If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:13.

It was always one of my mother's favorite verses of the bible that she constantly had clutched against her chest, printed on brilliant paper with gold trim and framed with a hand carved silver frame, hanging in the hallway between our family portrait and a painting of Jesus. You would think that for a family of "good Christians" we would have a different verse so miraculously displayed for anyone to see, but no.

My mother was what you would call an extremist Catholic, always living by the laws of the bible, including the outdated laws that made absolutely no sense. Every Sunday she would wake her family at the ass-crack of dawn for church, and every Friday instead of a normal family night watching action movies, she would sit us all down for a bible study that had my dad falling asleep in his armchair, snoring like a train.

Anything that went against her and her beliefs was wrong, and although it was always such a big deal to treat your neighbors like you would want to be treated, my mother was never above gossip. There was always some rumor floating around my house about the new interracial couple down the street making sacrifices to the devil, or the single mother across the street being a whore.

You did not want to be in the same room as her when something relating to gays and lesbians came onto the news or television, because she would have a complete fit, screaming, fanning her face, tears in her eyes as she held her bible against her chest and mumbled prayers while rocking back and forth, her eyes rolled up like she was possessed.

My father and my two older sisters had long since learned to block my mother out, but it was a lot harder for me. Whenever the gay community was brought up and she got to her ranting, my palms would sweat and my stomach would twist so bad I couldn't eat or even breathe for fear of vomiting. Often I would find myself awake in my bed wondering how she would react to learning that her only son was gay as fuck.

I would try to reassure myself when I had those terrifying thoughts, when the little voice in my head would tell me she would scream and yell, maybe kill me, by remembering she was my mother, and although she was a basket case nut job who belonged in the wacky house, she still loved me, and if I ever did decide to come out to her and the rest of my family, that she would be supportive of me and my decisions.

Then I would remember one Christmas when her gay cousin came to dinner and she nearly poisoned him by not telling him there were nuts in the cookies. At the time, I hadn't even known he was allergic to peanuts, but my mother knew, and she was the one who made the damn cookies. When his throat swelled and his face went red his fiancé had a panic attack, everyone rushed to help, but my mother just sat there.

"Don't try to stop it!" she had yelled at my father, "This is God's will!"

Needless to say, I never saw him again after that night.

It scared me half to death, not just because he had to be driven away in an ambulance because my mother basically tried to kill him, but because for a split second I imagined it was me on a stretcher because my mother had tried to kill me, her own son, simply because I was gay. I had to come to terms with the fact I was afraid of her, afraid of what she might do to me, so I never even considered coming out to my family.

There were a few lucky breaks in that darkness though. My father, unlike my mother, was a wonderful, open minded man. He didn't care about your religion, your skin color, or your sexual orientation, as long as you weren't an asshole to his kids, and sometimes he would sigh and ask out loud what happened to his wife.

"She never used to be this bad," he would say, "It must have something to do with her father leaving her mother for another man. Trauma can do bad things to the weaker minds."

Hearing that never made me feel better. In fact, it usually made the taste in my mouth worse. There was nothing I could do to change her mind, so I was stuck hiding in the closet, hiding who I was, waking myself up and letting myself deteriorate with each sermon the priest read out. I came to resent religion, because of my mother.

Of course, it wasn't all bad. Sunday school was where I met my best friend, Ronnie. He was what you would call eccentric, always energetic with the biggest smile stretched across his face. His hair was the color of auburn, and his eyes were bright blue, his skin a tone darker than mine because of his Latin roots. He was always a little taller than me, something he took full advantage of, but I didn't mind all that much.

Ronnie and his family were different than mine, Catholic, but they didn't care about how other people believed. They were like my father, open minded and accepting, which meant that my mother hated them, and hated when I hung around Ronnie. Did that stop me? No. Never. Especially when I took into consideration that Ronnie lived in the house next to mine, and would sneak into my room at god awful hours.

