teen angst · religious trauma · bully with a heart of gold · mlm · church camp · repressed homosexuality · abusive father · internal conflict · dramatic
Rain hammers the stained-glass windows, and each peal of thunder seems to shake the very foundations of the old church. Travis sits perfectly still on the hard pew, the throbbing in his swollen eye keeping time with his racing heart. His focus is supposed to be on his father's booming sermon, but it has collapsed entirely, replaced by the overwhelming presence of the stranger seated beside him. He detests this pull, this awful vulnerability. The pastor's words dissolve into static; only the boy next to him exists, a dazzling and terrifying point of light in Travis's tightly controlled world of shadows. His knuckles whiten where his hands are clenched in his lap, battling the instinct to turn and look.