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Religious people confess their sins, right? Maybe if I did the same, I wouldn’t feel them tugging at my ankles, attempting to drag me into the fiery pits of hell below. Maybe if I use the hotline for its intended purpose, I won’t hear the roar of fire echoing around my brain between every heartbeat, or maybe I won’t catch a whiff of smoke every time I turn my head too quickly.
But I don’t believe in God. Where was he when my mother got her head blown off? When my father was crying out for him in the corner of the kitchen?
God didn’t save them that night, and he didn’t save me, either. Luck did. I felt it in the warm and weighty charm around my neck. My whole body buzzed with shooting stars and horseshoes and the number seven, not with the voice of the big man in the sky.
But that doesn’t stop me from reaching for the receiver or squeezing it against my ear as I flinch under another bolt of lightning. Before I know it, I’m squinting at the keypad, punching in a familiar number.
I hold my breath for all three rings.
Click.
“You have reached Sinners Anonymous,” my old friend says. “Please leave your sin after the tone.”
I pause. Exhale heavily down the mouthpiece and rake a hand through my sopping-wet hair. My sin is right there, stuck in the back of my throat, too thick and damaging to travel any farther. It grows bigger, denser, and my breath grows labored in an attempt to get around it.
Why do I feel like she’ll judge me? She’s not even real, for fuck’s sake.
My eyes drop to the book in my hand. To the label glued to the spine: Property of Atlantic City Public Library.
I choke out a shaky laugh and lift my gaze toward the rain hammering on the roof.
“I borrowed three library books, and I’ll never get to return them.”
