Bottles of black eye makeup flood down the sink. I replace a ripped black t-shirt with a Christian kid polo and arrive to the home of one priest, one florist, and one mistake. I dry the dishes while my mother washes. Her slender fingers, red from years of praying, whisk scraps down the drain. She pulls up the plug and slams it down so the dirt cannot crawl back in. "Don't forget to pray tonight," she tells me.
The truth would make her church-diseased brain explode. I stopped praying seven years ago because kids like me don’t deserve their prayers answered. I could tell her that I only light my candles to hide cigarette smoke or that I kissed a short brunette girl last week to burn Rose McLaverty’s orange legs from my fantasies. Instead, “Yes, mother.”
I run up to my room and wait for the phone to ring. One accidental picture appears on the screen. Rose dances to the edge of the frame, her chipmunk-brown hair falls down her back. Her golden laced eyes gaze into beyond, I pretend she’s looking at me. My fingers pick at the scab on my stomach and continue as beads of blood trickle down towards my thighs. Maybe, if the blood runs out and I pray hard enough, God will let me into heaven. My phone waits on the dresser while blood poisons the shower water. I could call her first. If she calls it means she remembers, and she cares.
I step from the graffiti-covered school bathroom the next morning, Sex Pistols burn through my headphones and skintight jeans replace the clothes Jesus loves. Rose’s freckled face smiles from across the hall, she’s surrounded by a flock of girls, like always. “You never called me,” I say it like I did not stay up all night waiting.
“Oh right, sorry.” She almost means it. “I got busy. I’ll call tonight.”
At home, I shred my guitar strings and peel off my scabs to avoid staring at my phone again. Pointless tears stream down my face. “What's wrong, honey?” My mother asks.
Her face pauses between a concerned smile and frown because she cannot handle imperfection. I want to tell her about Rose, and all the girls before Rose. I’m not a perfect girl, Mom. I am a sinner. Do you still love me? She might say yes. It would not be true because God and his lovers do not love girls like me. She would try to fix me. I am unfixable. As much as I used to pray and bleed it never solved my problems. My tears evaporate, “I’m fine,” I lie.
I walk up to Rose and her girls in the hall, “Hey, you didn’t call last night.”
One of her friends whips around, “Because she’s not a dike like you.”