The Miseducation of Cameron Post

by Emily M. Danforth

But all those times, no matter what the occasion, it had eventually ended up feeling sort of phony, like I was playing at a relationship with God, just like any little kid playing house or grocery store or anything else, but not like it was real. I knew that this is where the faith part was supposed to come in, and that faith, real faith, that’s what was supposed to keep the whole thing from just being make-believe. But I didn’t have any of that faith, and I didn’t know where to get it, how to get it, or even if I wanted it right then.

I felt like it could be that God had made this happen, had killed my parents, because I was living my life so wrong that I had to be punished, that I had to be made to understand how I must change,

I guess somewhere there was a part of me that had figured out how to read those codes for gay content, but it wasn’t something I could name.

Everything was heightened the way it always is when summer is slipping away to fall, and you’re younger than eighteen, and all you can do is suck your cherry Icee and let the chlorine sting your nose, all the way up into the pockets behind your eyes, and snap your towel at the pretty girl with the sunburn, and hope to do it all again come June.

“I hate sour cream and onion anything. All lesbians do.” I blew heaps of bubbles into my milk with the tiny straw that came cellophaned to the carton. “I want you to stop using that word.” Ruth jammed the lid back onto the can. “Which word? Sour or cream?” I plastic laughed with my reflection in the passenger-side window.

“You brought this on yourself. This is all your doing, every last bit of it. I don’t know as Ruth’s way is right, but I know you need some straightening out.” I don’t think she realized that her word choice was sort of funny, and it wasn’t really, right then, anyway.