Page 40 of Unbound
"Okay," I said carefully. "Tonight at seven."
He nodded once, sharp and decisive, like he was committing to something much bigger than a study session. "And Adrian?" He looked directly at me for the first time since class ended. "This is academic. Professional. Nothing more."
"Of course," I said, though we both knew it was already more than that. Had been from the moment our eyes met in that bathroom.
He turned and walked away, leaving me standing in the hallway with his contact information in my hand and the uncomfortable realization that maybe Elijah had been right.
Maybe I was about to break him after all.
But as I watched him disappear around the corner, shoulders rigid with tension and determination, I also knew there was no going back now.
Seven o'clock couldn't come fast enough.
10
JESSE
Obergefell v. Hodges. The petitioner's side.
I stared at the assignment sheet until the words blurred together, but they didn't change. No matter how many times I read them, they still said the same impossible thing: I was going to have to argue that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry.
I was going to have to stand in front of my Constitutional Law class and make the case for everything I'd been taught was an abomination.
With Adrian as my partner.
The irony was so sharp it cut. Just a few days ago, I'd been holding a sign condemning the very thing I now had to defend. I'd been chanting about protecting traditional marriage while Adrian watched from across the quad with those dark eyes that seemed to see straight through every lie I told myself.
Now those same eyes were going to be watching me argue for his right to marry whoever he chose.
The panic started in my chest—a tight, breathless feeling like someone had wrapped wire around my lungs. I pressed my hand against my sternum and tried to breathe normally, but the hallway felt too small, too bright, too full of students who weren't facing an impossible choice between their grade and their soul.
"Some lies are too big to tell," I'd said to Adrian, and the words had come out before I could stop them. Too honest. Too revealing. But it was true—this wasn't like writing a paper on a political theory I disagreed with or arguing a hypothetical case in mock trial. This was asking me to stand up and advocate for something my father called "the destruction of God's design for human relationships."
This was asking me to choose.
I made it to my apartment in a daze, muscle memory guiding me up the stairs while my mind spun in endless, useless circles. Inside, everything was exactly as I'd left it—neat, ordered, empty of personality. My books were arranged by subject and height. My bed was made with hospital corners. My desk was clear except for a single legal pad and two black pens, perfectly parallel.
The sterility used to comfort me. Tonight, it felt like a cell.
I sat at my desk and pulled out the assignment sheet again, smoothing the creases where I'd gripped it too tightly. The case summary was brief:Obergefell v. Hodges, decided June 26, 2015. The question presented: whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and to recognize marriages between two people of the same sex when their marriages were lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state.
The Supreme Court had said yes. Five justices to four, they'd said that love was love, that dignity was dignity, that the Constitution protected everyone equally.
And now I had to argue they were right.
I opened my laptop and stared at the blank search bar. Where did someone even begin researching a position they'd been taught was morally wrong? How did you build legal arguments when every instinct screamed that you were advocating for sin?
My phone buzzed. A text from Rebecca:
Dinner with parents went well. They asked about you. When will you be free to plan the engagement announcement?
The engagement announcement. Right. Because I was supposed to be getting engaged to Rebecca, supposed to be following the path that had been laid out for me since I was old enough to understand what marriage meant. Good Christian boy marries good Christian girl, produces good Christian children, continues the cycle.
Except now I was partnered with Adrian on a project that would force me to articulate why that path wasn't the only one. Why two men or two women should have the same right to build a life together that Rebecca and I were supposed to want.
I set the phone aside without responding and turned back to the laptop. One search. That's all I needed to start. Just enough to understand the basic legal framework, to see what arguments we'd need to make.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long moment before I typed:Obergefell v Hodges constitutional arguments.
