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"What was that about?"

He's stirring the soup in the slow cooker, not looking atme. "What was what about?" His tone is infuriatingly aloof.

"You know what. The interruptions, the hovering, you making as much noise as you possibly could in the kitchen."

"I was just being nice," he says.

"No, you were acting weird, and I don’t know why."

He finally turns to face me, his expression intense. "He was flirting with you."

"What? No, he wasn't. We're just project partners." I want to say more. I want to ask Mark why it even matters if Chris was flirting with me.He’sthe one who brought a woman home, presumably to have sex with, after kissing me a couple weeks prior and walking away before either of us could talk about it.

Even though I knew it wouldn’t be likely we’d ever be more than friends, it still hurts like hell that he would move on so quickly after kissing me. Sure, it was spur of the moment, but did it really mean so little to him even when he knew it was a big deal to me?

Mark laughs, but it's not a happy sound. "He asked you to go out for coffee, but really, it was the way he was looking at you. He’s into you."

"That wasn't..." I trail off, thinking back not only to that but the way he always seems a little too eager to talk to me after class. "Oh."

"Yeah.Oh." Mark smirks, but it doesn’t hold the same playfulness it usually does.

We stand in silence for a moment, the tension between us thick enough to cut with one of the knives he's been aggressively chopping vegetables with all evening.

"Well," I say, "even if he was, I'm not interested in him like that."

"No?"

"No, I’m not." I want to say,I’m interested in you, you idiot, but I don’t.

Another long moment passes, filled with all the things we're not saying. Finally, Mark turns back to the stove. "Dinner's ready if you're hungry."

"Sure."

But as we eat, there is no polite conversation like normal—oranyconversation, for that matter. Something has shifted between us irreparably, and I don’t know what to do about it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CLAIRE

The weeks pass quickly despite the way time seems to stand still whenever Mark and I are in the same room. We still haven’t spoken about the kiss or the aftermath, but I can feel the conflict bubbling just underneath the surface for both of us. I should bring it up and get it out of the way, but despite the progress I’ve made in therapy lately, I still have a difficult time speaking up for myself.

After a lifetime of being silenced and avoiding making waves, it still feels impossible to do what’s best for me sometimes. Would it help me to get things off my chest and talk to Mark about what happened? Absolutely. Does the idea also send me into a tailspin of worry? More than I’d care to admit. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to let go of all the fear and negativity that’s shaped me.

But I was raised on fear. Even though my father preached about following God’s word, it was the fear of eternaldamnation that seemed to motivate everyone to listen. But fear is a powerful thing, and I suspect that, on some level, he knew that. If you make people afraid, they’ll do whatever they can to avoid whatever perilous fate you’ve made them believe awaits them. They’re easier to control that way. Go figure.

It worked on my older brothers and sisters, and it easily could have worked on me if I hadn’t had so many questions—ones I was repeatedly chastised for asking. In a roundabout way, I’m grateful they they refused to cater to my curiosity, because it led me to seek out my own answers instead of taking everything my parents and the church said at face value.

I could never understand why curiosity would be punished until I finally realized that I was asking questions they didn’t know the answers to, and deep down, that scared them. It’s much easier to believe what you want with unquestioning loyalty than it is to think critically about the fact that you could possibly be wrong about something. Indoctrination is a hell of a drug.

When I had explained a little bit more about my life to Mark a couple weeks ago and told him how I was chastised for asking questions, he had said, "If someone gets mad at you for asking questions, they probably have something to hide. You wanting to know more about something is only threatening to those who want to keep you in the dark." His words have resonated in my mind constantly, reminding me what I left behind.

The topic is still weighing heavy on my mind when I go to see Dr. Lawrence on Wednesday afternoon. It’s my fourth meeting with her, and I already feel like I’ve made so much progress in just this short time. I’m opening up more and more, and I’m starting to remember little things about my past that I had completely forgotten about. Things that onceseemed insignificant or normal are coming out, only for me to realize how odd they were.

One in particular seems to grab Dr. Lawrence’s attention.

"Could you tell me more about that?" she asks when I mention the ceremony that would mark our transition into adulthood.

"Well, they said that getting closer to God and becoming enlightened was the most important part of becoming an adult. You know how people do fasts because it makes them feel more connected to their spiritual side?"