Chapter Text
Max knew she was different from that very first moment she’d caught a crawdad in her father’s pond, slimy and fast as it wriggled in her firm palm, the sun beating down on the freckles of her bare neck as her classmates laughed and laughed. She hadn’t been the only girl to catch one, but she’d been the first. And as the boys snickered and jeered, poking bony elbows into each other’s sides as they each tried capturing the attention of their individual paramours, Max couldn’t help but think: this can’t be all there is.
Her fellow girls followed in Max’s unintentional footsteps, finally taking the plunge into the muddy creek water and squealing as the slime sank between their toes. One of the boys, with a fresh, bright red sunburn across his nose, had stared at Max for close to an hour, with wide eyes and a dirt-stained white shirt draped over his shoulders.
“He likes you,” her friend had whispered. Max didn’t even remember her name anymore, not since third grade, not since that creek.
Max had blushed, and it’d made her think that maybe she was normal. Because a boy liked her, and she’d had a reaction to learning that — struggling to make eye contact with him. So, perhaps she liked him back. Even if she’d felt sick to her stomach, even if she’d accidentally dropped her crawdad conquest and watched it skitter back beneath a rock. Her hands had shook, but her friend only giggled with a knowing look upon her face.
Her childhood, for the most part, had been normal. She had been blessed by God. Everyone said as much. Max had a wealthy family, a mother who baked fresh bread just as good as she sewed patches in a quilt, a father with a righteous fist and strong words, acres upon acres of farm fields, and a dynasty just waiting for her and her future husband to take. There wasn’t a room in their house that didn’t have a Bible nearby, or a cross on the wall, or the presence of Jesus Christ himself shadowing in every corner.
Max may have been an only child, but she was never alone, because Jesus was always there. Even if she couldn’t feel him. She was never alone, not even on the nights where the only sound was the clock ticking downstairs, the buzz of the bugs outside her window, and the dull thump of her heart slowly treading through her teenage years.
She met Warren when they were freshmen in high school, both of them outcasts in a sea of zealots and pride. Max was quiet, and Warren was a nerd, so of course, they’d become fast friends. A connection like no other, irreplaceable and deep, like God had given him to Max with a specific purpose.
That year, she’d changed. It wasn’t just any old boring life anymore, there was before-Warren and after-Warren. The usual weekends of reading in her room and drawing outside beneath the willow tree had suddenly turned into weekends of walking down the neighborhood streets, bag bouncing against her back in her haste of getting to Warren’s house, Gameboy fully charged and ready for action. And that had been her new normal. A connection strong enough that it didn’t feel out of the ordinary at all, it felt right.
On graduation day, Warren asked her out, ‘finally’ according to everyone she knew — which was everyone in their small town, even down to the car salesmen and soccer coaches. Finally, but she’d never seen him in that way. He wasn’t like the boy at the creek, he wasn’t like the love interest in a romantic movie that all her classmates were obsessed with, he was Warren, and Warren was her friend.
But she cared about him so strongly, so blindly, that she couldn’t turn him down so easily. Maybe it was something that had been in front of her all along. So she’d asked if he would wait for her to think about an answer, because she wanted to take her time with it, wanted to be honest. He, of course, had said she could take all the time she needed, smiling with a dimple on his cheek.
Max had gone home that night and stared at the dimly glowing sticker stars on her ceiling, listening to the quiet whir of her fan as she tried thinking about Warren as more than a friend. They were adults now, or just about. Her mother wanted grandchildren, her father wanted a man to pass his legacy down to.
So Max pictured what it might be like to hold Warren’s hand. It was larger than hers, probably sweaty and rough. Would she like it? She should. The fear and discomfort roiling in her gut was just nerves. She’d imagined hugging him next, smelling his shampoo, feeling his arms around her shoulders or her waist.
Max had turned to her side, the moon a bright speck in the sky through the window. She thought about Warren kissing her next, leaning down to press their lips together. His would be dry, or so she’d heard. Boys were always dry, abrasive, harsh. Max didn’t think she liked that part of boys very much, but maybe it was because she’d never dated one before.
