Neon confessions
Summer, 1978
James Potter was bisexual, dramatic, and painfully polite. Marlene McKinnon was a lesbian, dangerous, and once set her ex’s guitar on fire.
They were seventeen. Drunk. Married. And not remotely in love.
“I can’t believe you’re someone’s wife now,” James said, voice slow with tequila and poor life choices.
Marlene lifted her champagne flute. “I’m not just someone’s wife. I’m your wife, Potter.”
They were standing in front of a cheap velvet altar in Las Vegas, glittering under flickering neon, with a half-asleep Elvis impersonator behind them and matching Cartier rings on their fingers.
Yes. Cartier.
Because James Potter wasn’t just a chaotic little queer in silver boots and smudged eyeliner — he was filthy rich. Old family money. Country estate, art collection, heirloom jewelry kind of rich. He’d pulled the rings from the inside of his velvet duffel bag like it was nothing.
One for him. One for Marlene.
Thin platinum bands with the tiniest embedded sapphires — something tasteful, understated, expensive as sin.
They didn’t kiss after the ceremony.
They fist-bumped.
And then they went skinny-dipping in the rooftop pool of the Bellagio and maybe set off the fire alarm on their way out. No one could prove anything. The security footage mysteriously vanished.
Two days later, they were expelled.
The boarding school didn’t give details. Just a vague letter full of words like inappropriate, scandalous, and irreparable damage to the school’s reputation.
They framed it.
Marlene’s parents called her a disgrace.
James’ mum, Euphemia, called them icons.
“My two favorite little degenerates,” she said as she picked them up from the airport in her green convertible, still wearing silk pajamas and holding a Bloody Mary in a thermos. “You married each other? Fabulous. How are the rings?”
“Shiny,” James said. “And legal.”
Marlene nearly cried.
Euphemia just handed her sunglasses and said, “You’re staying with us now. Don’t argue.”
Marlene didn’t.
James and Marlene met when they were ten. And it was James’ punch that started it all.
There was this boy. Some smug little rich kid, who thought he was better than everyone because his family owned a chain of posh hotels. He was running his mouth on the playground, calling Marlene a dyke in front of everyone. Marlene didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink. She just rolled her eyes and went back to doodling in her notebook.
But James? James couldn’t stand it. He marched right up to that boy, his round glasses gleaming in the sunlight, and said, “That’s a disgusting word.”
Then he punched him in the face.
The kid’s nose broke. James got suspended. And Marlene got a sandwich the next day.
“I’ll give you my lunch,” James had said, sitting down beside her, a shy, nervous smile on his face as he handed her a peanut butter sandwich. “He’s a twat.”
Marlene stared at him, her eyes wide. “You’re weird.”
“I’m just trying to be nice,” James said, shyly tucking his hands into his pockets. “You deserved better.”
She smirked. “Wanna be friends?”
“Okay.”
And that was it. They had been best friends ever since.
They were inseparable after that. James with his quiet, polite demeanor and Marlene with her fiery personality, setting fire to anyone who dared cross her path — especially if they messed with her new best friend.
It didn’t take long for everyone at school to realize: James was soft and sweet, the type who would stand up for anyone, but also had a sharp wit hidden under his politeness. Marlene was loud and chaotic, unapologetically herself, and fiercely protective of James.
But behind their perfectly chaotic exterior, things weren’t always easy.
James’ dad, a successful businessman with high expectations, had suffered from some sort of mental illness. He’d been distant for years, his moods unpredictable and dark, sometimes leaving James feeling like he was walking on eggshells around him. James had always tried to be perfect in his eyes, trying to keep everything together, but it never worked. His dad's mood swings would send their family into turmoil, and no matter what James did, it felt like nothing was ever good enough.
