"I-I heard her talking on the phone," she mumbled towards her legs, taking a slow breath in and letting it back out shakily. "At night. Really late, and more than once or twice. I wasn't trying to listen, but you're right there, Taylor, and it was late, and you sounded…you sounded so happy. I thought you were just talking to friends, but then I heard you say "I love you." She paused, swallowing hard, and then rushed her next words. "More than once. I heard you say I love you on the phone to someone more than once. So I knew you had to have a boyfriend, but you never say you do, and you know we're not allowed, and you didn't even let Mom and Dad meet him. You were just keeping it secret and talking to him at night, and that scared me. It's wrong, Taylor."

A small piece of my fear melted away, and I felt my shoulders relax just a little. Okay, so this was bad, and clearly midnight calls were going to have to be over now that I knew Gwendolyn was a sneak and a spy. But she had said the word boyfriend. She didn't know what was really going on with Shiloh and me, and that meant she was guessing more than anything. I could deal with this. I could spin this. It would take a lot of careful balancing for the next few weeks, but I was used to that.

This didn't have to be a complete disaster, not if Gwen didn't really know.

"Gwen, this is ridiculous," I said, making myself laugh, trying to sound as dismissive and disbelieving as possible. "I don't have a boyfriend. I have not been on the phone, talking to a boy, late in the night. Sometimes when I can't sleep, I talk to friends. Friends, not boyfriends. And yeah, sometimes I might tell them I love them, but I'm pretty sure the Bible says we are supposed to love everyone, friends included. I don't appreciate you spying on me and just stealing my phone instead of telling me what you were thinking so we could actually have a talk about it. For someone so worried about my supposed sin, I'd say lying and stealing are pretty big ones you've just done yourself."

"You should be sleeping at night, Taylor, not talking to friends on the phone," Garrett said, but he sounded more irritated with Gwendolyn than me as he continued. "Your sister is right, this isn't the way we handle things, Gwendolyn. Next time talk to your mother before doing something like this."

But Geri wasn't ready yet to let the matter drop. She furrowed her brow towards me, looking torn in who out of the two of us she believed.

"Taylor, if what Gwen thinks is true, you need to be honest,"wh, she said quietly. "She shouldn't have taken your phone, but I understand why she was so worried."

"Mom. Dad. Gwen, Gillian, whoever needs to hear this," I said slowly and deliberately, making sure to look each of them in the eyes in turn and put as much conviction as possible in my expression, because it was true, what I was saying. Technically. "I do not, and have not ever, had a boyfriend. I promise you that if I wanted one, I would tell you first."

"Taylor, please, stop," Gwendolyn begged me, and I was startled when I saw her eyes fill up with tears of actual anguish- not for herself, because she could be in trouble, but for me. Because she truly felt that I was committing some terrible sin. "Please stop lying. You're already sinning enough. I know you have a boyfriend, please tell the truth."

"Oh my go- gosh!" I blurted, barely stopping myself from "taking the Lord's name in vain" in front of the entire family. That definitely would not have supported my case. "I don't have a boyfriend, Gwendolyn, I'm not lying! I'm not dating a boy, I'm not even interested in dating any boy!"

All technically true. Shiloh was certainly not a boy, and so as of yet, I had been completely honest while simultaneously giving exactly the wrong impression of Gwen being "mistaken" in her concerns.

"Can I go play?" Gillian asked, kicking her legs out repetitively so her heels bounced against the back of the couch. "This is boring. I want to play with my dollhouse."

Everyone ignored her. All eyes, except hers, were on Gwendolyn in the moment she blew my life apart.

"I know you're lying, Taylor, I saw it, I read what you wrote to him on your phone," Gwendolyn countered, holding the phone up as though in evidence. "I can show Mom and Dad right now. I don't think Gilly should see, though. She's too young for this."

"I am not! What is it?" Gillian demanded, as my heart stuttered several times in its beats.

This could not be happening. What had Gwen been reading, what had she seen? Not enough for her to realize Shiloh was a girl, obviously, so she must not have looked at pictures or read through all our texts, or found my dating profile online. But any number of things Shiloh and I had texted to each other could potentially be disastrous for Geri and Garrett to read, and I definitely had never wanted my little sister to see them.

What was the last thing Shiloh and I had texted about? How bad was it?

