Heretics Anonymous

by Katie Henry

  She collapses into a fresh batch of tears. I take a seat on the bench next to her.

  “You’re nice to stay,” she says, her head in her hands. “You don’t have to, though.”

  “I—” How do I tell her?

  “I know why they think it,” Jenny says, riding over me. “Because of Ms. Simon. Because I was upset about Ms. Simon and I tried to get things changed.” She slumps back against the bench. “But I did everything the right way, I followed all the rules. I started a petition. I tried to write an article. Nothing worked and no one listened, and now they’re blaming me for this?”

  “It’s not fair,” I say. “This isn’t your fault, it’s—”

  “I’m not sorry it happened,” she says. “I wouldn’t have done it like that, that’s not me. But I’m not sorry it happened. What they did to Ms. Simon isn’t fair, either.”

  We sit quietly for a moment. “Jenny,” I say, but then I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I’m sorry? This is all my fault? “Is this . . . is this personal, for you? What happened to Ms. Simon?”

  She frowns. “Is that the only reason I could find this unfair? Because I like girls?”

  Leave it to me to say the exact wrong thing. As always. “No, I didn’t—”

  “I don’t really talk about it,” she says. “Not because I’m ashamed or anything. I’m not. I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling horrible for having asked. “You’re right, it’s not my business.”

  She looks at me for a moment. Then nods. “Yes. It is personal to me.” She steals another nervous glance at the closed door next to us and swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Ugh. I cry when I’m nervous, I cry when I’m angry, and all it does is make me look guilty.”

  “Don’t tell them anything,” I say, and she crinkles her brow. “No, seriously, when you go in there, don’t say anything—”

  “I’ll be all right,” she says, straightening her skirt, straightening her back. “My grandma used to say—I mean, she said it in Igbo, but—‘You fall where God pushes you down.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m exactly where God wants me to be,” she says, then pauses. “And exactly who God meant for me to be.”

  The door opens, and Ms. Edison steps out. Jenny closes her eyes. When I left Spanish class, all I was thinking about was how to get myself out of this, what I could say to get out of trouble. None of that matters now.

  “Miss Okoye,” Ms. Edison says, “can you follow me, please?”

  Jenny shudders and starts to get up, but I’m faster.

  “No, I’ll go first.”

  Jenny whips around and stares at me, wide-eyed. Ms. Edison opens her mouth, but I’m through the door before she can object, turning the doorknob to Father Peter’s before she can stop me. I push open the door to see Father Peter at his desk and Theresa in a plush, plaid chair, looking back at me.

  25

  FATHER PETER MOTIONS for me to take a seat next to Theresa. I glance at her, and she smiles back without teeth. No one who hand-embroidered crucifixes on their knee socks should look that smug.

  Father Peter folds his hands. “Do you know why I’ve called you in here today?”

  My head feels heavy and light at the same time, like I might faint. “Yes.”

  Theresa cocks her head like a confused spaniel. Maybe she wasn’t expecting me to say that.

  “I mean, I think this is about the chamber orchestra thing last night,” I say. “Everyone’s talking about it, so.”

  “Did you attend the concert last night?” he asks, so mildly I almost forget this is an interrogation.

  “No,” I say, and that’s true.

  “Liar,” Theresa says, and Father Peter closes his eyes.

  “Theresa,” he sighs. “Please.” He turns back to me. “Miss Ambrose tells me she did see you in the hallway, during intermission.”

  “With Lucy Peña,” Theresa adds. “He was with Lucy Peña and they were talking, and I think they were discussing the vandalism—”

  “That’s enough,” Father Peter says.

  “Leave her out of this,” I snap at Theresa. “Lucy didn’t do anything, and I’m not going to let you use her in your—Inquisition fantasy role play!”

  Theresa whirls back to Father Peter, mouth open, but he cuts her off. “Is Miss Ambrose correct? Were you there?”