Marlene had her own troubles. Her home life was a constant mess. Her parents didn’t understand her at all, and their verbal abuse was something she had come to expect, if only to survive. They saw her as a disappointment, a troublemaker, someone who had thrown away the future they wanted for her. Her mom would ignore her for days, her dad would scream when things weren’t going his way, and Marlene would escape into her world of rebellion. It was safer there.
In each other, they found refuge.
James didn’t need to be perfect for Marlene. She accepted him as he was. And she didn’t need to put on a show for him either. She was real with him. That was all either of them ever really wanted.
And so they were each other's home — no matter how messed up life got.
Euphemia lit a cigarette without asking, the cherry tip glowing as she turned down the radio. They were somewhere between the airport and the Potters’ countryside estate, the wind tangling Marlene’s curls and James’ eyeliner smudging further with every gust.
“Right, so,” she said, exhaling smoke out the window. “Now that we’ve gotten past the whole ‘accidental elopement and dramatic expulsion’ part of the week…”
Marlene groaned. “Please don’t say the word ‘elopement’ ever again.”
James nodded solemnly. “It gives me heartburn.”
Euphemia ignored them both. “I’ve made arrangements. You two are starting at a new school next month.”
James blinked. “What?”
“Boarding school,” she said breezily, adjusting her sunglasses. “It’s where I went, actually. Very old, very proper, very... *Catholic*. You’ll fit right in.”
Marlene choked on her Bloody Mary.
“You’re joking,” James said, deadpan.
“Never about education, darling.”
James ran a hand through his hair, visibly spiraling. “Mum. You know how I—”
“I do know,” Euphemia interrupted gently, her tone shifting. “I remember how awful it was for you when your father dragged you to all those ridiculous sermons and made you confess for having opinions.”
James went quiet.
“And I’m not trying to shove you back into that,” she continued, her voice calm but firm. “This school’s different. It’s strict, yes. But it’s safe. No one’s going to exorcise you for wearing eyeliner, and Marlene can set as many guitars on fire as she wants. Within reason.”
“No one’s touching my guitars,” Marlene muttered.
Euphemia glanced at James through her sunglasses. “But if it ever gets to be too much — the guilt, the pressure, the noise — I will pull you both out. No questions asked. You tell me the moment something feels off. Understood?”
James didn’t respond immediately. He stared out the window, his reflection blurry in the glass. Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
Euphemia smiled, satisfied, and tapped her cigarette ash out the window. “Fabulous. Now, tell me what color uniforms you want. I may or may not be bribing the tailor.”
Marlene and James groaned in unison.
The house was quiet.
Not dead quiet — the Potter estate never was — but quiet in that weird, heavy way where even the floorboards seemed to tiptoe. Outside, the garden was soaked in moonlight. Inside, the only sound was Bowie crooning softly from the record player and the occasional clink of ice in James’ glass.
He was spread out on the old settee in the music room, eyeliner smudged and hair a mess, one sock on, one sock off, staring up at the cracked gold leaf on the ceiling like it had answers for him.
It didn’t.
He took a slow sip of scotch — definitely older than he was — and let it burn on the way down.
Catholic school.
Again.
It wasn’t like he hated religion. People always got that wrong. He loved it, actually. Loved the rhythm of the rosary, the scent of frankincense on Christmas Eve, the flicker of candles against stained glass. He still whispered Hail Marys when he couldn’t sleep. Still carried a tiny silver cross in his wallet, tucked behind a folded photo of him and Marlene at age thirteen, flipping off the camera in front of their old school chapel.
He believed in God. He did. In kindness. In forgiveness. In something bigger than himself.
But his dad had made it hurt.
He’d taken that belief and twisted it until it became a mirror James could never quite stand to look into. Everything was always guilt. Always shame. Every mass turned into a test. Every prayer into a punishment.
James could still hear him sometimes. “That’s not how a proper boy behaves.”
“God doesn’t love filth, James.”
“Stop looking at him like that.”
James had tried so hard to be good. Good grades, good posture, clean fingernails, polite to a fault. But nothing had ever been good enough.
