In one day, my life changed forever and irreversibly. I had my first date, my first kiss, my first dance, my first romantic sleepover, and I fell in love- all with a woman, a person that my family would disapprove of for many more reasons than just her gender. But somehow, when I returned home, my parents didn't seem to notice that anything was different about me at all.

It was like any other morning, at least for the rest of them. Geri scraped together breakfast for Gillian and gathered up materials for her and Gwen's homeschool day, lead us in morning prayer, and we all dodged around each other for use of the bathroom. Garrett had already left the house by the time I got home, and Geri didn't acknowledge me much more than to absently ask if I'd had a good time. Once I'd answered in a noncommittal affirmative, it was dismissed in her mind as unimportant, even as it remained in my memory as the most important thing that had ever happened to me.

I tried to play things down, but it was impossible. I couldn't stop smiling every time I thought about Shiloh, and that was a lot. A LOT. Little pieces of memory of our time together kept floating up into my mind, and I felt dazed, almost like I was all head without a working body attached. I noticed Gwendolyn looking at me a little weirdly a few times, but she didn't ask or say anything, so I didn't either. It wasn't like my hyper religious 11 year old sister was someone I could confide in.

I already was very careful about my phone always being within my reach and sight, just in case any texts or emails came up from Shiloh that couldn't be easily explained away if someone else got hold of them. But now my phone was practically grafted into my hand, and I spent pretty much every second I could get away with texting her and stealing a few minutes to call her when possible. I couldn't get enough, and Shiloh swore that she never got tired of hearing my voice, that her whole face lit up every time she saw my name show up at the top of an incoming text. It was amazing to know that I could have that effect on her- the same effect she had on me.

In the first couple of weeks after meeting Shiloh face to face, my grades definitely took a hit. It was hard to concentrate or care about studying, homework, or paying attention when I was exhausted from staying up texting with Shiloh. Sometimes we video chatted but on silent, using the chat features so we could see each other but still talk without me waking up my family. It was hard for me to break away to go to sleep, and once we finally did say goodbye, I was usually too keyed up to sleep for a while. That made it pretty near impossible to stay alert in class, but it didn't matter to me like it once had. School was a temporary thing, something to get through over the next few years. What was going on with me and Shiloh could be forever, or at least I wanted to do everything I could to give us that chance.

I started making as many excuses as I could to be away from my family, coming home late as often as I could. Suddenly the girl who was no longer on the honor roll was a member of just about every club the school hosted that I thought Geri would approve of, and a few that I completely invented. I might have laid it on a little too thick when I told her that there were girls in some of the clubs and my suddenly numerous study groups that I thought I could witness to and talk into attending our church. But somehow, Geri bought it. Then again, with Gwen and Gillian having plenty of church activities for their age group and sports and arts and science clubs for other home school kids, I don't think Geri hardly paid attention to what I said I was doing and where I said I was going, as long as it sounded acceptable and I was back when I said I would be.

My mother trusted me, in the time that I was probably least deserving of it and lying the most I ever had. It was something I felt sort of bad about, when I let myself think about it. So I tried not to. But sometimes I did catch Gwendolyn giving me strange looks, like she thought there was something weird about my sudden business even if Geri didn't. And I felt worse than ever when Gilly climbed into my lap one night and wrapped her chubby arms around me, saying, "I miss you, Tay-Tay. You're never around anymore."

She was sort of right. I used to spend a lot more time with her and Gwen, more because I didn't have anything better to do than because I actually wanted to. It hadn't occurred to me that it mattered to her or Gwen, or that she would miss me if I stopped.

I tried to remember that, after. I tried to remember to always take a minute or two to talk to my little sisters and ask about their days, but it was hard to make the effort sometimes, when there was so little I could say back to them about mine. I think both of them noticed the difference in me before either of our parents did.

In less than three months, overnights at "Holly's" house had become common enough that they were almost every Friday or Saturday, and each time it was harder to pull apart from Shiloh. She was more interesting and beautiful and worthy to me the more I grew to know her, and it made me feel better about myself that she seemed to feel the same about me. It was almost a slap to my system to go from being with the girl I was in love with and the openness of being in a relationship with her without lies or games around her family and friends, to the stilted, secretive pretenses and hiding with my own family.

