we never had a church growing up. it was just one of those things we lacked. i didn't think about it until i met michael.

he was always weird. i don't know. i liked him, don't get me wrong. but he was never... right. we first bonded over shared miseries. it was back when my mother was still angry, still... well, i don't want to dwell. but it was back then. and after a fight, i went and talked to michael, and he told me the same thing had happened to him.

he talked about it differently, though. he sounded so scared. so miserable. so apologetic. i had said i hated my mom, and he seemed genuinely shocked. he reminded me that we should honor our father and mother. i don't think he was even christian back then, is the weird thing. it was before he started sneaking off to church, at least. but that's always how he was, beholden to the rules of God before he even properly believed.

i think he's a better christian than me. he's certainly afraid of God in a way i never have been. is it wrong to say i'm almost jealous, that he could feel such reverence?

i think i felt that reverence when he first asked me if i liked God. it was such a strange question, you know? like... of course i like God. and then he started launching into this little rant about how God must be good, but he's allowed the world to be so horrible. he started saying things i didn't understand, about how he had heard His voice in the... the something. the hum? i don't remember anymore.

i think i should have been worried, but i was young, and it seemed real. like, maybe he really had connected with a higher power. THE higher power. and i asked if he could talk to anyone about it, get some confirmation. that's when he first tried to go to church, i think. i remember him telling me about how his mother stopped him.

that's when i started feeling empty without a church of my own. even though my faith never hurt me like it did with him. it feels so selfish now, seeing what he's become.

...dani?

you don't think it's my fault he turned out like this, right?