I raised my hand for the bathroom pass again. Godfuckingdamn her.
. . .
Here’s the strange thing about peace: For a teenager it is unrecognizable. Until you lose it. Knowing peace, appreciating peace is truly an adult art—one that I had not mastered before I came to know Veronica.
In some ways, I took her subsequent abuse to be a punishment for not being truly grateful that most of the kids had ignored me before Veronica, that the constant whispers about me had died a tired, overused death. I had even had the nerve to resent that most of my fellow high schoolers still called me Monkey Night, that is when they called me anything at all.
What I hadn’t realized was that God had done right by me before that day, and I kicked myself for never bothering to thank Him for my first anonymous year of high school. Because by Tuesday, I had come to think of my school as a field of mines. My one goal in every class I had with Veronica was to concentrate above the whispered insults.
On Wednesday, one boy, in a fit of trying to impress her, put a monkey squeeze toy in my seat. I sat on it, and the class started laughing almost before they heard the loud squeak.
Veronica was beautiful when she laughed. The sound was as soft and precise as her accent: ta-ha-ha-ha. As if those four syllables were all that she allotted for each laugh.
It was basketball week in gym class, and by Thursday I had learned to play a new type of defense—the kind where I stayed as far away from Veronica as I could possibly get on a standard-sized court. That only worked about half the time, though. Invariably she would pop up behind me. Like a vampire. Then she’d body check me so hard as she ran past me, that I fell.
“Watch out!” she would yell as she dribbled away, so the gym teacher would think it was me being clumsy and not Veronica out to get me.
She and Tammy would make monkey sounds whenever I passed by them in the hallway. Tammy scratched her head and her tummy while making the sounds, putting as much enthusiasm into making fun of me as she did into her cheerleading. But Veronica just stood there with a sly smirk on her face and one hand cupped around the side of her mouth as she made the sounds.
By Friday, Veronica had made something old new again, and everybody was doing the same things that they used to do to me in elementary school.
I’m fairly sure that’s the day I started out-and-out hating Veronica’s guts.
I did not blame my strangeness for my new position, and this was because, against all odds, I was not one of those teenagers who believe that everything bad that happens to her is her own fault.
No, I had read the books. I had seen the movies. And I knew.
Cora was a really bad mother. And Veronica was a fucking bitch.
. . .
Still, I didn’t think she had told James or Tammy about Cora and their father.
James still walked down the hallway as carefree as ever. I didn’t think he could fake being that relaxed if he knew what his father was up to—at least not that effectively.
And Tamara seemed to have more fun than malicious intent when she helped her sister make fun of me. She never did it when she was by herself. In fact, she averted her eyes whenever she walked past me, which suggested shame.
Neither Farrell sister ever acted a fool around James.
This only made me love him more, because as bad as things got during the rest of the day, James was above the fray. Whenever I was near him, I was safe.
. . .
On Saturday, Mr. Farrell showed up at our house with flowers, Hennessy, and a ten-dollar bill for me.
“So what movie you going to see?” he asked, smiling down at me like it was my idea to get out of the house. Cora must have told him that I usually went to the dollar show when her friends made early evening house calls.
I shrugged.
“She don’t talk,” Cora said.