  I swallow. “I was there. Not at the concert, just in the hallway. But Lucy didn’t do anything; you can’t—”

  “Did you?” Father Peter interrupts me, with that same light touch. “Did you do something, Michael?”

  I knew, the moment I got up from the bench outside, that I would do this. That I’d have to. Maybe I even knew before, when Lucy deleted all our texts in the courtyard this morning. But it’s one thing to think about doing something that goes against every self-preservation instinct you have. It’s another thing to bring the word up from your reeling stomach, suck enough air from your lungs, and force it through your clenched teeth. It’s another thing to do it.

  “Yes,” I say, and I bet Theresa’s swelling with glee, but I’m looking at my feet, not her. I say it again, so that I can’t go back. “Yes.”

  “Were you responsible for putting up those posters? Damaging the wall?” I nod to both questions. “Did you have help?” he asks, and I snap my head up.

  “No.” I’m shaking my head so hard I’m surprised it’s still attached. “No one helped me, it was all my idea.”

  “Please,” Theresa says. “I saw you talking with her, you two were obviously plotting—”

  Father Peter waves her off. “Were you responsible for anything else over the past few months?” I stare back at him. “The dress code, perhaps? Our Life Choices assembly? The unofficial school newspaper?”

  “Yes,” I say again. How many times will I have to say it before it gets easier?

  “Really. All on your own?”

  My breath catches.

  “This group has been a disruption at St. Clare’s,” Father Peter says, “and I need you to tell me if there’s anyone else involved.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Because I have to say, I’m surprised these are the issues you’d choose. I thought, maybe a student with a real history of dress code violations . . .”

  Eden. Max.

  “Or someone who really knew Ms. Simon . . .”

  Lucy. Avi. Jenny, still sitting on that bench outside.

  “It was me,” I say. “Heretics Anonymous is only me.”

  Theresa makes a noise of disbelief, but Father Peter keeps his eyes on mine. “If you had help, you know,” he says, “this would be a lesser offense. You’re new to the school; it’s a hard transition. If someone influenced you, if they pressured you—”

  He’s trying to open a side door, an emergency exit. He’s giving me an out, steering me out of the burning wreckage I created and onto a fire ladder. And I want to take it. I want out. But I know who I’d be leaving behind.

  I shake my head. “It was me. It wasn’t Lucy, and it wasn’t Jenny—I don’t even know Jenny. She’s sitting outside because she’s a good person who cares about things, and you think that makes her suspicious, or guilty, or—she didn’t do this. This is nobody’s fault but mine.”

  Somewhere a million miles away, Theresa is squeaking her shoes on the floor. Somewhere a million miles away, Ms. Edison is telling Jenny Okoye to be patient, they’ll get to her shortly. In my rapidly contracting world, the only inhabitants are me, Father Peter, and my crushing guilt.

  Father Peter takes a breath in, but I get there first.

  “No matter what happens next, that’s what’s true.” I lock my eyes on his. “This is nobody’s fault but mine.”

  Father Peter is still, even as Theresa shifts and fiddles with her braid. I wonder what he’s thinking. Does he know I’m lying? Does he care? I can’t read his mind, but I hope he can read mine: I won’t give them
up.

  He presses the intercom button on his office phone. “Gloria,” he says when Ms. Edison answers, “please write a hall pass for Miss Okoye and release her back to class.”

  Theresa’s jaw drops. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

  “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me and the rest of the staff,” he says to her, but she’s already halfway out of her chair.

  “It’s not just him, it can’t be!” she says. “He’s covering for her, he’s covering for Lucy—I have half a dozen serious suspects.” She rummages through her bag, sitting by the chair. “If you look at the file I’ve put together—”

  “Gloria,” Father Peter says, his thumb on the intercom. “Please write Miss Ambrose a pass, as well.”

  Theresa’s still thumbing through an overstuffed manila folder when Ms. Edison comes to escort her out. “But the name is Heretics Anonymous,” she wails. “It’s plural!”

  After they leave, Father Peter and I sit in silence. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

  “Well,” he says, and picks up his phone, “I think we’d better call your parents.”

