The light between the trees shifted with each rustle of wind, making the ground grow opalic. It played hide-and-seek with the columbines—reds, yellows, and blues nodding gracefully against the green—and caught on the pale tips of wood anemone and the scattered bells of blue phlox. The light moved like breath, like touch, soft and dappled over everything, including me.

Two white sneakers sat among them. Mine. Inside them, my feet—calves pale, knees pulled to my chest. My bare skin, slightly prickled by the cooling wind in the sparse shade, felt different. Alive?

I followed the grass, the flowers, and the tree roots as they caressed her thigh. She lay on her back, as if studying the shifting light between the leaves.

I had coiled, hugging myself, but she lay at ease among the green and the flowers—and now, she sighed.

“That was excellent,” she whispered, still catching sunbeams in the green of her eyes.

I’d only gotten close to Vivian during this last year of high school. She’d sat next to me in class, and her light-brown hair had smelled like flowers—even in September.

September felt like a long time ago.

And now, even graduation felt like a long time ago. But my gown in the grass was still a reminder. It had only been a few hours, but it was the end of everything we knew.

I scratched my calf.

Yes, it had been excellent—and now, I didn’t know what to do with it.

I looked at her again. How the light danced on her pale skin. How her breasts lay spilled across her chest, soft and certain. How her delightfully flat stomach answered her breath with ease. Her fingers rested inside her thigh, as if nothing between us had ever bothered her. How her bare sex wasn’t even slightly afraid of the light.

She was slick. Not a strand of hair on her, not even the shade of stubble.

She was soft there. I knew that. Now.

I pulled my legs in closer, as if I could hide that unruly bush between my thighs inside myself. Why should I even feel ashamed? Even though she’d tugged and teased before she—

“Lie with me,” she whispered.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move.

It had been excellent. And I was afraid that if I moved, she’d slip from me—off me.

So instead, she sat. Leaned into me, and took my hands from my knees.

"I knew it had to be you, Ava," she whispered. "I knew before I even met you."

My mouth was still full of her, and if I spoke, maybe she’d spill. Besides, what do you say when nothing makes sense—when anything you do feels like cracking something beautiful?

And she kept leaning in, over my knees, so close I could smell myself on her face. So close her eyes turned to emeralds, and breathing became impossible.

"I love you," she whispered, then kissed me.

I didn’t know what to do with that either, but my lips did. They met hers—achingly soft, impossibly tender.

I’d kissed boys. Henry, behind the Kissing Oak, because everyone did. Todd, when he took me home from the movies. Sebastian, because he had a lovely accent.

Vivian’s lips had a lovely accent.

Something coiled in my stomach. I pulled my hand from hers and placed it against her face, meaning to push her away—but I just stayed there.

"You can’t love me," I finally whispered, tasting her on my lips.

She took my hand and kissed it, deep in the palm.

"Because your father’s a preacher?" she asked.

I didn’t care that my father was a preacher. That wasn’t it. I just wanted to be loved by God. And for God to love me, she couldn’t. Or maybe she could. But if I said aloud what I wanted to say, would He strike me down dead?

“Ava?” she said. “Are you there?”

She brushed my hair out of my face. How can anyone’s eyes be green like that? I kissed her again, because it saved me from speaking.

“Kiss me again,” she whispered, “and we have to do it again.”

My heart skipped a beat—two. I let go of her lips only to bite my own.

We’d walked the same trail we’d been taking home since September, but this time, she took a left instead of a right where it forked. She said she wanted to show me something. I’d barely had time to ask what she felt about it all—the end of what felt like everything. But she hadn’t answered. Not really. She’d just looked at me with those green eyes and that smile I’d never been able to figure out.

And now she dared me to kiss her again.

“I can’t kiss you again,” I said. “Because I want it too much.”

“Damn, you’re so awkward sometimes, Ava,” she giggled.

She sat back and watched me, that smile on her face letting me know everything was in my hands.

“Do you always make love with your shoes on, Ava?”

I swallowed.

Okay—so maybe this wasn’t so bad. We’d showered together for almost a year. Maybe I could sit back. Relax. Let summer be summer.

Shoes on.
Make love?

I swallowed again.

“You’ve never done it before, have you?”

“Viv,” I whispered. “Make love?”

She grinned now.

“You’re slow sometimes, Ava. But your tongue on me? What was that?”

It had been confusing.

She’d led me down the trail, then beneath the heavy branches of the tree. They hung low to the ground, but she had a secret door inside. And inside—flowers, opalescent light, and green.

She’d tossed her gown to the grass.

“I found this place,” she’d said. “One day I was out walking. I come here when I’m sad, or lonely, or when the world just feels too tight around me. You know?”

I think I said something dorky, like asking if her world felt tight now.

“No,” she’d answered. “Nothing feels too tight when I’m with you, Ava.”

She’d smiled at first, then sighed and turned solemn.

“Three months from now, I’m off to Austin. And you still haven’t told me what you’re doing next year, Ava. I’ve asked you every day since Christmas.”

She sighed again.

“And having to ask again makes me sad. Sad and a little lonely.”

I’d been accepted to Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa. BYU–Idaho, Rexburg. UCLA. Austin.

Northwest Nazarene had always been the intention. Since ninth grade—maybe before. It was my calling. Not just my parents’ dream or the expected path, but mine. God. If only to know Him better. To study Him. And maybe—

Maybe ask Him. Why cancer?

Why did you make masturbation feel good?

Why did you make Vivian smell like flowers?

I’d forfeited L.A. through silence.

I’d pleaded with Austin. Ever since Viv told me she’d enrolled, I’d been writing them. Begging them. There’s a lot of forgiveness to be found for a girl torn between God and Texas.

