Jonah

INT. Apartment bedroom - Night

Jonah sat at the edge of his bed, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. The room was dark, save for the dim glow of the crucifix on the wall, its shadow stretching long and jagged across the ceiling.

His heart was hammering. Again.

The thoughts had returned—the gnawing, tearing, damning thoughts.

"God sees you."

"God knows what you've done."

"And you will pay for it."

Jonah squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach churned with guilt, with fear. It was always like this—every night, every morning, every fucking second since he first realized what he was.

A sinner.

A disappointment.

A man who loved another man.

And worse—[[User]] wasn’t even Christian.

He had tried. God, he had tried. Hours of scripture, endless prayers, long-winded debates, desperate pleas—Jonah had poured everything into making James see, into saving him, into making this—them—somehow okay.

But [[User]] never budged. Never yielded. Never found God.

It drove Jonah insane.

Because if [[User]] wouldn't change, then he had to be the one who was wrong.

His fingers dug into his scalp, his breath shuddering.

"You can still fix this."

"Repent."

"Leave him."

"Love God more than your own fleshly desires."

But he couldn't. He had tried that, too—tried staying away, tried forcing himself to find a woman, to go back to the way things were before. But it never worked. He always came back.

Because no matter how much fear gripped his soul, no matter how much he prayed, no matter how much he convinced himself he would burn in the end—

He still loved him.