- Sunday, October 29th -

It's Sunday and I know I'm asking Finnley a very big favour to ask him to join me to go to church. But with all that has happened lately I really feel the need to go to church again. I haven't been there in months and sometimes I miss it. I know it's weird, since the people in there are the shallowest, most judgemental people I've ever met. But I'm still religious, just in my own way.

"You know I'm not religious." I watch as Finnley rolls around in bed, offering me a view on his back, while he pulls the cover back over his head. "I'm not going in there."

"You do know I'm still religious, right? I just don't believe that being gay is wrong, or sick, or whatever."

"But you do believe in some mighty guy high up in the sky?" He turns his head to look at me with a frown. "You're dense."

"Hey!" I can't help but chuckle because he's calling me dense, like he always used to. "I'm religious, not dense. Just because I believe in God doesn't mean I'm dense.

"You're an idiot." He murmurs, rolling back around. "Why do you want me to go? It's like... Sunday. We could stay home while your parents go to church. We could sleep some more. Or, you know..." He wiggles his eyebrows.

"Even though it's really tempting to stay home alone with you, I really want to go, okay? I just feel restless lately and I'm scared and I just want to feel like me for a while."

"You are you. And whatever way you feel, is still feeling like you."

"Yes, mister wise-guy." I grab a pillow. "But more the old me, who feels like a good person."

"You area good person, Cris," Finnley deadpans, turning around, right before I hit him in the face with the pillow.

"Stop taking everything I say literally," I groan, while he laughs softly, pushing the pillow away. God, he looks cute right now.

"Still, why do you want me to go?"

"Because..." I shrug, trying to lighten the subject a bit. "We always used to go there together."

"That was before I accidentally outed myself to my parents and got abducted." He frowns. "What's the real reason you want me to come with you?"

"Well..." Now I feel a bit insecure, because I don't feel like I have the right to ask him to come along in the first place, let alone for my stupid reason. "I want you with me."

Finnley keeps frowning, pushing himself up on his elbows. "You want me with you. For what reason?"

"I feel at ease when I'm with you and I'm a bit... scared." I admit with a groan following my words. "I'm scared to go there but I really want to go. I know that doesn't make any sense, but to me it does, okay?"

Finnley closes his eyes. "You're too damn cute when you look like that."

"Like what?"

"The pouting and all." He smiles sleepily. "You know you owe me big time if– and only if– I would go with you? Because this is would be a huge favour I'm doing you."

"I know."

"And you do realise my mom will probably be there, right?"

"I know, but we can sit in the back. My parents always sit in the back ever since people found out "I am one of those" guys." I tell him, with quotation marks in the air and all. It gets Finnley to smile wider. "What?"

"You're cute." He offers me a hand, pulling me back on the bed as soon as I took his hand, cuddling close to me.

"Finny, I love cuddling with you, but I really want to go to church and mom and dad leave in half an hour."

"Hmm." He managed to get an even tighter hold on me. "So, I really can't persuade you to just stay here with me?"

"No, sorry." Damn, why is it so hard to tell him no?

"It's really a big deal to you, huh?"

"Yeah... kinda."

"Okay, we'll go." He lets go of me, sitting up on the bed. "You owe me big time, not just because I agree to concur my mom's wrath, but also because you make me go and sit in a fucking cold church, on a fucking wooden bench, on a fucking Sunday morning."

I laugh out loud over his swearing, which took me months to get used to last year. He hasn't put in any effort to swear less, even though at first his parents, and after he moved his aunt, all warned him about it a lot.

"Why are you laughing?"

"You swear a lot, honey."

"You did not just call me honey." He squints his eyes, pushing me off the bed. "I'm not your girlfriend, I am your boyfriend."

"Your aunt calls you honey."

"Parental figures are supposed to call you cosy childish nicknames like honey, sweety, whatever." He stood up from the bed, stretching his muscles. "Call me Finny, it's cute enough, okay?" He puts his hands around my neck, leaning in for a small kiss. "Or I'm going to come up with a worse name for you."

"Okay, okay." I chuckle, answering his kiss with another one. "Finny."

"Now, let's get dressed." He let's go of me to grab some clothes to wear. "And you better buy me an ice-cream when this is over."

