Page 103 of Dream a Little Dream

Drew scribbled something again. “And what else can’t you change? Something that maybe you’ve tried to repress? Because of society, or judgment?”

Aaron peered over at him. “Like what?”

“You tell me. Do you feel part of society? Or separate, superior from it?”

“I feel like I’m notallowedto be part of it.” Aaron bowed his head, picking at his nails. “Like, no matter what I do, everyone already has an opinion about who I am. Doesn’t matter if it’s right or not.”

“Does that bother you? How other people see you? Respond to you?”

Aaron shrugged. “You get used to it. People looking at you like you’re a freak. That you’re gonna snap. You’re guilty of something.”

Aaron clamped his mouth shut. Drew waited, the silence unfolding like a never-ending carpet. Drew shifted in his seat, leaning forward.

“Do you feel as though there’s a part of you that you hide from the world?” he asked. “An impulse? A feeling? Something people wouldn’t—couldn’t—understand? Do you feel like that, Aaron? Misunderstood?”

Aaron let the silence stretch, but Drew was relentless, pushing through it, as if slipping a knife through Aaron’s defences.

“You’re studying psychology?” Drew leaned back, pen tapping his page.

“So?”

“Is that because you want to understand yourself, or others?”

“Bit of both.”

“What don’t you understand about yourself?”

“Who I am. Who I’mmeantto be. Whether I’m predestined to follow the same path as my folks.” Aaron quickly looked over, realising he was in danger of saying too much. As if having shed his layers for Kenny, he couldn’t build the walls back up again. “Y’know, with them being weirdos. Unable to look after their child. Me having to go into care.”

Drew’s voice dropped lower in accusation. “But what makes someone a ‘weirdo’? Is it because they don’t fit? Because they don’t abide by the norms society insists on? Look at history. In the past, homosexuality was punishable by death, but now there’s pride in it. It’scelebrated.” Drew watched Aaron closely, a sly smile tugging his lips. “Just like many other forbidden impulses once condemned. We’re told they’re wrong. But why? Who decides? What gives them the right to dictate what is right and wrong?”

Aaron’s muscles stiffened as he looked at Drew, finally seeing him as more than just another unremarkable welfare worker. Drew’s gaze, those words—he wasn’t offering sympathy. There was something else there, something dark and insidious lurking behind that forced smile.

“What are you saying?” Aaron’s voice was wary, but his pulse rocketed, every nerve on edge.

“What I’m saying,Aaron, is that maybe you should considerfaith?” Drew’s sudden upbeat lilt of the word ‘faith’ had Aaron jolting. “I offer classes for people who feel…out of place, disconnected. For those who don’t belong.”

Aaron stared, an icy chill settling in his gut. “You’re a pastor?”

Drew’s smile widened, showing yellowing teeth. “I am.”

A twisted realisation snaked through Aaron’s mind, stomach knotting. Something from his past, half-forgotten, just out ofreach in the depths of his memories, that maybe only Kenny could locate, blinked at him from afar. Like a lighthouse waving him home.

Drew reached behind him, plucking a pamphlet from the desk and handing it to Aaron. “We’re a different kind of church. We embrace our differences.Celebratethem. Tonight, we’re having a special service for Halloween. You should come.”

Aaron took the pamphlet, fingers tingling as he traced the faded clip-art of clasped hands bound by rose vines. The words,We can help you reach you’re potentialbeating him around the head with its grammatical mistake.

“Devil worshipping?” he asked, half-heartedly trying to keep to his natural state of flippant antagonism and not show any unease as his mind pieced together bits of a puzzle of which he didn’t have all the segments.

Drew chuckled. “Not quite. But we don’t discriminate. Don’t ask people to be who they’re not. Because suppression can be damaging.”

“Suppression?”

“Yes, Aaron. Suppression,” Drew’s voice, a near-whisper, filled every inch of the room. And how he kept repeating his name had Aaron on edge. “Can be dangerous. And I feel that you’re suppressing something powerful inside you. You’ve shown it to me. In your reactions. Your reluctance for remorse. That’s why you’re here. I can help you. Help unearth what’s buried inside you.”

Drew’s words dripped with a kind of feverish intensity and Aaron’s pulse pounded in his ears, but he forced his face to remain impassive, not giving Drew the satisfaction of a reaction. Inside, though, every cell screamed at him to run. To look closer. Toremember.

“Don’t you want to feel cherished again,Aaron?” Drew leaned closer. “To feel that you’re doing somethingright? Howoften have you been told you’re right? That you’regood? That someone isproudof you?”

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