He shook his head. “Ain’t you scared?”
If I’d answered honestly, I’d’ve said no. Fear floated around like constant pollen, but none of us were allergic. But there’s a moment when it all becomes too much. And it was coming like a wildfire bent on burning the whole place to the ground.
Chapter 14
I walk down to the cafeteria for lunch. Benny stands inside the doors and nods at me when I enter, her mouth hitched up in a slight smile. She’s been helping me since I arrived here. I gather she was more or less assigned to me, or maybe she took the job herself because she saw how wobbly I still was on my feet. She’s usually got a book rolled up in her back pocket, and when I asked her about it she explained that she always carries a book in case she’s stuck somewhere with nothing to do.
“What do you read?” I asked, still gobsmacked to hear a woman talk about books out in the open, where anybody could hear.
“Nonfiction,” she said. “I’ve got a good one right now about the Haitian Revolution.”
“Benny studied history in school,” Angel explained, “before she sold her soul to the state government.”
When I grab my tray of food and find our normal table, Angel’s already seated, sneering at an Asian girl with a thick band of dull black bangs.
“Minnow, it’s so nice to meet you,” the girl says brightly when I walk over. I don’t recognize her. Normally, Angel and I eat alone. “I’m Tracy. I just wanted to make sure I introduced myself. I know how scary this place is the first week. The girls can be a little ruthless.” Her eyes dart quickly to Angel.
“What did I miss?” A girl so skinny that her limbs remind me of a deer’s slides her tray down the table and sits beside Tracy.
“Minnow, this is Rashida,” Tracy says.
“Nice to make your acquaintance,” Rashida says. “What happened to your hands?”
“Rashida, don’t ask things like that,” Tracy exclaims.
“Why not? Something happened to ’em. It’s not like they fell off by accident. They’s saying you got chopped by a serial killer, but I told ’em naw, she definitely a farm girl, probably got sliced by a combine.”
“My father cut them off with a hatchet,” I say, just to see how the words sit in the air.
Tracy’s breath catches in her throat, and Angel cocks an eyebrow from her fried chicken, but Rashida’s head falls back and she laughs a booming laugh that echoes across the cafeteria. “For real? I’d be telling that to everyone if that happened to me. With a hatchet? That’s way better than a combine any day.”
I smile, too, because it’s impossible not to when she says it like that.
“Rashida and I are in the youth group here,” Tracy says. “You should come sometime. We talk through things that are bothering us.”
“And you think Minnow wants to talk through the fact that her dad chopped off her hands with you and Rashida?” Angel asks. “Now that’s funny.”
“Someday, Angel—” Tracy seethes, “someday you’re gonna do something you can’t talk your way out of. And then you’ll be sorry.”
“I think I already did,” Angel says, putting her fork down. “And do I feel sorry? Did I repent like a good little girl?” She holds her hands together as though in prayer. “Did I cry in front of the judge and say I made a big boo-boo and I’ll be good from now on? Fuck no. I don’t need forgiveness from some six-thousand-year-old pervert who sticks it to virgins when they’re not looking.”
There isn’t another word out of either of them for the rest of lunch.
? ? ?
“Why don’t you believe in God?” I ask Angel after lights-out. We’re both in our beds, though I can tell Angel’s up reading by the line of yellow light visible between her bunk and the wall.
She doesn’t answer right away. She’s quiet for so long, I wonder if she’s fallen asleep.
“Because I don’t need to,” she says finally.
“What’s that mean?” I ask.
“Some people need cancer medication. I don’t, so I don’t take it.”
When I don’t reply, she sighs. “I understand why people used to believe in God. Maybe I would’ve, too. They wanted to understand the world better. To explain why things happen the way they do. And God was pretty good at that. But we don’t need him anymore.”
I know she’s talking about those books she reads, the ones that tell her what the earth is made of and why the sun burns and what happens when lightning strikes, but I can’t read those books. The Prophet never allowed girls to read, and I think it’s probably that fact more than my hands that makes me feel like I never stood a chance.
“You don’t still believe in that stuff, do you?” Angel asks. “God and everything?”