Note: Long ass chapter for you lot (well long for me at least haha). Enjoy! Bare in mind lots of talk of conversion therapy in this one. Lots of love! Also, this is Shelby's pov x
There was no other option. No matter how much she circled around it in her head she always came to the same conclusion.
The same list rotated in her head over and over until she was dizzy.
Family that would help? No.
Begging for another option? No use.
Taking the car and running away? Tempting, but no money, no high-school diploma, no accommodation. No.
Tell someone? And either get put in foster care or in more trouble with her dad. Absolutely not.
Appeal to her mother? Wouldn't help.
Plead temporary loss of sanity and act straight until she could safely break away from her family? Too late for that.
She always came back to the same option. The only option. Actually going to the camp, checking the boxes and being the perfect little church girl that she always was for a little while. Come back 'healed' and the second the she graduates school, jet off to the furthest university she can. Her parents would pay for her to go to university if she kept all her shit together and made it through the next couple years being convincingly straight. She did it for years, she knew she could do it again.
"Okay, we can figure this out," Toni said frantically, handing the phone back to Shelby, fumbling as she nearly dropped it in the process. "There is a way around this. Just... Let me think."
"Toni-"
Toni either didn't hear her or didn't care to hear her rebuttals. "We have the car? Right? I have some things at Carol's. Not much but some. We can drive somewhere. Live somewhere else."
Shelby sighed," Ton-"
"Or, uh, you could live with Martha!" She gestured wildly outside the window where Martha's house was. "Bernice would have you in a heartbeat. As long as no one alerts social services. It could at least buy you time. Oh! What about your mother? She seems nice? Maybe? It could-"
"Toni!" Shelby shouted, frustrated by Toni's useless rambling. "Would you just listen to me for one minute. Jesus-"
"No! Because I know what you're going to say and I think it is totally ridiculous. There must be something."
"There's nothing," Shelby said gently. Her voice wavering slightly.
The furious look on Toni's face was one that Shelby had seen many times before. Often directed at her as well. "So you're just going to give up then?"
Shelby didn't have it in her to remind Toni that she was doing the exact same thing with Carol. She was too tired and too sad to even fight back at this point.
Toni hadn't stopped "...Go off and get brainwashed? Resurrect 2 dimensional, bible thumping, pageant winning Shelby? Everyone just loved her."
It stung. She was kind of right, but also totally wrong. "No. You loved her. Only you. And I wouldn't be sitting here today, arguing with my girlfriend abut how to avoid conversion therapy if you hadn't."
After a moment of shocked silence Toni finally responded. "Doesn't really feel like I did you any favours."
"Maybe not right now. But I think repressed, God-fearing, people-pleasing Shelby might have thanked you. Because here's what I think would have happened to her." Shelby took a deep breath and tried not to cry as she listed what were once her biggest fears. "I think she would have lost her virginity to Andrew after a few too many guilt trips and her dad would have found out. Then, she would have had to marry him. She would have become a lonely drunken housewife that felt joy when he was too busy with his mistresses to come home after work... because she could at least have a few more hours fantasising about that one girl in high school that made her feel things that she never would never feel outside of the comfort of her own imagination."
She heard Toni choke back a sob but she had to finish. She had to say this out loud. "And that would be her life, until her dutiful and equally repressed children put her in a nursing home to live out her final days. Visiting once a month to pray for her memory to come back. She would probably be thankful and wonder who those nice kids were and why they talked about a husband named Andrew because she only remembered that pretty girl from school. She would grow up, live, and die completely in her head."
She exhaled heavily; her darkest thoughts flowing out and filling the car with the heaviness that she had been holding in for years. The atmosphere was palpable.
Toni was silent for a while. Shelby was beginning to think that she still didn't understand. "Say something." Nothing. "Please?" she nudged.
"I'm scared," Toni finally offered.
"Of what?"
"That it will work."
Shelby had thought that herself. She wasn't naive enough to think she was 'strong enough to resist' or anything like that. If anything, she already had the foundation of shame ingrained in her so theoretically it shouldn't take much to push her back into that headspace.
What she did have, though, was a God that she was no longer scared of. She knew that conversion course and she knew that it had been build on the key principle of scaring people straight by using God against them.
It might not be enough, but it was something.
She had something else too. "Toni, I will be fine. It is only 2 months. And I'll just choose one of my '50 personalities and stick with it'" Shelby teased, remembering a fight from a long time ago.
Toni laughed, too upset to really laugh but just enough make Shelby relax a little bit. "Oh God did I really say that?"
Shelby chuckled. "Yeah. It was enlightening actually. But seriously, I can pretend, I've been doing it my whole life. I just need to be careful. I will say all the right things and engage in all the classes but I won't let it sink in. I know that being gay isn't a sin and God isn't going to send me to hell for loving and being loved."
