WAKE (Wattpad edition)

46. In the garden.

Soundtrack: 'Be kind to yourself' - Andrew Peterson.

{Cary}

Tru's wake-up call came far too early the next morning. There was the work in the garden to finish and barn chores to do when that was done. Cary drank his coffee as hot as he could stand it, and Jon splashed water on his puffy face to wake up.

It was midmorning before either of them felt like speaking in more than one syllable. Cary wrestled with another massive, vining plant, trying to untangle the metal cage from the fibrous, sharp-smelling branches. He'd been wrestling with his thoughts all morning, so when Jon joined him in the row, he spoke.

"Can you please explain to me—why you think you're not allowed?" Cary thought, in the light of day, it was safe to ask.

Jon glanced warily at him. "Allowed to what?"

Cary frowned, thinking about the bubble of happiness in his chest when Kadee had leaned into his arm, the feeling of being so close to someone else, and wanted and safe. "If he did like you back. Kurt." He used the name he'd heard Jon use on the phone. "Why wouldn't you be allowed to be together?" Cary fought his cage free and tossed it aside into the untidy pile in the grass.

Jon ducked his head, chopping at the dirt with his shovel. "It's in the Bible, right in the first chapters," he said. His ears were pink. He levered his plant over with his shovel, the dry leaves shaking and rustling as they tipped to the ground. "God made man and woman and all his creatures in pairs, male and female." His voice was a little flat, but steady. "In the garden. God told them—be fruitful and multiply. That's his good design—that's how babies are made. It's just...obvious. A guy with another guy is outside of God's design."

Cary frowned, watching Jon tear the vine free of the cage, shredded leaves and plant debris sticking to his sweater. Jon rubbed the dirt off each wire leg of the cage, then set it aside, brushing himself off.

"You heard this in youth group?" Cary asked.

"Yeah. A guy gave a talk on it. He said that's why gay people aren't God's creatures." Jon turned aside, collecting the cages strewn in the grass.

A surge of anger rose inside Cary. "Did you know—then? That you..."

Jon touched Cary with a look briefly and nodded.

Cary felt sick; the acid of his morning coffee mixed with his anger and ate at his stomach. "You believe what that guy said?"

Jon was stacking the cages one by one, bending the ones that were misshapen to fit them neatly together. His angular shoulders moved up and down. "He didn't make it up. It's in God's Word. That's not even—the worst thing he could have chosen to say. If he'd gone to Leviticus, or Paul—the language is even more graphic."

Jon's words were clipped and unemotional, like they were discussing class notes for an exam—an exam he had clearly studied for. "There's just no room in the Bible for..." For the first time, he got stuck, stumbling a little over the words. "For me. For Kurt to be more than friends. It's a thing God hates."

Jon set the stack of cages down with a rattle, steadying them when they threatened to tip, then turned, wiping his face on the hem of his shirt. Cary glimpsed the ladder of cuts running down Jon's stomach, red and inflamed where his waistband had rubbed them, and hid his face, chopping savagely at the hard-packed earth at his feet.

When they were sitting in the shade with the lunch bucket between them, Cary said, "I never read nothing like that. God hating..." The words tasted bitter and he couldn't finish. God hating went against everything Cary thought he had learned about him. "I thought he was love."

Jon popped the top off the a large glass bottle of sugared tea and lemon slices. He passed it to Cary without taking a drink.

"You just read the Gospels, right? Jesus doesn't address it," Jon said quietly.

Cary took a swig of the drink, which was blessedly wet and sweet against his parched throat. He frowned at the garden, thinking about Jon's description of God's design. "Jesus never—married or had children, did he?"

Jon shook his head. "Just friends and family—his disciples. He was celibate. It's the way I can choose to go if I want to stay a Christian. And I can't—change."

He noticed Jon's eyes following the progress of the bottle. He held it out, and Jon shook his head. "You first."

Puzzled, Cary took a last swig, then passed the tea to Jon. It took a second of watching Jon's throat move before he figured out what his friend was doing.

"Save me some," Cary said.

Jon glanced at him, taking his lips off the glass.

Cary swiped the bottle from his hand and put his lips where Jon's had been to drink. He took two good slugs and passed the bottle back for his friend to finish. "You're not dirty," Cary said. "No more'n me."

Jon's forehead was a puzzle of wrinkles as he looked at the bottle in his hands. As Jon drank, he glanced at Cary sideways, the skin around his eyes flinching like he was waiting for the final verdict.

"Doesn't change anything for me," Cary said. "Whatever way you go—you're not a thing God hates. I can't believe that."

Jon wiped his mouth, blinking rapidly as he turned his face away.

Cary stretched out on the grass beside him, tipping his hat over his face to catch some sleep. "Glad you finally told me," he said.

///

Cary awoke to his buzzing phone and sat up, pulling it out of his pocket to see if Kadee had called. It was a text from Pete.

<coming to get Jon. There in one hour.> The hard punctuation alone made Cary's heart rate speed up. "Oh shit," he muttered.

"What is it?" Jon's voice was muffled. He had stretched out on his stomach in the sun, with his head on his folded arms. Cary couldn't speak for a moment, looking at the scabbed cuts showing below his friend's rucked-up shirt sleeve.

"Your dad's coming to get you."

Jon was up in a second, tugging his shirt straight, his face white. "When?"

"An hour."

Jon turned like he could see through the trees to the road, then he turned back. "Does he know where we are? He'll be pissed if he can't find us." The words were clipped and tight.

Cary made a dry noise. "He probably tracked my phone. It's on his bill."

Jon ducked his head and picked up his shovel, then stood there like he didn't know what to do with it. He scanned the garden, his mouth flat. "Guess you're gonna have to finish alone. There's not much left."

Cary squeezed his knuckles until they popped, one by one, watching him. "You want to go back?"

Jon set his shovel against the fence with a metallic rattling noise. "You think I have a choice?"

"I think you do, yeah." Cary lifted his chin, tension coiling in his body. "You gonna be okay if you go now?"

Jon was poised to go, his skin so pale that the freckles popped out on his face. "I'm good enough to stay clean now, I think." He pushed his hand against his stomach. "I'll be fine."

Cary's eyebrows drew down. "You just burying your shit again if you go back?"

Jon turned his face away, his jaw tightening. "What do you think?" he asked, his voice low, and hurried to the house.

Cary swore softly, scuffing the toe of his boot in the dirt. After squeezing his phone in his fist for a moment, he opened the screen again.

<please can we talk about jon before you go please>

He sent the text to Pete and shoved the phone in his pocket, closing his eyes and breathing out to pray.

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