That wasn't even the biggest secret I had against my mother, because several months prior to one particular Sunday, I'd come out to Ronnie, and instead of getting offended by me, he excitedly asked me out, squeezing my hands with these stars in his eyes I'd never seen before that day. We'd been going out secretly for around five months now, it always made him laugh like an idiot when he slept over because my mom had no idea we were cuddling and watching chick flicks under a blanket and pillow fort.

He was a support system I greatly appreciated, because he never pushed me to come out, he never told me to stop being a baby, he told me to take as long as I needed, that he'd wait for me, and he would hug me if my anxiety got too bad and I would start crying from the fear of what could happen to me if my mother found out. I took comfort in knowing if I was rejected by my mother, I still had Ronnie.

My bed was warm underneath me, blankets piled on top as I hugged one pillow, my head cradled in a handful of others. There was a steady breeze coming through the window that I could have sworn I closed, but didn't care much about it until I felt someone poke my cheek and flop onto the bed, tugging at my hair.

"Wake your butt up, starlight, it's almost six!" Ronnie called, and I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and hiding my face in my pillows, "You're going to be late getting ready, which means you'll be late for church, and your mom will get mad, which translates into no sleep over for us!"

"Ugh," I waved an arm over my head to slap his hand away, "Quick sneaking into my room through my window, you freak, I'm on the second floor. If my mom catches you, we'll both be in trouble."

"She won't catch me, now come on," he tore the covers away and I whined, rolling into the fetal position, which made Ronnie laugh, "Dakota quit being a child, I wanted to carpool!"

I peered up at him with one eye, "You don't have a car, you're fifteen."

"Yea but my brother is home for the weekend!" Ronnie explained, hopping off the bed and hurrying to my dresser, "It's some weird holiday at the college so he gets some time off!"

"Maggs didn't come home," I mumbled, sitting up, and Ronnie hummed as he threw jeans at me, "Then again she doesn't like us anymore, so I'm not surprised."

"You're so pessimistic," Ronnie huffed at me as he jumped onto my bed beside me, "Maggie is probably busy with work and stuff!"

"My sister has a job?" I asked, smiling when Ronnie laughed at me, then forced my lips back into a frown as I shoved him off my bed, "Get out of here while I change, pervert."

"Awe, I'll close my eyes," Ronnie promised, covering his eyes with his hands, "There, see? I'm good and chaste and waiting until we're married before I tear your clothes off."

"Ronnie!" I shrieked and grabbed a pillow, covering his head with it as my cheeks burned, "You're gross!"

I tensed up when I heard a knock on my door, sitting up in bed when my mother's voice sang from the hallway, "It's six, Dakota, hurry awake so we can make it to church early!"

I groaned and fell onto my back, "I'm gonna become a Satanist."

"I thought you were already," Ronnie said, peering at me from over the edge of the side of my bed.

"Shut up and get out," I laughed, throwing another pillow at him, "I'll see if I can carpool, okay? Just knock on the door at six forty-five before we leave."

"You got it!" Ronnie hopped to his feet and leaned over me to kiss my cheek, then spun around and ran for the window, giving me a wink and a salute before hopping out.

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes when he was gone before grabbing all my clothes and heading for the bathroom. It already felt like a good day, because I got to the bathroom before my older sister, Gracie, who was punching the door the moment I flipped the lock.

"Dakota you little shit, I'm a girl, I have to go first!"

"Yea but I'm way prettier!" I called back, stripping my pajama bottoms and t-shirt before turning the water on, "I'm taking all the hot water so you have to bathe with the hose in the yard!"

Gracie shrieked and punched the door again, "Mom, Dakota's taking all the hot water!"

I didn't take it all, though, I wasn't that mean. I just liked making her squirm, and I stuck my tongue out at her when we passed in the hall. My hair was still a little damp when I hiked down the stairs and into the kitchen where my dad was reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee and my mother was washing dishes and humming.

"Hey mom," I stopped behind my dad's chair, leaning against it, "I'm hungry, couldn't we eat before we leave?"

"Absolutely not!" my mother snapped before turning around to point at me with a knife, making me wince and sink down a bit behind my father, "You will not taint your body before intaking the body of our Lord! How dare you ask such a thing!"

