"God, I miss my phone."

"I miss TV. I'll never know how The Walking Dead ends."

"I miss iTunes."

"Ew, who would miss that garbage fire? I miss Spotify."

"I miss Uber Eats."

"I'm a Menulog person myself."

"I miss all food delivery."

"I miss porn."

"Oh my god, I hadn't even thought about porn!"

"Crusty collections of ancient Playboys are about to skyrocket in value."

"Gross. I miss E-Bay. And Amazon. And Wish. And-"

"It's been less than two days," interjected Simon, leaning forward to throw another log on the bonfire. "You young people could just pretend that we're camping instead of whinging."

"There's no 'pretend' here. This is camping." I gestured around at our campsite, a gaggle of small tents around the bonfire we'd built. We'd found a fresh water creek running nearby and had splashed our faces and refilled our bottles, before adjourning to the camp fire and eating a tin of soup each, heating the cans hobo-style over the flames. My belly rumbled for more, and I was glad when Simon threw us each a small block of dark chocolate he'd squirreled away

The experience still felt novel, like an adventure rather than a permanent way of life. Mischa had fallen into bed an hour ago, but the adults lingered by the fire, staring at the coals and chatting chirpily, throwing treats to Bella until she curled up inside her carrier.

We were just whistling in the dark though; looking for distraction from the horror of what we'd seen in the carpark earlier that day. Every time I closed my eyes or the conversation stalled, I saw the spray of blood from the back of the cop's head, and a cold sweat formed on my skin. Normally there'd be a series to binge or something to podcast, anything to give our brains a break. Instead, we half-heartedly listed off what we missed about our old lives as if they were years behind us rather than less than 48 hours ago.

"God, I'm bored," said Nev. She stood and stretched, her perky breasts pushed up until they almost touched her chin. I noticed Bailey watching her, longing written all over their face.

Nev settled in front of Bailey and leaned back on their legs. "Some tell us a story," she demanded.

"Uh... I can recite Aladdin word for word, if that helps," I said. "The animated one, not the Will Smith one."

"No, not that kind of story. Like a story about people's lives." Nev blinked her large eyes, her lashes still thick and camel-like without the benefit of mascara. "Like, I'm spending all day every day for weeks with youse- you guys. Don't you think we should know more about each other?"

The fire crackled as we awkwardly stared at one another. Then Bailey coughed and said, "Yeah, okay. What do you want to know?"

"Oo, yay." Nev clapped and turned to face Bailey. "You're right, we need a theme. How about... 'the one who hurt me?'"

"That's a very long list," said Bailey, deadpan. "If I start that story, we might never get out of here."

"Please, Bailey?" She stroked their knee, and I saw Bailey's jaw tighten, desire and frustration building behind their eyes.

"Fine." They shrugged and gave in, then cast their eyes to the sky, searching for the words. "It's hard to pin it down to 'one.' It's my whole family, but since my dad is the head of the household, I guess it's him. Although, he answers directly to Jesus apparently, so maybe it's the Lamb of God who I should really hold responsible."

I knew a short version of Bailey's story, disclosed to me after a night of red wine on a Father's Day Sunday we spent getting excessively drunk. I never imagined that they'd share their tale sober among strangers.

But the fire flickered between us like a hypnotic belly dancer, casting us all in warm light and creating a sheltered, safe space. Bailey spoke. "I grew up in a household where God was everywhere. My dad is the pastor of a mega-church, one that he grew himself from the rented room of a community centre into the biggest church complex in the city."

"Which church?" asked Nev, her voice awed.

Bailey sighed. "Gospel Mountain Chorus."

Even Simon looked impressed. "That place is a behemoth. They've got a childcare centre, a skatepark, two restaurants, a food bank, a health clinic, a two thousand seat auditorium, and all those music albums."

"How do you know about GMC?" I asked. "You're not a Christian soldier. More of a Satanic minion, if anything."

"I'm an alcoholic," he replied. "I've been to every outreach in the Greater Sydney area at least once."

"What was growing up like, Bailey?" asked Rueben, drawing the conversation back on track.

"It was... intense. God was part of every meal, every event, every Sunday. My dad was God's right-hand man, my mum was his perfect wife, who bore him perfect twins, my brother and sister. My older sister was a clone of my mum and just as demure and sweet, a praise and worship leader. My older brother was strong and masculine, the youth group leader, everything a strapping Christian lad should be."

Bailey laughed bitterly. "And then I came along, the 'miracle baby' – which everyone knows is code for 'the accidental baby your parents had because they assumed your mum's ovaries had dried up.' I'm thirteen years younger than the twins, which was a such an obvious portent of bad luck, they should have just floated me Moses-style down a river as a baby and never looked back.

