On Sunday morning, Kayden huffed and grumbled to herself as she dug through her bookshelf, seeking a particular thick book she intentionally hadn’t touched in a year. She yanked out the bottom shelf’s wicker cube bin to dig through a messy pile of long-ignored books. Where is the damn thing?

Sure enough, at the bottom of the stack was her gently worn Quad: a hefty leather-bound collection of the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. The multicolored tabs from her extensive note-taking jutted out from the gold-edged pages: a testament to her pursuit of truth. She let out a heavy sigh as she stared at the cover, her name embossed at the bottom.

This was not how she wanted to spend her summer Sundays. She reminisced over the day she met Aisha, almost two years ago.

Stephanie had been the first in the dorms on move-in day, with Kayden next and Aisha third, her mother Deena in tow. Deena had given them a stern motherly tone and grilled them about their religiosity. Kayden had decided to just admit that she was a convert, instead of getting into being an ex-theist, but Deena had glared daggers at her because of her tank top and short-shorts.

Aisha had been the only non-Mormon in the suite of six girls. By the first Sunday, they were already inviting her to church with them as a friendly gesture so she wouldn’t be home alone for several hours. Kayden had stepped up when she saw how uncomfortable Aisha was, and offered to stay with home with her. After that, she almost never went to church with the others, and she and Aisha bonded quickly.

A small twinge of betrayal pinched her chest when she thought back on how open Aisha was to hearing about her deconstruction. How could she really ask Kayden to fake this devotion? Then again, how could Kayden refuse, knowing how strict her friend’s parents were?

With a sigh, she found herself already at the double doors of the church entrance, having basically walked in a stupor the whole way, lost in thought. She braced herself and pushed open the glass to meet Stephanie.

Church service went exactly how she expected. She found herself daydreaming, her eyes and mind wandering, and absolutely avoiding participating in prayer.

Because the overwhelming majority of members of this church cross their arms during prayer, however, she resembled a devout person the entire hour of service.

As the first sixty minutes came to a close and everyone began chatting and dispersing, Kayden spotted a familiar face: Tito. It had been months since they last saw each other, and they barely even played games anymore.

That matching pink suit looked pretty nice against his brown skin.

They locked eyes and he flashed a sly grin her way as they met at the center of the podium aisles. “Hey, Tito,” she hummed.

“Hey, stranger.” He reached out for a hug, and Kayden obliged by swooping her arms around his neck. His hands glided along her sides to her lower back as their torsos pressed firmly together. “Good to see you here.”                      

“Yeah, you too.” After parting, she tugged at his tie to straighten it. Her mind wandered to brief memories of their quite unchaste moments together, and she mentally chuckled at the fact that the supposedly divinely inspired bishops were none the wiser.

Stephanie hugged him next, though more briefly and less intimately. The redhead beamed at him, a sentiment he returned. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing great, ya know, how about you?”

“So much better now that summer is here.”

“Yeah? I bet.” He turned to Kayden. “How about you? Still livin’ it up?”

She perked a shoulder up to her jaw with a wink. “You know it.”

“Got yourself a boyfriend, yet?” He strangled a smile under pursed lips, seeming to hold back laughter.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed at him, playfully jabbing her knuckles into his shoulder. “Come on now, you know better.”

The laugh escaped his lips briefly. “Ha! I know, I know, just joshin’ ya.” He palmed her lower back as he stepped to the side. “I’ll see you girls later, okay? Good seein ya.” He moved behind Kayden as the pair bid him goodbye.

Stephanie leaned closer to Kayden and lowered her voice. “How come you two never went out? I thought you had a thing for him.”

Hiding her smirk with her fingers, she mumbled, “Oh we already settled the thing I had for him.” Her friend’s obvious confusion caused her to clear her throat and neutralize her expression. “We talked it out. It was best for us not to date, given the circumstances.”

“But, he stopped being our R.A., and you kept talking to him… so…” Her eyebrows scrunched together with confused and soft frustration.

Kayden placed a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder. Him being their resident assistant freshman year was the least of their concerns for dating. “Don’t worry yourself over it, Stephanie. Sometimes you just don’t date the people you fancy.” She waved her hand as she began to walk toward the hallway. “Besides, most of those feelings are fleeting, anyway.”

Was that last part about Tito, or Misha?

The following Sunday school meeting was not intriguing for Kayden. This was a lesson she had heard many times, and had long since dismissed, so she simply whipped out her colored pen and browsed the scriptures quietly in her lap. There was something cathartic in marking the verses that directly contradicted what the lesson host up front was saying.

She continued this activity in the Relief Society meeting as well, mostly to occupy her mind to ignore the growing hunger in her gut. Stephanie occasionally peeked at her out of the corner of her eye, smiling, no doubt proud at how dedicated Kayden appeared to be.

Kayden noticed her friend’s wandering gaze and decided now would be a good time to ham it up for Pictogram.

With her front-facing camera activated, she nudged Steph to encourage her to lean in. Steph obliged and—after Kayden stuck out her tongue and winked—puffed her cheeks and crossed her eyes. The perfect social media selfie was taken. Kayden made sure to immediately post it, with the caption ‘Sneaky church selfie’.

At the end of the agonizing three hours, she managed to escape the building without much trouble at all, though Stephanie did try to get her to agree to show up the following Wednesday for the Young Single Adult activity. Too bad she’d have work…

It wasn’t really a lie. Kayden would be working Wednesday, but her shift would be finished right as the activity would begin. But she wasn’t yet ready to dive fully into LDS Performance Theater, pretending to be just like everyone else, but promised that she would show up for the next activity.