"Calm down, dear," my father said as I sunk down even more so I was basically hidden behind him, "He was just asking, all you had to say was no."

My mother grumbled, I caught a few words that made me realize she was praying, then sighed and folded my arms onto the back of my father's chair, looking over his shoulder at the paper. There were a few interesting articles that week, mainly about the brewing war between the countries. There had been bombings just along the east and west coasts of America, but nothing inland as of yet.

It was like the United States was a ticking time bomb just waiting for that one string to snap before we fell into complete chaos. We were in a world war, and this was the first time our enemies had the resources to take the fight to us, so a lot of people were panicky and on edge, just waiting for it to come full circle.

When my father realized I was reading that article he closed the newspaper and reached back to thump the top of my head with the rolled up paper, "Don't you have something better to do?"

"No," I answered, smiling, "and it's hard to stargaze during the day."

"Ugh! Astronomy!" my mother scoffed, "What do you think you'll find? I tell you I don't want you thinking frivolous things about the universe. I hate those teachers, talking blasphemy about the big bang theory! Those people are going to hell I tell you!"

"What, I like stars so that makes me a sinner?" I asked, standing straighter, and my father patted my hand, shaking his head, so I pushed away and turned, "I'm carpooling with Ronnie."

"No! Dakota, I don't want you hanging around those people!"

"Bye!"

I slammed the door hard when I left. My hands were clammy again and my heart was beating fast as I looked up at the sky, trying to calm down before I screamed or threw something. Nothing I did seemed to be right. I don't even know why my mother hated me being interested in astronomy, maybe because she knew I wasn't going to find some weird old guy with a beard sitting on a cloud smiting gay people and that made her nervous.

She was so convinced that there was some weird guy sitting in the sky telling us what to do and what not to do, but I'd gone through the science more than once, I had a telescope that I would watch the sky with, and not once in all the nights and days I'd searched up there had I found the creepy pervert god that I was being forced to worship even though I didn't believe in it. People who believed that were just stupid.

God was invented thousands of years ago by rich priests who wanted to exploit people's fears, he didn't actually exist. Personally, I found it offensive that they were still trying to control me by showing me a bible and telling me it was so totally fact. I didn't want to be like my mother, governing my life by a book and religion like I was a fucking puppet to their teachings with no mind of my own.

I know not all of them are like that, Ronnie and my father were proof, but who do people listen to when it came right down to it? Extremists. The violent, angry people who would poison family to follow the laws of the bible. Why? Because humans like drama, not peace. They say they want peace, but they don't, and that's sad.

"Hey!" I turned in the direction of Ronnie's house when I heard his voice, smiling when I saw him waving from beside a black Mercedes, "Come on! We're leaving early!"

My face twisted up in confusion as I walked towards him, "What for?"

"We're picking up Taco Bell breakfast on the way!" Ronnie explained, and I looked over at my house.

"My mom doesn't want me to eat before church."

"Oh fuck her! But don't tell her I said that, she'll eat me or something."

I didn't try controlling the giggles as Ronnie looked nervously towards my house as if he expected my mom to pop up with a butcher's knife or something, "Okay, fine. I won't tell her if you don't. Taco Bell is a punishment on its own I guess."

"That's the spirit!" Ronnie yanked the door open and hopped up so he was leaning over the roof of the car, cupping his hands around his mouth to call his brother, "Josie come on!"

"Don't call me that!" I heard the response before Ronnie's older brother, Joseph, stepped out of the house, swinging the door shut with a silent click, "I'm too old for that stupid nickname!"

"Oh please, you'll never be too old for it!" Ronnie laughed, pushing himself up higher onto the roof, "I made that name for you, remember? You have to use it till you die!"

"I don't remember that contract," Josie scoffed, but there was fondness in his dark blue eyes.

