July 2013

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Today was my last day of teaching Bible study. A lot of the children brought cards and small

gifts as a thank you for making their summers a little less boring than they thought it would be –

pranking the other classes, having ice cream on Fridays, comparing biblical passages to their

favorite comic books – the usual. I left everything in my classroom and took the children to get

picked up by their busy parents. When I returned to gather my things, I noticed a single rose

among the gifts the children had brought. “Thanks for making it interesting, see you next

summer” was in scratchy cursive next to it. It was not a child’s hand-writing.

​

 

June 2014

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Last week I came to decorate the classroom and hide a few pranks for the new children coming

to Bible study. I made sure nobody saw me and didn’t tell anyone I had gone. I was very

surprised, if not a bit scared, when I saw a rose on my desk this morning. “Thank you for coming

back” was written in a small index card next to it. It looked just like the one I had gotten the

previous year: slightly dying, darker than it should be, cut short and left without leaves.

 

 

July 2014

 

I don’t know if it was a good idea or not. I don’t know why I did it. Before I left with the kids to

get picked up, I left a white rose on my desk with a note on it. “Thank you for the flowers, don’t

know if the church is okay with you cutting them off from their bushes…but two wrongs make a

right sometimes, don’t they?”

 

 

June 2015

 

I got a bouquet of roses this time. “Want to hang out?” and a phone number in shaky writing

came with it.

 

 

March 2016

 

It’s been eight months since I officially met rose girl. Her name is Isabelle and we’ve been dating

for two weeks. She was very timid at first, almost as if she was scared of me, but I think she’s

finally opening up. We “hang out” a lot since we can’t tell our parents we’re dating and mostly

see each other at church anyway. A gay Bible study teacher? Yeah right, I’d never hear the end

of it.

 

 

June 2019

 

I knew it was a mistake. I should have never insisted but I couldn’t keep things hidden anymore.

We told our parents we were together a few weeks before summer started. They didn’t allow it.

We argued and she drove off into the night. I should have gone with her but I didn’t. I wanted to

make them understand, I wanted to feel accepted. She just wanted us to be together. Maybe it

was the tears that made her vision blurry. Maybe she didn’t hear the truck honk in time. Maybe

God was against us all along. There’s a lot of maybe’s and not enough of her. All I have now is a

pressed rose from that first summer and her note. “Thanks for making things interesting, see you

next summer” God I wish that were true.