Shiloh's family wasn't perfect. I had no illusions of that. I had seen for myself over time that her father was about as emotionally and physically absent as my own, and her stepmother Cynthia really could be very childish and mean-natured towards her and her sisters. I still didn't understand her weirdly snippy relationship with Chelsea, and Parker, although she was nine years old, had tantrums sometimes that were worse than the ones I remembered Gillian having when she was two or three. But it still felt better and more normal for me to be around them than my own family, like I was taking full breaths instead of measuring each one in case all the air suddenly left the room. They weren't perfect, but they were real in a way that my family wasn't, in a way that I wasn't allowed to be.

"How come you don't talk to Holly at church much when you go see her at her house all the time?" Gwen finally asked me one Sunday as we were driving home from the first of the two services Geri would insist we all attend. "Or go sit with her and her family?"

For a moment I froze. I hadn't yet considered the possibility that Geri or one of my sisters might mention to Holly or her family about our sudden and very close friendship. Or at least, I hadn't considered it enough to realize that it was a real and dangerous possibility.

"We talk all the time at school and at her house, and on the phone," I said finally, hoping my voice sounded steady and confident enough to at least satisfy an 11 year old who was too nosy sometimes for her own good. "Holly likes to focus on God and her family on Sunday, so she mostly sits and talks with them."

"She seems like such a nice, mature, God-centered young lady," Geri said approvingly- exactly the response I had hoped for from her. But then she followed up with, "You should have her over for a movie or game night with the family one night, Taylor. We'd all like to get to know her better, I'm sure."

I had to think quickly on that one. I could just see the disaster ahead- not only of Holly having no idea why my family seemed to think we were besties, but also her seeing that we literally lived in a basement. I wouldn't want anyone in my school to see that even if I wasn't lying about the nature of our relationship to each other.

"Um, that sounds like a great idea, Mom, but maybe we should wait until the house is finished being built," I said finally. "I haven't told Holly about our, um, living situation, and I would hate to put her in a position where she might have to lie about it. I think that would really bother her, so it's probably better if I just keep staying with her for now. We aren't supposed to tell people at church about it, right?"

That was a pretty smart move on my part, if I do say so for myself. Lobbing Geri's own sin and hypocrisy back at her, while trying to look like the obedient and thoughtful daughter maintaining her church image. I saw Geri's forehead furrow in the rearview mirror as she considered this.

"You're right, Taylor, that's probably best," she said quickly. "Well, when we're moved in, we'll make having her over a priority."

The builders seemed to be taking an eternity to finish the place; it had been over six months since they started. I just hoped it would take them long enough that I could keep making up excuses about why I couldn't have Holly over, while still being able to go to "Holly" myself.

88

"Are you sure you're ready?"

Shiloh's words, raspy and heated against the flushed skin of my neck, nevertheless made me shiver. Her hands stilled against my naked skin, patient, alert, waiting, as she always did, for my okay to move forward. It was just another one of the things I loved about her, how careful she was to always look out for my feelings, my comfort.

But she didn't need to be so careful with me, not anymore. It had been nearly five months since the day we first met face to face, and over ten since we had begun our ritual of day and night discussions. I knew Shiloh inside out by now, in all the ways that mattered. Touching or being touched by her, seeing her body bare or letting her see mine, seemed like such a small, secondary thing in comparison to the trust we had established for each other in words alone.

And sex with her? It was important, of course, and I understood and appreciated her caution. It was my first time, ever, if not hers, and it would be something I couldn't undo, something that would mark a crossing of boundary in my life forever. But that was why I knew I wanted this, and why I wanted it with Shiloh. Because she was the only person I could imagine holding my hand as I pushed through that particular breaking point.

Sex had always felt unimportant to me, something that I couldn't understand the big deal everyone made out of it. But then, I had never been in love before, and being in love, being kissed and grinded against and getting worked up by the person I was in love with and who loved me back- well, I'd been thinking and talking about sex for what seemed like a long time now, although I guess it was just a month or so in reality. Specifically, obviously, sex with Shiloh.

