Into the Unknown

Prologue: Sex Sucks

Arabella

I was never the rebellious type. I followed most of the rules given to me by my parents, wanting the approval I so desperately needed.

They were good parents, Christians who raised their only child on the holy words of god. They preached to me the importance of preserving my body until I was married, and then having children for the lord. They preached the sins, ones of homosexuals and whores.

And I believed them. I volunteered at church to spread the sometimes toxicity of Christianity, and I highlighted my bible, and had a notebook filled with prayers and notes.

And then my best friend, Scarlett, came out as gay. A beautiful girl who had been preaching sins alongside me took me to the bathroom one day and told me. “Arabella, I think I’m a lesbian.”

I remember not feeling any anger. Somehow I knew. Hints of sleepovers where we would grab her dad’s playboy and she’d focus her attention on the women, instead on the rebelliousness of the act. How she would longingly look at Mary Jo. How she would comment on girls the same way we’d comment on boys at the mall. And how the comments on the men were so generic, but for the women she would write poetry on their beauty.

I hugged her tightly, but because I was confused by what this meant for her, if she would go to hell or not, I told my parents. Like the stupid, painfully obedient sixteen year old I was.

They told me I couldn’t be her friend anymore. How she would poison my mind and take my virginity. How she would mutilate my body for no children.

And I realized they were wrong. And because I was mad, I left and went to a party.

And I lost my virginity.

I lost it to Sailor, a boy a grade above me. He was my best friend when I was younger, and so I trusted him. It quickly turned from an act of anger, to one of pleasure and love.

But then I woke up, and he wasn’t there. And I was so ashamed at myself. Sex sucked. Not waking up next to the one I made love to broke my heart.

I picked myself up and went home to worried parents, and didn’t listen to their teachings; they accepted it.

Until I showed them the positive pregnancy test.

Knowing I had given up my virginity to a boy who was not my husband, they kicked me out. And I was alone.

I debated turning to Sailor. But he couldn’t take care of me, let alone support a baby. So, I took my car and drove to Scarlett.

She had been kicked out of her house too, and was now living with her girlfriend who was 21. It was a bit of an age gap, but their love was pure. Scarlett took me in without hesitation, and she was there when I gave birth.

She was there when I heard the first cry of my son, Caspian, like the sea, to go along with his father’s name: Sailor.