Chapter Text
”Actually – I don’t know.”
April had managed to keep a stiff upper lip, as the Brits called it. Keep her cool, say goodbye and walk back to take her place at the lock-in. Where she belonged. Fellowship leader, admired classmate, good daughter, the perfect Christian teen. She had a persona. It was her, in a very real sense. One crazy week with Sterling did not change that. She could go back to the way things were, until they didn’t need to be that way anymore.
It should be easy.
Lorna and Franklin stumbled out of a storage closet just as she was walking back to resolve whatever issue Hannah B and Ezequiel had conjured out of thin air this time. Both had muzzled hair, and Lorna’s ridiculous might-as-well-be-lingerie getup looked like it had been through a war.
They froze, looking at April. Her expression contorted into her well-trained façade of haughty disgust. “I would suggest you spend some more time thinking about modesty, Lorna.” Her gaze shifted to encompass them both. “And the dangers of falling into sin, like Luke and St- like the Wesleys. You better sort yourselves out before you show yourself back in the common room.” April left them behind to their pathetic attempt to cover up their sin before they returned to their classmates.
Which reminded her to find a restroom before meeting up with Hannah B and Ezequiel. Ezequiel was far too good at noticing when she was not at her best. Wouldn’t do to show up with eyes traitorously puffy. She turned in just as she saw the door to the common room, locked the door, and scrutinized herself in the mirror.
She was fine. She didn’t look like Lorna, that was for sure. Eyes weren’t red and puffy or filled to the brim with tears. Not like St- She was fine. She could focus on the task at hand. Pull off the rest of the lock-in, talk to Hannah B and Ezequiel about Lorna and Franklin, and show Ellen that she was perfectly in control. Because she was. In school, she was the Queen Bee. At home, she was the perfect daughter to mom and John. She could do this as long as she needed to.
“That was so much fun! Everyone had such a good time. I can’t believe Franklin would sneak off like that with someone! He seemed so pure and righteous. Someone told me he preached to Luke in the boys’ locker room after he got caught out as a… f-word.”
April didn’t respond to Hannah B’s excited chatter. It was rather soothing, especially this morning. She wasn’t sure why she felt so tired. It had been like any other event at school after the meeting with Sterling in the parking lot. Luke had moved over to some of his golf friends when she came back to the common room, and she had noticed him looking at her now and then with a strangely confused look, maybe she would even call it haunted if she had not seen worse recently. She had decided to not expend any energy on it.
“Are you okay, April? Did you not enjoy the lock-in?” April snapped out of her reverie and replayed a little bit of the conversation in her mind.
“It went very well, I think. I did try to warn everyone about Twister, but I guess Lorna and Franklin just would not listen. We always have to keep on guard for temptation.” She hoped Hannah B wouldn’t notice that she had not actually answered the question.
“But doesn’t that make Franklin a hypocrite?”
“I suppose,” April said, a bit surprised that observation would come from Hannah B of all people, “but I think you have to say the righteous thing to a person even if there is the risk that you yourself will fall to the same temptation. Otherwise none of us can be our… sibling’s keeper, since none but Christ can be without sin. The bad thing would be to not hold yourself to the same standard if you do stray.” The low hum of the engine was the only sound that could be heard for a while as Hannah B turned this around in her head.
Instead of responding to what April had said, she skipped over to another topic. “I wonder what happened to the Wesleys last night. I’m not surprised Blair didn’t show up, but Sterling just left! That’s strange.”
April turned her head toward the car window and paused for a second. Her thoughts had started drifting to what her life was when so much time was spent on Sterling, and her membership in the Straight-Straight Alliance seemed to call her attention for some reason. “Blair probably got into trouble as usual and she had to go bail her out. They are so codependent. But they are their sibling’s keeper, I suppose.” She finished with a little smile, as she thought of all the times Blair had stood up for Sterling or had her back, often against April herself. Even when they were a secret and Blair had taken their flirting as some kind of bullying scheme. When Sterling had smiled at her. She fixed her gaze out the window and focused on the vibrations of the car on her temple.
“Good morning, honey,” John said from his seat at the kitchen table. The Wall Street Journals had been piling up since his arrest. Her mother had not been that interested in… well, much of anything since John was arrested. April could appreciate a physical newspaper at times, but she was also under 35.
“Hi, daddy.” She said with a smile. “Did you have a good night back home?”
“I sure did, it feels good being back where I belong. I’m going to go to the club today, meet some of the boys, and see what folks think of me. I’m sure some ‘woke’ people won’t respect the fact that I was wrongfully imprisoned, but those are not the kind of folks we need as friends, do we?” He looked at her with such a normal expression, as if he were not talking about having been charged with assault on a sex worker. What’s the correct way to come back to your family after that, though? The charges had been dropped, and that meant something, surely? Nevertheless, he was still with a sex worker when he was married to her mother. That might be less loathsome, but it was, nevertheless, loathsome. John was a cheater. And a john.
“I’m sure it will go great, daddy.” The smile started to feel a bit plastered on.
“How was y’all’s lock-in yesterday? Since a Stevens was in charge, I cannot imagine anything going wrong:” he said with a proud smile.
“We had a wonderful time. Everyone seemed to like the movie, Hannah B and Luke played the guitar for a singalong, and it was a lot of wholesome fun.” She responded with a bit more genuine pleasure in her voice. She did not mention anything about the Wesley twins that John had, for some reason, gained some kind of interest in.
“That’s excellent, honey, you keep leading by example. It’s the Stevens way.” He looked at her fondly. “Say, how about a movie night tonight? I was really missing my Padawan while I was gone.”
“Of course, daddy. I always have time for Star Wars with you.” John nodded with satisfaction and seemed to return to his newspaper.
April refilled her water bottle and was just about to head upstairs when John asked, his eyes still intent on the newspaper, “Isn’t Luke that boy your ‘nemesis’ Sterling Wesley is together with?”
April froze. “They broke up, daddy. I’m not sure what the Wesleys were doing last night.”
John didn’t look at her, and only responded with a “Hmmm.” April went up the stairs, feeling unsettled.
She had made a lot of plans for the day, like every day. Studying, planning out the upcoming schedule for Fellowship, sending out invitations for the Young Republicans, and… the other organizations she was in the leadership of. But right now, she just felt bone-tired, in a way she had never really felt before. Not even right after John had been arrested when her life was in an uproar. She avoided falling on her bed, she knew disaster lay down that path. Instead she sat down in her desk chair and swiveled around to look in the mirror.
Fellowship leader, admired classmate, good daughter, the perfect Christian teen. Was this her life?