I didn't have to think about my answer to her. I just kissed her jawline, gradually dragging my lips over the curve of her cheek until I reached her ear. I sucked its lobe into my mouth, then bit down, just hard enough to make her groan and squirm beneath me. I loved it when I could make her do that, just as much as I loved when she could make me do the same.

"I'm sure," I whispered into her ear. "I'm ready. And I love you, Shiloh Joanna LaBianca."

I hadn't gone into this night without some research into what to do and what to expect. What can I say, I've always been the kind of girl who doesn't like to be embarrassed or get things wrong; this didn't seem like the kind of thing to go into unprepared. I had stopped short of porn, but I did read the more realistic fan fics I had bookmarked again and looked up as much factual information about lesbian sex that I could find without giving myself an anxiety attack about someone looking over my shoulder in the process.

Shiloh had thought it was hilarious when I told her this, two days before our planned overnight.

"You're too much, Taylor, you big nerd," she had laughed, affection equal to the disbelief in her voice. "You know I can teach or explain to you anything you don't know. Or just show you, wink wink."

And I did know that. I also knew she would never laugh at me about something sensitize or vulnerable like sex, even if I did screw it up somehow. But I had to do it anyway, for my own sense of security. It was the last thing I needed before I could open myself up enough to be able to let go, in this one last way I still held onto.

Shiloh's hand lightly rubbed at my side, down over my hip, and then across my breast, cupping it gently in her hand. With her other she thumbed my cheekbone, pulling her head back enough so that she was looking me directly in the eyes. She was barely inches away from me, our bodies overlapped and entangled, but she made sure to keep eye contact as she said with intensity, "I love you, Taylor Beth Morris. I love you."

How do you describe your first time with someone, without it feeling like a sort of self-betrayal, letting someone take a look into a piece of your soul that doesn't belong to them and that they don't quite know what to do with? How do you talk about sex and love and intimacy without it becoming a weird mess of too many words, taking away from the unspoken and much more important details of what actually happened and what it meant to the two of you?

I guess someone can write about these things and do it in a way that is poetic and beautiful, respectful of privacy but revealing of intimacy and love. But I just turned seventeen a few weeks ago, and I can barely even put my memory and my feelings about it into thoughts in my own head. I won't try to write about them, in a way that someone who knows neither of us can never understand.

But I will say that unlike a lot of girls, I will never regret my first time having sex, or the person that I chose. No matter how everything happened afterward, I never for a moment was sorry about that night.

88

The morning after was a Sunday. That was bad planning on my part; I knew that I would have to get up far before I wanted to in order to be back with my family in time for Sunday school. I couldn't use the excuse that I would go with Holly, because if Holly didn't show, or arrived before or after I did, then I would have to invent explanations for an excuse that was getting flimsier and more dangerous every time I used it already.

Saturday morning, before leaving for Shiloh's, I had given my parents- or Geri, really, since Garrett never really seemed to listen or care- the excuse that I would come home before church because Holly's mother had strict rules about taking showers only in the morning, and I preferred to take one at night on weekends. This was complete bullshit and Geri did give me a funny look, but she let it go.

Gwen hadn't. She was more and more strange lately with how she seemed to always be wanting to know what I was doing and where I was going, who I was texting or talking to. She was getting to be worse than Geri that way.

"But you always take showers in the mornings on school days. Why do you want to change it just because it's a weekend? When did you start doing that?"

"It's better for your hair to switch up its routine," I completely bullshitted her, but even then she wouldn't stop.

"How do you know that? Did you see that on a commercial, or read it online? Because a lot of what you read and see isn't true, you know. They're trying to draw you into buying things and living a life all about your looks. That's not how God wants things for you, you know."

Now I was getting sermons from an 11 year old? Forget me needing to get out- which I did, soon as possible- Gwendolyn needed to get a damn life herself, and fast.