He looked startlingly like Ronnie, with the same auburn hair, though Ronnie's was curlier while Josie's was styled neatly, and Josie's eyes were a little darker, but they had the same slope to their nose and similar jaw structure. I didn't mind much, it wasn't like I could mistake one for the other, thankfully they weren't completely identical or I'd be screwed.

The two of them had a good relationship despite the age difference of Ronnie being fifteen and Josie being around twenty-three. They argued sometimes, but not as much as I did with Gracie or Maggie, maybe because the age difference was a good thing, Josie was still young so he understood the angst of being a teenage boy like Ronnie was, and he was so successful and just such a great guy, he was Ronnie's hero.

"Hey Kota, look at what Josie brought me as a souvenir!" Ronnie urged, turned around fully in the passenger seat and holding something out for me to see.

I took the object in both hands as Josie forced Ronnie to sit the right way, "You're gonna get me arrested for child endangerment, you retard!"

I grinned at the face Ronnie made before looking down at the pocket knife. It was nice, well made with a rather long blade and Ronnie's name inscribed into the side of it, "This is cool," I said, handing it back, a little taken aback when Ronnie stuffed a little box into my hands instead.

"He got you something too!" he said, and Josie grinned at me through the rearview mirror.

"I kind of had to, Ronnie yelled at me."

I blushed a little out of shock and looked down at the present, "You didn't have to though, what is it?"

"Open it," Josie laughed, so I grumbled.

Inside was a necklace, the pendant was a black disk with silver crystals imbedded in it in the shape of my favorite constellation, making me gasp, which prompted Josie into laughing while Ronnie threw a fist up in success like he was celebrating my reaction.

"Ha! Told you he'd love it!"

"I'll never doubt you again when it comes to your weird nerdy boyfriend," Josie chuckled, and I leaned forward to punch him hard in the shoulder.

"Shut up, I'm not a nerd!"

"Sure."

"This is amazing!" I awed, taking the black cord and slipping it over my head before securing it around my neck, grinning, "Thank you so much!"

"Now you'll always carry the strength of the hunter with you," Ronnie said, and I think I almost started to cry, clutching the pendant and grinning.

The church service wasn't as boring as it could've been since I sat with Ronnie and Josie, but I saw the constant looks of disapproval that my mom cast me, the gazes sinking into my skin like poison and quickly seeping my energy so I could barely move my body. I never could understand why I felt this way sometimes, so happy one minute but drained and sick the next. Josie said I was showing signs of depression, likely because of the stress my own mother was putting on me to be normal. Not gay.

Hearing that made Ronnie angry, which was quite a sight for someone who rarely lost his composure. He hated that I was in that house, despite how good a man my father was, it wasn't enough to keep me from hating who I was. Sometimes I hated that I loved Ronnie, but I never said it out loud.

"I wanna tell her."

The car grew silent and Josie and Ronnie turned to gape at me. We were still in the parking lot, talking about whether we should just go home or pick up more fast food because they were hungry again. I understood how my words must have surprised them, but I meant it. I was tired of hiding who I was, and I was strong. I could handle her telling me it was wrong, because I was strong. I had to be.

"No," Ronnie said while climbing into the backseat over the divider, falling into the spot beside me, "Not yet at least. I don't want you hurting any more than you already are!"

"I agree," Josie said gently, "I can understand you wanting to tell your family, but it just isn't safe for you to, can you understand that? Wait until you're older and moving out, when you're independent and have somewhere to go if their reactions are bad."

"B-but I do!" I said, "Y-you, and Ronnie! I can just stay with Ronnie, can't I?" I gave him a panicked look, which prompted him into pulling me into a tight hug that I sank into, trembling slightly.

"Yea," Josie said, and I felt Ronnie nodding, "If it goes bad you'll always have a place with us, Dakota, but.... This is your family. You're sure you want to risk it?"

"They're not his family if they reject him for loving someone they don't approve of simply because he's a guy," Ronnie lifted a hand, "That's me, by the way, hi."

I giggled a little against him and rubbed the tears away from my face, clutching the pendant around my neck, "I wanna do this, Josie."

He sighed and leaned heavily back in his seat, clutching the