Page 144 of Dirty Hit
The admission does nothing to soften him. If anything, it seems to harden his posture.
“Do you have any idea what this could do?” he says, and for a second, I think he means to me—to my life, to my mental health. Then he keeps talking. “To my ministry. To our family. To your mother’s standing in the community. If this gets out, if anyone in the congregation sees this, they won’t just see some nameless boy. They’ll seemyson. The boy I raised under Scripture. The boy I told them was a good Christian example. They will see you on your knees for another man!”
Shame crawls over my skin like a rash. “I know,” I say, throat tight. “I know what it looks like.”
“And you’re not ashamed,” he snaps. “If you were ashamed, this never would’ve happened. You wouldn’t have put yourself in that position. You wouldn’t have let yourself be used like that.”
I almost laugh.Used.If only he knew how eagerly I walked into every situation Dominic offered me—how often I begged for it. He’s only seen this clip; he didn’t see the part where I looped my pinky around his, and made him promise he still had me.
“This isn’t… I wasn’t forced,” I say, choosing my words carefully, trying not to throw gasoline on a fire that’s already out of control. “I’m not… I’m not a victim here.”
“So, that’s it…” he says slowly. “You choose this… perversion. You choose this man. You choose to spit in God’s face, and your family’s. You choose to be a sodomite, and a blasphemer, in some filthy woods with a criminal who’s old enough to know better… and you expect us to keep supporting that?”
“He’s not a criminal,” I say automatically, then shut my mouth, because that is the stupidest hill to die on.
Dad’s eyes narrow. “What is he, then?” he asks. “Is he a professor? Is he your superior? Is he a stranger you picked up at a bar? Who is he?”
“He’s… he’s a student,” I say, because that part is true, and less dangerous than the real answer. “He’s—” I stop myself before I say his name. There’s a part of me that wants to spit it right in my father’s face, but I keep it in. If they don’t know his name, they can’t hurt him.
“A student,” my father repeats, like that makes it worse; which, it probably does. “So you’re abusing your position as a teaching assistant to engage in sexual acts with a young man under your academic oversight.”
“No, that’s not what’s happening. He’s older than me and could bench-press a truck. There’s no power imbalance in his favor you need to worry about.”
“That’s not the kind of imbalance I’m talking about,” he hisses. “He is manipulating you. He is using you, turning you into something unrecognisable, and you’re so lost in your lust you can’t even see it.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, more firmly. “He didn’t trick me, Dad. I knew what I was doing, and I wanted it. I just… He’s more than that.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence from both of my parents, and it does nothing to calm my nerves.
My mother’s shoulders sag. “Oh, Brendon,” she whispers. “You’re in love with him.”
I don’t answer, but I don’t have to; it’s written all over my face. It’s probably been written there for months, and I’ve just been hoping no one could read it.
My father shakes his head slowly, like I’ve confirmed the worst diagnosis.
“This is not love,” he says. “This is perversion. This is sin dressed up as intimacy. You’ve let the enemy twist everythingyou were taught. You stood up there, Sunday after Sunday, leading worship, helping in youth group, telling younger boys to stay pure, and all the while, you were harboring this… filth in your heart.”
“Don’t,” I say quietly, my resolve snapping. “Please don’t stand there and talk about my heart like you know what’s in it. I know sin and shame—I’ve been drowning in both my whole life. This—” I gesture vaguely in the direction of the phone, the frozen image of my own flushed face still burned into my retinas. “This doesn’t feel like that. Not when I’m with him.”
My mother makes a choked sound, and my father’s eyes go cold. “So, you’re justifying it,” he says.
“I’m saying when I’m with him, I don’t feel sick or dirty. I don’t feel like I’m breaking every part of myself just by existing. I feel—” I cut myself off, because the word safe sticks in my throat, and I can’t stand the look I know I’ll get if I say it.
“You’re deceived,” he says. “That’s what this is. Deception. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things.’ You know that verse. You’ve used it in counseling younger kids, yet here you are, letting your heart lead you straight into Hell.”
“I’m already halfway there,” I say before I can stop myself.
There’s a beat of horrified silence. My mother presses her hand to her chest. My father’s eyes flare.
“I’m tired, Dad,” I say, my voice choked. “I’m tired of hating myself for things I can’t change, and pretending I’m fine while I’m falling apart. For once, I chose something that made me feel alive, instead of numb.”
“At the cost of your soul,” he says. “At the cost of everything we’ve poured into you.”
“We didn’t raise you for this,” my mother whispers. “We raised you to be a man of God. To marry a nice girl. To have a family. To serve the church.”
“I know,” I say, throat burning. “I know whatyouwanted.”
“And you chose this instead,” my father says. “You chose him.”
