Gabi steered clear of conversion theory in order to keep their studies on track. The exam was in just two days, and the girls were as ready as they were ever going to be anyway. Gabi’s body hurt all over from pushing herself so hard. In addition to her sessions with Mathew, she’d gotten into the habit of joining Marnie whenever she did calisthenics to blow off steam. The girls’ heads were crammed with information, and when they began answering the questions on their flashcards without having to read them aloud, they concluded that it might be okay to decompress a little.
Gabi went to the kitchen to scrape together a snack out of the fruit leather, peanut butter packets, and stale crackers left over from her Consecration Camp stash. When she came back to her room juggling a plate and two glasses of reconstituted milk, Marnie was sitting on the bed, looking at a piece of paper. When she heard the door open, she turned away from Gabi and shoved it into a pocket.
“What’s that?” Gabi asked. Was Marnie blushing?
“None of your business.”
Gabi walked over and handed Marnie one of the glasses. “Oh, come on. Who am I going to tell? You’re the only friend I’ve ever had who isn’t a relative.” Gabi folded a leg underneath her and joined Marnie on the bed, gulping her milk and looking pointedly at Marnie’s pocket. “Let’s see it,” she insisted. “A secret for a secret, okay?”
“Oh, yeah, what secrets could you possibly have?” Marnie scoffed. “Did you skip your prayers last night?” This was Gabi’s least favorite part of being friends with Marnie. Sometimes she seemed to forget that Gabi was on her side.
“Fine, forget it,” Gabi said, unable to hide her hurt. “Why don’t we just knock off? I think I’m all set with being insulted for the day.”
Marnie definitely did color this time and set her glass of milk on the bedside table before extracting the paper from her pocket. “Sorry,” she said. “Old habits die hard. It’s just a stupid letter, anyway.”
“From whom?”
“Beth.” She said it so softly, Gabi barely heard.
“Beth? Why is she writing to you?” Gabi was shocked to note the unpleasant twinge of what she assumed was jealousy in her belly. She’d never been jealous of anyone before, but she couldn’t deny that Beth and Marnie’s connection, and the way Marnie had looked at Beth at camp bothered her.
“She asked for my address when we said goodbye on Sunday,” Marnie said, smoothing out the wrinkled paper. “She gave me hers too and said she wanted to keep in touch and hang out sometime.”
Gabi stifled another surge of jealousy. Beth was way more worldly and interesting than she was. If it came down to a choice of who to hang out with, Marnie would certainly choose Beth. Who wouldn’t? “Have you written her back?”
“A lot of people stay in touch with their mentors, Gabi, it’s no big deal. Didn’t you and Luke exchange contact info?” They did, but Gabi had no intention of getting in touch with him. He was probably only interested in hanging out with the great Brother Lowell, anyway.
“Gabi, do you remember what that prissy little idiot Natalie said about me during the purity circle back at camp?” Marnie asked, still fiddling with the letter.
“About you leaving during services?”
“No. About me liking girls.” Marnie’s voice was strained, as if she were struggling to the top of her fiftieth push-up. Gabi nodded.
“So do you know what that means?” Marnie’s knuckles whitened as she clenched the letter in her fist, ruining the work she’d done flattening it.
“Not really.” It was Gabi’s turn to blush. Her ignorance was just further proof of how naïve she was compared to other girls her age. The youth prayer circle leader would sometimes read the passage about Sodom and Gomorrah and talk in veiled terms about a perversion of God’s plan, but the vague references just made it all more confusing.
“Well, it’s true. I do like girls.”
“Okay. So do I. They’re way less unpredictable than boys, except for you.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean….” Marnie searched the room, as though the rest of her sentence might be hiding in the pages of one of Gabi’s books. “Do you remember how you felt when Luke was holding you close and looking into your eyes like you were the only person on earth?”
Despite Gabi’s acquired immunity to Luke’s charms, the memory of how she had responded to him during the Consecration Ceremony was still very much with her, though it paled in comparison to the confusing reaction she’d had to seeing Marnie unclothed before her “purity bath.” Drug-induced or no, a part of Gabi had woken up during camp that she hadn’t known existed, and it had no interest in going back to sleep.
“So that’s how I feel about girls that I like,” Marnie continued. “Not about you, obviously. No offense. I know you’re not into that.”
Gabi’s thoughts were in chaos. Marnie liked girls the way Gabi had sort of liked Luke for a second? Was it anything like the way Gabi felt about Marnie? Like she wanted to be with her all the time and not share her with anyone? Like she