Then a new, terrible thought struck me, and I felt paralyzed with the possibility. What if Shiloh had messaged me something about last night, about our first time having sex, while the phone was in Gwen's possession?

And then Gwen voiced my fear into reality. Leaning forward towards our parents, dropping her voice to a whisper that I was pretty sure Gillian could probably still hear, she said, "Her boyfriend's name is Shiloh. He texts her all the time, every day. And they've….they say bad things to each other, really sinful things, like curse words, and sex things. And…and….he said...he said he and Gwen did it last night. You know. She said she was at Holly's, but she wasn't. She was with Shiloh. I'm not lying. I read it all in her texts."

I couldn't speak. I could barely even breathe, and I knew that it was far too late now to do anything to head off the disaster that had finally struck. My parents knew. At least, they knew enough to make my life even more hell than I was accustomed to.

I still didn't know how Gwen could read all those texts and not understand that Shiloh was a girl, but I guess that was the one and only thing to my benefit. It was bad enough that my parents were going to think I was dating and sleeping with a boy. I couldn't even begin to fathom how horrible it would be if they knew the full scope of the truth.

How could I think that Shiloh and I could continue to get away with this, week after week, month after month? How blinded had I been to the glow of my love for her that I hadn't noticed anything or anyone outside of it, looking in on us?

Already everything was spiraling far beyond my control. Garrett had leapt to his feet, his face red and twisted up with disgusted rage, and he started to point towards me, yelling something about lying and disrespect and sin. I couldn't even understand most of what he was saying, because Geri was talking too, her voice shrill and shocked, demanding to see the phone, demanding to know how it could be true, how I could do such terrible things, blaming everything from public school to pop culture for corrupting me. Even Gillian was clamoring to be heard, asking what I had done, what was wrong, and if I was in trouble with God now.

I wanted to jump off the couch and run away from them all. Just get in my car and go, without stopping, without caring where I ended up or what happened to me next. I think I might have done it if Garrett hadn't grabbed me roughly by the shoulders, speaking so forcefully some of his spit sprayed my cheek.

"Who is this boy you've brought shame on yourself and our family with? Who do you think you are, lying to your own parents about such a thing? After how you've been raised, after all the trust we placed in you to do the right thing? How could you lie like that, Taylor, what kind of person are you?"

I wanted to tell him that I was exactly the person they had raised me to be, that I had acted in exactly the way my parents had modeled for me all throughout my life. Because it was the truth- Geri and Garrett had lied all my life and encouraged me to lie too about the real nature of my relationship to him, and the length of their relationship to each other. They had raised me to do lie and expected me to, and yet even so, a part of me shriveled with guilt at his words.

I couldn't answer him. I didn't trust the words I might say. Instead I just stared down at my legs, my jaw shaking.

"Oh, Taylor, I knew it was a bad idea to let you keep going to public schools," Geri moaned, actual tears starting to form in her eyes as she clasped her hands dramatically in front of her, as though already praying for my lost soul. "This was why we pulled Gwen out, this is why we never let Gilly go, because of those other children, because of all the terrible influences and temptations of the secular school system. And now it's trapped you, our own daughter. Who is this Shiloh boy, is he in your classes? Does he…he doesn't drink, does he? Or….or do drugs? He has to be from the school, Garrett, there isn't any boy named Shiloh at church!"

"Mom, no, Dad, please, stop, just stop," I said desperately, still trying to backpedal what was already too far along to be stopped. "It isn't true, I don't have a boyfriend, I haven't had sex with any boys. I-"

"Your sister says she saw your texts!" Garrett barked, thrusting a hand towards the now quiet, frightened-looking Gwen beside me. "Are you calling your sister the liar?"

"No, I'm not, but she doesn't understand. She-"

"I do understand!" Gwen interrupted, indignant. "I'm not stupid, Taylor, and I'm not a little kid like Gillian!"

"Mom, she called me stupid!" Gillian squealed, but Gwen was already talking past her, and everyone ignored Gillian's outcry.

"I do understand! You talk to Shiloh every day, you tell him everything, you say things that aren't Christian to say, I can't even say what you say sometimes! And you told him you love him! And he was talking about having sex in those texts. I understand it, Taylor, I just don't like it, I just think it's wrong, and you shouldn't be doing those things."