Toni looked out of the window and sighed. "I really hate this. All I want is for you to be happy but there is an obstacle at every single turn."
It was poetic really. In a twisted way. That they had to let each other suffer at the hands of awful, vindictive people in order to save each other from themselves in the future.
"Shelby... I will talk to Marty tomorrow. I have forever to do that, I only have a few hours with you."
Shelby smiled and turned turned the key, the car humming to life. She didn't push Toni to talk to Martha. If she had to do it then she would have. Toni had had a difficult enough day already and Shelby... Well, she wanted to enjoy her life and her freedom before she was plunged back into the world that she had tried so hard to scramble out of. "Okay, but lets just be us. No doom and gloom; there is enough of that coming up for both of us."
Toni literally shook her head in some misguided bid to shake off the heavy atmosphere. "Yep, I can do that!" Toni grinned.
Her hair was a mess, her cheeks were red from crying and the cold and there were faint, yellowish bruises on her face but somehow, she was still the most perfect person that Shelby had ever seen or known. Shelby hoped that there wouldn't be a day where those words were no longer true.
"You were right by the way," Toni said, her voice just loud enough to carry over the sound of the engine. "I didn't react before. But you were right about how I loved pageant competing, Jesus club Shelby. I loved her then and I love her now. I just wanted you to know that before you go. I love you. In case those words mean something else to you when you get back, I want you to remember them as they are now." The words tumbled out of Toni, rushed and sincere, as though she had been holding onto them for a long time.
There was a bittersweet undertone to the sentiment, as it was the first time that Toni really voiced that she was going to let Shelby go.
The way Toni looked at her, vulnerable and open, made Shelby want to be the same. "I lo-" she started.
"No." Toni interrupted. Her hand landing in her own. "Maybe you do, maybe you don't... But please... tell me when you get back."
Shelby instantly recognised that Toni was trying to protect herself in case Shelby did not feel the same when she got back. She needed Toni to know there was nothing to protect herself from with her, that she would be the same. "Toni, I love you too. I don't care if you don't want to hear it now. I mean it now and I will mean it when I get back. I promise, nothing will change."
Toni clumsily climbed across the gear stick and centre piece of the car and collapsed onto Shelby's lap, kissing her softly, her hands grazing her cheeks to finally land on her neck. Shelby immediately relaxed and pulled Toni closer, wanting her as close as possible in anticipation of her being mentally and physically out of reach for... Shelby didn't want to think about how long. All she wanted to think about was Toni's mouth on hers, the feeling of someone being close, a feeling that she knew was in limited supply.
Knowing she couldn't avoid it any longer, she broke away. Both girls breathing heavily, with hearts thrumming with emotion. "We won't be able to see each other for a while you know?" Shelby stated cautiously, unsure if Toni was fully aware of the plan.
To her surprise Toni responded, "I know." And kissed her again before pulling back and saying, "We've got college. We've got however long you want. I just need you to come back. I just need you to be you next time I see you. I can work around everything else."
Toni would wait for me, she thought. A smile broke out on her face and she rested her chin on Toni's shoulder, letting out a small chuckle.
"What's up?" Toni asked.
"That's a really long time to wait for me."
Toni pulled back, forcing Shelby to look into her eyes. "Why do you say 'me' as though you don't matter? Because really fucking matter to me." Toni added extra emphasis on her next words. "You matter, okay?"
Shelby was powerless to dispute what Toni was saying because she couldn't shake the feeling that there was a deeper meaning to Toni's words. That they were being drawn from a particularly vulnerable place.
Knowing what she knew about Toni's past, about her previous abusive placements that she wasn't sure Toni would ever fully open up about, she was certain that those words were really important to Toni and held a lot of weight.
"Okay." she whispered, her hand resting on the small of Toni's back. "I matter."
"Exactly" Toni affirmed, placing a final kiss on Shelby's lips before crawling back into her seat and fastening the seatbelt. "Shall we go make out somewhere other than in front of my best friends house?"
Shelby nodded. "Probably wise."
As she put the car into gear and drove away from Martha's house; it slowly really started to dawn on her the seriousness of what would be happening this evening. She generally knew enough about this 'retreat' to know that it wasn't going to be easy to resist changing back into the old Shelby. But if she was honest, she didn't know what actually went on behind closed doors. She had no idea if they did things there that they didn't put in the pamphlet... or what those things might be.
She had never heard from or seen Becca since she went to conversion therapy herself. There was really no evidence that she could actually do this without it actually succeeding.
The anxiety was hard to ignore, but she tried her best. She had a few hours of freedom and she was not going to let her dad and his intolerance interfere with that time.
