Chapter 7

My mother’s voice and her love for me reminded me of my promise once again. So I decided to keep it together for her. If this did not work, I had a dream to bring to life. That meant walking out of here as a new person good enough for my father to pay for my college funds and get my family back.

Being right was simply not worth everything on the line so I fell into the Routine. Morning prayers, Bible study, prayers with Sister Elizabeth, meals with the sweet Claire who would tell me so much about Jesus, I was close to being a nun myself.

Aurora stayed a bitch to me.

“Romans 1 verse 26 to 27 says: Even women exchanged natural sexual relations with…”

“Aurora can you just stop?” Claire asked Aurora with this annoyed tone I had never heard her use before.

We were cleaning the church and I was on duty with them now because they are the only buns who talk to me. The rest just glare and scurry away.

“Why do you have a problem with me helping her reach the goal she is here to work for?. Raven is here for our help but I don’t see you trying to help her” Aurora immediately switched to defense mode, as expected.

This had been happening for the past Thirteen days I have been here. They argued about me while I remained silent. Sometimes I didn’t think they were even doing this because of me. Something about Aurora’s hatred towards me felt off.

But I treated her like she didn’t hate me. Half the time, I would be too zoned out to hear her words and yet Claire would get so protective of me.

“Mother Superior is the one helping her. She doesn’t need everyone trying to give her lessons about some book all the time” Claire raised her voice higher and the other nuns stopped cleaning and stared at the three of us.

“Some book?” Aurora asked, her voice low and full of surprise. A peach down.

“I..I meant t..the Bible” Claire stuttered, her eyes changed their course of direction to staring at the floor that she was mopping. The way her body was tense, told me Claire was scared.

“No, what..”

“I think that’s enough Aurora” I stepped forward and blocked her view of Claire.

Aurora’s eyes darkened. She looked at me with hate, not the type of hate grown from her beliefs. No, this was something else. Something bigger than what I assumed she hated me for.

We had a staring contest for a while. Something about Aurora was just off. She gave off this energy, I could not place what it was.

“Raven, Mother Superior would like to see you now.”

Allita’s voice broke through the silence. Everyone quickly got back to work. I sighed before walking away from Aurora. I had worse things to worry about, like if I’m doing a good job at pretending to understand what Sister Elizabeth was always talking about.

She was exhausting with her beliefs, I was slowly starting to dread being around her.

“Hello Allita, Still scared of me?” I grinned towards her and her face morphed into a fake smile.

“I was never scared.”

“Hmm okay. Did you know that homosexuality is airborne?. You breathe in the same air as me for a while, you might transform into gay” I placed my hands behind my back, a small smile on my lips while I spoke utter nonsense.

But her reaction was worth it.

“That’s not possible”

“How do you think I got it?. I was straight before.” I grinned at her even though she avoided looking at me.

“The devil place those temptations in your head”

“Well, maybe but then I was around a lesbian for that to happen. It’s like a group of friends, they usually get involved in the same things. The longer I’m around you, the more likely you are to become gay. We breathe the same air and touch sometimes” I place my hand on her cheek which made her turn and push me away.

I stumbled back with a winning glamorous smile.

“Not scared huh?” I scoffed and walked away from Allita inviting myself in Mother Superior’s office.

She was standing by her window with a lamp like object that had smoke coming out. Her whole office smelled of frankincense.

“What’s up with the smoke?. Are you trying to help me or exorcise me” I covered my nose.

“This is called frankincense. We use it to clear away all the evil and make the place blessed for prayer. I am going to ask you to read a Bible verse and I will explain what those words means”

“I prefer you do the reading and preaching. Please just put that away” I cough and try to not breathe it in.

“Allita will take it away when we are done”

I opened my mouth to defend but I chose not to say anything else. I had to comply.

“Yeah sure”

I pulled the chair back to sit.

“No, we are using the prayer corner”

“For the reading and preaching too?.” My voice completely changed its tone from soft to aggressive.

