4338.210 · July 29, 2018 AD
Every Surface Hides a Depth
Sunday morning finds Jerome Smith standing in front of a mirror, adjusting a navy tie he can't explain choosing carefully. Charles catches him at it and presses the obvious button — trying to impress someone at church? — and the blush that rises to Jerome's face only makes things worse. Then Eli lands the same assumption from across the Pacific on a family video call: whatsername from the singles ward. Everyone sees the same shape. Nobody sees what's actually inside it — which is nothing. No longing, no wanting, no secret crush. Just the growing awareness that the machinery everyone else runs on simply isn't there.
The morning unfolds through Sunday ritual — shower, white shirt, the careful selection of a tie that's supposed to mean nothing — while Jerome circles a question he can't land. He's twenty-one, has never been interested in anyone, and the absence is becoming harder to explain away as shyness or timing. He searches inward for evidence of wanting and finds the same emptiness in every direction. Not hiding something. Just standing at a window with nothing behind the glass.
Charles ambushes him in the hallway with a grin and a theory about emotional constipation. Jerome deflects, but the blush betrays him — not because he's been caught wanting, but because he's been caught performing wanting's absence. The family video call with Lisa escalates it: Eli's casual crack about whatsername hits with precision, and suddenly the whole kitchen is reading a romance into a navy tie. Jerome retreats to the window and the thought of Luke — who at least had something real to hide. Jerome's silence is different. He isn't protecting a secret. He just doesn't have one to reveal.
Millie's Sunday door campaign provides the morning's last beat of warmth before the drive to church. In the back seat, Jerome's thoughts circle to Wednesday night — Megan's careful kindness, the overheard judgments about men who haven't served, and the bathroom secret he's carrying for Nate Baker. The chapel car park fills with families performing their public selves, and Jerome steps out of the car into the cold, becoming whatever version of himself this particular stage requires.