  When they arrive a half hour later, Father Peter seats them on either side of me. Mom is trying not to look as anxious as she is. Dad isn’t bothering to hide how pissed he is.

  Father Peter gives them a rapid, CliffsNotes version of Heretics Anonymous, ending with my bulletin board massacre. When he’s done, Mom and Dad look at each other, and I wait for them to unleash on me. But instead, Dad turns back to Father Peter.

  “I don’t buy it,” he says. Father Peter raises his eyebrows. Mine rise, too.

  “He couldn’t possibly have done all of this by himself,” Mom adds.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ausman,” Father Peter says, “Michael confessed.”

  “And who is he protecting?” Dad counters. “Let’s ask ourselves that. His girlfriend, for one—”

  “Lucy had nothing to do with this,” I cut in. “Just because she’s my—” I choke on the word. “Just because she’s my friend doesn’t mean she did anything wrong.”

  “This just isn’t Michael, it’s not him,” Mom says, and that sentence nearly slices my heart out of my chest. Because this is exactly who I am.

  Father Peter pulls out a sleek black laptop. “We also have him on security camera footage.”

  He turns the laptop around to show us. It’s bad quality, but there I am from a bird’s-eye view, running down one hallway with papers in one arm, keeping my hood on my head with the other.

  “That could be anybody,” Dad says. And it could. My hood stayed up the whole time.

  “I don’t think Michael owns a jacket like that,” Mom says, even though she washed it two days ago.

  Father Peter brings up a new window. It’s another video, of the hallway by the HA room, but from eye level, not high above like the security camera. Father Peter hits Play, and there I am again, throwing open the storage closet door and reappearing a minute later, arms full of folders and my face, what is unmistakably my face, turned directly toward the camera.

  Everything’s quiet. They are all watching me, but as I stare back at myself on the video, I’m almost relieved. I spent all day worrying and wondering how I was going to get myself out of this. And now I know. I’m not.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Michael,” Dad says, breaking the silence.

  “Joe!” Mom says, her eyes darting to Father Peter’s white collar.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Dad demands.

  I shake my head, still staring at Past Me on the screen, envying that he doesn’t know how badly he’s fucked up. “I don’t know.”

  Dad clears his throat. “Odd angle for a security camera,” he says to Father Peter.

  Father Peter looks embarrassed. “One of our staff members set it up in their classroom a couple of days ago; they discovered the footage during lunch.”

  “It’s a teacher’s?” Mom asks, sounding worried. “Why, have there been break-ins? Thefts?”

  “No,” Father Peter assures her. “It’s—she was concerned about the water quality of the drinking fountains.”

  Ah. Ms. Poplawski. Mom only looks more worried at the possibility of substandard drinking water.

  Mom touches my hand. “I don’t understand why you’d do this.”

  I take a second. I don’t know why I made it happen this way, but I know why I did it. “There’s—there’s really shitty stuff that goes on here, like sex ed that makes girls feel like unsticky tape and teachers who lose their jobs because they’re happy.”

  I take a breath. Everyone’s watching me, and Dad’s fingers are on the back of my chair, curling and uncurling.

  “Messed-up stuff happens and we don’t get a say and no one cares how we feel. And they should, and that’s why we did what we did.” I turn so I’m looking at Dad and no one else. “That’s why I did what I did.”

  Dad stares back at me, tightly expressionless. His hand drops from my chair.

  “What you’ve done is serious,” Father Peter says to me. “It’s criminal.”

  “Hold on.” Dad leans forward in his chair. “What laws did he break?”

  “Those are confidential records. They have Social Security numbers on them.”

  Dad turns to me. “Did you use any of that information to impersonate someone? Did you steal anyone’s identity?”

  “Seriously?” He glares at me. I shake my head.

  “Did you ever take the folders off school grounds?” he asks. I shake my head again.

  “He shouldn’t have looked at the records at all,” Father Peter points out.

