so would be to acknowledge that this was about more than just God, and that would mean the end of it. And yet the subtext was always there, simmering just beneath conscious thought; I saw it, and I refused to see it, limerence disguised by equivocation and the purposefully easy cadence of our conversations. It was in the words we chose to deploy on the game board (“UNREQUITED”). It was in the songs and lyrics we shared (I’ve put no one else above us / We’ll still be best friends when all turns to dust). It was in the way we mocked each other with doting nicknames masquerading as insults (“circus monkey,” “old man”). It was in the literary quotes we presented without comment or preamble (“I am also inclined to overuse the word ‘old,’ which actually has less to do with age, as it seems to me, than it does with familiarity. It sets a thing apart as something regarded with a modest, habitual affection. Sometimes it suggests haplessness or vulnerability. I say ‘old Boughton,’ I say ‘this shabby old town,’ and I mean that they are very near my heart”). We were offering the words of writers and journalists, musicians and comedians, in order to convey what fear and decorum prevented us from saying ourselves.
I never allowed myself to imagine it, but it would be foolish to deny the secret hope that I came to harbor: that he could be mine someday. That he would eventually rip off the mask and appear at church one Sunday morning. That was the only way it could happen, of course; he’d have to join Westboro. I knew this was the only way, and I did what I could—keeping my words as disciplined and proper as I could make them—to sway him in that direction. In the subtlest of ways, I was trying to convince him of the rightness of our doctrines, the necessity of the protests, and the magnificence of life at the church. I never directly encouraged him to come to Topeka. Westboro had always frowned on attempting conversions; we didn’t want to guilt or cajole people into joining our ranks, because we believed conversion was God’s job alone. Still, I insinuated that it was the right move—and because he was responding with curiosity instead of condemnation, I continued to hope. I told several church members about him, even, as honestly as I could bring myself to be. I didn’t tell them he was the most captivating person I’d ever known. I didn’t tell them I loved my conversations with him more than just about any other part of my day. I didn’t tell them what he had promised me when I worried aloud that he would one day decide I was evil and stop talking to me (“I never will unless you want me to”). Since I was hiding the depth of my infatuation even from myself, it wasn’t so very difficult to hide it from the rest of my family, too.
The latent dream of my waking hours became impossible to ignore one night in late September. Seven months of these conversations had left me impossibly intrigued and altogether obsessed, and as I slept, I dreamed. In the dream, I’m standing on the driveway outside my house one summer Saturday; the grass is a vibrant green, the neighborhood alive with activity, and the noonday sun is beating down unmercifully—just like I like it. A black car with darkly tinted windows pulls up beside me, and a tall, blond man opens the door and steps out of the backseat on the driver’s side. I can’t see his face and we’ve never met, but I know his name: Chad Garrett. Suddenly I’m on the other side of the block, on the front lawn of the church itself. There are church members all around working on maintenance—mowing the lawns and cleaning the inside of the building and playing with the kids out back—but I’m looking for him. He comes around the corner looking for me, too, and we’re alone for a moment. He walks over and embraces me, his hands tangling in my curls as he holds me against him. I’m keenly aware that we’re on the church’s security cameras, and I know I’ll be in trouble when everyone finds out, but I can’t bring myself to stop. I want this so badly. I’ve waited so long for him. It is undeniable.
When I awoke, I was shaking. I could still feel his