Prompt: Respond to this photo

Samantha leaned against Derek, resting her head on his shoulder as the bus lurched toward South Carolina. She’d never admit it, but in a way, she’d courted him — attending his Bible study group and strategically asking for rides to the monthly church bonfire (he was a senior with a Volvo; she was a sophomore, embarrassed by her mom’s minivan.)

Derek slept soundly beside her, as he always did. He could drift off to sleep in her bedroom, the door cracked, after moving his hand up her skirt. She liked it but it left her out of breath, eyes open, staring at the ceiling and listening to the soft voices of her parents floating down the hallway from the kitchen.

None of this seemed to bother him. He could fall on his knees, cry during Sunday service and then lead Bible study on Tuesday. It didn't matter to him  that the week before he’d taken her bra off and held her breasts in the woods behind the baseball park.

At a similar camp to the one they were headed to, Samantha had sat in her seat staring down at her shoes while a speaker discussed sexual purity.

“Your virginity is a gift,” the man had said, looking out across the roomful of highschoolers. “Imagine a gift that is wrapped and tied with a bow. If that gift is given to someone, if the paper is torn and the ribbon discarded, who’s going to want that present from you any longer?”

Now here she was, on her way to another fellowship retreat, with skirts that reached past her knees and cardigans that covered her chest packed alongside a single tankini she’d bought with her mother at Target, just before the trip.
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He slept soundly, But she wanted to turn around.