Consequences
April awoke in the morning with the reassurance that she could finally be in control of the narrative surrounding her. That knowledge helped her feel safe. April hadn't felt safe since she had learned of her father's violence against people he deemed sinners. But knowing that Sterling had resigned, leaving April to be Fellowship Leader at last, April felt she could finally breathe for the first time in weeks.
Still, she hadn't gotten to really know what had been said of her in her absence. And as she drove to school, she braced herself for the gossip she might learn had been spread about her and about her dangerous father.
To open the others in Fellowship to her new reign, for lack of a better term, April decided to prepare chicken and biscuits for everyone. Everyone that is, except Sterling.
On the way to school, she had determined it to be a bad idea at this point to allow Sterling into Fellowship. At least for now. There was of course the disgraced former leader issue to consider. It would not be helpful to have her distracting everyone on April's first day as leader. And, based on the last time, when Fellowship had convened and Sterling had abdicated... These naive teenagers were hardly able to ignore such a distraction. She still couldn't believe she had instructed Ezekiel to use dolls to perform the sex acts Sterling and Luke had committed. But these people needed guidance and education was a form of that, however unconventional it was for a Christian leader to be teaching it.
As Sterling walked slowly through the hallway, multiple students gently grabbing her and letting her know they were praying for her, April stood at the entrance to Fellowship, blocking Sterling's way.
After some admittedly dramatic words about how scarred the poor souls in Fellowship were by Sterling's indiscretions, and a confident admission about the dolls, April successfully turned Sterling away. Quoting scripture about being strong at her as she turned to leave. April also remarked about the grief counselor they were bringing in to help the poor disillusioned teenagers in Fellowship to move forward with their lives after the betrayal.
In the theatre, April took one of the front seats and sneered pityingly back at Sterling who looked as if her entire world were crumbling. Once she turned her face away, April let out a small grimace at watching an old friend be so humiliated. But Sterling had done this to herself. And this was just the price of a leader allowing themselves to sin. Obviously. This was just what happened in this school, in this town, when you were vulnerable and let your guard down. It was more important than ever that April prevent herself from being outed at all costs.
Throughout her first day as Fellowship Leader, April could feel the judgment, but it was coupled with a healthy level of reverence from her classmates. Anyone who was caught saying anything about April’s takeover after Sterling’s rather public abdication, got a death glare from Ezekiel and a clear warning about gossipping being a sin. Usually referring to something as a sin got most of the students to immediately cease any behavior that did not have “God’s” approval. But the effect of calling them out like this was so much more effective with April as leader. No one tried to keep whispering about April when they knew she could get them ousted just like she had gotten Sterling and Luke kicked out of Fellowship.
Today, all the rumors were mostly focused on one thing and one thing only. Sterling and Luke’s indiscretions. By the end of the day, April could barely hold in her bile when yet another student asked about how positions worked in different locations. Again, she would gesture for Ezekiel to model them with the dolls, trying desperately to get the explicit images of actual people doing that out of her head. Straight sex repulsed her to begin with. But to think of people she knew, and Sterling, no less, doing that… made her brain roil in disgust. But, she had to give the people what they wanted. And what they wanted was details. Each of them was so crushed that someone they trusted would pretend to be so holy when they had the audacity to be committing such a carnal sin. It was up to April to help shield them and get them back to the naive complacency in which they usually lived.
When April got home, she buried her face in a pillow, tried to scream away the images and prayed hard that they would be gone. Having images of Sterling sweating and panting and moaning because of Luke was putting April in a terrible mood. She wanted to be excited about her new role in Fellowship. But the day had basically consisted of babysitting horny teenagers asking way too many questions about someone who was once her best friend. Questions she had never wanted to think about, let alone answer. She buried her face in her pillow again. She had so much to think about with her dad and Sterling, she barely had time for herself. This morning she had been so excited to take on the position. Now it just felt like something she wanted to hide away from once she was finally free from their pestering.
She looked down at her phone and saw that Hannah had texted her.
Hannah: Omgosh did you see Sterling’s insta??? She is going off the deep end so hard. I hope she is okay? God bless her soul.
April: No… is everything alright?
Hannah sent an attachment.
April stared at the attachment, worried she might get more of an eyeful than she bargained for. She had blocked Sterling a week after she started dating Luke and left her on the swingset. There was a reason she didn’t want to see Sterling’s content. But Hannah’s text message had her very curious.
She clicked the link. It was multiple short clips of Sterling giggling and drunk, yelling incoherently and playing beer pong at some college party. Blair was nowhere to be seen. Luke conspicuously absent. Just Sterling drinking alcohol in every shot and posting it on her Instagram for all to see.
