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Vivi laughed nervously. “I’m coming to see the show.”
Val nodded then turned, feet slapping down the steps as he spoke. “Good. If you’d said no, I would’ve had to ban you from kissing my brother.”
Then
Val and Remy were lost causes.
This was something their parents never said, not outright, but it was obvious with the way they let little things slide—Remy’s untucked shirts, the fact they were always an hour or so late coming home, the shadow of eyeliner that was still obvious despite Val’s attempts to rub it all off. Once upon a time, they would have been placed front and center at the church so the entire congregation could scream prayers at them. Now? Their father just tensed his jaw and averted his gaze, and their mother occupied Mercy’s time—keeping the girl busy would get her away from her brothers’ influence.
They’d long outpaced the little old lady from the church and her 4/4-time, gentle music lessons. When Val got a job mowing lawns in the neighborhood, he put the money toward music lessons in town for both himself and Remy—and did so without asking, with his newly acquired Val Young swagger that even his parents didn’t seem able to contest. Perhaps they kept silent on it because he donated a quarter of his earnings back to the church—more than the fifteen percent the pastor asked for—or perhaps it was just because Val and their parents never spoke, not even to argue anymore.
Val wrote songs and Remy polished them. They burned CDs and sent them to labels and agents and famous musicians. Val began to chant a low, blood-level refrain: Music will let us leave. Music freed us the first time, and it will free us again. Remy offered no opinion on the matter but maneuvered the melodies of Val’s songs so the longing became clear in the chorus. Crowds at bars, where they lied about their ages to be allowed to play, sang along, fists pumping, eyes shining.
And then, on a Sunday, one that wasn’t unlike most other Sundays, things changed.
“Today we have a special prayer,” Pastor Ryan said, his eyes wandering out over the congregation of the Lake City Assembly of God. “A special prayer of healing for one of our most vulnerable parishioners. Valor Young, son—will you come pray with me?”
Val frowned, while Remy startled—unlike Val, he hadn’t been paying particularly close attention until that moment. It wasn’t unusual for someone to go pray with Pastor Ryan, but it was unusual for that someone to be Val or Remy—besides the fact they were considered lost causes, it was usually Mercy who needed prayers, especially as she continued to go in and out of the hospital. Val rose, adjusted his collar, and walked to the front of the room.
“Our young brother Valor is a man now—nineteen years old, a real adult. But man is fallible,” the pastor said, pausing so people could shoutamen!between each sentence. “And our young men, they are so at risk in this world. In these times, it’s so easy for them to get confused, mixed up in the head. Valor’s parents have made the very difficult decision to get him help.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and Val’s jaw clenched. Remy, however, looked at his parents, shocked. A therapist? Maybe a psychiatrist? That was so flatly against everything the church believed in.
“Valor,” the pastor said, wrapping an arm around Val’s shoulders and pulling him close. Val didn’t resist. “I know you struggle. I see the pain in your eyes. I know the doubt in your heart. We’ve all gathered together our pennies—even your pennies, from your tithings—to pay for you to go away for a spell, to a special camp that will help you become a stronger, happier man of God.”
Val never resisted, never shouted, never faltered; he stood still for the rest of the service while the pastor regaled him and the rest of the congregation with stories of the camp, how it made young men turn away from drugs or alcohol or sodomy. It was Remy who glowered at his parents, at his mother’s quivering chin. It was Remy who, for the first time in his life, screamed at his parents when he arrived home, the threat of Val going away to a conversion therapy camp finally shattering his stoic, quiet nature.
But it was Val who acted.
He packed his bags of clothes, took the pamphlets from his parents that featured happy young men with their arms slung around one another’s shoulders and proudly discussed the benefits of electroconvulsive therapy and exorcism. Remy finally shouted at Val—what was he doing, going along with this? Why wasn’t he fighting?
How could Val willingly leave Remy here alone?
Remy wondered this all the way up till three o’clock in the morning, when Val shook him awake and motioned to the window. Without a single word, they unloaded Val’s lawn equipment from the van, replacing it with Val’s personal belongings. With nothing but a long, shared look, they then loaded Remy’s. It was almost four when Val slipped into the driver’s seat. The van would squeal when the engine turned over—it would surely wake everyone up.
“Ready?” Val asked.
Remy wasn’t entirely sure if Val was talking to him or to himself, but he nodded all the same. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Val shook his head. “To the real world,” he said.
He turned the engine over.
Sure enough, the van squealed to life. Val kept his eyes on the road, but Remy watched in the side mirror as the lights in the house flicked on. Their father ran out first, clad in boxers and a stretched-out undershirt. He was shouting; when their mother ran up behind him, she was wailing. Mercy appeared at her bedroom window. She was watching, motionless, the smallest of curious expressions gracing her face.
Val pressed the gas, and in a rumble of smoke and backfires and clatters, they sped out of Lake City for the first and last time.
