Page 31 of His Elder

"If you're—if you struggle with this too, then you know why we have to teach it. You know the plan of salvation—"

"The plan of salvation is wrong."

The blasphemy of it stole my breath. "You can't say that."

"I just did." Vance leaned back against the wall, utterly relaxed. "I don't believe being gay is a trial, Price. I don't believe it's a temptation or a test or something that needs to be fixed. It's just... me. It's who I am."

"But the Church—"

"The Church is wrong about this. Just like it was wrong about Black people. Just like it was wrong about women. Just like it's been wrong about a lot of things."

"Then why are you here?" The question burst out of me. "If you don't believe, why are you serving a mission?"

"For my mom." His expression softened slightly. "She needed me to do this. And I owed her that much. But I'm not going to pretend I believe doctrine that condemns people for existing."

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. "You don't feel guilty? You don't pray for it to change?"

"Why would I pray for that?"

"Because—" I gestured helplessly. "Because we'resupposed to want to be like God. To achieve our divine potential. And we can't do that if we're—if we have these feelings."

"According to the Church."

"According to the plan of salvation!"

"Or according to a bunch of old men who can't imagine God's love being bigger than their prejudice."

The words should have sparked anger. Should have driven me to defend the doctrine, the prophets, the truth I'd been taught since birth.

Instead, they cracked something open inside me.

"It's not a trial for you," I said slowly. "You don't see it as something to overcome."

"No."

"You're not... ashamed."

"No."

"How?" The question came out broken. "How can you just... accept it? How can you not hate yourself?"

Vance was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentler than I'd ever heard it.

"Because hating myself doesn't change who I am. It just makes me miserable." He met my eyes. "You've spent your whole life trying to pray this away. Trying to be worthy enough that God will fix you. Has it worked?"

"No."

"Then maybe you're not broken."

The words landed like a revelation. Like blasphemy. Like both at once.

"I can't—" My throat closed. "I can't think like that. If I start believing that it's okay, that it's not something to overcome, then everything I've done, everything I've sacrificed—"

"Will still matter," Vance interrupted. "You're still here. You're still trying. You're still the person who read the Book ofMormon five times and prayed until your knees bled. That doesn't disappear just because you stop hating yourself."

"But my family—"

"Will either love you or they won't. But that's about them, not about you."