(For the Writing Prompt) Two young Witness women that have been extremely close for years become a little more than just friends. However, when one of them confesses they want to leave the cult, it drives the other away. After a long time, the one in the cult decides she finally wants to leave, and reconnect with her “friend.” (Romance perhaps?)
Jo laughed so hard she ended up choking on her root beerfloat, some of the drink sloshing out of the glass onto her shirt. “Diana! I’mstill in my service clothes, you can’t saythings like that! Don’t make me laugh!”
“How can I resist when it’s so easy though?” she grinned.“Here, let me help.” She tore a paper towel off the roll on her counter andused it to dab at the spot on her friend’s blouse. Jo’s breath hitched at thesudden proximity, at the way her friend was holding her, at the way she couldsmell Diana’s shampoo, the clean, soft scent of her.
Diana met her eyes curiously, face open and trusting andthen suddenly understanding, suddenly filled with a desire that matched hersexactly, eyes going dark with an obvious intent.
And then suddenly they were kissing, lips moving againsteach other, soft and loving and finally.Finally, after so many years of waiting, of dancing around each other, ofpretending this wasn’t everything they ever wanted. Of pretending that ‘bestfriends’ was good enough. That they could be content with that, that thesituation wasn’t intolerable, that every cell of their beings didn’t scream atthe distance they were forced to keep.
Their kiss was like finding water in the desert. It was foodto one who had been so long denied. It was everything.
Jo threaded her hands into Diana’s hair like she had alwayswanted to and cupped the other woman’s head, pulling her closer. Diana obliged,deepening the kiss, responding with growing hunger. Her hands roamed over Jo’slean body and the gentle slowness they had started with was melting intodesperate passion, into a need that had been too long ignored.
Jo’s tongue teased at her mouth and Diana gasped,snapping back to reality. She stepped back, breaking off all contact. “We can’tdo this,” she said, still breathless. “It’s a sin.”
Jo held her gaze steadily, eyes searing. “I don’t care.”
“No. No, we can’t do this. Jehovah is watching! We’ll getdisfellowshipped!”
“I don’t care,” Jo repeated.
“What do you mean, you don’t care? We could loseeverything!”
“We’re going to anyway, Diana!” she said. “You can’t be gayand be a Witness, it’s not allowed. We’re going to get kicked out no matterwhat. We’re going to get shunned no matter what. It’s just a matter of time.”
“No it’s not. Nobody has to know—“
“Diana,” she said. “I can’t go on living this way. I can’tkeep pretending to be something that I’m not.”
“You make it sound like we’re lying,” she said. “It’s not asin to avoid stumbling anyone. As long as we keep this to ourselves and don’tact on anything, we can still get into Paradise. We just—we just to try to—“
“Ignore it,” she said. “Everyone has sinful desires. We havea choice whether we act on them or not.”
“Ignoring a problem and covering it up doesn’t make it goaway. Pretending I’m straight doesn’t make me any less of a… doesn’t make meany less gay,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve read all theliterature. I’ve prayed for months, for years.I’ve talked to the elders about it! I just—I can’t.”
A pit of cold dread settled in Diana’s stomach. “What do youmean?”
Jo took a breath. “I love you.”
Silence hung in the air for a long, painful moment.
“And if the god of love hates me for loving you, then Ican’t serve him anymore.”
“Jehovah doesn’t hate you,” she said.
“No, of course not. He just hates that fundamental aspect ofwho I am and doesn’t want me to find love in my life,” she said dryly.
“We can change. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says ‘that is what someof you were. But you have been washedclean—‘”
“I know what the verse says,” she snapped. “I don’t need tobe fixed, Diana, and neither do you.I’ve tried everything they said to try for years, and nothing’s worked. Itcan’t be done. I still love you, and I’m not going to stop loving you.” Hervoice dropped to something much quieter, more fragile. “And I think you love metoo.”
Diana looked up at her sharply, too shocked to respond for amoment. Then she found her voice, shaky and unsteady, but with an edge ofdetermination.