What exactly was she doing? Was she trying to show that losing Fellowship didn’t get to her? Did she even know how hard the holier-than-thou students would ice her out? April couldn’t believe that after screwing up so publicly and being ostracized, Sterling would then go and do this. As she learned this new information, she decided it was probably best that she be ahead of Sterling whenever possible. So she unblocked her. She wasn’t friends with her. But now she could see her content. She shook her head in confusion at this turn of events, rolled over in bed to turn off her lamp and let herself sleep.
Her mind was filled with memories of Sterling. Moments in her life she could have still known her and gotten to stay her friend. Images of two geeky little girls, one a goofball and the other, who took herself way too seriously, danced through April's dreams. Even though April had felt seen and loved by Sterling at this time in her life, waking up after so much of the content in her mind being Sterling-based put her in a bad mood to start her day. Sterling had made herself clear. She walked away from that swingset where a young April sat, entertaining herself with rote memorization that would impress her parents, and Sterling never looked back.
Sterling stumbled into school trying to hold her head high after Blair ditched her in her usual frenzied manner. April had to marvel at Sterling's tenacity after having made such a fool of herself the past few days. One of the Fellowship students placed a pitying hand on Sterling's arm, and, seeing that Sterling was not nearly as despondent as expected after her raucous night of public partying, became attached to Sterling, imploring her to share how she had come to bounce back so quickly. Soon, more students gathered around as Sterling stuttered through an exaggerated retelling of her harrowing experience with alcohol. By the time she started talking about the rough and calloused hands of God, even Ezequiel was putty in her hands. April firmly pulled him back before he could out himself just by his sheer unbridled interest in warm, calloused hands. He really was so very gay.
Sterling bodychecked April as she stood in her way, a look of horror and frustration on her face, settling into the library with students surrounding her like Jesus himself on the Sermon on the Mount. Well, April had the Fellowship position, there was nothing Sterling could do to change that.
To add insult to injury, Hannah whispered behind April asking if they should cancel the grief counselor. The counselor had been the suggestion of one of the affected Fellowship kids, when April finally cracked the morning before saying everyone should just talk to a counselor about it or something, she had been so tired of rehashing the sex positions. "Like a grief counselor?" One of them said, tears rimming their eyes at the betrayal of their leader. At the time, it had seemed a bit dramatic to April but she agreed. And if she used that counselor to find a way to deal with her pain with her father and the lost trust there, no one would ever know. And with this recent turn of events with Sterling once again proving to be the chosen one, Little Miss Perfect, April could feel the emotions building stronger and more wild than before.
Well, if she has to cancel the grief counselor, she would have to use another thing in her arsenal of coping skills. She would use spectacle to make the rumors about her be what she wanted them to be. A weekend was starting which meant she could plan the ways she would grieve, and force people not to talk so much about her father or to even consider her sexuality. Sterling may have been ousted from leadership but April knew she had to hold onto control of the people who she now led, or they might no longer respect her, worse, they might no longer fear her.
April wasn't a mean person, not deep down. But hiding in a closet while the entire world around you vilifies and ostracizes people like you can be rather taxing. And where many saw unkindness and cruelty, in truth, April's bullying was mostly impatience and exasperation in the face of animosity no one knew they were directing at her. She was dismissive, yes, but mostly because, being on Team Stevens meant perfection and perfection didn't have time for genuineness or the deep honesty that comes with friendship. She was sassy because, well, that was just her, impatient with her peers ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills in the face of her natural intelligence.
The thing was, everywhere except for behind the closed doors of her bedroom, April Stevens wore a mask. Nobody, not even Hannah B or Ezequiel, her closest thing to a friend group, got to see it come off. The only person in the history of April's life who had ever gotten the mask to even slip was Sterling freaking Wesley. When they were friends and even lately while they had wrestled for the control of Fellowship.
Purely out of curiosity and no other reason, April checked Sterling's Instagram and found that her mother had made her sleep in a tent for her accidental publishing of those clips with her partying. That made much more sense. Sterling was naive and impulsive to be sure, but posting herself drunk on Instagram, public to basically the entire town, was a move April knew even Sterling would think twice before executing.
There was a picture of her in the tent, her flyaways curling softly from her braid, a pout in her lips as she tried to smile at the camera, looking defeated and hurt. At first April wanted to say that it served her right, but it hurt her heart to see a friend look so wounded. Getting made to sleep in a tent would feel so lonely and ostracizing, April surmised internally. Plus, there was just the one sleeping bag in the picture, no Blair for Sterling to have that weird twin bond with. April gently shook her head and set her phone face down on her desk. Sterling had made her bed, she reminded herself again. And if that bed was a sleeping bag in a tent, well, those were just the consequences of her actions.