So a Saturday sleepover, not my brightest plan. It was almost impossible, given the previous evenings activities, to drag myself up and apart from Shiloh and actually get on the road. By the time I finally pulled into our still not actually existing driveway, my entire family was waiting for me in the mini van, which almost made me panic. What if they had actually called Holly's family to ask her what was taking me so long to get home, and if I should just ride over without them?

I jumped out of the car almost the second the motor had shut off and nearly threw myself into the van with the rest of the family, breathless. Thankfully I had thought to put on "church clothes- before leaving Shiloh's place. It wasn't what I normally would choose- of course, in Geri's view, all females had to wear some sort of skirt or dress or they weren't properly attired for worship of the Lord in his house.

"We've been waiting for you," Gillian announced, kicking her heels against the back of my seat. "Mama was about to call you."

"Yes, I was," Geri muttered, shaking her head. "I thought you were coming home early, Shiloh, you might as well have just come to church with Holly and her family. If you'd been much longer you would have made us late."

"Sorry, sorry," I muttered, not bothering to give them an excuse. The more details I provided, the more likely I was to get tripped up by them. "I'm here now, I'm ready."

"Well, I hope you were driving safely," Geri shook her head again. "I suppose the important thing is you've arrived, the family is together and safe. Let's be thankful for the important things and focus our minds on the Lord and his day."

I swear I saw Garrett roll his eyes in the rearview mirror before starting up the car engine. Sometimes I wonder just how much he really believes in what Geri goes on about, and how much he stays quiet about just to keep the peace. It's really hard to tell with him sometimes.

I noticed Gwendolyn was quiet too as I set my duffle bag and purse at my feet in the van's middle seat. Normally she would choose to sit beside me there, now that she was old and tall enough not to automatically be relegated to the backseat with Gillian. But she was sitting beside Gillian today, even though Gillian had recently picked up the "punchbug, no punchback" game from another kid at church and therefore was not the most pleasant person to sit beside in the car. Weird, but I didn't dwell on it.

"Can I have some gum, Taylor?" she asked me.

Also weird- normally if she wanted gum, it was Geri she would ask, not me. Then again, maybe she had finally just learned that Geri mostly carried lame flavors like spearmint or peppermint, and if I had gum, it sometimes had a flavor that didn't resemble toothpaste.

"Yeah, find some," I told her, tossing my purse over the seat for her to look for herself. I was still a little stressed from rushing, and not in the mood to hear her Gilly fight over which piece they wanted specifically. "Get Gilly a piece too if she wants."

"You have to spit it out before you get in the church!" Geri chimed in, which in my opinion made getting gum at all useless since we would be at the church in less than five minutes. But the girls didn't argue with her, and a few minutes later Gwen passed my purse back to me. Tired, I leaned my head against the window, half dozing, half letting my thoughts drift back to Shiloh and last night.

It was going to be harder than usual to focus today. Especially on anything church related.

Our arrival to church was marked by the usual clamor of my sisters climbing over and around the seats, having to help Gillian out of her booster and straighten up the skirt of her dress before Geri approved us walking inside. I left my duffle and purse, including phone, out in the car in the church parking lot. It wasn't like I was afraid of someone stealing anything, and I didn't have more than ten dollars anyway. I would have snuck texting or scrolling social media if I thought I could get away with it, but I knew very well I couldn't with two tattling sisters and Geri sitting beside me during the sermon. So there was no point in exposing myself to the temptation by bringing my phone or anything else in.

I didn't need any electronics to distract myself, though. It was even easier than usual to stand and sit automatically with the others around me, humming along without taking in the words to the hymns, as every part of me was focused less on God and far more on Shiloh. Last night, my time with her had been closer to an occasion of worship than anything I had ever felt inside a church, and I had felt that she saw in me something worth reverence. No one had ever told me that another human being could see me that way. No one had ever prepared me for how amazing it would feel.

Probably every person in the room would tell me it was wrong. None of them, I was sure, could understand that it was only with Shiloh that I felt right.