Now here he was, seventeen, drunk, legally married to his lesbian best friend, and staring down the barrel of another religious boarding school like it was a loaded gun.
He laughed, softly. It wasn’t funny. But also, it kind of was.
Marlene would think so. She’d probably call the headmaster a sanctimonious goat and refuse to wear the plaid skirt.
He glanced toward the hallway, where she was passed out upstairs in the guest room. She’d cried earlier. When mom picked them up. When she was told, you’re staying with us now. Don’t argue. She didn’t.
Neither did James.
Because Mom had said something else in the car — her voice quiet, for once.
“If it gets too heavy, sweetheart, you just tell me. I’ll pull you out so fast they’ll think the Second Coming happened in reverse.”
He smiled, now. A real one.
Mom was the only one who’d never asked him to shrink himself. Never acted like faith was a cage. She still lit candles for the saints and said grace at dinner and wore a crucifix between her silk pajamas like it was just part of her skin — but she also called the Pope a prude and had blessed their Vegas marriage with a Bloody Mary in one hand.
She made it make sense again. God. Love. Chaos. All of it.
James closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to go to another school. He wanted to stay here, drinking scotch he wasn’t allowed to have, singing Bowie until his voice gave out. He wanted rooftop pools and bad decisions and the freedom to be the dramatic, bisexual, eyeliner-smeared him without wondering if someone was waiting to punish him for it.
But maybe this wouldn’t be like before. Maybe this time, he’d have Marlene at his side. Maybe this time, he’d choose what his faith meant.
He lifted his glass, whispering into the quiet:
“To holy things that don’t hurt. And people who don’t make God feel like a threat.”
Bowie kept singing.
And James sang along — off-key, barefoot, and whole.
---
Marlene still had the note.
Folded in the back of her old notebook — the one with doodles in the margins and angry poetry she’d never read out loud. The edges were frayed. The ink had smudged a little from the time it got caught in the rain, but the words were still there.
you’re not wrong. they are.
James had passed it to her during theology class, years ago. Third row from the back. The nun was droning on about sin and purity, and Marlene had already zoned out — jaw tight, fists clenched under the desk, her whole body thrumming with rage and shame.
She hadn’t meant to say anything. But she’d raised her hand. Asked why love between two girls was a sin if God was supposed to be love.
And the silence after had been worse than any slap.
The sister hadn’t answered. Just stared. Cold and blank, like Marlene was filth for even asking.
She’d spent the rest of class blinking hard, chewing the inside of her cheek until it bled, pretending it didn’t matter.
Then the paper had landed in her lap.
James didn’t look at her when she opened it. Just kept his head down, glasses slipping, pretending to copy notes while his hand shook a little with fury.
But that one line —
you’re not wrong. they are.
— had cracked something open inside her. Not because it fixed anything. But because it was the first time someone hadn’t tried to fix her.
Just… saw her. And stood beside her.
She’d never told him how much that meant. She probably never would. That was the thing about James. He said all the things she didn’t know how to.
She didn’t believe in God.
Not really.
She wanted to — sometimes. Wanted to believe in something soft and warm, something bigger than the ache in her chest. But she couldn’t untangle the idea of religion from all the ways it had tried to crush her.
And still.
She didn’t hate it. Not entirely.
Because James did believe. And not in the punishing, cruel version their school tried to sell — but in something gentler. Something kind. The way he still lit candles. The way he still whispered Hail Marys like they were poems. The way he believed that forgiveness could be real.
She didn’t believe in God.
But she believed in him.
And so when he talked about faith, she listened. Quietly. Without judgment. Even if she couldn’t follow him there, not all the way, she’d still sit beside him in whatever pew he needed, just to remind him he didn’t have to kneel alone.
She looked down at the note again. Tucked it back into the notebook like a secret.
Maybe this new school would be hell.
Maybe it would try to break her, like the last one did.
But this time, she had James. And he had her.
And neither of them were wrong.