As far as guys went, Warren was probably the best of them. He wasn’t mean to her, didn’t bully her, didn’t say hurtful things. Sure, sometimes she was a little freaked out when she noticed him staring at other girls, or commenting on how attractive he thought a woman was, but that didn’t happen very often, and it was completely normal for a guy of his age.
Boys were supposed to grow into men, to protect and take care of women, to admire them and hold them. And Max was supposed to want them to want her. She was supposed to date them, kiss them, marry them, give them children, like God wanted her to do. She was born for it. Warren was nice. Maybe she could do it with him.
So she’d given him an answer. Max told him yes, and then they were boyfriend and girlfriend, and her father smiled at her when she told him the news over dinner that night.
But even though the day had been filled with a new kind of excitement at finally being part of the hidden ‘dating’ world she’d heard so much about, her stomach had sank at the look in her father’s eyes, feeling like she’d just shut down a part of herself that only he’d known about.
As the years passed, Max had long since accepted that she was different, but she knew something was truly wrong with her on the day that Warren kissed her for the first time. They had been in his basement, playing Street Fighter, and she was kicking his ass as she always did. He’d gotten really easy to beat once they started dating. She’d learned quickly that when their legs bumped against each other on the couch, he always faltered. So Max pulled that move a lot, and she didn’t even feel bad about it, because he always smiled after, and Warren deserved to smile. And Max loved his dimple.
When she’d won the match, she’d tossed the controller aside and pumped her fist in the air, turning to gloat in his face, and that’s when he made his move – he’d lunged forward, their lips knocking together for only a second before he’d pulled away, beet red.
Max had froze. But her heart didn’t race in excitement; it raced in fear. Fear that she’d felt before, by the creek, crawdad in her hands. In her bed, tossing and turning as she pictured Warren on top of her. A fear that she’d told herself was normal because it was unknown, but one that suddenly wasn’t unknown anymore, so there was no excuse left.
“Wow. Our first kiss. Was it…alright? Did you like it?” He’d asked the question as if his life had changed, and maybe it had, but hers felt the same.
No, she’d thought. But Max wanted to like Warren, so she’d said yes. It would become a common theme throughout her next few years, until everything came to its end.
Life after high school had been a bit of a mess, and not just because college courses were much harder than just showing up to class and acing tests. Most of Max’s classes were done online, which had been strange, but not at all unwelcome. It had given her plenty of time to stay in bed and scroll on her laptop, bedroom door locked, all under the guise of ‘working on homework.’ But she’d liked it. She’d liked the freedom, or the taste of it.
She still hung out with Warren daily, and had dinner with her parents every Friday night, and went with them to church on Sundays. She was the epitome of what a woman her age should’ve been. But the feeling of gloom that had clouded over her for so long still hadn’t passed. If anything, it grew day by day, until it wasn’t just a nagging fear, but a raw, blinding wound.
She had her first idea of what it was when Warren recommended an anime to her, laughing under his breath as he told her to watch it on her own, privately, and make sure her door was locked. He’d been making more and more comments like that recently, a flushed look on his face, glancing at her and shifting around strangely, like he wanted to get closer to her. Boys were weird, so she’d ignored it — and she’d ignored the screaming voice in her head that told her to run away.
The anime had been fine, up until she reached episode 3. It had been boring, even. Then something changed, and she’d quickly discovered why it earned the rating it had. There, late at night, the characters fell into bed with each other, and the screen didn’t fade to black.
Warren had, of course, given her the uncensored Blu-ray for a reason. Max had turned the volume down when the character that looked like Warren started kissing the female lead, when the intimate, soft sounds spilling between their lips were too much to stand listening to.
She didn’t blame the hero for the desperate ache in his hands or his obvious haste to take more of his lover. The girl was gorgeous — or however Max was supposed to describe the beauty of a woman, being a woman herself.