As usual, it seemed to take far longer than I considered reasonable for us to actually leave the church to pick up some take out lunch and head home. Geri had to stand around and hug and greet just about every person in the entire congregation while Garrett stood around slouch-shouldered, hands in his pockets, looking almost visibly pained by the social interaction. Sometimes I just marvel at the fact that I think the only person in my family I have no genetic ties to is the one whose social comfort most closely resembles mine. Then we had to wait out being signed up for about a million volunteer events that I think only Gwen had any actual interest in, and any other excuse our mother could come up with to extend the time we stayed in the building that much longer. Sometimes I think she dreads going back to that damn depressing basement every bit as much as I do, but feels like it's wrong or sinful to let on. Even Geri can't seriously enjoy being in church so much that she spends an extra hour there past the time it's officially ended.

In the course of my boredom while waiting for her, I regretted my choice to leave my purse- and therefore phone- in the car. I had nothing to entertain myself with but inane church chatter. So by the time she finally did actually usher us towards the mini-van, my fingers were practically itching for the feel of its smooth metal in my palm.

Only I couldn't find it. I looked through my purse several times, then on the seat, around Gillian's booster, and under the seats as well, but my phone was nowhere to be seen. I dug through my duffle bag and still didn't come up with it.

"Hey, have you seen my phone?" I asked my sisters, mostly directing the question towards Gillian. She had an obsession with Candy crush lately that I think had more to do with the fact she loved candy than being any good at the game, and she was always begging me to let her borrow it so she could play.

"No," Gillian answered, shaking her head.

I looked her over suspiciously, narrowing my eyes, but she sounded sincere. Gillian is young enough that she still can't quite pull off a successful lie without twitching or winking and giving herself away, and her face didn't flinch.

"Gwen?" I asked my other sister, but Gwen just shrugged her narrow shoulders, not meeting my eyes.

I eyed her, suspicious. She hadn't actually denied seeing the phone or taking it, which for Gwen, was practically a confession.

"Did you leave it in the church, Taylor?" Geri asked, looking over her shoulder at us. "I'm sure someone brought it to the lost and found or the church office if they did, we can go back and look."

"No, I didn't bring it inside," I told her, shaking my head. "It was right here."

"You're sure you didn't leave it in your car, or at Holly's house? Why don't you give her a call when we get home and make sure?" she pressed.

There wasn't a good way for me to answer that without admitting I didn't have Holly's number and was hardly going to call her and ask her, and I wasn't about to call a long distance number with the record showing on our landline caller ID either. Instead I shrugged, bothered, trying to think back.

"I'll find it. Maybe it is in my car."

Only I clearly remembered leaving it in my purse, and I had already determined that it just wasn't there. And Gwen was still strangely quiet, even with Gillian prattling on about coats of many colors and how weird it was for Joseph to have a rainbow coat like a girl beside her.

We had barely picked up some food through the Arby's drive through, pulled in front of our house, and started to make our way noisily downstairs to eat in our basement dwelling before Gwen piped up in a louder and more nervous tone than I was used to hearing from her, interrupting Gillian's continued chattering about her kid meal toy.

"After we eat, we need to have a family meeting. Okay?"

I almost stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs, having to grab the railing to catch myself. I could remember Gwen calling a family meeting one time in all my life, and that was when she was nine and one of the kids in her class told her that Santa wasn't real. Family meetings called by Geri were routine and usually had something to do with chores, unwanted decisions made on our behalf, or religious expectations; family meetings called by Gillian were frequent and trivial enough that she had finally been banned from calling any without first getting Geri or Garrett's approval after her last meeting called because she thought Gwen had played with one of her dolls without asking. And I, of course, hated family meetings so much I would never dream of calling one. It wasn't like it would ever result in me getting to have some sort of control over the outcome of whatever issues I was bringing up.

Gwendolyn calling a family meeting was a big deal. And with my phone being missing, I was filled with panic about what it was she had to say.