* * * * *

Finnley is restless beside me and it giving me a bad feeling. My parents had been a little surprised we said we'd join them in church and then my mom started to dawdle, constantly forgetting something insignificant. We arrived at church a little late, which Finnley didn't mind at all, since we could take a seat right away and no one was able to talk to us prior to the service.

I really try to focus and pay attention, but Finnley's restless state is a bit distracting and I'm starting to regret asking him to join me already.

I glance sideways, noticing Finnley isn't particularly staring towards the priest, but like he's focused on someone in the crowd. I follow his gaze, finding his mom seated there with Charlie and an un familiar guy.

It takes me a couple of seconds of thinking, before I realize he might be Sydney, Finnley's older brother that I just found out about.

By now, I have no idea what the priest is talking about because I started focusing on different things, like Finnley's mom and brothers, noticing Finnley's father, who is seated on the other side of Charlie. Without thinking too much, I already grabbed hold of Finnley's hand, squeezing it gently; he pulls way instantly.

I sneak another glance at him, feeling really shit as soon as I see he's on the brink of crying.

"We can go, if you want." I lean towards him and whisper to him, but still my mom noticed and looks towards us with worry. "Do you want to?" I ask him, ignoring her look.

Finnley swallows hard, before he nods. He's already up and walking towards the door before I got a chance to respond. I look towards my parents, who both smile reassuringly, telling me it's fine for us to go.

I follow Finnley out of the church, into the fresh morning air.

"I'm sorry." He turns around, tears already rolling down his face. "I can't do this." He gestures towards the church. "It's like she completely forgot about me. They're a fucking perfect little happy fucking family."

"They're far from perfect, they're far from a family and if they're even thinking about feeling happy without you, they're not worth you, Finn." I pull him in my arms, but he pushes me away instantly and that hurts my feelings a bit.

He sinks down on a small brick wall burying his face in his hands. "I wish everything could go back to normal," he cries out in between sobbing. "I wish I could live with my parents again. I wish they would love me. I wish they would want me as their son."

I simply don't know how to respond, because I don't know if they still love him, still want him as their son. I'm sure they do, just not when he's gay. "Finny... I can't get you your parents back." I sit down next to him. "I can't turn back time or change their minds about gay people. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't help you to get your old life back..."

"Is this speech supposed to make me feel better?" He sniffs, wiping away some tears, without much result because they keep coming down.

"I wasn't finished, Finny." I mutter, grabbing his hands in a tight grip, refusing to let him pull away again. "But what I can do is to try and make you happy with the best of my abilities and I will do everything within my power to try and succeed. I love you, Finn. I hope that's enough for you to at least feel a bit happy."

"Well, you are the whole reason I outed myself to them in the first place," he mumbles, right before he sighs deeply. "I am happy you love me back, I really am. But I can't help to feel so fucking lonely all the time." He looks me straight in the eye with the saddest look I've ever seen on him.

"You're not alone, Finny. I'm right here with you."

He remains looking at me with the same sad eyes for a while, before he leans in and our lips meet in a sweet, loving kiss. I don't need to hear him tell me I'm enough to not feel lonely. It's the kiss that tells me he isn't as lonely as he feels whenever he's with me.

"You guys do realize this isn't the best place for two boys to kiss, right?" Anger is seeping through the words, that she spoke with so much disgust in it that I actually feel hurt a bit.

I look at Emma with a hate-filled look, while Finnley closes his eyes, taking in a deep breath while rubbing his still red eyes with his sleeves. "Get lost, before you're going to get yourself hurt," he mumbles, before he looks right at her.

"I don't think it's good for you to be here with Cris by your side..."

"You might have missed the memo in jail; nobody cares what you think anymore." I cut her sentence short.

"...if you ever want to reconcile with your family." Emma sends me a death glare for interrupting. "You know how happy your mom was when you brought me home."

"And you know how fake all of that was," Finnley deadpans. "I never loved you, Emma."

"Could you please just get lost?" I groan in annoyance. "Why are you even here? Half the people in this church apparently want you as far away from their children as possible."

"I just stood in front of those people to let them know I've learned from my past. That I've acted upon jealousy and that wasn't a good thing. I paid the price for it, heavily, and I deserve a chance to show that I really regret what I did."

Finnley frowns, shortly looking at me before turning back to her. "That doesn't mean we'll give you a chance, Emma."

"So, I won't be forgiven, not in the least, while I forgave you for using me?"

