16 years earlier

I'm too gay for this shit! Can't you ask someone else for advice?" Nathan groaned as Anna told him that she wanted to marry the non-Jewish boy she'd been seeing secretly behind her extremely orthodox parents backs for several years now.

"I'm not asking for advice anymore Nate, I just want you to be there, yeah?" The usually patient black haired girl's brow was furrowed and her voice was heavy with fear.

"Marriage, come on Annie, we're barely 18. What are you thinking?" The soft jazz music in the background was starting to grate on his nerves and his head was starting to feel extra itchy under the yamaka he'd yet to take off from school; tell tale signs he was getting irritated with his best friend who was more like a sister to him than anything.

"Wake up you gay challah! Mom keeps going on and on about me marrying you. How am I supposed to do that hm? I'll be married within the year one way or another, wouldn't you rather it be to the man I love and could see myself having a sexual relationship with?"

"Ewww Annie, I don't wanna think about you having sex with Lorenzo." His face scrunched up and he sighed. She was right of course.

Anna sighed. "Look, Nate, I have not once given you grief about your love choices, in jest, maybe, but I don't braid you or pester you about if you are ever going to come out of the closet."

That was one of the things he loved about Anna for sure. "Do you mean berate?"

Her brow furrow deepened, "What did I say?"

"Braid, like a hairdo."

The girl waved a hand in dismissal, "The fact still stands."

Nathan laughed, "You look just like your ema when you do that." He shouldn't have said that. A darkness spread over Anna's face and tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes.

She sniffed and sighed wiping at her eyes, "So will you be there?"

"Can you even marry him at his place of worship?" He knew she could never marry under a canopy to a goy, but he wasn't sure how things worked with Catholics.

A shy smile from Anna relieved his worries for a brief moment before she scared him within an inch of his life.

"Please don't tell anyone, but I can't keep this from you anymore, it hurts my heart too much ach."

When she called him brother in Hebrew with a sentence like that attached, Nathan knew he was in for a big reveal like "Hey, I'm pregnant" or "I'm planning to run away to South America" or "I'm marrying the goy I've been dating behind my parent's back since middle school" and one of those things had already been discussed today so he was terrified.

"What is it achot?" If she could play the ach card, he could play the sister card.

"I became Catholic two years ago."

Nathan's jaw dropped. Of all the things he'd expected to hear, that was not one of the things on his list. He genuinely had no words. So what he ended up saying was: "But you still eat kosher."

Anna giggled, "Of course, I couldn't give it away."

"And you go to synagogue."

"Torah is in the Catholic religion also, they know all the prophets and the songs of David."

"I guess I knew that." Nathan sighed heavily and started pacing. "This, this is a joke right?" He asked turning to look at her with confusion shining from his light hazel eyes.

She shook her head no.

He took off his yamaka and scratched his head underneath it before returning it to its place on his head. "I think I would have rather you told me you were pregnant."

"Nathan." Anna sighed, "This is why I didn't tell you before."

"Does our history mean nothing to you?"

Anna started picking at the pale peach nail polish she wore, "This has nothing to do with that. I found the Messiah, our history is waiting for him to come and liberate us Nathan, I found Him, Jesus really is the Messiah, I search Torah and He fulfills all the prophecies! And he liberated me Nathan, please don't hold this against me."

The light and fire in Anna's eyes were enough to tell him that she had not left faith for a boy. It almost made him want to search as she had, but he was Jewish, and he had to cling to that, it's who he was. The Messiah hadn't come yet, because Israel was still a scattered nation.

Sighing, Nathan took Anna's hands into his own and squeezed tightly. "I'll be at your wedding achot."

Anna grinned, squeezing his hands. "Thank you ach, thank you." Tears rolled down her cheeks before her phone started buzzing in her pocket, she pulled out the old blackberry her parents had allowed her to have only last year. "Shalom ema," She answered, sniffling back the evidence of her emotions. "Yes, I am with Nathan's family." a pause while her mother spoke. "Of course ema, I'll be home right away. Shalom." She hung up and slipped it back into her theater hoodie pocket.

"See you later?" Nathan smiled softly.

"Yes, shalom Nathan, I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Shalom Anna."

When she left, Nathan let out a huge huff of air and started pacing. This was not how he'd planned his afternoon to go. He picked up his cell and called David, because that was all he could think to do at the moment.

"Nate, what's up, I'm getting ready to go to work." David answered the phone sounding slightly out of breath.

"Oh, sorry, is this a bad time? I'll call you back."

"No, No! Talk Natey boy."

"Have you ever heard of Murphy's Law?"

There was a short pause before David answered, "Somethin about worst case situations, if anything can go wrong, it will?"

Nathan didn't know why people thought David was just a jock with no brain. The kid was actually fascinatingly intelligent. Nathan was ashamed that he'd never noticed that before they had started hanging out together in the past few months. "Yeah, that's it." Nathan sighed.

"What bout it?"

Maybe it was the informality of his speech that gave Nathan the impression that he wasn't as smart as he was. "Promise you won't tell anyone."

"Don't know no one worth tellin Nate; what's on your mind?"

"You know Anna Ben-Zvi?"

"Your short wingwoman that goes with Ricci?"

"She just told me she was Catholic."

"So?"

Nathan started laughing bitterly to hold his tears at bay. "I feel abandoned, betrayed,"

"Hold on there, is she saying she isn't going to be friends with you anymore?"

"No, no," He sniffled.

"Then what's the big deal?"

"She's been lying to me for two years! We don't have any secrets."

David snorted. "That girl is probably not telling you a whole lot more than just that Nate."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know my little brother Corey?"

"Yeah, of course I do. I'm in theater too."

"Yeah, well, the little turd, I tell him I tell him everything, but he don't know most of the important stuff about me Nate, I couldn't bear to put that burden on him because I love him too much for that. We protect those we love sometimes by omitting things here and there to help them have a more peaceful mind. That make sense?"

"A little too much sense." Nathan sighed.

"Alright, that help sort you out?"

Another sigh, "Thanks Dave."

"Not a problem, now I gotta head to work. Don't think on it too hard, just take it as she loves ya."

"Ok, have a good shift." Nathan had no idea what David's job was but he glanced at the clock. It was 8:30pm, they had school in the morning, his heart broke a little thinking about all the other boy had to go through without parents around.

"Thanks, see you in the morning."

"Bye David."

"M'kay, bye."

The line went silent and Nathan sank into his desk chair and pulled out his homework. He didn't have the stomach for it, but the essay was due next week and he was no slacker.