Part One
“Speak ill of me, or speak well of me, but speak of me...”
One
Andrea
“There’s always someone worse off than yourself,” the old lady at my side mutters.
I cut her a look, wonder what she’s talking about, and then see she’s watching TV. It’s been playing ever since I arrived, but I barely noticed it, more interested in my phone than the news that’s on repeat.
“Savio Martin, a Catholic priest serving as a missionary in Algeria, has been abducted by the so-called Algerian Christian Revolutionaries. Unlike the Trappist monks of the Tibhirine, who were beheaded by the Islamic Salvation Front to oppose the presence of foreign ministries in the country, the group’s intent behind the abduction is unclear.
“In a nation being torn apart by civil unrest—”
I flinch at the sight of the country that flickers on the screen, showing images that belong in a nightmare. Rubble from destroyed buildings is strewn like Lego blocks on the roads, women and children are crying, huddled in one another’s arms in search of succor and escape, and men are bruised, bloodied, and dazed from fighting.
Then, the priest himself, Father Savio Martin, comes into the shot. It’s a small photo of him, and for some weird reason, it’s black and white, but man, he’s cute.
I mean, he’s so cute that it’s a tragedy he’s a priest.
I blink at the TV screen, speculating if it’s wrong to drool over a holy man, and then I kick myself because of course, it is.
It shouldn’t take fourteen years of Sunday school to teach me that.
At my side, the older lady who smells faintly of minty Altoids, tuts and mumbles, “Such a shame.”
Her remark has me asking, “They won’t hurt him, will they?”
She glances at me. “Who knows? Heathens. The lot of them.”
I frown at her. “That isn’t very Christian.” Especially when she’s condemning people as ‘heathens’ who call themselves the ‘Algerian Christian Revolutionaries.’
She just sniffs, and that right there is why I refuse to practice anymore.
I used to be Catholic. I mean, technically I still am. My parents make us go to church every Sunday, and I still run chores for Father Gonzalez because Mom insists I do them, but the second I’m away at college?
Nope. Not going to happen. I doubt I’ll ever set foot in a church ever again.
Why?
Because it’s a load of bullshit.
Here I sit, in a Catholic hospital, beside a woman who wears a crucifix she keeps fingering to give her strength as she chomps merrily away on boiled candies, and she just slandered an entire people over the actions of a few.
I find that a lot. Prejudice is more prevalent than dog crap—it’s everywhere. Even worse? Hypocrisy. That’s like gum on the streets, and once it’s stuck to you, it’s impossible to get off the bottom of your sneakers.
Me?
I don’t care if you’re black or brown, Catholic or Muslim, I’m never going to judge you.
That’s what free will is about, right?
See, I came to the conclusion a while back that I was a theist. I believe in God, but I just wasn’t supposed to be Catholic.
And the lady at my side has just rammed that home neatly.
Sniffing back at her, I focus on the screen where the cute priest is still taking up airtime. The newscaster is discussing what’s going down in the nation, why the civil war started—man, I feel bad for not knowing there was a civil war happening in Algeria—but all I can think about is the priest.
He has a kind smile.
His eyes are beautiful.
He’s beautiful. It’s like his soul is shining back at me.
“Do you think there’s any hope of his release being negotiated by the French government?”
He’s French?
Ugh, so he’s all kinds of pretty and he has an accent.
God, such a crying shame he’s a priest. Even more of a shame that he’s been frickin’ kidnapped.
Double ugh.
The door to the waiting room opens, and I’m glad the nurse wanders over to the woman at my side. Sure, that means I’m stuck here for a little while longer, but if she takes the bigot away, I’ll be happy.
Heathens, my ass.
Where’s the tolerance? Aren’t we supposed to love everyone?
See?
All bullshit.
But me, someone who says she isn’t a Catholic, is sitting in this waiting room for a stranger.
A stranger I helped save.
At least, I hope the kid is ‘saved.’
I tug on my bottom lip as I stare at the priest on the TV, then shift over to look at the door. The woman at my side has scurried away with the nurse, taking her Altoids with her, but even though I’ve been here longer than her, no doctor has come to explain to me how the boy’s doing.
And that’s exactly what he is.
A boy.
I suck in my bottom lip as I think about this morning. All I had planned was just a regular day at school. Then, on my walk in, I’d seen a foot.
Nothing more, nothing less.
A foot.
But the way it had been tilted was weird enough to make me investigate.
Of course, I shouldn’t have. Even though we’re supposed to help the vulnerable—cue eye roll, because it seems like charity doesn’t matter anymore—I should have walked away. Even the receptionist here gave me an ‘are you for real?’ look, but if I can help someone, I will. I’m not going to turn a blind eye.
So, anyhoo, I was walking along, minding my own business, then I saw the foot. When I saw the kid the foot was attached to, I knew something was wrong.
He wasn’t dead. Not yet. His skin was this weird blue color, which made me think he wasn’t getting enough oxygen to his system, and from his barely moving chest, I figured that confirmed my supposition.
I’d have moved him, put him onto his side as I waited on the ambulance to get to him, but he had a needle stuck in his arm, quivering there obscenely.
My lips turn down at just the memory, because it looked uncomfortable. Yet the boy hadn’t cared. I know whenever I get my shots, I’m always grateful when the damn needle is out of my skin, but he’d been too out of it to even notice if it was causing him any pain.
Drugs... they always talk about them in school. The egg in the frying pan? ‘This is your brain on drugs,’ yadda, yadda, yadda? They always speak about gateway drugs and peer pressure and how we need to say no. But as I stared at the kid, waiting on an ambulance I wasn’t sure would come because I highly doubted the boy had insurance, I wondered what on Earth would lead anyone to crave this.
Was it worth it?
I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer unless I take drugs myself, but seeing the kid rammed something home for me this morning—the next time Judith Foster tries to get me to smoke weed at one of her dumb parties? I’m going to tell her to go fuck herself.
And after four hours of being stuck in this waiting room, that belief has only grown more powerful.
I’d been tempted last week. So tempted. All my friends had been doing it, and they’d all started being mean to me when I said no. But I just knew I’d like it, that I’d like the escape, and that made me distrust it.