The scene had went on longer than she’d anticipated, and when they were finally bare before each other, Max had felt her entire body grow warm. She’d shuffled beneath her blazing hot sheets, at war with herself, glancing at her bedroom door like at any moment her father would burst in and accuse her of having impure thoughts, even though she was an adult and should’ve been free to make her own choices. But…the girl really was beautiful, with her short hair and rounded cheeks and soft little noises that made Max’s breath hitch.
Before she’d even realized what had happened, her hand had slid down the front of her underwear, and Max sinned as she’d never sinned before. Her heart had thundered, and her blood sang with excitement, the flash of the TV the only thing illuminating her quiet room.
She’d forced herself to focus on the character that looked like Warren — looked like her boyfriend — his jaw and his arms and his bare chest, flat and plain. She’d tried. She’d tried to think of Warren and the way he would feel against her, but she couldn’t, not when she stroked faster against herself with unsure fingers, and the thought of a woman lying on top of her popped into her head instead. And horribly enough, the devil himself laughed when that pushed her over the edge.
Like he’d known what she’d done, her hands sticky and sheets gross, Warren had called her shortly after, even though it was hours later than when they usually called each other. He’d asked if she’d liked it, and Max had been too embarrassed to admit exactly how much she did enjoy it, so she’d just said yes.
When the phone went dead, she’d made a pact with herself to change who she was. She would kiss Warren tomorrow, and she’d like it more than she had every other time when she’d felt nothing. And everything would go back to being normal.
But it wasn’t easy.
Months later, Warren had smiled as he’d slid the ring over her finger, the physical promise that he would love her forever, and it had felt like a death sentence. Max knew it would be her best option, maybe even her only option at being happy in this miserable world, so she’d said yes to his offer to get married.
Max always said yes to him. But she was no masochist. She’d known what she was doing. When they were older, they’d have a wedding, they’d invite everyone in their family, all the people her father knew, and all the cousins Warren had up north. And God would help her fall in love with him. God would show her what she was missing, and everything would make sense again, like when she was a kid, and the sky always seemed blue even on the darkest days. God would save her, and Max would never think of another woman in such a sinful way for as long as she lived.
Warren was still her best friend. It was moments of them together where she forgot she was supposed to desire him and his body, not just see him as she always had in school — the lovable goofball who played too many video games and watched too many gory films. He was still her friend, aside from the times when he’d press his rough lips against hers, when she’d feel his tongue and listen to him groan into her, fighting off her own nausea all the while.
Max thought he was a bad kisser; that was all. Maybe he’d get better the more they practiced, so she’d tried to do it a few times a week, like a good girlfriend was meant to do. On her nineteenth birthday, she’d straddled him on his bed and kissed him with both hands cupping his jaw, eyes glued shut as she tried to lose herself in the moment. And Max accidentally thought of the anime girl from before, the way her body looked smooth and soft and pliant, and she’d actually whimpered into their kiss.
Her eyes were still shut when Warren’s hands had settled on her hips, and he pulled her closer. Something hard touched between her thighs, and Max jolted out of the moment, sitting upright on his lap and keeping him far enough away from another kiss with a hand against his chest. Warren had leaned up on his elbows, looking at her with that frustrating concern he’d always had.
“You okay? We don’t have to do anything. I just thought…”
Max had been confused for only a second, wondering what he’d meant by ‘do anything’ before it clicked. Sex. The great temptation that every boy had in the back of their heads at all times, the act that would brand her as his.
Warren had twitched under her weight as she lingered atop him, waiting for her to make a move, to say something, to do anything.
Once her brain had activated again, she’d dismounted quickly, wishing she could scrub away the feeling of him pressed against her. Maybe it would be different if they did have sex, if he was inside her, but thinking about it for too long had made her want to lock herself in her room until the end of time.
“I think I want to stop,” she’d said. “It’s Sunday.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Warren had laughed, cheeks flushed, pants still dented. “Sunday. Can’t sin on the Lord’s day, right?”