“It’s a Prayer. Come”

Sister Elizabeth took my hand and sat guiding me to her prayer spot. It was just a table with a Bible, a cross, a lit up candle and a huge ass rosary nailed to the wall. A small rag was folded in front for us to kneel on.

I got on my knees and so did she.

She already had a pencil placed inside the Bible for the verse I had to read. I was dreading whatever she wanted me to hear from these ancient dudes.

Ever wondered why only men wrote the whole damn book?.

Men lie, I have never heard of an honest man who only know truth. They are always lying so who was to say these dudes were writing the truth?. As long as the book was written by people with a mind just like mine, I was not letting its words bind me to their own point of views.

The writers of Now, are telling the story to the people who will live 1000 years from now. They will read and believe that’s how we lived. Granted some books are completely out of sorts. They will have an insight on how we survived and our beliefs.

So the scripture is just another book to me.

“Please start reading” Sister Elizabeth placed the book in my hand.

“Umm from here?” I placed my finger on top of the page.

“Yes” She almost whispered. I looked up and saw her looking at me but as soon as our eyes met she stared ahead.

I cleared my throat.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

I finished reading the verse and slowly brought my eyes to her. She had a smile on her face that I badly wanted to punch until her skin fell off.

“I chose this verse because I want you to understand that what you are. Your lust for women is temptation given to you. Maybe you failed and had no guidance to overcome it but God also provided you with a way out and that’s why you are here. We are your way out. It’s not too late or impossible to change this”

“So what you are saying is God made me gay?.” The words slid off my tongue so fast, my will to pretend completely off the charts.

“No, no I’m saying he tempted you and you are the one who failed to resist”

“But I thought the devil was the one who put the idea, this spirit, this mindset into my head. That’s what you said”

“Your resistance is weak, he gave you the desire and the lust but you must..”

“How can he be involved when you just said this was a temptation test from God and I failed by giving in. You just fucking said that!” I qu

“Do not use profanities in this holy place. I am here to help you!. Save you!, you chose this path for yourself and I can not save you if you do not want to be saved. The devil is causing you to think this way!”

“So it’s your thoughts when you do good deeds but when you do wrong suddenly the devil is making you?. If you do something that’s not normal, oh my god it’s the devil again!. A human being was created with the gift of choice and knowledge. Life is constantly changing and we are all not one person Elizabeth. I am not influenced by any evil forces, this is who I am.”

“That’s just the devil making you think so!”

“You don’t know what sense of self is. You don’t know how to think for yourself so you don’t know what self discovery is. You have lived your life following words written by stereotypical men who say different shit it doesn’t even make fucking sense. If I were to ask you who you are besides this whole nun crap, you wouldn’t know. If the devil really is always tempting, you are not perfect. You have at least fallen short once”

She immediately stood up and so did I. The whole prayer forgotten. The room was tense. We were both angry and I had no idea how we got to this.

“He provided me a way out” She could not even look at me.

“What did you do?.”

“That’s between God and I”

“Or maybe you are too ashamed to say it because you know you want to do it again. Don’t you?” I stepped closer.

“I would never”

“No?. Then you wouldn’t mind telling me how the devil “made” you do something evil and God ‘saved’ you, right?. Somewhere in the Bible says you should make known of those favors” I pushed, watching how she held her breath looking down at me.

All the soft holy features were gone, she appeared guilty even her sin was almost strong enough to smell.

“Get out!”

“Hmm no” I stepped back. “I can give you a good deal though”

“What deal?”

“It’s simple, if you tell me what your biggest temptation that you failed was, I will let you help me and I will do whatever you say. No arguments or defiance. You can cure me however you deem fit. After all this is your test from… the almighty” I tilted my head to the side. Baiting her.

I wanted to know, I had no idea why I was willing to give up my sense of choice to get the answer. I finally took a good look at her and she looked absolutely horrified.

What was she hiding?.

What did she do?.

“No, I.. I said get out” Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. Maybe she would never say it but I knew whatever she did was huge and I was going to find out one way or the other.

This was my new mission.

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