When he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous. “What,” he said, “did you say?”
My voice froze in my throat.
“Nothing,” I whispered, the word sounding strangled and strange. I could feel the color leach from my face.
“Dad!” Rachel jumped up from her seat. “You’re early! I thought you’d still be on the train.”
Our father ignored her. “What do you mean, nothing?” he said to me. “Nothing what?”
“Deena was just saying,” Rachel said in Dad’s direction, fast and nervous, “that sometimes girls say the most horrible things. That’s bullying, you know. I’m sure it’s against school policy.”
“Don’t you go covering for your sisters again,” Dad shot back at her. “That school’s feckin’ policy is the reason I’m here in the first place. Getting people in to talk about deviant lifestyles with impressionable kids.” He gestured at me, grimacing. “It encourages this kind of disgusting talk.”
“I’m not—” I said. “I didn’t mean—”
Dad’s voice lowered, had that dangerous edge to it again. “You’re damn right you didn’t mean,” he said. “And you’ll say nothing like that ever again, you hear? I’m giving you one last chance. If I get even a whiff of this off you again, I’m sending you to one of those camps. Sort this nonsense out once and for all. I won’t have another bad apple in this family. Mandy’s bad enough already. No daughter of mine—”
“Dad,” Rachel said peaceably. “This is all just a big misunderstanding. Everyone knows Deena is a nice, normal girl.”
“Then she’d best start acting like it,” Dad said to Rachel as if I weren’t in the room, as though I were a naughty child needing to be taught some manners.
I could neither speak nor stop the tears that had sprung up the moment my sister—the one whose opinion actually mattered to me—had said the words nice, normal girl.
I wanted to speak up, defend myself, tell the truth. Instead, I did the only thing my body seemed capable of doing, something that probably proclaimed my guilt even more than my tears. I turned and ran out the door.
2.
Please stand for morning prayers
Dublin, 2012
The words drummed on my umbrella like raindrops. Nice, normal girl fogged up the air in the crowded bus. Nice, normal girl formed puddles on the school grounds that my shoes threatened to slip in. Nice, normal girl.
I walked into the hall for Friday assembly, drenched despite my umbrella, shivering. I draped my dripping coat over the back of my chair and took two long puffs on my inhaler. They didn’t help unknot the panic in my chest.
The hall filled slowly. Girls in green sweaters and tartan skirts sat in small clusters: the prefects and class reps to the front, the rebels at the back, the popular girls in the exact midpoint of the hall—the center of our small universe. The rest of us branched out from them, groups of friends chatting together or yawning, scrolling on their phones or showing off their renegade nail polish, strictly forbidden by the school dress code.
I sat alone.
My phone lit up with a message from Finn.
Many happy returns on this the day of your birthday which I wish I was spending with you instead of in math test purgatory. Pretty sure Mr. Geary is going to fail me. Approx. 5 hours of homework dished out already and it’s not even 9. Me and some of the lads are considering an uprising. How’s your stats looking?
My best friend, by virtue of being a boy, was unable to attend the same school as me, which would have made the long hours I spent there infinitely easier. As it was, we had to be content with narrating the tedium of our weekdays via text. Finn was smart, and well liked in his school, so his tedium mostly consisted of being overworked by admiring teachers who only wanted the best for him.
Bleak. Stats as follows. Dirty looks received: two. Whispers directed at me: three. Possibility of nasty rumors circulating: mid to high.
I didn’t mention anything about my dad.
Stay strong, Finn messaged, his usual parting words.
I got in a You too before the vice principal called for us to please stand for morning prayers.
I could recite the Our Father in my sleep, so I let my voice go to autopilot and looked around at the other girls, noticing that two seniors a few rows behind me stayed seated, kept their mouths clamped shut during morning prayers in silent protest.
They were stone warriors, chins raised defiantly like statues of queens. One had long earrings, two bright purple plastic Venus symbols. The other wore two pins on her collar: one was a large enamel rainbow flag. The other said DON’T HATE, EDUCATE.
Nobody gave these girls dirty looks. No rumors circulated about them the way they did about me. They were untouchable; they radiated cool. Unlike me—ill-defined and self-conscious, plump, freckled, and bespectacled like the bumbling best friend in an old children’s book—these girls announced themselves, chins high, daring anybody to challenge them. We may have sheltered underneath the same umbrella, but, in the many judging eyes of the school, we were completely different species.
Our prayers ended to a chorus of amens.
“All right, girls.” The vice principal’s voice came through the mic in front of her. “As you all know, there has been some hullabaloo about the cancellation of the Schools Out Loud workshop last week.”
It had been all over local news and radio:
Dublin school calls off LGBT youth group’s anti-bullying workshop.
Sixth-year girls organize protest against school’s cancellation of LGBT group lecture.
Those seniors, soon joined by a couple of the more confident younger girls, had been quick to criticize the school’s decision. When I’d tried to do the same during lunch break on Monday, my classmates’ eyebrows had immediately shot up.
“You have probably seen our statements on school social media,” the vice principal went on. “Our Lady the Mother of Immaculate Grace Secondary School has a zero-tolerance bullying policy. We are proud to have a diverse student body. However, some parents expressed concern over an activist group speaking without a fair and balanced counterargument present. The school board is looking into speakers who can represent the other side of the discussion. In the meantime, the Schools Out Loud workshop has been postponed, not canceled.”
I chanced a glance behind me. One of the two sixth-year girls had bent her head to whisper in the other’s ear. They both rolled their eyes, then glared back at the stage, sitting even straighter. A girl in my class, sitting close by, noticed me looking and elbowed her friend. They both giggled.