“Sin?” She’d worried he’d somehow read her thoughts and known she hadn’t been thinking about him at all — that she’d been picturing a woman the entire time she was on top of him, kissing him, unintentionally making him aroused, imagining him to be a woman, not the man that he was.
“Well, we aren’t married. Yet.” He’d cocked his head to the side. “Why? What else were you thinking?”
“Oh. Right. Uh, nothing. Wasn’t thinking anything, sorry.”
Sometimes it felt like they already were married; that this was all there was to life. Nothing more, nothing less. Like Warren was her past, present, and future. But, really, he was just a boy who loved her, and she was just a girl who didn’t love him back. That part felt more like a sin than anything else they’d done.
Warren wanted to have sex.
He’d never pressured her, never brought it up directly, but Max could tell. Their dynamic had changed as they’d grown older, and Max grew physically distant. She kept to herself, focused on her college classes, on her photography, on herself, though she’d hated to think too much about that part.
Ever since that night of her birthday, Warren initiated affection a lot more often. And Max let him, waiting for the day that he’d get better at kissing, waiting for the moment her feelings would kick-start, and she’d learn to crave his touch. But nothing changed, and Max was impatient. She’d grown tired of avoiding him, of avoiding herself, so in the heat of July, she’d told herself she was done waiting for a perfect moment. She was going to have sex with her boyfriend, and she was going to love it.
Max had thought about calling him to ask, but she’d decided on a text instead, too embarrassed to say the words out loud. As soon as the text was sent into the ether, she’d tossed her phone to the side of her bed, covering her eyes with an arm so she didn’t have to see anything.
She’d felt sick the entire time she waited for him to show up, anxiously anticipating the sound of his car crunching in the gravel driveway. Should she change her clothes? Did she look cute enough? Desirable enough? She was just…Max. Plain and boring, cotton underwear and a solid gray T-shirt that she’d stolen from Warren. She’d thought that maybe he’d like seeing it on her, even though it wasn’t lingerie or a dress, so she’d kept it on.
When Warren had arrived, the sun was already down, and he’d knocked on the front door, even though her mom always said he could come right in, no matter the time of day. Through her open bedroom window, Max had listened to her father greet him, listened to Warren stumble out his answer, playing casual, like he wasn’t about to head upstairs and take their daughter’s virginity. And she’d heard his shoes on the wooden stairs, heard the squeak of the fourth step, and then he was there, pushing open her bedroom door with a sheepish grin on his face.
He’d locked the door behind himself as he entered, and Max sat on the bed with her hands in her lap. She’d covered her mirror earlier, not wanting to look at herself when they were in the middle of the act. She’d wondered if Jesus was there, watching, shaking his head, cursing her for the discrepancies between her actions and her feelings. Or if Jesus didn’t care. If maybe he wasn’t real.
Warren had said hi to her, like he always did, with a silly little wave and a lack of confidence in his shoulders. So Max had pulled him in by his belt loops and kissed him until he fell on top of her, pressing her down onto the mattress, and then she was ready.
Warren had fumbled a lot, mashing a hand against her chest and knocking a knee between her legs like it was supposed to feel good. She’d wanted to assure him that he didn’t have to try; it wasn’t about her, it was about him.
His desire for her was evident, not just in the way he hardened against her, but in the way his hands danced down her sides, the way he dragged the shirt off her body, then repeated the motion with his own. And finally, they were both naked there in the heat of her room, her parents oblivious downstairs, the cicadas singing outside her window.
Max hadn’t wanted to look at him. She hadn’t wanted to look at herself. She’d wanted it all to be over, for Warren to make it quick, so she could get in the shower and scrub him from her body and then go to sleep. But she’d looked anyway, peeling away from his kiss as she’d watched him grab the condom from the pocket of his discarded jeans.
