The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,19

was inspiring also, Catherine thought, in its own way. CeCe bought the rock-and-roll myth. Catherine could see that. A true believer. She was born to do what she was doing. She just knew it. And no one could convince her otherwise. Despite the self-assuredness in what CeCe said, however, the look of hurt in her expression also spoke volumes.

“Your parents don’t seem to like those kids hanging around. The window shades are always pulled down and they never speak to any of them.”

“No surprise there,” Cecilia said uncomfortably. “They don’t speak to me, either.”

“Oh,” Catherine said, sensing she might have hit a nerve. “Don’t they approve of what you’re doing?”

“Approve?” CeCe said, her voice rising and nose crinkling up like she’d just smelled raw sewage. The word almost gave her the chills. Whatever the opposite of approval was, that’s how her parents felt about her choices and how little support they gave her. They had provided a nice house, nice clothes, nice things. Everything but what she craved. It’s why she ran away. She’d stopped seeking their approval the minute she got off the bus at the Port Authority. The fact that Catherine even used the word told Cecilia everything she needed to know about the girl. She still measured herself by her parents’ standard. Naïve. Dependent. Still had their voice in her head. That could be a dangerous thing in this town. Pleasers were eaten alive and spit out like rat guts on the C line.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Catherine said.

“It’s cool. It was a lifetime ago, y’know. I’m over it. I get all the approval I need from this,” CeCe said, nodding at her guitar case.

Catherine could see that CeCe had exhausted whatever patience and politeness she’d mustered and was pretty much done with the memory lane chitchat.

“So, any advice?”

Cecilia paused, weighing her words.

“Go home, Catherine,” Cecilia advised with a tight smile as she pulled a pint bottle of vodka from her coat pocket and raised it in a faux toast. “Just go home.”

3 Agnes felt like a car alarm going off after midnight as she walked down the hallowed corridors of Immaculate Heart Academy, the bandages wrapping her wrists her siren. The burden was almost too much to bear, even more than the seeping wounds that threatened to stain her history book through her dark blue school uniform sweater.

Being back in school was humiliating, but it was still far preferable to her than being at home. Nevertheless, the cuts she was expecting from classmates were certain to be deeper and more painful than any she’d inflicted on herself.

“Accessorizing?” came the sly whisper from a two-dimensional blonde traipsing down the hallway, swirling her finger in a circle and eyeing Agnes’s wrists. The more they commented, the more she hiked up her sleeves, defiantly offering herself up to their ridicule.

“Love your stitch bracelet.”

She was pelted. With words.

“Sadster.”

“Next time, try harder.”

She took it. Each tongue-lashing. Closing her eyes briefly after each one, recovering, and then walking forward.

“Choose life!” another mocked, holding her comparative lit book up like a fevered preacher bangs his Bible.

“Classholes,” Agnes mumbled under her breath. She kept walking, keeping her focus forward. Taking everything that they threw at her with strength and dignity. There was a certain pride in being willing to die for something or someone, she told herself. It made the berating a little more bearable, anyway.

Her friend Hazel came up beside her. “Guys—can’t live with ’em and can’t die for ’em.”

“Not now, Hazel.” Agnes smiled. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Let’s hope so!” Hazel said, then burst out laughing at her own joke.

Agnes continued down the hall; she watched everyone watching her. No one approached her. She felt betrayed.

It was hard for her to fault any of them though. Not that she was particularly forgiving, because she wasn’t. It’s just that these weren’t exactly enemies. Not friends either really, but more than acquaintances. People she hung out with after school or at parties or did group profile pictures with, tongues wagging outward suggestively, giving some unseen someone the finger. Poring over horoscope books and studying numerology, as it pertained to certain guys and whether they were liked by them or not. They were part of her crowd and she was part of theirs, whatever that meant. Fun but numb inside, all of them. She wouldn’t have expected much sympathy from them even if they knew how to express it. She knew what they were like and what she could be like, from time