  “Of course he shouldn’t have. But I do wonder why such important, confidential information was in an unlocked storage closet.”

  “I think you’re missing my point, Mr. Ausman.”

  “I think I’m missing the mention of a crime.”

  My eyes dart back and forth between them, like it’s a tennis match. Dad might want to literally wring my neck right now, but he’s standing up for me. Fighting for me. He won’t throw me to the mercy of the criminal justice system.

  “He’s disrupted multiple school events,” Father Peter says. “He’s shown blatant disrespect for St. Clare’s and encouraged his classmates to do the same.”

  Dad nods. “That is serious. And believe me,” he says, staring down at me until I shrink in my chair, “I intend to deal with it seriously.”

  Then again, maybe I’m safer with the police.

  “Look,” Dad continues. “What Michael did was very disruptive, and very, very stupid. But he’s not a criminal. He’s a kid.”

  Mom jumps in there, holding out her hands. “The semester’s nearly over,” she says to Father Peter. “If Michael could finish out the year—”

  “We would consider it a huge favor,” Dad overlaps her. “And my friend Craig Collins, he’s always liked Michael, I’m sure he would also—”

  Father Peter waves them off. “I’d like to hear from Michael.” He turns to me. “Do you understand why what you did was wrong?”

  “Yes.” It hurt Lucy.

  “And do you regret doing it?”

  “Yes.” I regret hurting Lucy.

  “Do you want to stay here?” he asks. “Do you want to be at St. Clare’s?”

  If he had asked me that five months ago, I know what I would have said. I would have jumped at the chance to get away from theology, morning prayer, and a plaid tie noose. I don’t know when it changed, whether it was my first HA meeting, or when our video popped up during the assembly, or whether it was an unmemorable lunch with Lucy and Avi or walking the track with Max or listening to Eden talk about Irish gods, but something did change. And even if none of them ever forgive me, I want to be with them. I want to stay and try to make things right. I want to be here.

  “Yes,” I say, and a flood of tears rushes past all my barriers and blockades. “I’m—I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Good,” Father Peter says, as if the sorry was meant for him. “I’m
glad to hear it.” Mom puts her hand on my back and rubs little circles.

  “You’ll serve four days of out-of-school suspension,” he continues, and I try to get myself under control. “And you’ll report to me every day after school until I decide otherwise. As for the damage to the bulletin board and the wall, that will need to be paid for.”

  Mom nudges Dad, and he digs in his back pocket, where he keeps his wallet. Father Peter holds up a hand to stop him.

  “Thank you, but I don’t think that’s constructive,” he says, and focuses back on me. “We’ll be using funds that would otherwise go to end-of-year celebrations, and your classmates will know that.”

  He smiles, a little grimly, and stands. “I doubt you’ll be very popular. But I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

  26

  AS SOON AS we trudge through the front door after a very silent car ride, Dad jabs his finger at me, then at the couch. “Sit,” he orders, like I’m a dog. He hates dogs.

  I sit on the couch and try to assess the situation. The worst has already happened, I think. I’m suspended from school and none of my friends ever want to speak to me again, so what else could my parents possibly do?

  Mom sits next to me on the couch, her mouth set. “Obviously,” she says, “you’re grounded.”

  No shit, I think, but nod in response. When I look at Mom, her eyes look softer, and maybe a little surprised. Did she think I’d fight her on that?

  “And obviously, we should discuss what’s happened,” Mom says.

  “Father Peter already told you everything.” I’m suddenly bone-tired, every muscle aching. I wish they’d get this lecture over with. I want to go upstairs. I want to go to sleep.

  “So now you’ll tell us,” Dad snaps.

  “We want to hear it from you,” Mom says.

  So I tell them. I tell them everything, from my first horrible morning at St. Clare’s, to meeting Lucy and Avi and Eden and Max, to my first Mass and my first HA meeting, all the way through to smashing through the bulletin board’s glass. I leave out a couple of things, like the coed slumber party and the alcohol I stole, but I tell them mostly everything.