It was just like the movies said it would be. A little foil wrapper, a shockingly small piece of latex, Warren’s hands shaking as he placed it on himself and rolled it down. Max had to help, though she didn’t want to. He was warm, which was nice, but if she looked at his appendage for too long, her head started to spin, and not in a good way. In a dizzying, disorienting, sinful way.
When he was ready, he’d kissed her again — the only thing he seemed capable of doing. So she’d grabbed his hands and pushed them down her stomach, and his fingers felt strange as they explored her.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, Max heard at the back of her head, a memory of the last time she’d gone to church
She wouldn’t tell anyone, but she’d never liked their pastor. His voice was grating and loud, his hands too aggressive as he spoke with passion. And Max didn’t know why she’d thought of him in that moment, or the Bible, or that verse specifically, only that her mind was racing to a thousand different places, like her body was doing everything it could to tear her away from the present moment.
Max resisted. She was there, with Warren, eager and willing.
Lean not on your own understanding.
It was new, it was different, but it wasn’t bad. Right? Everyone in the world did this. Every woman since the dawn of time had experienced that moment, with a man atop them, hands touching their bodies, mouths pressed harshly against their own.
In all your ways submit to Him.
She opened for Warren, her mind and body, ignoring the shake in her fingertips and the urge to shut her legs, to close in on herself.
And He will make your paths straight.
A ringing noise filled her head, her palms sweating against the skin of Warren’s back. I can do this. This is my path. Surely, God would be proud of her for that much.
But the blood rushing in her veins hadn’t been in anticipation or love — it had been her worst enemy. It was that very same fear she’d felt since she was a little girl, raw and unbending, and as Warren leaned himself over her body once again, tears had sprang to her eyes.
“Wait, stop,” she’d asked.
Warren had always been a good man. He always listened. He always stopped, even when he didn’t have to. He only smiled. Always with that smile, that dimple. And Max hated herself for what she did to him. Because if she’d loved him, if she hadn’t been broken, he’d still be alive.
But Warren had left, as she asked him to. She’d watched him drive his car away, and she’d cried at her own failure. Because she hadn’t been strong enough to let him in, hadn’t been normal enough to want that intimacy.
It had rained that night. Maybe the storm had started from her very own guilt, or maybe it was just God playing tricks on her. Maybe He wanted her to suffer. Maybe she hadn’t prayed enough, hadn’t believed enough, hadn’t loved Warren enough.
As she lay quietly in her bed, empty and cold, curled in on herself, Max couldn’t sleep. The power flickered not five minutes after Warren left, and with it, the HVAC shut down. July nights were never pleasant in Oklahoma, but Max didn’t feel like sweating all night long without air conditioning. She’d dressed herself and padded down the stairs, lighting a candle and fiddling with her camera as the night ticked on.
When a knock sounded on the door, Max had gone still. Her first thought was that Warren had come back, which should’ve been a good sign that she did love him, that maybe she just wasn’t physically ready yet for sex. But it wasn’t actually a pleasant thought of him; it was one of hesitation. Because she really, really didn’t want to have to turn him down a second time in one night.
So she’d opened the door. Yet it wasn’t Warren who stood upon their porch; it was the police, all stone faces with red lights flickering behind them. And then she felt what she’d been chasing for three years — the moment it all clicked together, in a horrifying, disgusting twist of fate.
The roads were slick, she’d been told. He hadn’t made it more than a half-mile away from their house before he’d lost control of the wheel and crashed into the transformer on the side of the road. It was quick, the other officer said. He didn’t feel anything. No pain.
How could you fucking know that? You aren’t him. And you’re not God. Max clutched wordlessly onto the kitchen table as she listened to them relay the news, and she was angry. At Warren, for leaving her. At God, for taking him away. At herself, for leading him on his entire life and not even having the decency to mourn properly.
Max had gone to sleep that night with a quiet sense of desolation. She hadn’t even woken up her parents to tell them what happened; she’d just walked straight to her room and collapsed on the bed. They found out in the morning, though. Everyone did.
