he smiled. The first song he chose was “Closer” by Tegan and Sara, and I melted when I heard them sing, “It’s not just all physical,” and then I flushed when the lyrics turned to “all you think of lately is getting underneath me.” I pushed against his leg when I heard that, and he snickered. My second song was “Into You” by Ariana Grande, which made him place a kiss on the top of my forehead. His next song was “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, which made me laugh so loud that we had to take a break because Liam and Lia begged us to tell them what game we were playing. My third song was “Stay” by Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber. He made fun of me by saying that I had a crush on Justin, and I made fun of him back for insinuating that I liked a five-nine and blonde Justin Bieber when clearly I was into a dark-haired, six-three, muscly man. He shrugged, but he looked very smug as he searched for his third song, “All My Life” by Lil Durk, which felt like the perfect song for us to have as our anthem for fighting life circumstances and not letting them get us down. At that point, we were getting close to his house, so for my last song, I chose “Here for You” by Kygo, which made him kiss me softly. Yet it was his last song that reverberated in my body. Honestly, I couldn’t make eye contact with him while we listened to it. He had chosen “What If I Told You That I Love You” by Ali Gatie.
Remi’s house was huge and in a gated community that screamed megachurch. Remi caught me staring and whispered, “I would kill to be in your room right now trying not to hear your mom fuck over being here.”
I laughed so hard that I had tears in my eyes as Sam pulled up in front of the house and shut off the car. Julia, who was usually so bubbly and had a glass-half-full kind of attitude, turned around in her seat to look at me.
“Listen to me, Shaen, you are a beautiful girl inside and out, and I bet on you and Remi. Every day. Twice on Sundays. Okay?”
I nodded, feeling so confused. Remi had gone super still next to me.
“I am your family. We”— she motioned to Liam, Sam, and Lia— “are your family, and everyone in this car loves you so much. I just want you to know that no matter what you see today or tomorrow, Remi is amazing, not because of where he comes from but despite it.” She said that last part so emphatically that I could taste the anger in her words.
“If anything happens, please let it make the two of you stronger, not weaker. Okay? Promise me that.”
I had never seen her like this before, and I was suddenly scared to go into the house.
“I promise,” I whispered.
“And Remi, we adore you. You are like a son to us, and it pains me so much to see you hurting. We are here for you.”
I could hear her silent words “and only you” reverberate through the car.
“Well then.” Sam cleared his throat. “Now that we have sufficiently scared the shit out of Shaen, let’s go inside.”
We all laughed at that, and Remi whispered in my ear, “It’s really going to be fine.”
I felt sad that he couldn’t just focus on what was happening tomorrow, but rather, everything was so strained due to his father’s obvious mental abuse.
The house was beautiful, but I didn’t get to see much of it because a housekeeper quickly showed Lia and me to a room in the basement that we would be sharing. Liam and Remi were sleeping in his old room upstairs. We freshened up, and then Remi texted the group chat that dinner was starting. Lia and I gave each other a hug for moral support before going back upstairs. We were eating in a large and elaborate dining room that had dark wood paneling, thick plush drapes, and multiple chandeliers hanging from the recessed ceiling. I had never been somewhere so fancy before. I was already feeling uncomfortable, but the massive cross that was hung on the wall reminded me even more how out of place I actually was. Remi’s father was at the end of the huge table, and I was surprised to find that Remi looked nothing like him. Where Remi was dark, his father was fair. Where Remi was tall and broad, his father was more slight and thin. Remi’s mother, on the other hand, was dark like Remi, and she was what I imagined Julia would look like if she hadn’t added a ton of highlights to her hair. Remi pulled out a chair for me, and his father’s head snapped up, and he fixed his green eyes on me.
“Who is this, Remiel?” he demanded.
“My girlfriend.” Remi’s tone was cold and lacking any emotion. I had heard this sound in his voice one other time before, the night that his father had called him as he sat in my apartment.
“Hmm. Does this girl have a name?” He sounded exactly as I imagined his father would sound. Condescending and fake.
“My name is Shaen.” I spoke quickly before Remi was forced to keep playing this weird game his father had going on.
“Hmm.” He looked at me again. “I am Pastor John Taylor. Are you a Christian, Shaen?” he asked. I ran cold. What the fuck? Why was this his first question? At this point, Remi couldn’t even bring himself to look at me, and I could almost feel Julia’s anger coming off of her from across the table. I held my chin high and stared right back at him.
“I am not.”
The pastor humphed again. Then, I watched him lift his glass and wait without saying a word. Moments later, Remi’s mother rushed over and poured him some wine. So the patriarchy is alive and well, I thought to myself, feeling nauseous.
“Are you Jewish then?” He brought his attention back to me. No one had sat down yet, and I could just feel how much he was loving this power trip.
“Nope.” I figured the less I gave him, the better. It felt odd to be doing this weird little dance with a man who had just lost his father, yet he didn’t seem that broken up about it at all.
“Let’s say grace.” The pastor suddenly changed the topic, and everyone sat down. I felt Remi’s hand take my left hand as Liam took my right since he was sitting on the other side of me. Remi squeezed my hand as if to apologize. I kept my eyes on him and mouthed, “Wild horses.”
