"Three fuckin years" I thought to myself as I looked out the window. The amount of greenery and shrubs had grown over the years, slowly starting to take over the highway. By the time I'm out of this bullshit program, there won't be a road. I fumbled around in my backpack, looking through every pocket and crevis before finding my vape. This small usb looking thing is my Holy Grail. I took a hit and sighed in relief. The feeling of the nicotine hitting my lungs and soaking into my bloodstream is one of the best sensations in the world. I rolled down my window and released the vapor out of my mouth. The vapor dissapeared into nothingness.
"Chloe, please, enough with the vape. How did you even get another?" my concerned mother said, not taking her eyes off the road.
"Chill out mom, it's not like it actually has nicotine in it" I lied, taking another hit.
"Chloe, we both know that's not true. Your older brother used those things and now he's addicted to tobacco. The whole point of you going to camp is for you to get better. Ditching the vape can help with that."
"How is getting rid of vaping going to help me be straight?" I asked sarcastically, taking another hit.
"Chloe, you're going to spend your summer surrounded by the Lord. He will help cure you of your homosexuality."
"Oh, and I guess the Lord is also going to help me ditch vaping. What is he gonna do? Mouth to mouth me and suck all the vape smoke out of my lungs?"
"Chloe. Not now."
"Oh, maybe after that he'll hand me another vape, except it's in the shape of a cross and instead of Mango Tango it'll be holy water. Maybe then the devil spores in my lungs will disintegrate"
"Chloe, be quiet. We're almost there. Then you can talk about vaping all you want to your cabin mates".
My mind dazed out. I always knew I was bi, I just never knew that it was an actual thing. I was raised Methodist, extremly conservative. In those videos where you see people standing outside of a planned parenthood clinic, holding signs that say "Abortion is Murder!", those are my parents. I went to my first protest when I was an infant. My parents brought me and held me up to women who were just trying to go get screened for cancer. They taught me that being gay was a sin and that I had to cover up in order to stay pure so I can go to heaven. I never said it, but I always fantasized about being with a woman. When I was fourteen, I made the mistake of telling them. They immediately looked up conversion camps and they found one in South Carolina that would work. So every summer for the past three years we take a two day long road trip from Seattle to South Carolina.
My mom made a sharp left, jolting me out of my thoughts and turning onto the oh so familiar dirt road. The small bumps in the road made the car jolt up and down. I quickly put my vape away and hauled my backpack up. I looked up and saw the sign that made me dread summer every year. It was a large wooden sign, held up by two angel totems made from oak wood. The sign had a large engraving that said,
"Saint Gabriel the Savior's Camp for Troubled Youths". Below it was a white plastic sign, the kind you can customize and buy offline. All it said was,
"Welcome Home". Home my ass.