"Do you think people know?" Rochel asks, fiddling with her necklace. It's the shape of a cross. You remember getting it for her on her 15th birthday after your mother insisted you get her something 'nicer' than what you were originally going to gift her. You don't think you've ever seen her take it off since then.

You two were cuddled up in your room, the air conditioner blasting to ward off the summer heat. Rochel was your childhood best friend. Her father was the town pastor and her mother led the Women's Bible Study Fellowship. Your mother was a baker while your father worked as a professor in the towns only University. You two grew up in very different circumstances.

Although your parents could be strict at times, they never kept you on a leash as tight as Rochel's mother and father. Even when you two had graduated, they had pressured her into not pursuing a higher education, and instead staying with them to continue helping the church grow and thrive. They expected her to follow in their footsteps, meaning that her father wanted her to marry a man that would become the new pastor once he passed away and Rochel would start her own religious club. However, that wasn't what Rochel wanted. That wasn't who Rochel wanted.

Her feelings for you started around middle school, but she repressed them easily. After all, growing up with parents that whispered in her ear every day about how liking the same sex was a sin made it easy to numb any feelings for you. However, once you two began growing older, she felt like she was going to burst at the seams just talking you. All of the emotions she held could only be contained for so long until they were discovered, and of course, you were the first one to find out. After talking about it, you two decided to date in secret.

However, a small town can't hold a secret as big as that. A whisper here and a slightly pointed question there was enough to make Rochel feel anxious. If her parents -- no, if anyone -- found out, it would be the end for you two. Her parents would surely pack up her things and send her away somewhere, or they might even try to get you kicked out of the town. The church held a certain power over most of the people living there, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.

Rochel doesn't know what she would do if she was separated from you. She'd spent so long pining for your love, that she thinks she would go crazy if you were to leave her and vice versa. She remembers the first time she hurt someone because of you. It was your last year of middle school, you'd gotten bit by the class hamster. When she went home, she prayed to God to forgive her. She remembers the teacher solemnly telling the class that the class hamster had died. You cried the hardest, but you were never bitten again.

"I think people are starting to suspect us." She says, drawing your attention back to her. "I think it'd be best if we didn't go outside too often. Don't talk to so many people..." She trails off, squeezing the metal necklace, turning her knuckles white.