Christine answers some more questions from Andre and Clayton, then gives her own testimony. 

She had distant and emotionally neglectful parents as a teenager. She ran away from home at fourteen and lived on the streets, doing sex work to survive. She took a lot of drugs, dated a woman named Rachel who was also a homeless teenage sex worker, and had unprotected sex with men and women. Eventually at seventeen she went to ex-gay camp, found God, and recovered from her homosexuality. She has not had homosexual sex since she was nineteen. 

Does anybody have questions about her testimony?

That seems like a deeply intrusive thing to ask questions about. 

That seems like it would involve a conversation with Christine that wasn't built on elision and bullshit. 

Is that what being an openly gay person is like. 

Sixteen-year-old Christine seems like kind of a cool person, too bad about adult Christine. 

And after she's answered some questions from Dolph, they're dismissed for dinner.

"The first one wasn't too bad," he says conversationally to Asher, "although I doubt I'll be able to keep not talking." 

"That could have been worse," he says to Lev. 

He glances around, then says in a low voice, "I'm going to have to spin some dire bullshit for this one."

"Well, I already know what my root is," he says to Marlo, "so this will be an easy couple of weeks."

"I'm extremely skeptical of the whole concept but I really don't want to have to give up free time. I can keep giving you answers, in a broad-strokes kind of way, if you want." 

"I'm glad! That it'll be easy for you, I mean. I have no idea what mine is." 

"Yeah, I have both 'distant and demanding parents' and 'rejection from peers because you were too sensitive.'"

(It doesn't matter. Marlo's going to hear it in three weeks anyway.)

To Sasha: "Oh, good, so I don't have to track anyone down and disembowel them for hurting you?"

"You do not!" 

"...that makes sense but I'm not sure I can imagine not liking you for being too sensitive." 

"...You like me?"

He sounds earnest and a little surprised.

"Maybe we can figure out what our roots are together. Personally, I am leaning towards a lurid tale of parental abuse, because fuck my parents."

"Course I do." He is slightly uncomfortably aware of just how much he likes Lev.

"I'm not sure I trust them not to tell my parents if I go that route, and I do need to deal with them, I'm seventeen." 

"Is peer rejection plausible?"

"People don't usually like me."

Lev is smiling directly at Marlo and it lights up his whole face.

"I have no idea why." 

Lev has the most lovely smile. 

"I think I might go for lack of appropriate same-gender role models, I could sell peer rejection but I like Natalie too much to throw her under the bus like that." 

"That's not gonna get you shit from your parents? --Were they divorced, I bet you could sell divorce."