Page 21 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

Dressed in full clerical vestments, Gabriel strides onto the chancel. I’m so relieved to see a familiar face I’m blinking away tears.

I hope I can talk to him before school starts. I know I’m the only female student here, but for heaven’s sake, this can’t be normal. Maybe if he makes an announcement or something, like that other woman—Sister Miriam?—did. He can tell the boys to leave me the hell alone.

I push back my shoulders and sit up a little straighter.

But then I remember what he told me yesterday. That the boys around here earnprivileges. I guess there’s no way he’d consider showing me any kind of special treatment.

After a short sermon, Father Gabriel leads us in the Father’s Prayer.

Our father, who art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name.

I barely murmur the words loud enough to move my lips. I wouldn’t be praying along at all, but I guess it won’t hurt.

What else is there to do but keep playing along like I have been all my life? What’s a few more weeks, months, years?

Maybe by becoming the perfect student, I’ll earn myself a private room. Perhaps even some kind of protection against the boys.

It’s a lot to hope for, but I have Mom’s stubbornness on my side.

I duck my head and squeeze closed my eyes. My lips tremble as I fight with myself. But this time, I lose the battle.

Thoughts pour into my mind like rancid oil.

How could you abandon me like this?

You weren’t even supposed to be in that car with him.

You were supposed to be at home, with me.

You’re mymother.

You told me you loved me, and then you chose him over me.

You always did.

I bite the inside of my lip until I taste copper.

I hate you.

Ihateyou!

I fucking hate?—!

A hand lands on my shoulder. “Trinity?”

I jerk away from the touch, and turn brimming eyes up to Gabriel. “Father,” I manage in a wobbly voice.

“May I join you in prayer?”

I’m vaguely aware of boys streaming past him in the aisle watching us intently.

If I spoke, I’d start sobbing like a kid so I scoot silently aside. Father Gabriel takes a seat beside me, his thigh warm and hard where it presses against mine. With a quick smile at me, he sits forward and rests his elbows on the backrest in front of our pew. Then he clasps his hands and bows his head.

Guilt eats through me like a heap of maggots.

He thought I was praying when he walked past, when in truth I was cursing my dead mother.

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