Tapestry of Scars

Disorderly Conduct

Chapter 6:

Disorderly Conduct

Alison told Emily her version of the truth about how her brother had killed their father and one of his associates, and how he had sent their mother to the hospital with a traumatic brain injury. She had been institutionalized for a year before she passed away from complications from the injury.

It had all happened in the very room where they were sitting. Of course, the house had been completely scrubbed down and remodeled to wash away the memories. It had been eight years, but Alison still remembered it with perfect clarity.

"My dad was a religious man, which, as you can imagine wasn't easy when it comes to me being gay. I stayed closeted until I was fifteen. I wasn't ever planning on telling him. I was just planning on disappearing after I graduated. But he found me at the park making out with a girl from school. He'd followed me, because he thought I was sneaking off to do drugs." Her eyes welled up with tears. "He told me he'd rather see me overdosing than to see me with another girl. He was really rough on me after that. We had to attend every church service he could find and he tried to "exorcise" the demons..."

Pray away the gay? That fucking asshole. If he wasn't dead, I'd kill him myself. Emily hated Alison's father. She didn't care that the man was dead. She hated anyone who used an imaginary tool as a shield for their hatred and bigotry.

She wanted to hug Alison and never let her go. She wanted her to know that it was okay that she was who she was.

"When that didn't work he put me in conversion therapy." Alison rubbed her arm nervously.

She had spent so many nights crying over the fact that there was something wrong with her. At fifteen, she couldn't comprehend that something was wrong with her parents.

"They tried to convince me how messed up my "choice" was..."

"Fuck that." Emily frowned. She took Alison's hand. "You're beautiful. And perfect. Just the way you are. You know that, right?"

Alison stopped moving her fork against her plate and immediately looked up at Emily. It was the first time since they'd met that Emily had initiated intimate contact.

Alison smiled. Emily saw her dimples and she couldn't help but smile back. Her cheeks looked so kissable.

"I do. Now. But back then I was angry. I was confused. My parents convinced me that I was a sin of nature. They made me feel like I was sick, like...like I had some horrid disease and I needed to be healed. It was so demeaning. And the program...it was rough."

"Did they hurt you?" I'll fucking murder them. I'll fucking murder the whole church.

"They..." Alison drifted off, "...they used electric shock therapy and waterboarding sometimes..."

"What?" Emily asked in a rage. "Where is this place?" I'm going to take a flamethrower to it. I'm going to burn it to the goddamn ground.

She already knew she was going to hell. She might as well torch a few "houses of the Lord" on her way out.

"The program was exposed and disbanded a few years ago." Though it didn't really matter, because Alison knew they just packed up shop, changed the name of their 'practice', and started somewhere new again. She stabbed her fork into her omelet. "Of course...they were old, white, privileged, and religious, so naturally they just got a slap on the wrist."

Emily understood where Alison's hatred of religion came from now. And she hated it, too. She hated it for her. She wanted to do a lot more than slap the people who had hurt her.