After all, she had to keep posting to social media to keep up devout appearances for Aisha’s sake.

The odds were abysmal that this little ruse would do anything at all to impact the perception strangers had of her and Misha. Her personal life hadn’t mattered yet in her professional and academic life, but of course that was while working for another woman. It’d be unreasonable to assume opinions wouldn’t shift with the change in superiors.

Honestly, she wouldn’t even blame anyone for wondering whether or not she garnished favors for the position. After all, she was just considering an affair mere days ago.

That tidbit was left out of the text message she sent to Aisha: ‘I’m currently heading home after church with Stephanie. You better be actively perusing my Pictogram in front of your parents.’

***

While meal prepping for the week, Kayden’s phone buzzed on the counter with Aisha’s text: ‘Well if you’re free I can call you and talk to you on speaker in front of my mom.’

She snorted before replying, ‘Sure, as long as you don’t mind me being loud in the kitchen.’

A few minutes passed while she brought out her electric pressure cooker and collected black beans from food storage.

When the phone rang, she answered the call with speaker phone selected, leaving the phone where it was. “Hey there.”

 “Hi Kayden, how was your first day back at church?” Aisha spoke a little too loudly and with exaggerated eagerness, indicating Deena was within earshot.

Doing her best to sound genuine, Kayden pepped up her voice and answered with strained enthusiasm. “Oh it was so nice to be around everyone again and really feel the spirit for a few hours. Stephanie was really inspirational, especially.” She scooped two cups of dry beans into the pressure cooker and headed for the sink.

 “Oh that’s so great to hear! Are you glad you went, then?”

Kayden raised her voice over the gentle water stream filling her measuring cup. “You know what, I am! I even saw Tito. The lessons were also really affirming.” That part was true.

“See, I told you, you just needed to get back in the right headspace.”

Deena piped in, “Glad to hear you are spending time with Stephanie, again. She will have a positive influence on you.”

No, she won’t, she shook her head with a grin. “Hi Deena, good to hear from you.”

“Keep up the good work.” Her voice seemed further away.

“Sure thing!”

“Okay,” Aisha’s voice lowered to just below normal pitch. A door latched. “Now the real conversation begins. Did it actually go smoothly?”

Kayden twisted the lid of the pressure cooker into its locked position. “Well, yeah, cause I kept to myself and tried to be invisible. I also managed to avoid talking to the bishop.”

“Nice work. I really appreciate you doing that for me.”

“Well I don’t want you under extra pressure just for being friends with me.” Freeing her feet from the cozy slippers, she settled on her living room lounge chair with her legs crossed. “I just hope it also works in my favor.”

A snort and chuckle. “Yeah, me too. Meanwhile, I’m apparently going to be a youth leader this summer for a Muslim youth camp.”

“Oh, really? How did that happen?”

She grumbled. “Because I’m so devout, it’s a great honor to help affirm and strengthen the youth’s conviction and dedication… which is how I’m supposed to feel about it.”

Kayden winced. “What kind of stuff are you going to have to do?”

“I’m not really sure yet. I have to get involved with the organization first and see what resources they’ll give me. I looked through the website, and most of it seems easy enough… as long as none of the kids ask me about a contradiction in the Qur’an.” The last sentence tapered to nearly a whisper.

Although her friend couldn’t see her, Kayden’s lips pursed into a sympathetic and consoling grin. “Guess you’re gonna have to brush up on your apologetics. You can probably find plenty of videos on WeTube.”

Aisha snorted. “Where do you think I got the water to feed my seeds of doubt?”

“Where did the seeds come from in the first place, though?”

“You, obviously.” Her tone was light-hearted.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t try to.”

“Oh, it’s fine. Honestly, it was bound to happen eventually. I already had doubts, and if I hadn’t heard your deconstruction story, I’d have heard someone else’s. In fact, now I’ve heard more ex-Muslim stories than any other ex-theist’s.”

“I remember when you told me you went down the rabbit hole.” She fidgeted with her bottom lip. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. De-converting was about as easy for me as converting was, since no one else in my family felt strongly about my religious participation. But I know it’s different for you.”

“Starkly.” A moment of silence passed, broken by a long sigh. “Well, anyway, tell me that you haven’t texted Kaiser.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Uhh… well I’m not gonna lie to you.”

The smack of Aisha’s palm to her forehead was audible. “For crying out loud.”

“It was only a little bit, anyway. We played Battlefield last weekend with Vince.”

She seemed offended as she let out a short gasp. “What? Vince knows? You didn’t tell me?”

The fidgeting of her bottom lip turned into a picking of the stray fluffs on the chair armrest. “Well, I knew you wouldn’t be too happy with me for it…”

Another sigh escaped her. “Okay… look, just cause you’re right doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell me. Please don’t keep any secrets from me. I may not approve but I promise I won’t make a big deal about it.”

“Ha, well, maybe it’s also because I know you’re right, and sane, and logical, and I’m over here just blocking off all your good, sound advice.”

“Pfft. Yeah, you are.” She paused, shifting to get more comfortable: Kayden could hear the bed creak. “Look… just… try to see it from my point of view.”

Kayden’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I definitely do. It makes perfect sense, and you’re absolutely right. But I’m going to be his friend, anyway.”

She huffed. “Obviously. But don’t forget about me, either. You’re my best friend. I want to be there for you no matter what.”

Relief washed over Kayden as she grinned, letting air out through her nose in chuckle. “Okay. You’re my best friend, too. I won’t leave you in the dark. But I can’t promise I won’t let you down.”

Aisha joined her in a huffed giggle. “Your honesty is one of the things I love about you.”

She beamed. “Good cause I’ve got plenty of it.”