They made the announcement that Thursday night.
“Josefina Vasquez is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Diana had told the elders everything. Two judicial committeehearings had immediately been called. Diana plead repentance and was publiclyreproved. Shamed, as Jo had put it. She was publicly shamed.
Jo had walked into the hearing with her head held high andproudly disassociated herself. Her hands had trembled. She had clasped thembehind her back so the elders wouldn’t see.
Now she sat in the very back, deserted, last row. She wasstill as a statue, her face carved out of stone. She was untouched. Immovable,unassailable.
She saw her mother shaking slightly, a few rows up. Herfather took her hands in his tenderly. Jo could see him whispering something toher.
Diana was on the other side of the Hall, the picture ofconstrained fury. A tear snuck out of her eye, and she swiped it away angrily.
The elder called for the song to begin, and everyone stoodup. Except Jo. Off-key, overly-quiet singing drifted through the air. It wassuffocating.
They had just started the second verse when Jo stood up andwalked out.
She was never coming back. Not for anything. She lovedDiana, but she had to love herself, too.
Diana came home from the meeting to an empty, darkapartment. At twenty-three, she lived on her own now. It was a recent change.She’d had to stop pioneering due to work, and so her father had stopped supportingher. She was an adult, after all. She had always known what the arrangementwould be: either she regular pioneered after high school, or she would bepaying her father rent.
She had thought that if she was going to be paying renteither way, she may as well get some privacy and a place of her own. Now,though, her whole world was ending, she had never felt so alone in her life,and all she wanted was for her dad to hug her and tell her everything would bealright.
She wanted hot cocoa and her cat that had died three yearsago and to see her disfellowshipped mom again. She wanted her parents, laughingand telling jokes in the kitchen while Mom made dinner. She wanted Jo stayingover for the night, whispering in her ear and making her laugh until shewheezed; that giddy, ecstatic feeling in her chest that she got when thingswere so sweetly perfect with her best friend. Warmth that would bloom in herchest and stay there for hours afterwards, sometimes days, making Diana lay inbed at night with a smile on her face, replaying their conversations andpretending she wasn’t blushing. She wanted to be sixteen again. She wanted togo back to when she hadn’t realized what it all meant. She wanted to go back towhen she was blissfully love-drunk and ignorant, before the longing had turned bittersweetand painful.
Her best friend. Her love. She had admitted it years ago.She was in love with Josefina Vasquez. Hopelessly, irreversibly. And there wasn’ta single thing she could do about it.
Now she would never see her again.
She wondered what Jo would do, now. She had no friendsoutside the congregation. Her family had cut her off even before theannouncement was made. She had no support system, absolutely no one to turn to.
Knowing Jo, though, the woman would probably say she didn’tneed one and try to power through on her own. She would only ask for help afterabsolutely exhausting every other option. Hopefully she wouldn’t swallow herpride too late.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that at all.
No. No. Diana wasn’t gonna think like that. She was going tothink positive. Jo would—If anyone could have ever been called nontraditional,then it was Jo.
She thought of the way her friend’s eyes sparkled when shewas passionate about something, the way her hands never stopped moving and sheseemed to speak with her whole body. She thought about Jo bubbling over inexcitement, infodumping on her special interests. She thought about the pang oflonging and sadness in her voice whenever college was brought up, the way shewould taper off and become quiet afterwards and break Diana’s heart.
Maybe she would go, now. Major in molecular chemistry likeshe had always wanted to. Diana had listened to her talk aboutoxidation-reduction reactions enough that she felt she could teach a course onit. Once, she had spoken for an hour and a half about the absolutely fascinating differences between transfat and cis fat molecules. Diana had interrupted every now and then to make acrappy pun.
It made her heart ache to see Jo so happy, so passionateabout something. She had been beautiful then. The most beautiful person Dianahad ever seen.
She knew she would never meet someone as extraordinary asher ever again. Josefina Vasquez had blown into her life at the age of fourteenwith all the force of a whirlwind, and Diana hadn’t caught her breath since.
Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed.
