One blindingly bright and annoyingly wholesome Sunday, Toby—one of the few people I’d trust not to prank me into public embarrassment—invited me to church. Not just any church, mind you. His church. I gave him that “WTF are you serious?” look, the one that carries a thousand silent arguments without a word said. But for reasons I’m still not entirely sure of (maybe curiosity, maybe just sheer boredom), I thought, “Why the hell not?” Maybe there’d be free snacks, or at least some distraction from the daily torture of regular teenage angst. Spoiler alert: there weren’t any damn free snacks, and distraction came in the form of existential dread wrapped in Sunday best.
Walking into that church wasn’t just stepping into a room; it was stepping into a whole other world. The first thing I notice