"There wasn't a place for me in my own family. The textbook son role was taken, the flawless daughter spot occupied. I looked at my siblings, and I knew I could never be like either of them. I didn't ever feel like a girl or a boy, way back from the time I could talk. My mother would push gendered clothing and toys on me, and I'd find a way to thwart her efforts. Teachers would try to tell me, 'but that's not what little whatevers do' and I'd laugh at them, say 'but I'm not a whatever. I'm me.'"

Bailey's unique silver eyes darkened in the low light. "One day, when I was just about to start high school, my dad sat me down. 'Bailey, you're a teenager now, on your way to being an adult. It's not God's will for you to be like this.'"

"By this? What did he mean?" asked Nev.

"Like me. Like I am now. I wore clothing that didn't conform to a gender, and my dad hated it. I refused to wear my hair in a way that easily identified me as a girl or a boy, and my mum wept. At church, I was constantly embarrassing my parents because anytime I'd hear them describing our family, saying 'oh, we have the twins, a girl and a boy, then our youngest, another-' and I'd jump in saying, 'A Bailey. Their youngest is a Bailey.'

"So my dad tried the good-Christian lectures, and when that didn't work, he tried force. They cleaned out my closet, leaving only the proper, gendered clothing he wanted me to wear. I'd walk straight into the nearest Salvation Army clothing store, and trade my name-brand gear for second hand tees and jeans. When I found an online support group who actually made me feel good about myself for the first time in my life and encouraged me to use they/them pronouns and taught me about terms like pansexual and bisexual, my dad took away my computer and phone, tried to cut me off from the only people who understood me. I used the local library computers instead. I refused to give up who I was."

"In year nine, I dated a guy and a girl – not at the same time, but at different points during the year." Bailey twisted their hands, pulling at their cuticles. "I was happy, having experiences, finding myself. But someone from church saw me making out in a carpark with the 'wrong' gender and told my dad."

The silence that followed was awful. "What happened, Bailey?" Simon asked.

"My dad... He locked me inside my room for a week, like a prisoner. No phone, no contact with the outside world, meals on trays, only a Bible as reading material. Every day, he would come in and prayer over me for hours. Dear heavenly father, please wash my child clean. Please heal the black rot in their soul. Show them the way back to the light. They had a doctor, one of the church members, prescribe me meds that made me dizzy and sleepy and numb, and I lost all sense of time. It was just dad, my room, and a very angry god.

"When they finally let me out, I was like a POW, blinking and dazed. My dad drove me to church and sat me down next to the pulpit. 'You have a choice, Bailey. Either you step into the light with God and your family, and put all of this evil aside, or you choose a path of shame and damnation, and we cannot walk beside you anymore. You will no longer be part of this family.'"

Bailey sniffed angrily, tears glinting in the firelight. "I was only 15. And he made me choose."

"Oh, B..." Nev knelt up and wiped Bailey's cheeks with such compassion, I felt tears rise in my own eyes. "That wasn't fair. You were just a kid."

"What makes it worse is... I chose them." A sob escaped from Bailey, a guttural, hopeless noise. "I loved my family, and I was scared, so I chose them and tried to 'be normal.' I wore the 'right' clothes, and let people use the 'right' pronouns, and left my chat group.

"And it worked for a few months – I had them fooled. But I couldn't quite give up seeing the 'wrong' person, the one I'd been busted kissing. Every few weeks, when the pressure built up, when I felt like I wanted to tear my skin off or drown myself rather than keep living a lie, I'd call my ex, and we'd go somewhere and make out, and for a few precious minutes, I'd feel like myself again."

Nev had perched next to Bailey on the log, clutching their hand tightly. Bailey squeezed her fingers gratefully then closed their eyes, as if the next memory was too much to bear. "One day, my parents were away on a couples' bible retreat, and I was desperate. I was sixteen and alone and feeling so messed up and wishing I was dead. So I called my ex and asked them to come over."

Bailey's smile was tortured. "It was actually a really beautiful night. We had sex – my first time - and it was good. I was intimate with someone who accepted me and cared for me, and just for those few hours, I was wholly myself. We fell asleep, naked and smiling.

"And that's how my sister found us the next morning. She'd come over to check on me while Mum and Dad were away, and she literally screamed when she walked into my room. I begged her, cried and pleaded and begged her not to tell Dad, but she looked at me like I wasn't even human. 'You've brought this filth into their home, they have a right to know.'"

Bailey had begun to shiver. I don't think they even realised; their gaze was distant and pained. "I spent the next few hours sobbing, terrified. I thought about killing myself, just making it all end, but I knew that it would only make things worse for my parents, and I still hoped, stupidly, that one day they could find a way to love me as I am.

"Dad came home, alone. I'd never seen him so silent, so furious. He threw me into the car and drove us to Queensland, ten hours straight without saying a word. I sat next to him and cried and apologised and asked for forgiveness, but he didn't even look at me."

Rueben asked, "Where did he take you?"