But our parents, if surprised, didn't show it. They simply agreed and went about getting out paper plates and ketchup, with Geri leading us in yet another prayer after being at church praying for the past few hours already. I couldn't eat. The smell of the food made my stomach sick and heavy with dread of what was coming. I spent the twenty minutes it took my family to eat trying to come up with an excuse, any excuse, about why we had to put the meeting off, or why it would be impossible for me to attend. But I knew the rules. If someone called a Morris family meeting, it was over serious business, and everyone was acquired to attend, pay attention, and take the concerns seriously of the person who had called it together. I couldn't think of any exception that Geri had ever approved, and my brain was too full of foggy anxiety to come up with any on the spot.

I followed my family numbly into the area designated as the "living room," consisting of a couch and a love seat arranged in a half rectangle around our coffee table and TV. It was just a few feet away from the "kitchen area" of the table, chairs, fridge, and microwave and hot plate. Normally our parents would take the loveseat while my sisters and I took the larger space of the couch, but today Gwen sat on the loveseat, as the head of the meeting. I sat beside her, feeling that somehow my proximity to her might give me more control to be able to head off anything she might be about to say.

I wasn't surprised when she took a shaky breath, then unzipped the small glittery purse Geri had only recently let her start carrying around with her, retrieving my missing phone. I reached for it immediately, making an affronted noise in my throat, but Gwen closed her hand tightly around it. I would have had to force her fingers open to take it back.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Taylor, but I did know where your phone was, and I didn't want to tell you because I needed to see," she said, her voice small and a little shaky as she leaned as far away from me as the small seat would allow. "I'm sorry if that was wrong, but I was trying to help you, I just wanted to protect you if you were getting lead astray."

"You took my phone," I managed to choke out, my throat so dry now I could barely get my voice to work at all. "You can't just take my phone, Gwen, give it back to me."

"Gwendolyn!" Geri said, more shocked than angry. "You heard your sister ask about her phone, and you had it the whole time?"

"What were you even going to do with it, it has a passcode!" I pointed out to her, a little more strongly than before. I had made sure to add one, the last time that Gilly was playing on it and a message from Shiloh popped up. I had just been lucky that Gillian's reading skills were poor enough that she called me over to read it to her instead of just reading the very flirty message that had been sent.

"I know your passcode," Gwen admitted, lowering her head so I couldn't see most of her face. "I watched you put it in a few times when you couldn't see. I'm sorry, I know that was probably wrong, but I did it because I was worried, Taylor. I did it because I love you, and I had to know what you were doing so I could keep you safe."

"You had no right to be spying on me like that," I started heatedly, shaking my head hard enough that I felt something pop in my neck. "You had no right to take my phone without asking, Gwendolyn, now give it back, right this minute. Give-"

"Your sister is right, you shouldn't be taking her things without asking," Garrett interrupted shortly and with some intensity, to my relief. "Stealing is wrong, Gwendolyn, you know that. Give it back to your sister, now."

Thank god. Maybe all of this would be ended quickly after all, maybe this could all just go away. I would make a new passcode, I would never let the phone out of my sight. Maybe-

But I had forgotten that no matter what the Bible had to say about men being head of the household, it was Geri who held the real authority in our family, and Geri overrode Garrett's orders with her own questions.

"Hold on, Garrett, give her a minute to explain. Gwennie, what do you mean, why were you so worried about your sister that you would feel like you need to look at her phone?"

It was a good question. It was also a question I really didn't want her to answer.

"She took my phone," I protested, trying to change the topic back to one that felt safer. "Without asking. And she basically lied about not knowing where it was. She needs to give it back and not take my things again."

"Taylor, I asked your sister a question," Geri insisted, holding up a hand as though to stop me from any further protesting. "Why did you feel your sister wasn't safe, Gwen?"

Gillian squirmed, her eyes flitting between us in some interest- probably wondering which of us would be the one in trouble, and what would happen. Gwendolyn's hand tightened around my phone, and she pressed her lips together, her eyes aimed down at her lap. This was one of the first times I felt actually violent towards her. I almost had to sit on my hands to keep myself from snatching the phone and giving her a good hard pinch in the process.

What had she heard, what had she managed to see on the phone? How could my 11 year old sister be such an unseen and serious threat to my precious, private life with Shiloh?