This Little Light - Lori Lansens Page 0,30

and Delaney sometimes mixed up her medium-sized skirts with Delaney’s small.

Fuck. You. Pastor. Hanson. Fuck. You. Sacred. Heart. And God? Where the hell is God? Doesn’t he see Fee here in pain and despair?

I honestly think I’d still believe in God if I hadn’t found out how haterish He is. You really start to get that lesson when you reach middle school and start taking health class with Miss Vogelvort, whose eyes went crossed after her last botched facelift. We didn’t talk about puberty or the reproductive system or nutrition in her class. No, we talked about the gays, and how much she, and God, hates them. I wanted to point out to her that Jesus is God, and if you really look at it, His profile is totally bi. He was hot for that prostitute, but then again, the Apostles? I just can’t imagine that the most awesome and influential schizophrenic who possibly ever lived would hate on anyone. Not gays. Not Jews. Not Muslims. Not Hindus, and not even Mormons—well, except for the child-bride fuckers—and possibly Scientologists because cult.

Vogelvort warned us one day about the need to resist our growing “urges” when we’re alone, because masturbation is a sin. She quoted a Bible verse, which isn’t in the actual Bible, about “wasting seed.” This, in an all-girls school.

I despise Vogelvort. We all do. Brooky does a hilarious Vortie imitation using this witchy-poo voice. “Girls. When the devil tempts you in your bed at night, think of my face and you’ll get a fright. Imagine I’m watching you. With my right eye. No, my left. No, my right. Whatever. You’re all going to hell!”

Brooky was right when she told Jinny Hutsall, that first day we met, that I only went to Sacred because of my friends. One day when we were in eighth, baking at Zuma Beach, I floated the idea of changing schools. The girls had laughed at the thought we’d leave Sacred, even with its stupid restrictions and bogus teachings. Even Fee thought I was joking. I mean, who leaves the best? Though I was having doubts as to whether it was the best. And I wasn’t brave enough to leave the school on my own, especially since my parents had just split.

Our Sacred Heart campus sits almost directly across from the public school, King Gillette High. We girls stand behind our huge iron gates each morning, pulling at our regulation high ponytails, wilting in our woollies, watching the circus on the other side of the road. Sometimes I catch sight of Chase Mason hopping out of his Jeep, then wish I hadn’t, because he’s usually being molested by some Lark’s Head fangirl who’s, like, flopping out of her beach-wear because no dress code.

The public school kids seem like a different species—dry-humping on car hoods, French-kissing on benches, dangerous-driving in the parking lot. Our teachers refer to them as Sodomites, and during our morning “Conversation with God” we pray for the lost children across the road. Maybe I should have been part of that tribe, instead of a secular fish swimming against the Christian current.

That’s it. No more skirting. No more sexism. No more Handsy. No more Crusaders. No more God.

I’m leaving Sacred Heart High.

* * *

—

Keep hearing noises outside. Keep checking out the window, but no one’s out there. Just the wind. There are a few copters in the sky—prolly the fire department machines that can handle the high winds—but they’re far away and not a threat right now. They’re concentrating their search at the beaches and all those homeless communities around the Santa Monica Pier and the tent cities in the canyons of Bel Air and the dry viaducts downtown. There are hundreds of reports of us being seen among the homeless. People say we’re handing out wads of cash so the vagrants will hide us behind their shopping carts and cardboard shelters.

I read the comments again, of course. Fuck. Me. I remember that each time I pressed Post on one of my blogs, I hoped a hundred people would read it. Now thousands of people are reading shit I’ve written, all the way back to middle school, and misinterpreting and misquoting. And then, also, somehow, my texts and chats on that app we girls thought was private? They—whoever they are—found it all. The thing is, I swear a lot. We all curse. But especially me. Memes of me cursing are everywhere this hour. And people are, like, freaking out that a girl who goes