22 “Untitled” by Shay Shafer

A push notification cuts off the chorus of whatever indie pop song was playing in the background while I play a color matching game on my phone, and I can feel my heartbeat jump into my throat. I shove the phone under my pillow and squeeze my eyes shut. Even just the text preview, the first four words, is enough to spike my anxiety in a way that hasn’t happened since I left home for college.

I’m back home for Thanksgiving break and have successfully hidden in my room for the past six with only minimal, surface level interactions with my parents. My dad helped me carry my two big laundry totes from the car to the house, and asked me how I was. I told him I was good, exhausted and ducked downstairs to start the laundry and avoid further questions. I know my mom must be disappointed, but four hours in a car acting like I wasn’t aggressively tuning out 100.7 KGBI safe for the whole family Christian radio was all the social performance I could take in a 24-hour period. Was I not a good enough actor in the car? Have I lost my touch? Did she notice the trans flag wristband hanging off the strap of my backpack? I didn’t think she even knew the colors of the trans pride flag. That probably isn’t it. That better not be it or I’m screwed.  Is she upset that I haven’t been upstairs all evening, that I took dinner in my room? She can’t be upset that I took dinner in my room, I’ve been doing that since seventh grade. That’s such a tiny, petty thing. It must be something else. I reach for my phone again, and the screen lights up with the preview text on display  covering the top quarter of my Haikyuu lockscreen

––Pastor Mike:                      Hi Melissa, hope I …

I forgot he even had my number. I’ve done everything in my power to never give him an excuse to use it. My mom gave it to him without asking me in the tenth grade when rumors were going around the school about Laurel and me. My first girlfriend. She sat in my lap one day in the band room before school and I got a text from Pastor Mike the next afternoon inviting me out for coffee. It wasn’t as much of a question as it was a directive, politely declining didn’t seem like an option. He certainly didn’t expect me to say no, and he asked two more times over the course of the month, and twice more the next. I stopped replying.

If he’s texting me again, that must mean I’ve done something wrong. He feels the need to admonish or council me, or he wants to check on my walk. He wants to make sure I haven’t fallen into sin the first moment my mom hasn’t had the option of consistently monitoring where I go and who I’m with. Otherwise, how would he even know I’m back? I only got into town late this morning, and I hadn’t told anyone except my parents that I was coming back. They only knew because my mom had to come pick me up from my dorm. She must have texted him this afternoon, or told him last Sunday that I would be around. She must know that I finally changed my name, or someone must have shown her my private instagram, something has to be wrong. I drag my thumb down the screen to read the full message still in preview mode, having already decided to delete it and play dumb if anyone tries to ask about it. I need to see what I’m denying. The more information I have for damage control the better.

––Pastor Mike:           Hi Melissa, hope I caught you at a good time. I wanted to touch base since you’ve almost finished your first semester at college. Let’s get coffee this week.