"You forgave me? You got me abducted for it!" Finnley bawled his fists, his body tensing beside mine. "Yeah, I shouldn't have misled you like I did, but I was desperate and I wasn't thinking straight."

"Obvious..." I smirk, before looking serious again. Not the best time for jokes.

"Oh, come on." She lolls her head backwards. "You can't tell me you felt absolutely nothing for me. You felt something, you picked me out of every girl to take home and introduce to your parents."

"I picked you, because I knew my parent would approve of you because of your parents." Finnley's face flushed a bit. "I told you a thousand times before, I'm sorry for misleading you, but what you did was way out of proportion as revenge."

"I didn't do much, Finn." She bites in his direction. "I just asked Jeff to get back at you for using me. Whatever happened to you, is because of your own behaviour towards him."

"You gave him a reason to abduct Finn." I rose to my feet the second she started trying to pin this all on Finn.

"Cris, you have no idea what this is about, so please, stop trying to be part of a conversation that has nothing to do with you." Emma crossed her arms in a defensive manner.

"You did enough for them to see me as a potential victim. No, wait, I actually was a victim. And youknewwhat they did to Alex." Finnley got up too, his hand now painfully squeezing my wrist. I have no idea if he's holding on to me this tight to prevent from attacking her himself, or to keep me in my place. "You knew what they did and still you asked Jeff to take revenge."

"Oh, stop blaming everything on me. Alex got that shit on himself, just like you."

"Stop it!" I shout in anger, stepping in between the two of them. "You had no right to do what you did, Emma. What Finn did, wasn't right. But you could've solved things different. Besides, if you really hate him because he used you, then why are you still wearing his hoodies?"

"My hoodies?" Finnley steps beside me again, staring at Emma confused. "You still wear mine?"

"I still love you Finn." She looks ashamed. "You know you at least like me enough to be with me. We could be a normal, accepted couple." She gestures towards the church. "Your parents would be happy; everybody would accept us..."

"I don't like you!" Finnley shouts. "I never did! Why won't you accept it?"

"Because I know you do!" She stomps her foot on the ground like a little child, pouting over the fact she isn't getting her way. "You know the only way to feel loved by your parents is to be with a girl, and you felt enough for me to date me, to introduce me to your parents as your girlfriend, to sleep with me. Just be with me and your life will be normal again!"

"Did you eavesdrop in on our conversation?" He asks in disbelieve. "What the fuck?"

"Finn, we're leaving." I started pulling Finnley away from her. "We're going home, don't listen to her."

"You can walk away right now, Finn. But someday you'll know I'm right. You know they want you to be with me! Then you'll be loved by your parents again!" Emma shouts after us, while I keep pulling Finnley away from her as fast as I can. Freaking devil's spawn; can't she just be dead already? She's playing with his mind by using his fears – his loneliness and wish to be loved by his parents – against him.

"Don't listen to her, Finny." I keep repeating until we're out of hearing reach. "Don't ever listen to a word she says. Your parents do love you, they're just afraid to show it because they think they will be condemned for it." I cup his face. "Don't listen to her."

"I miss them so much, Cris." He cries out, burying his face in the croak of my neck. "She's right at one point. The fact they'll only ever accept me back into their lives when I'm cured."

"Don't you dare to believe you need to be cured," I deadpan, forcing him to look at me again. "You are not sick."

"But we are, aren't we? We're not normal, Cris!"

"Stop it!" I cover his mouth; his eyes widen in surprise. "I went through hell and back to accept being bisexual and I know it's a struggle. But it's normal, okay? Whatever people say, it's normal. It's the way we are born and it's the way we are. We can't help it and we shouldn't have to feel the need to change either."

"Not in my mother's eyes." He mumbles, my hand holding back most of the sounds. "It's wrong. We're sick..."

"You know what Finn?" I pull away my hand. "If people think I'm sick for loving you the way I do, then the hell with them. Because I'd rather be sick and be with you, than be like them and lose you."

He just stares at me for a while with wide, fear-filled eyes, before he blinks a couple of times. "Where did you learn to be that sweet?" he whispers, before he smiles. "I'd rather be sick and with you too."

"Good, because you're my boyfriend and you know I'll never let you go again."

"Thanks, Cris." He leans closer to me, his lips nearly touching mine. "For being such an amazing friend andboyfriend."