Page 6 of What Rough Beast

Five

Micah

I have to go to church, and the reason for that is—How would it look?

That’s a phrase that has dictated a lot of things in my life. How would it look if the sheriff’s son wasn’t in the pew? How would it look if Micah Harding wore a Black Lives Matter shirt? How would it look if I sent a dick pic to some girl?

Dad’s answers to all these things is “It would look bad,” and possible alternative solutions are party harder on Friday night than Saturday, wear an OSU jersey instead, and Why wouldn’t you just show it to her in real life, when she can actually do something with it?

I could always throw some things back in his face, like asking how it would look if anybody ever found out our recycling is mostly wine bottles, or that the whole force knows Mom gets a pass on Breathalyzers. And that’s without even mentioning the big one, the thing that he and I have never actually talked about and have an unspoken agreement to keep it that way.

I’m actually calm today, and while I’d love to say it’s because my faith keeps me grounded, or that looking at Jesus hanging from the cross alleviates all my fears, it’s because I was up until five in the morning planning the best escape routes from the house in case of a fire. There is currently a notebook next to my bed with detailed diagrams. I feel okay right now because I managed to wear my brain out with the possibilities, and it hasn’t been able to come up with the next thing I need to freak out about. But when it does, I’ll do it quietly and only on the inside because How would it look?

The last few stragglers are coming into the church, Ethan pushing Quentin Wagner’s wheelchair. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile this side of my best friend—the one who comes to church with Hailey’s family and helps unload her brother from the accessibility van—with the same guy who has his girlfriend saved in his phone as “Bologna Nipples.”

But, like Hailey says: “He might be an asshole, but he’s my asshole.”

Which is the type of thinking that has kept her by his side through a lot of shit, right up to him saying that her cousin is hotter than her and he would’ve totally taken a shot at that if he thought he had a chance.

But he’s not wrong. I try not to look directly at the cousin cleavage as she walks past me, but it’s difficult because it’s all right there and it’s so . . . jiggly. There’s a sharp pain in my earlobe, and I jerk my head to the side as Hailey flops down next to me in the pew, only letting go when I whisper, “You’re hotter than her, okay? Jesus, get off.”

“Not likely,” she says, nodding toward the marble representation of our Lord hanging at the front of the church. “I cannot wait for her to go back to Florida.”

“Why’s that?” I ask, not realizing that my gaze is still tracking the cousin’s path.

“Because I prefer it when guys look at me when I’m talking to them,” Hailey says, grabbing my chin and turning my face toward her.

“Any preference on where?” I ask, switching my focus to her chest instead, of which I am an admirer. But from a distance, because best friends and bro laws.

Dad glances back at me from our pew up front, sees Hailey sitting next to me and can’t hide the small frown that grows. The Wagners don’t exactly have the best reputation, and it has nothing to do with how much boobage the females are happy to show off, rain or shine, church or poolside. It’s because they’re the Wagners. Small towns are like that; your last name can determine your fate.

This is why a Harding can be an absolute piece of shit and still be assured that he can grab a free coffee at the café even if he doesn’t have his wallet on him, while a Wagner gets a tail as soon as they walk into the gas station. Hailey’s family is known for having sticky fingers, but also, they’re just weird. Half of her Grandpa Pete’s face is frozen, and he can’t talk. He’s been trying very, very hard to tell everyone something ever since I can remember, wandering into town and growling. Dad finally warned them that they’d have to do something about Pete or he’d be labeled a public nuisance.

To be fair to my dad, he didn’t issue that ultimatum until Hailey’s grandpa showed up at the annual Picnic at the Park last summer, wrestled the microphone away from the fifth grader singing “Amazing Grace” up on the stage, and started grunting at the crowd. The Wagners couldn’t afford to put up a fence or anything around their property, so they offered their yard as a free dump site to anyone in the community who wanted to get rid of their old appliances. This is why Hailey’s yard is surrounded by broken stoves, rusted-out dryers, and a couple of decrepit refrigerators, which means Grandpa can only leave the property via the driveway, making it much easier to keep an eye on him.

“Son, you need a girlfriend,” Hailey says now.

“I don’t want one,” I tell her. “I’m good with hookups.”

“Oh yeah?” she says. “Then why are you so deeply unhappy?”

Up in the choir loft Mrs. Moretti launches into the processional, the old pipe organ wheezing into life and giving me the out I need to break eye contact with Hailey as Ethan slides into the spot on her other side, immediately entwining her fingers with his. I look away, ignoring the drop in my stomach, the gut punch that Hailey just delivered. She’s smarter than she looks. You can’t have climbed the social ranks from Wagner to possibly-future-Brimley without perception, tactics, and—in Hailey’s case—the ability to turn a blind eye every now and then.

It’s the perception she just nailed me with, though. Right through the heart and to the back wall of the sanctuary. It’s not that I want a girlfriend, because I actually don’t—it would be way too hard to hide the real Micah from her if I did.

Am I deeply unhappy?

I think about this while one of the Dalton twins reads the first and second lesson. We read the bold parts of the psalm back to the lector as a group, but my mouth is just making words while I try to puzzle out if I’m clinically depressed or not. When it’s a downswing like this, when I’ve worn myself ragged, sometimes I think maybe I am. But from what I’ve read, depression sounds more like not caring about anything, when the truth is that I care a lot. Too much. The care turns into worry, the worry into obsession, and obsession into a spiral-bound notebook with a red cover, the twenty-third of its kind.

The other twenty-two are in my closet, in case I need to reference them for something, like what the order of operations is if Mom drives the car off the bridge and into the river, the proper procedure for CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, or what to do in the event of being attacked by wild dogs. My brain dutifully churns out scenarios every day, and I solve them. But it’s never settled, never satisfied. It can always think of the next worst thing.

Ethan’s hand sneaks up Hailey’s leg throughout the sermon, and I finish up the Lord’s Prayer alongside my friends, trying not to think too hard when I say, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

As usual Hailey adds, under her breath, “Except Ava Germaine.”

And, as usual, I know that I can’t be forgiven. Because even though the person I trespassed against is sitting right here saying the same words, he doesn’t even know what I did.

Six