"What I do with my phone, and when I'm nowhere near you, or any of you, is none of your business," I managed, my voice shaking badly now. "What my friends say to me is none of your business. You're eleven years old, Gillian, so I don't want to hear you judging me until you're old enough to actually be in puberty. You've never met Shiloh, so there is no way you could possibly understand anything about her. You don't even know her-"

I stopped myself as soon as I realized what I was saying, what I had just admitted out loud. Oh my god, I was my own worst enemy, a bigger threat to myself than my entire family combined. How could I be so stupid, how could I be such a complete idiot that I could have just let something so important slip out in the heat of an argument with an 11 year old kid?

And they all caught it. I saw the look of fresh horror in Geri's eyes, the utter outrage in Garrett's, and confused lack of comprehension in Gwen's. It had been bad enough when they thought I was having sex with a boy. Hell was about to break loose now.

"Shiloh is a girl?" Gwendolyn said aloud, echoing the obvious confusion of everyone else around us. "But you said…you talk about doing sex with her. How can she be a-"

Her face froze, a look of terror I had never seen in her making her features rigid and strained. "Oh no, oh no, Taylor…you're GAY? But…Taylor, that's a horrible, awful sin, that's- oh no, Taylor, no!"

She started to cry, looking as broken-hearted and devastated as she had the day we found our kitten, dead on the side of the road, a few years back. Even Geri's story about animals in heaven and God's plan for them all hadn't consoled her then, and I didn't think anything anyone could say would comfort her now either. She didn't have to say it for me to know my little sister was now certain I was destined for hell.

Geri's chin was shaking in opposite direction of her head, denying what she was hearing even as she reached out an unsteady hand.

"Taylor…this can't be right, there must…give me your phone, Taylor. Let me see what you've been saying to this…this Shiloh…for myself."

That was the absolute last thing I had any intention of doing. I stood up, intending to run up the steps and delete every single text and Facebook message from Shiloh I had ever received the minute I could get far away enough to do it, but Garrett stood too, far taller, heavier, and much, much angrier than my mother as he held out his hand, further and more forcefully past hers.

"You're not going anywhere, Taylor. Your mother asked for your phone. Hand it over, right this minute."

I could see from the deadly serious set of his jaw and the dark glint of his eyes that he would show no hesitation at all in physically forcing the phone away from me if he thought I was going to resist. I had no choice. Feeling tears start to rise up my throat and desperately attempting to swallow them back down, I handed over the phone.

It would have been amusing to watch him fumble with trying to figure out a phone he was unfamiliar with operating if it wasn't such a terrible situation. Eventually Garrett managed to pull up my texts, found the thread between me and Shiloh, and began to read them to himself. Geri, seeming torn between wanting to see them and wanting to keep the potentially horribly sinful words her daughter had written to an apparent lesbian from entering her brain, halfway hovered over his shoulder, sometimes reading, sometimes looking away. I have no idea how much of a conversation she actually read or took in.

It didn't take very much reading for Garrett to come to a conclusion. With Gwen still sobbing on the couch behind me, Gillian, confused and loudly demanding that someone tell her what the messages said in the background, and Geri pale and mumbling half of prayers she never finished beside him, he shoved the phone hard into his back pants pocket, probably because he knew there was no way in hell I would reach back there to try to retrieve it. His face was cold and unmoving as stone as he finally looked down at me, and he didn't waste time or words to make himself clear in his stance.

"Get out of my house. Get out, and don't even think about coming back."

Gwen's head jerked up, her crying even higher and louder in pitch as she stared up at her father, her horror renewed at this command. Gillian was the one who voiced my thoughts for me, sounding almost indignant on my behalf.

"But Daddy, she can't get out, she lives here! Where would she go?"

"She doesn't live here anymore," Garrett said flatly, still staring down at me with about the same expression I would expect from someone who had just stepped in vomit or dog poop. "No one who lives that kind of degrading, sinful lifestyle against the Lord will live in my home as long as I do."

Then leave, I wanted to tell him. You be the one to walk out the door. Just like my first father walked away from me- why don't you walk away from me too? How can you choose to be my father, lie about it, even, and then throw me away, after all this time?