————
Shelby drove to the outdoor basketball court.
"Shelbs, you know that I didn't bring my ball with me?" Toni asked, humour oozing from her words.
Shelby shot her a glare and walked around the car to pop the trunk. "I bought one. Considering the athletic prowess I demonstrated in our last game."
"Ah, yes of course. How could I forget that? Too bad I'm back on the team now because my spot might have been under threat with you around."
As much as she tried to maintain her pissed off face at Toni, a laugh bubbled out of Shelby, causing Toni to crack her serious facade, bursting out into laughter herself.
Shelby waited for a while but Toni was still howling with laughter, every time it seemed like she was about to calm down another smile would crack on her face and she would be attacked by another fit of laughter.
As much as Shelby loved seeing her laugh, she had to protect her pride a little bit.
"Okay, okay," Shelby scolded. "I get it. I'm a work in progress here. Give me a break!" Despite her words, she was unable to keep the smile off of her face herself.
Toni tried to straighten up from her hunched position. "I know I'm sorry I'm just remembering when you lunged forward to steal the ball from me and catapulted it straight at the ground." She chuckled and wiped a tear from her eye, still giggling intermittently. "You know... exactly where the hoop is"
Shelby scoffed confidently and tied her hair up into a pony tail. "You know what, I think you will be surprised at my increased skill level; I've been practicing"
It was partly true. She had been practicing, but the increased skill might not have been totally accurate. Or at least, not to the extent that her confidence implied.
Brandishing a pink basketball from the boot Toni snickered, "Why am I not surprised." She spun the ball on her finger, and bounced it around a bit. Shelby couldn't really name what she was doing but it looked pretty cool, she had to admit.
Show off, she thought affectionately.
Snatching the ball from Toni's hands with proficiency and finesse, Shelby responded, "You love it really."
She quickly ran off to retrieve the ball from where it had rolled away into a nearby patch of frozen grass.
When she returned, she was surprised to see that Toni was not laughing teasingly but just looking at her fondly. The change of pace worried her. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah just... " She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. "Just gonna miss having this with you."
"Yeah," she sighed, "Me too."
Toni caught the ball with ease when Shelby tossed it back to her. "I do actually really like the pink."
The hours passed like minutes until the sun set and Shelby couldn't put off checking her phone any longer.
Toni bounced the ball nervously and waited to see what her dad had said.
They were both still catching their breath after playing basketball for hours... amongst other things.
Dad: Shelby, we need to leave in half an hour. I know that you are with Toni, I have spoken to her mother on the phone and she has promised consequence if she keeps you out longer. I am very serious about this and one day you will thank me.
Shelby's already uneven breath caught in her throat.
"Anything from your dad?" Toni asked, peering over her shoulder a bit to see.
Shelby gulped, her heart in her mouth. "Um, I think I really fucked up Toni." Her voice cracked on her name.
Shit, she had selfishly kept Toni out all day and now God knows what Carol was going to do to her after speaking to her dad.
"My dad spoke to Carol. I have no idea what he said but I think she is not going to be good tonight. Is there anywhere you can go for the night? Maybe stay with Martha." Shelby rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I'm just so sorry. I am so sorry that this happened I just wanted to spend time with you and I didn't even think-"
"Shelby, Toni reached over and lightly placed a hand on her cheek. "It's okay. She messaged me earlier. I didn't want to say anything until later. I can deal with Carol. And I bet she is still a bit out of it after her overdose."
There was a part of Shelby that was relieved but it was overridden by the part of her that knew that no matter what Toni did Carol was going to treat her terribly. It didn't even matter if she did anything wrong or not. It was a complete lose/lose situation.
"I have to go Toni," she said softly. "But I hate leaving you here knowing that I can't check in with you or help at all."
"It's no different for me Shelby. I am kicking myself and will be for as long as you aren't yourself for letting you go along with this. I need you to promise me that if shit gets completely out of hand, you will get the fuck out of there however you possibly can and find me. We will figure it out I swear."
"I promise." Shelby responded, though, she was not entirely convinced that there would be anything that either of them could actually do to protect her from this.
Shelby had a request of her own. "Promise me you will call Dot if anything goes wrong at Carol's. She will be there for you I have seen her do it time after time. Don't be afraid to tell Martha or Bernice either. There are worse fates out there than what would happen if you told them. Take whatever measures you need to keep yourself alive." Her voice was horse by the end.
Toni nodded, too emotional to speak.
"Let's go then."
"Am I coming with you?"
"Yes please." Shelby didn't even want to give her the option not to. "My dad can get over it. He gets what he wants for 2 months, I can get what I want for another 20 minutes."
They walked solemnly, hand in hand, to the car and drove towards just one of the many things that could tear them apart.