His parents had known before she did. Then the rest of his family found out — all his aunts and uncles and cousins up north, everyone who was supposed to come to their wedding. When Max’s mom heard the news, she’d cried harder than Max herself had. Still numb, Max had let her mom and dad both hug her, not caring how it felt, not understanding her own self. That was just the way life was.
The funeral was a dreary affair, boring and lifeless, not at all like how Warren was. Max knew he would’ve wanted more Star Wars references, would’ve wanted people to laugh and play games together, to celebrate him, not to feel like the last bit of goodness was torn from the world. But that’s how Max felt. Like the sun had gone out.
She’d twisted Warren’s ring on her finger, not ever wanting to remove it. Maybe she’d keep it forever, tell people she was already married, just so nobody else would fucking bother her. Max, the widow — not Max, the disgusting queer.
She still remembered the night after the funeral, when she’d sat on the porch of her family’s too-big, too-empty house and cried harder than she ever had in her life. Not because Warren was dead, not because it was her fault, but because she couldn’t stop being who she was. She’d ignored it for years, for her entire life, not wanting to believe it was the truth. But she couldn’t outrun the heart that raced in her own chest. She couldn’t pretend that her own wicked desires weren’t real. They were everything. Max was Max; she was a sinner, she was evil.
Her father had met her out there, calm and stoic. He’d sat next to her on the porch stairs, listening to the crickets chirp in the darkness. It was cold outside, strange weather for it being July. He’d placed a jacket over her shoulders, rubbed them in an affectionate way only a father could. Max had let her sobs die out, her chest breaking as they faded to sniffles. Warren was gone. She was still gay.
And she told her dad, right then and there, the words spilling out like bile, feeling like if she didn’t tell someone out there that it would eat her alive from the inside out. Max didn’t want to die, not like Warren had; she wanted to live.
“I didn’t love him. I couldn’t, I can’t. I don’t…I don’t like boys, Dad, I think there’s something wrong with me.”
Ryan had said nothing, but his hand stopped moving. She could feel the tension in the air like a wall between them, each of her words acting as another brick built high into the sky.
“Dad?”
He’d stood and wiped his hands on his black trousers, freshly ironed for Warren’s funeral.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Maxine.” She’d almost felt happy at the words, if not for the cruel look on his face. “We’ll get you some help. Get you closer to Jesus, get you cleaned up from that sin in your heart. C’mon, let’s head inside.”
So she’d followed him. And they didn’t speak again.
Her mother had said it was because she wasn’t handling Warren’s death in a healthy way. That her and Dad were only looking out for her, that Max was still young enough to be able to find a new man to marry, even though it had only been a week since his funeral. But Max knew the truth of why they were sending her to live somewhere else; she wasn’t stupid. Not like everyone else around her was. In their haste to get rid of her, to change her, to save her, her parents had failed to realize that part.
She’d used the old computer at the public library to look up Richard Marsh and his church in Arcadia, Mississippi, finding nothing but glowing reviews about how he’d saved people’s lives, how he’d helped them to find Jesus, to be true to themselves. And Max had felt sick just reading it all. She didn’t want to live with a pastor; she wanted to be left alone. That was all.
Still, she’d packed her bags. If her father didn’t want her around, then she didn’t want to be there. There wasn’t anything keeping her in Oklahoma anyway, not with Warren gone and buried. She’d never been more thankful that her college courses weren’t in person, else she really would’ve been shit out of luck.
As it turned out, her parents agreed to keep paying her tuition, so long as she lived with the Marsh family during her studies. It was a fine enough understanding, in her opinion. She was almost done with her classes anyway — then she really would be free. Nobody would ever tell her what to do again, and nobody would ever dare her to catch a crawdad in the creek just to impress a boy.
When she loaded her suitcase into the van her father hired, Max made a deal with herself. When she was free, she would travel the country. She’d never go back to Oklahoma. And she’d never kiss another boy.
And, as it turned out, she’d eventually get everything on her list.