Two days from now, I had to give them my answer.

Same with Northwest Nazarene.

“I still don’t know,” I’d said.

“How is that even possible, Ava?” she’d asked.

“With the help of God.”

She’d rolled her eyes at me—like she always did when it came to our trinity: her, God, and me.

Viv didn’t believe. In fact, she was actively un-believing. And it stung, every time.

But she was done arguing God. She’d let me know, in more ways than one, how God interrupted everything she saw with her own eyes.

“God is for people who imagine a flat earth, a dome, and a divine creation,” she’d said again. “Because the truth scares them to the bone. That each of us is an accident. A mere coincidence of someone else’s lust.”

She’d stopped in front of me then, and looked at me with those green eyes.

“Just like me meeting you,” she said.

It had been unthinkable. It still felt unthinkable.

But she’d kissed me. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst was that I had stood there—lips on lips with her—and it was the first kiss that felt like it mattered.

She breathed into me—something I’d felt once before, with Sebastian, just before I said no.

But this time, I didn’t say no. I breathed back.

“By your beliefs,” she whispered, “this must be Intelligent Design?”

I couldn’t answer. Not in words.

Maybe God couldn’t see underneath the tree.

Her hands.

They groped under my robe, above the front of my dress, through the fabric.

And I moaned. Blushed. Clasped my thighs together—but moaned, into her mouth.

I hadn’t even noticed how she’d wrung me from the robe. I was too busy with her green eyes, with every emotion scrambling inside me, trying to steady myself on legs that no longer wanted to carry me.

She’d pulled herself off my mouth, still with that smile on her face, and slid her top off. She hadn’t worn a blouse under her robe—just a too-tight tank and a silver necklace that read love.

I’d seen her naked in the shower before. I might even have peeked. Girls compare, don’t they?

She always wore tight jeans. But not today. Today, she’d worn a skirt—nothing daring, just something that celebrated the warm air, the coming of summer, and her graduation. She let that fall too.

Then she unclasped her bra.

Her breasts were heavy. Lazy, maybe. They’d always looked slightly off on her frame. I’m on the small side.

She smiled at me—not malicious, just the same soft smile she’d wear beside me in class, at lunch, or when she kept walking down the trail and I turned off toward my house.

Then she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and tugged them down over her thighs. She held onto me for balance as she stepped out of them, bunched them in her hand, and tossed them onto the pile in the grass.

She’d kissed me again, then, and wrapped her arms around me.

“You didn’t run away,” she’d said.

I’d worn a dress to my graduation—bright flowers, skirt to my ankles. It felt like a too-thin shield between my skin and hers.

Run away?

Oh, yes. From the snake.

The temptation.

“I couldn’t,” I’d whispered.

She fumbled with my dress—the buttons.

My breath caught a beam of sun, and my skin prickled.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She just kept going—until the palm of her hand was on my stomach, until she wrapped herself around me and undid my bra.

She pulled my dress over my shoulders, down my arms. And it fell.

Around my ankles.

And she stood there, my bra in her hands.

“I want you to feel something,” she said, and pressed her skin to mine.

Her body had engulfed me. It felt like softness wrapped around me, but it didn’t melt me. It made me—sharp. Inside. Like too much of everything, all at once.

I gasped at the sensation of her skin.

And then I felt dirty. Dirty at how my breasts perked against hers. Sharp. Taut. So alive.

It felt like the shame that sometimes snuck up on me at night. After supper. After prayer. When I’d lie there in our silent house.

I know it’s biology. I know He’s testing us. But I could rarely resist.

Why did He make masturbation feel so good?

And then, I had kissed her.

Not like I ever kissed the boys. My mouth was too open, too wet. And my breath?

Oh, my God. My breath sounded sinful.

And her hands again—so soft, on me like whispers, leaving trails of burn across my skin wherever they moved.

My mouth stayed wet on hers, even as her thumbs slipped between skin and the waistband of my panties. Cotton. White.

All I could do was swallow. And swallow.

I wasn’t supposed to be standing naked under a tree with Vivian. I was supposed to be home. Read three Bible verses. Say grace before dinner.

I did say grace.

It sounded like a prayer when it left my lips.

Oh, God.

That’s when she’d tugged at my hairs. Slid her fingers around me.

Even now, as I sat before her, daring me to kiss her again, all I could remember was the soft grass and flowers beneath us.

Her mouth—lips first, then tongue—on me. And all I could do was pull grass and flowers from the ground.

I let her do that to me. And when everything ruptured inside me, I thought He was coming for me. At first.

Because He would claim us, not with cruelty, but with love. With our bodies tethered and full of acceptance.

But it wasn’t He. It was her.

I didn’t know the body could know such pleasure.

She had sat on her knees in the grass, watching me.
I had tried to retreat into myself. To surrender. But that would have been denial.

Of her.

I remember sitting up. I remember her eyes. I remember kissing her again. I just don’t remember when I—

She was underneath me. I had her breast in my mouth. My hands between her thighs.

Why would I even do that?

And then I’d tasted her.

There!

And now, I sat in front of her, trying to decide if I should kiss her again.

“Northwest Nazarene,” I whispered. “I have to.”

My words tasted like tears.

“I know,” she said.

She didn’t cry. Not like me. She just sat and watched me, then reached behind her neck and undid the clasp of her necklace.

Her hands—when she leaned forward and fastened it around mine—I’d hold on to that moment forever if I could.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“All you have to do is kiss me again,” she said.

So I kissed her.

Because maybe—just maybe—God is queer.

And maybe She loves all Her creations.

I’ll spend my time at Northwest Nazarene asking Her.