My Best Friend's Exorcism(29)

Gretchen slammed her feet on the ground. “Fuck them,” she hissed. “Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them. I hate them.”

“You are a virgin, right?” Abby asked.

Gretchen’s eyes zoomed in on Abby.

“You’re my best friend,” she said. “How can you even say that?”

Abby looked away.

“Why’d they take you?” she asked.

Gretchen stared straight ahead and Abby turned to see where she was looking. Behind her was the auditorium garden, the brick walkway, the sidewalk, and the distant Lawn where fourth graders were filing outside with Mrs. Huddleson’s turtles. Abby realized Gretchen wasn’t seeing any of it.

“I had to put on a robe that didn’t cover anything,” Gretchen said. “Then the doctor made me put my feet up in stirrups so he could see everything, and then he stuck his fingers inside of me. They were freezing cold, and afterwards they gave me a tissue to wipe out the grease, but I can still feel it down there.”

Gretchen’s pupils were pinpoints. She was breathing hard.

“That’s sick,” Abby said.

“My mom said it’s because of the noises,” Gretchen whispered. “She and my dad can’t sleep at night because of noises in my room.”

“What noises?” said Abby.

Gretchen bit a hangnail off her little finger and spat it out.

“Sex noises,” she said.

Abby didn’t understand.

“From your room? What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Gretchen snapped. “I’m sleeping. I’m finally sleeping. They’re liars. And they lied to the doctor, and now he thinks I’m having sex.”

“Your mom’s crazy,” Abby said. “They can’t do this. It’s child abuse.”

Gretchen wasn’t listening to her anymore.

“They’re going to tell everyone,” she said. “They want to get rid of me. They want to send me to Southern Pines.”

“Did they say that?” Abby asked.

Southern Pines was worse than Fenwick Hall. Southern Pines was where crazy kids went, and even Riley wasn’t bad enough to wind up there. But it existed, somewhere out in North Charleston, the ultimate threat. Cause too much trouble, cross some invisible line, and your parents sent you, like Sweet Audrina in the V. C. Andrews book, to get electroshock therapy and lose your memory, one toasted brain cell at a time.

The fifth-period bell rang.

“The doctor has a file on me,” Gretchen said, tears gathering along the bottoms of her eyes as she held up her thumb and forefinger two inches apart. “This thick. I’m not going to let them send me away. You can’t let them.”

The sky was thick with clouds and a strong wind pulled them to shreds. No one was sending Gretchen away. This kind of thing didn’t happen to people like them. Abby found a ragged Kleenex in the bottom of her bag and wiped Gretchen’s face.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “You’re just tired.”

Gretchen jerked her head away.

“If they send me away, I’ll kill them both,” Gretchen said. “I’ll get my dad’s gun and kill them both.”

“You don’t mean that,” Abby said.

“I begged them to help me,” Gretchen said. “I begged them. And they put my name in for prayers at church and—”

Gretchen couldn’t go on. She dug her fingernails into her knees, squeezing so hard her wrists shook. Abby tried to pull on them, to make her relax, but Gretchen kept digging in.

“What happened?” Abby asked.

“It was an accident,” Gretchen said, letting go of her knees and swiping tears off her face. “I threw up again.”

“In church?” Abby asked.

Mute with shame, Gretchen met her eyes and nodded.

“They know you didn’t mean it,” Abby said.

“They made me eat oatmeal,” Gretchen said. “I told them I didn’t feel good, but they didn’t listen. They decided I had to have breakfast. They decided that’s what’s good for me. They never ask me what’s good for me.”

“When’s the last time you ate something?” Abby asked, taking Gretchen’s left hand in hers.

“I can’t,” Gretchen said.

“It’ll settle your stomach,” Abby said. “I’ll get you Donut Stix and ginger ale from the machines.”

“No!” Gretchen said, pulling her hand away, her eyes wide. “Everything I eat tastes nasty and rotten. I’m so hungry and I’m so tired, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Abby put her arm around Gretchen’s shoulders and pulled her close while Gretchen buried her head against Abby’s chest and hyperventilated. After a few minutes, Abby tried rocking her from side to side. A minute later, Gretchen held her palms out.

“We are the world,” she whisper-sang, rocking into Abby from side to side. “We eat the children.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose, and now they were both rocking from side to side all cheesy, singing their own private version of “We Are the World.”

“We put butter on everything,” they both whisper-sang. “And just start chewing.”

In sixth grade, Mrs. Gay had made the lower school choir do a special lunchtime performance of “We Are the World.” Gretchen had been Kim Carnes. Abby, who had no musical ability whatsoever, was relegated to playing Quincy Jones, standing in front of the choir and pretending to conduct. In blackface.