He smiled sadly. John lowered his head and closed his eyes, and the rest of the table quickly filed suit. I chose to keep my head up, and my eyes stayed wide open. John began,
“Heavenly Father, bless us and this food and the gifts which we receive from your bountiful goodness. May you watch over my father, who is now released into the arms of Jesus. May we all know the wholeness and peace that my father is now experiencing. Gracious God, help us to love each other fervently. Grow our love so deep that it is able and willing to overcome and forgive a multitude of misgivings. Inspire a spirit of hospitality in each of us and enable us to cheerfully share our home with our guests. And through time, may this lost daughter, Miss Shaen, come to know your love, my Lord. Amen.”
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. If there was ever a way to passive-aggressively let someone know that you do not accept them for who they are, it was exactly like that. One thing my mother had instilled in me was my freedom of belief and expression, yet I had also grown up knowing her disdain for Christianity. I had never known why she felt that way about religion until this moment. Pastor John’s eyes opened, and he looked right at me. He looked startled to find my eyes open already, and then I saw it dawn on him that I had never shut them in the first place. I fought the desire to tell him to go fuck himself, and instead, I stared so long and so hard that I forced him to look away first.
Shots fired, I thought to myself as I filled my plate with food and ate. But it all tasted like sandpaper.
This is what hate feels like.
Dinner was awkwardly quiet as the pastor didn’t say another word to anyone but “thank you” to the waiter when they brought out dessert. There were small pockets of conversation happening around the table, but I chose not to join any of them so as not to draw any more unnecessary attention to myself. When dinner was finally over, Remi’s father quickly excused himself, telling us that he needed to complete his sermon for the funeral. He said a general goodnight to the room but didn’t look at anyone or address anyone in particular when he left. Perhaps his wife or his son could have used some basic attention, I thought, but I imagined that was not something they received from him often or maybe ever. Both Lia and I offered to help clear the table, but Remi’s mother, Miley Taylor, flitted over and told us not to bother because the “staff” would take care of it. She was beautiful, and I could see the similarities between her and her sister Julia in their eye color and bone structure, but it ended there. For one, Miley was dressed much more modestly than Julia. But also, her eyes were devoid of humor or joy. She had seemed very submissive to her husband earlier, and it almost felt as if the pastor had broken it into her.
“Remiel.” I heard her soft voice as I got ready to leave the room.
“What, Mom?” He sounded so tired. She paused as if she wanted to say something else, but then she just said, “Goodnight. I love you.” And she kissed him on the forehead. He hugged her briefly with a quick “Goodnight” of his own. Then he took my hand and began to lead me out of the dining room. I met the gaze of his mother, and she had an interesting look on her face that I could not decipher.
“Dinner was delicious, thank you,” I told her.
“It was my pleasure,” she intoned. I imagined she said all the right things and had all the proper etiquette; after all, she was the wife of a famous pastor. It seemed to me that she felt like that was her most valued role. More important than being a mother. Lia went outside with Liam, so Remi and I had the guest room to ourselves for a moment.
“I’m so sorry, Shaen,” he bit out as soon as he shut the door, and we were safe to talk. “I knew he was going to do something, but that? Fuckkkkk.” He sounded so upset that I pushed for him to sit down on my bed, and then I climbed up into his lap.
“Is this okay?” I asked him, holding his face in my hands.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I wasn’t sure how you felt about this while we’re back in your home where you grew up and believed other things…” I told him, and my voice dropped off as Remi pulled me down for an intense kiss.
“To be honest, being here makes me want to fuck you in his house just to spite him.” He almost snapped. I stilled in his arms, and he realized what he had said. ?“I didn’t mean that, baby. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I want to, I want to do that…”
Remi suddenly seemed very much his age.
“I want that with you, but not to spite anyone. I shouldn’t have said that. And I know you’re waiting…”
I shut him up by kissing him again. I knew he was overwhelmed by his grandfather dying and having to manage his father and his feelings around that. I knew he hadn’t meant it. Remi’s hands came up to grip my hips, and he held me down as he ground up on me.
“My eyes. Oh, my eyes.” I heard Liam’s voice behind us, and I quickly pulled away, breathing heavily.
“Go away, Liam,” Remi told his cousin as he pulled his shirt lower to hide his erection.
“No can do, cuz. Uncle Holiness himself instructed me in no uncertain terms to make sure you came upstairs now.” Liam was leaning on the doorway. Remi groaned in disappointment.
“He told me, and I quote, ‘Make sure Remiel comes upstairs. I worry that he is struggling with the temptation of the flesh.’”
Lia made fake barfing noises and said, “I love how he sent Liam to ‘save’ Remi when Liam is the one fucking me six ways from Sunday.”
We all cracked up at the irony of that statement. Remi sighed as he ran his hands down my arms, hugged me, and then stood up.
“Welp, God calls. Let’s go read our Bibles, Liam. We bid thee women goodnight. Please turn away lest we sin,” he said mockingly, and we all burst out laughing again. ?
I slept fitfully that night. I wasn’t sure what was keeping me up. Was it the anticipation of attending my first funeral tomorrow, being in a bed that wasn’t mine, or was it due to the condescending way Pastor Taylor had spoken about me in his prayer? I wasn’t sure.