I looked over at my mother, hoping that she would disagree with him, that she would stand up for me, that no matter what she thought about what she had read or what I had done, she would still want me. I was her oldest child, the person that made her a mother for the first time. That had to mean something. It had to matter.

And I guess she did fight him, a little bit, in her own way. She was shaking her head when Garrett spoke, starting to cry without noise, as though she already knew her tears would be no help to her or me. Even when she spoke her words sounded weak and defeated, as though she had already given up.

"No, Garrett…please, we have to help her, we have to save her. She's our daughter, it can't be too late. Please, let her stay, we can help her."

I wasn't sure that I wanted my mother's idea of help. Knowing her, it would involve endless prayer, making me home school, and possibly exorcisms or something of that nature. But it didn't matter. Even as she was speaking Garrett was shaking his head, the motion sharper than when Geri had done the same.

"She has to go. She's been committing these sins under our roof, pretending to be a righteous young woman, all the while lying and doing filth better not said aloud. She's infected with sin, Geri, and she exposed our daughter to it. Gwen could have been influenced in the same way, do you understand that, how much danger she exposed my daughter to? Just by hearing and reading these things- no, she has to go. We can't let something like this go on in our house."

Something…was he was talking about me? Was he looking at me like a thing now, instead of a person?

I hadn't failed to notice, either, that he had called Gwen his daughter, had called her by name. Not once had the man who had adopted me called me his daughter, or even called me by my name. If he ever had truly claimed me, he didn't anymore. I didn't matter. I didn't measure up.

"Garrett, please," Geri tried again, grasping at his rigid arm. "She's still so young, she's fallen off track, but we can bring her back the right way. Taylor, please, don't you know that you can repent, don't you want to ask God for forgiveness? You can make this right, Taylor. Tell your father. Tell God."

"Yeah, Taylor, tell God you're sorry," Gwen piped up eagerly, still sniffling back tears. "Tell Him, and just stop, and you can make it okay again. Please, you know that's what's right."

But I didn't. It was what I had been taught, and it was what my family wanted. Maybe it was even what was the safest thing for me to do, no matter how much it stung, or how little I meant it. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't betray Shiloh like that. I couldn't betray myself.

"I…I can't," I whispered, my voice cracked. I couldn't look anyone in the eyes as I heard Gwen gasp, and as Geri broke forth into a fresh torrent of pleading.

"Taylor, you're just upset and angry right now, but you know what's right. We love you and God loves you, and we know this isn't who you are, this isn't the person God made you to be. Maybe…maybe we should all take a break for a minute, take some time to pray, and then come back to talk about this. Maybe-"

"No," Garrett interrupted, his words forceful and final. "She made her choice, Geri. She made it long ago, and she's sticking by it now. Think about our girls. We have to do what's best for them."

It took me a moment to realize that Garrett was no longer including me as one of the girls he was talking about, just like he had not referred to me as his daughter along with Gwen. I was no longer one of the girls, one of the Morris children that counted. I was the outcast, the sinner.

And now, I was homeless.

Before I could think of anything else to say, any argument or plea that might buy me some sort of time or grace, Garrett spoke again, interrupting my scrambled thoughts.

"Go, Taylor. Now. And don't bother to take anything with you. None of it is yours. We bought it all for you, so if this is what you've chosen, you've chosen to give up everything we've provided for you. Go."

"But…where am I supposed to go?" I stammered. "Where am I supposed to live?"

"That isn't our problem now," Garrett said coldly, even as Geri lowered her head, her shoulders jumping as she tried to suppress her crying, and both Gwendolyn and Gillian bawled openly, not trying to conceal it. "Go to that girl's godless sham of a family, if she'll have you. You chose her, maybe if you're lucky, she'll put up with you. But this family won't."

This family. This family, one I had been part of, until about fifteen minutes ago. This family, the one I never quite belonged to, and now had officially been kicked out of.

I didn't know what else I could do. I had never seen Garrett so angry before, and I didn't know if he would go so far as to physically remove me by force if I didn't obey him. I didn't want to test that, so I turned around and walked slowly up the basement stairs, still dressed in my church clothes.

Fifteen minutes ago, I had a bed, if not a real bedroom, and a roof over my head, if not a real house. Fifteen minutes ago, I had a phone and clothes and school supplies, and I had not thought twice about what would happen to me if all of a sudden, I no longer did. Now, I had nothing.