Page 66 of Unbound
"Adrian Costas?" The voice was cold, authoritative. Familiar from news clips and interviews I'd seen over the years.
Every person in the room went deadly still.
"Yes?"
"This is David Miller. Jesse's father."
My blood turned to ice. "Mr. Miller, I—"
"You stay the hell away from my son," he cut me off. "Do you understand me? You've done enough damage. If I see you near him again, if you call him, text him, or so much as look in his direction, I'll have you charged with sexual harassment."
"Please, I just want to make sure he's okay—"
"He will be. We're getting him the help he needs to overcome this latest... setback. The same help that worked so well before until you came along.” The man's voice was ice-cold, absolutely certain. "This is your only warning, Mr. Costas. Jesse is going to be fixed. Permanently this time."
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone, my hands shaking. Around me, my friends had gone completely silent.
"What did he say?" Diana asked quietly.
"They're sending him back," I said, my voice hollow. "To fix him. Permanently this time."
And I knew, with horrible certainty, that this time Jesse might not survive it.
14
JESSE
The car ride home felt like a funeral procession. I sat in the backseat, watching familiar streets blur past through rain-streaked windows, and knew I was looking at them for the last time. My father's knuckles were white against the steering wheel, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. My mother wept quietly in the passenger seat, the kind of broken, silent crying that somehow hurt worse than screaming.
Nobody spoke. What was there to say? I'd kissed a man in front of two hundred people. On camera. In a debate about marriage equality that I'd argued with passion and conviction, every word true and from the heart.
I'd destroyed everything in ten seconds, and I wasn't even sorry.
That was the part that scared me most. I should feel guilty, should want to take it back, should be begging God for forgiveness. Instead, all I could think about was the moment before Adrian's lips touched mine—the look in his eyes, the way the world had narrowed to just us, the rightness of it that had overwhelmed every defence I'd built.
For ten seconds, I'd been completely myself. Now I was going to pay for it.
The house looked the same as always when we pulled into the driveway—neat lawn, white picket fence, cross hanging in the front window. Picture-perfect Christian home. The kind of place that should feel like sanctuary.
It felt like a tomb.
"Phone," my father said the moment we stepped inside. His first words since the auditorium.
I handed it over without argument. He switched it off and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
"David, the others are here," my mother said quietly, and I noticed Pastor Caldwell's car in the street. My stomach dropped.
They were already waiting in the living room—Pastor Caldwell and two church elders, Brother Matthews and Brother Klein. All three men I'd known my entire life, who'd watched me grow up, who'd praised my devotion and held me up as an example to other youth.
Now they looked at me like I was something diseased.
"Sit," Pastor Caldwell commanded, pointing to the chair across from them. The arrangement felt deliberate—me alone on one side, them forming a wall of judgment on the other.
I sat. My parents flanked the elders like guards.
"Jesse." Pastor Caldwell's voice was soft, disappointed. Somehow that was worse than anger. "After everything we've done for you. Everything your parents have sacrificed. All that progress we made, and this is how you repay us?"
