“Sort of,” I said with a shrug. “It’s actually better for you than it is for me, though. Because in their eyes, I had the truth and threw it away whereas you two never had the truth. So while you still don’t get the highest level of heaven, you can still go to, like, mediocre heaven. And since I’m now considered an apostate, I’ll be booted to Hell and the land of fire and brimstone.”
“Yikes,” Carter said.
“Yeah…” I nodded.
“So right now, in Scarlett’s mind, you’re, like, gonna be living with all the murderers and rapists and terrorists in her religion’s version of the afterlife?” Mack asked.
“I don’t know if she has quite put me in that place,” I said. “But that’s definitely where the doctrine puts me.”
“That’s rough,” Mack said.
It was. It sucked.
“Is there a way to—pardon me if this is offensive—” Carter said, “—but, like, how do you get through that kind of indoctrination? Can we have an intervention? Is there something that just works and clicks someone out of that reality?”
“Yeah…” Mack leaned closer. “Because you’ve literally done nothing wrong. It’s dumb that a religion can come between two people as perfect for each other as you and Scarlett.”
“If there is a way, I don’t know it,” I said. “It’s literally impossible to reason with some believers because of how closely they identify with the church. All of their defenses go up and they feel personally attacked when you say anything bad about The Fold.” I remembered the way Scarlett had cut me off and fled the rooftop when I started to explain my research. “They literally can’t listen. Their brain tries to protect them from the information that will disrupt their whole nervous system. And then there’s the whole talk of how you always need to be on your guard because Satan is always trying to get you on his side.”
“But something worked for you, right?” Carter asked. “And your brother and parents, too?”
I nodded. “If the person is ready or has had enough things happen to put cracks in their beliefs—like maybe they had a family member defect whom they knew to be a good person—or maybe they came across some disturbing or confusing information here and there and they put it on their proverbial spiritual shelf. Once there get to be too many issues on the shelf, it all comes tumbling down. Sometimes, another sort of traumatic thing can trigger a change that can help you snap out of the mind fog.”
“So if we just tell Scarlett about all the issues you found, it might help get her out?” Mack asked like it could be a relatively simple process.
“It might…if you could get her to even listen,” I said. “But also, a faith crisis is a major traumatic event that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Like, it’s hard to understand if you haven’t gone through it, but it’s like getting tossed off a boat and suddenly finding yourself lost at sea with no life preserver. The Fold is a huge safety net for a lot of people and having it suddenly dissolve can be terrifying because you have to rebuild everything after that.
“For me, I believed it so much that my whole world view basically revolved around what I’d been taught. How I thought the world had been created. What I thought the purpose of life was. How I should live. It played a part in every single decision I made. It was everything. And losing that, along with initially losing my parents’ support…” I shook my head, remembering the darkness and how alone I’d felt and all the days I’d spent lying on my bedroom floor, trying to make sense of the universe and the purpose of life. “It sucked.”
“I had no idea what you were going through,” Mack said. “I wish you’d been able to help us understand better so we could be there for you.”
“You were dealing with your own stuff,” I said, thinking about how his mom had been in her last few months of life while I was going through the thick of it. “And actually, you guys did help me. Seeing that there were actually really great people out there, who didn’t have any strict religious beliefs, helped me realize that The Fold didn’t have a monopoly on good people.”
Helped me have hope that everything would be okay.
“But you don’t think we can just have a straightforward conversation about all this with Scarlett?” Carter asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You can’t always tell how someone will react. Some people are completely fine and move on quickly and easily. While other people are traumatized and go spiraling into making a lot of unhealthy and unsafe choices.”
“And you think Scarlett may be more of the trauma and spiraling type?” Mack asked.
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “If she did break free and come to the same conclusion that I did, I think she’d feel a huge sense of betrayal and go through the stages of grief like I did. But maybe not.”
“And maybe she’d still stay in, even after learning the things you learned,” Carter surmised.
“Yep.” I sighed. “There are entire websites and podcasts dedicated to explaining away a lot of the issues with The Fold and how if you look at them at just the right angle they can all still be fine. People will do a lot of mental gymnastics to stay in the safety of their belief system. So who knows, she could end up saying the extra information only made her faith stronger. It just depends.”
“Which is why you haven’t really tried to push it with her?” Carter asked.
I nodded. “If she wants to look into things, it’s something she’ll have to do on her own.”
“You’re a more patient man than me,” Mack said. “I’d be doing that intervention pronto if I were you.”
“I probably would, too,” Carter agreed. “If Ava got mixed up in an organization that tried to keep her from me, I wouldn’t be able to keep from doing everything in my power to get through to her.”
“Same with Cambrielle,” Mack added.
Carter chuckled and looked at Mack. “It’s still weird hearing you say that about my sister, by the way.”
