CHAPTER 26
Josh
“How do you know there’s not a God?” Tierney Lowell spits out at Drew, twenty minutes in to a debate that’s been raging since the fifth period bell rang. It started with a discussion about a short story we’d read last week and somehow devolved into a full-scale back and forth on the existence of God.
“How do you know there is one?” Drew retorts. He isn’t even trying. This is laziness, or just apathy. I’ve seen him practicing for debate, and this is nothing for him. He’s just baiting Tierney for fun.
“I never said I knew. Faith isn’t about knowledge. That’s why it’s called faith, jackass. Thus, the expression, leap of faith.”
“Ms. Lowell?”
“Moron, mule, idiot, fool, Drew.” Tierney tosses out. It’s Ms. McAllister’s rule. You use an unacceptable word, you have to come up with five to replace it.
She lets the Drew part slide.
“When did you turn all religious?” Drew doesn’t miss a beat. Everyone is paying attention, heads whipping back and forth like the audience at a tennis match.
Immoral people debating the existence of God is always a crowd pleaser. Especially with palpable sexual tension thrown in.
The only other sound in the room is the periodic slam of the stapler Sunshine is using in the corner. She’s been collating papers since class started. Her back is turned but I can almost see her listening.
“I hate religion. I believe in God.”
“Believing in God is for weak people.” Drew almost sounds bored, but it’s obvious he’s enjoying this.
“Then it’s a mystery why you don’t.” She leans back in her chair but Drew doesn’t take the bait.
“People believe in God because they don’t believe in themselves. They need something else to depend on or to blame instead of taking responsibility for their own
shit—crap,
excrement,
waste,
mistakes, faults.”
“That’s rich coming from a person who takes responsibility for nothing.”
“I’ve never denied my actions.”
“Which makes you such a moral paragon.”
“Morals?” Drew chokes out the word which probably burns on his tongue. “Isn’t that the pot smoker calling the kettle black?” Kevin Leonard and the other stoners in the room think this is the greatest thing they’ve ever heard. “Don’t lecture me T. I take responsibility for everything I do.”
“Not everything.”
“If you’re going to make accusations, back it up, give me some support, otherwise your arguments mean nothing.”
“We’re not in debate, Drew.” She doesn’t look cowed by him. She looks betrayed.
“We might as well be. Same rules.
You want to say something, support it.
Otherwise, don’t throw it out there because you just make your argument weak. Kind of like people who believe in God.” Ms. McAllister changes the subject and effectively ends the discussion. It’s surprising that she let it go on as long as she did. The conversation might be over but the glaring between Drew and Tierney continues until the end of class, and I wonder if they might start ripping each other’s clothes off right here.
***
Nastya
“Go sit. I’ve got it.” Josh nudges me away from the sink after we’ve cleared the dishes from dinner. I eat here more often than not now. It’s the only time I ever consume an actual meal. He makes me real food and I keep him in desserts.
“You cooked. I can wash the dishes.”
“No. You can’t.” He pulls the sponge out of my hands and turns off the tap while I go clear off the rest of the table and dump the dishes in the sink. We’ve fallen into an oddly domestic pattern and it’s kind of pathetic when you stop to think about why.
“I can’t wash the dishes?” I ask, disbelieving.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“Why not?”
“Because you suck at it.”
“I suck at it?” Who sucks at washing dishes? It’s not brain surgery. It’s cleaning the food off of a pan.
“Yes. How can you not know this? I have to rewash the dishes every night after you leave.”
“You do not.” Does he?
He looks at me and I know it’s true.
“You’re anal-retentive.”
“Yes, I like to eat off clean dishes. I have issues,” he deadpans.
I think of how low I’ve sunk. I don’t even have the ability to clean a dish properly. He cooks, he cleans up the dishes, he builds freaking furniture. I feel useless around here. The dryer buzzes and I figure I can do something.
“Fine. I’ll go fold the clothes.” I turn to head into the laundry room.
“No, you won’t. Just sit.”
“I can’t fold clothes, either?”
“You are not folding my underwear.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. It’s weird.” He reaches across me and pulls open a drawer full of dishtowels with a dripping wet hand.
“Here. Dry.” He snaps the towel at my chest, splattering me with water in the process.
I grab it out of his hands. “Maybe I’ll just go get a pair of your boxer shorts and dry the dishes with those.” Childishness is not below me.
“How do you know I wear boxer shorts?”
“Just hoping.” The alternative is so unappealing.
He shrugs, handing me a plate. “Go ahead. You’re the one who has to eat off of them.”
“No one likes you,” I reply, because muttering under my breath, like a surly teenager, is cool.
I end up using the towel and Josh is right. He does wash the dishes better than I do. Mostly because I’m lazy when it comes to any kind of cleaning but he doesn’t need to know that.
“What was with Drew and Tierney today in English?” I ask.
“What? The God thing? Drew and Tierney always argue. Drew would argue the merits of celibacy if Tierney was against it.”
“Maybe. It just seemed personal.”
“Drew likes to piss her off. He was just messing with her today. He could have argued her into the ground if he wanted.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t. He’ll destroy anyone in debate.” It’s impressive.
If he feels like it, he’ll verbally assault someone to the point where they can barely stand when it’s over. He won every round at the tournament we attended a few weeks ago and he didn’t even pull out the full arsenal of charm.
“He didn’t have to. She has no chance up against him. It wasn’t even worth his effort.” It’s true. That’s just Drew. He just does it for fun until he gets bored. He’s like a cat batting a lizard around until it’s too maimed to play with anymore.
“Why does McAllister let it go? It wasn’t even what you were supposed to be discussing.”
“That’s how she gets to know everyone. She can figure you out a lot easier if she just lets you go and listens.
Finds out how you think. Learns your strengths and weaknesses.” It’s like recon.
I’m impressed. But it’s not the most efficient when you only have two people arguing.
“No one else even got involved,” I say.
“No one else is stupid enough to want to debate the existence of God. It’s an unwinnable argument.” He finishes putting the last of the clean dishes back into the cabinets.
“On which side?”
“Either.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes,” he answers definitively. My expression must betray me because he asks, “What?”
“I’m just surprised. I didn’t think you would.”
“Because I’m cursed and everyone around me dies?” he asks unemotionally.
I don’t want to give him affirmation, but it is what I was thinking.
“I believe in God, Sunshine. I’ve always believed that God exists,” he says.
And what he says next isn’t self-pity or angst or melodrama. It’s truth.
“I just know that he hates me.”
Maybe what he says should floor me, but it doesn’t even make me blink. Maybe I should jump in immediately and tell him that he shouldn’t think that way. That, of course, God doesn’t hate him. That it’s a ridiculous thing to believe. Except, it’s not.
Nothing about it is ridiculous. When you watch
every
person
you
love
systematically removed from your life until at seventeen years old there is no one left, how can you think anything else? It makes such perfect sense that the only thing that surprises me is that I didn’t think of it myself.