"A Christian boarding school on the Gold Coast. He dumped me at the school office, left me standing in the clothes I was wearing, and drove off." Bailey's teeth clenched. "They'd organised for a credit card to cover my incidentals, and that was it. I started at school the next day, and I never heard from my family again."

"Never?" Nev gasped.

"No. Not on my birthday, not at Christmas, not when I was hospitalised for appendicitis. They paid for my last three years of schooling, covered my living expenses, but they never answered my calls or replied to my emails. I wasn't allowed to come home on the holidays, and after I came down to Sydney by bus one Easter and tried to see my mum outside of church, they took out an intervention order against me. And the day I turned eighteen, they completely cut me off."

"Bailey, I'm so sorry," I said.

"It was probably for the best," they said, full lips twisting bitterly. "The school was actually pretty supportive – they let me use my preferred pronouns and wear whatever I was comfortable in. And I never worried about anything because the worst had already happened."

Simon's voice was thick with emotion. "That's a hell of a thing to go through, kid."

"It wasn't that bad. I was never beaten or anything."

"They drugged you and disowned you. That's abuse." I spoke, my words strong in the night air.

Bailey nodded, accepting.

Simon continued. "Seems to me that any one stupid enough to still believe in God would have to bow to the logic that God intended for you to be who you are and they shouldn't try to change that. After all, it's not like you're murdering babies or anything."

I flinched and hoped no one saw. Across from me, I saw Rueben frown, his eyes trained on me. Uneasy, I spoke up to draw attention away from my weird reaction. "Bailey, you know you are always welcome to be exactly who you are with us."

Nev nodded earnestly. "Yeah! And not everyone who believes in God is like that, either. My nonna, she's about as churchy as they come, and she was the first one to hug my cousin when he came out a few years ago, and my parents don't care who I bring home as long as they're happy to say grace with us."

"Thanks, everyone," said Bailey, a thread of optimism in their voice that I strongly attributed to Nev's statement about bringing home less-than-traditional dates.

We spent a few more minutes around the glowing coals, then one by one, we drifted off to our separate tents, solemn but somehow bound closer. I lingered, waiting to see if Rueben would turn in, and felt thrilled that he stayed beside me.

"Hi," I said, twisting on my stump to face him.

"Hi. How are you feeling after your fall?"

"I'm okay." I lifted the sleeve of my sweater to show him the plaster over my elbow that I'd slapped on after washing in the creek earlier. "Just a little sore from riding, really."

"Do you want a shoulder rub?" Rueben lifted his hands, fingers gently curled in invitation.

Several muscles - low and intimate muscles - clenched reflexively. "Yes," I said, my voice cracking slightly. I wanted to be touched so badly, it was stronger than the hunger that growled in my stomach.

I crossed to where he sat and positioned myself between his legs. His thighs touched on either side of my shoulders, and instinctively, I wrapped my arms around his calves, locking us in together.

His hands dropped onto my neck, and every hair stood on end as if we were conducting large amounts of static. A small groan escaped me as his fingers began to knead the tight knots of my shoulders, and my body dissolved to mush under his touch.

Does he like me? I felt like a sixteen year old again, obsessing over a crush. I mean, I think I like him, not like love or anything, but like him. Does this mean he likes me? Or is he just being nice? Surely guys don't give massages to girls they don't like. Do they?

My eyes had drifted shut – all the better to obsess, my dear – and I let my head fall to the side until it leaned on his knee. "That's really good," I said, husky.

"I'm glad."

He kept rubbing, his hands working from my shoulders to my lower back. No way is this a platonic massage, I decided as his fingers skimmed up my neck and into my hair, lovingly caressing my scalp. I'll say something. Kiss him. Something.

"Rueben," I began, twisting towards him. "I-"

A loud belch interrupted me, and Simon staggered out from his tent, grumbling loudly. "If there is a god," he said, shoving his feet into his battered boots, "he should have made man's bladder big enough to last through the night."

He spotted us, and grinned. "Oh, massages, ay? I'll take one if they're on offer."

"Sure," responded Rueben uncertainly. "Um, tomorrow?"

"Sounds good!" Simon wandered off, staggering slightly.

I pushed to my feet. "I'm guessing there's a vodka-related reason his bladder is so full. Anyway, I should turn in."

"Karla, wait-"

"Thanks for the massage," I said quickly, face flaming and not even enough left of the campfire to blame. "And thanks for being there for me today. You're a good addition to our fellowship."

"You have my axe," he replied without missing a beat, his white teeth bright in the darkness as he grinned. "If I had an axe, that is."

Oh god, he's a nerd too. I was a complete sucker for someone as geeky as me. Swallowing hard, I scrambled for my tent before I could do anything embarrassing. "See you in the morning."

"Good night, Karla." His voice was the last noise I heard that night besides the zip of my tent flap, but as I crashed into a deep sleep, I wished for one more sound: the zip opening again and for him to curl up next to me, share my sleeping bag and hold me as I slept.