Diana was doing street witnessing one day and saw Jo walk byacross the street, hand in hand with some blonde girl who looked way too boringfor her and probably had no clue how impossibly lucky she was.
Sister McMullin didn’t notice and kept talking about thefulfillment of prophecies or something. Diana barely registered it, noddingalong when it seemed appropriate. There was a droning hum in her ears. She feltlike screaming, throwing things and tearing her own hair out.
She had been preparing for the end of the world her entirelife but suddenly she wasn’t ready. It wasn’t fair.
There was a young man at the Hall. His name was David. Hewas a ministerial servant, working on becoming an elder, and he loved football.
He ended up in the same car group as Diana for servicealmost every time she went out. She knew for a fact it wasn’t a coincidence. Hisfather was in charge of making the groups, after all.
Diana had started pioneering again. She had quit her job andtaken a lower-paying one with less hours. She had thrown herself headlong intoher faith without a second thought and wasn’t looking back.
She wasn’t going to think about it.
David talked to her incessantly, seeming to never notice howuninterested she was. There was nothing wrong with David. He thought he wasdoing her a favor by spending time with her, like his mere presence was a giftfrom God himself, but still. Every other Witness boy was pretty much worse.
There was nothing wrong with David, except for the fact thathe wasn’t Jo.
When he asked her out, she said yes anyway.
It had been one year, three months, and nine days sinceDiana had last seen Jo.
She stood in front of the mirrors in the Kingdom Hall bathrooms.Her dress was beautiful. The veil was gorgeous. Her dark curls were styledimmaculately, her makeup done by a professional. Her eyes were dead andlifeless.
Her mother hadn’t been invited to the wedding, of course.She was standing alone in the bathroom, the only figure the mirror showed.
She was going to walk out that door and go into the adjacentroom and then another room and take her father’s arm. He was going to walk herdown the aisle and give her away to David. Brother Fonseca would talk about loveand fidelity and a threefold cord, and Diana would swear her subservience to aman she couldn’t care less about.
It was over. It really was over. This was her life, and thiswas all she would ever get.
Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back downquickly. She steeled herself, turning her face into a mask of indifference.
She took a deep breath and walked out the door.
“—To love and to cherish and to deeply respect?” BrotherFonseca asked.
“I—” Diana started. Her eyes darted around the Hall, wideand panicked. Her hands were sweating on the bouquet.
“Diana?” Brother Fonseca prompted gently.
“No,” she breathed out. “No. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’msorry.”
She tossed the bouquet down right on the platform and walkedstraight off the center of the stage, the entire Hall murmuring and Davidlooking stricken, but not surprised.
Her face burned and she broke into a half-jog. She pushedpast the doors and ran into her car, swearing for the first time in her lifewhen she couldn’t get the key in, hands shaking too much. She tried again withthe same result. She slammed her arms into the steering wheel and shouted.
She took a deep, unsteady breath. She saw her dad burst outof the Hall, coming towards her rapidly. An eerie sense of calm descended onher.
She picked up the key and turned the car on. She didn’t lookat her dad as she drove away.
She showed up outside Jo’s door twenty-three minutes later.
At least, it had been Jo’s door a year ago. What if shemoved? What if she moved in with the horrible blonde girl? What if it was alltoo late and Diana had missed her chance, had blown it with the best thing thathad ever happened to her?
She was frozen on the doorstep, unable to even knock. Comeon. She did this every day, literally. Just knock on the door, ask for a fewminutes to talk, to explain, she could—
The door opened without her touching it.
Jo stood there in her pajamas, long hair messy from sleep.Her eyes widened.
“Jo,” Diana breathed, voice broken. “Jo, I’m so sorry. I-Imessed up. I don’t know—”
Jo shushed her and pulled her in gently for the best, mosttender kiss of Diana’s life. She felt everything, all at once; euphoric reliefand joy and the soul-crushing weight of the past wasted year. One of them madesome horrible, choked sound. Diana thought it was her.
Jo pulled back and took both of her hands. She led her inside.
The door clicked shut behind them.
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