The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,20
to time. It just sucked when the tables turned. Bad.
The bell rang announcing the next class. She was saved, she thought, feeling more as if she were in a boxing ring and not a high school hallway. She didn’t expect much quarter and didn’t get any. Protect yourself at all times, as they say. She’d been beaten down but threw her guard up as she saw him coming around the corner. She turned back around and hoped the adrenaline pump inside her was good for a second whirl.
“I can hear you rolling your eyes,” she said, feeling Sayer come up behind her.
“Hey,” he said, trying to act concerned.
“Been crying?” she mocked, noticing his red eyes and knowing full well he was stoned.
“How are you?” Sayer asked.
“More to the point, how are you?” Agnes responded.
Sayer was slightly built and long-haired; he was generally dazed and nervous-looking with a toothy perma-smile as if he were almost about to be caught doing something wrong in mid-laugh but wasn’t exactly sure what. His natural demeanor suited this situation perfectly. Her nonchalance was totally unexpected. He thought he might get read the riot act, but Agnes seemed to be offering a peace pipe.
“I’m okay,” he answered.
“Oh, that’s a relief. I assumed you must have broken your fingers or your legs or something.”
She clung to the burning heart charm under her bandaged wrist and outlined it with her finger as she talked to him.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, otherwise, I thought for sure you’d come by for a visit or call or even just text,” Agnes went on. “Then it occurred to me it must be solar flares.”
“Solar flares?”
“You know, screwing with the Internet. I mean, it had to be something pretty drastic for you to not come see me or even ask how I was doing, right?”
“Opening up your wrists is pretty drastic, Agnes,” he half whispered, topping his insensitivity off with a nervous giggle. “It was, like, scary. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say.”
“So you did nothing,” she said. “You said nothing.”
“Not exactly nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about you the whole time.”
“So I’m supposed to be telepathic now? Thinking about me? When? Between bong hits and hos?”
For the first time, she was able to see him for the selfish, disheveled, stupefied, and unreliable stoner her mom so vehemently disapproved of. The pointlessness of the conversation took her totally out of body and she began to beat herself up for being so stupid and impulsive, for her moments of weakness or rebellion, but if any good had come of this self-destructive episode, it was that the brain fog from this relationship had lifted. Thank God she hadn’t slept with him. At last, something she and her mother could agree on.
“Did it hurt?” he asked slowly, running his finger along his own wrist for emphasis.
“Not as much as it does now.”
“I guess I’m a pretty lame excuse for a guy.”
“Just some guy?” she said in a tone that parents and lawyers often use when asking a leading question. “You were supposed to be the guy.”
He wasn’t great at thinking on his feet, and her sarcastic inquiry was met with awkward apologies.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he whined, the most authentic emotion she could ever actually remember getting from him.
“That’s it?” she hissed. “You cheated on me!”
“I never said we were exclusive.”
“You knew how I felt about you.”
“It was just too much pressure, y’know. All the love stuff,” Sayer said. “I just wanted to have some fun.”
“Does this look like fun?” Agnes screamed loudly enough to stop the between-class traffic clogging the halls, holding her bandages up to his face.
Sayer just hung his head.
“It’s not worth it,” Agnes said, turning her back on him and rummaging through her locker. “I guess you were just an excuse. For me.”
“Forgive me?” he asked, reaching for her shoulder, mustering up his most concerned face. “Please.”
Startled by the sympathetic gesture, she looked him over and honestly thought about it for a second. He was just doing him. He was sorry, at least as sorry as it was possible for him to be. She could see that, even in his blank expression and glassy eyes. But he had now entered “what was I thinking?” territory in her head. The worst place for any guy to be.
“My mother was right about you,” Agnes said, almost choking on her words.
“At least you finally admit it. We both know, this was never about me.”
“Don’t turn it around,” she said, tears beginning to flow more from