by Katie Henry
I grab her hand then, because it feels right. She puts her other hand on top of mine, and we’re layered, skin on skin on skin, until Lucy says: “Let me guess. Your new religion encourages forgiveness?”
“It’s a major tenet.”
She chews on her lip. “That’s the thing about brand-new religions. They need structure. For Catholics, confessing your sins and doing penance to receive forgiveness is a sacrament. It means something.”
“Okay,” I say. “So let’s do it.”
“What?”
“Let’s do it. I’ll do it, right now.”
She looks confused. “The priests do confession on Saturdays; you’d have to come back.”
“I’m not Catholic. I don’t care about priests, or God. I don’t need their forgiveness. I need yours.”
I grab her hand and pull her up. She squeaks in surprise but doesn’t protest as I lead her to the back-right corner of the chapel.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she says, looking at the empty confessional.
“Never been more serious. Which side is for the priest?” She points, and I open the door to the opposite side and climb in. She stands there, unmoving.
“Come on,” I say. “Every future priest needs practice.”
Lucy cracks a smile but still stares at the door. I know this will be the only time Lucy sits on that side of a confession booth. She knows it, too. She opens the priest-side door and climbs inside.
It’s stuffy and dark with both sides shut, tiny beams of light shining through the crosshatching in the doors and the grate that separates us.
“I’ve never done this before,” I remind her. “You have to tell me what to say.”
She clears her throat. “You say, ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’”
“Forgive me, Lucy,” I say. “For I have sinned.”
“Then, you talk about what you did. Who it hurt. Why it was wrong.”
So I do. I start from the moment Lucy left my house with her viola. I tell her about dinner, about going to find her, about hanging the posters and regretting it instantly. I tell her about what I said to my dad, what he told me about his life, even though they aren’t sins against her. I tell her about how it felt to eat lunch alone, how it felt to watch her hurt and know it was no one’s fault but mine.
When I’m done, we’re both quiet. In a small, forceful voice, Lucy gives her next instructions. “This is the part where the priest gives penance. Like saying so many Our Fathers or Rosaries.”
“Please, no Rosaries. Have mercy.”
“No Rosaries,” she agrees. “I want you to apologize to Eden and Max and Avi, like you apologized to me. Same level of detail, everything. I want you to drive me to the nursery and help me plant new flowers. And I want you to come with me to Easter Mass.”
“Is that all?” I say, not quite believing I got off so easy.
“No,” she says. “I want you to promise you’ll never, ever do something like that to me again.”
“I promise.”
“Then go and sin no more.”
“The woman caught in adultery!” I say, because I know that line.
“I—what?” Lucy says.
“Go and sin no more, Jesus says that to the woman caught in adultery, and you said it was a doubly important passage because Jesus didn’t explicitly reject the Old Testament laws that condemned her to death, but he still convinced her accusers to let her live, and some translations—”
“Oh my God,” she interrupts, sounding breathless through the grate, sounding like she’s smiling. “You read my Bible.”
“Yep,” I say. “So I know there’s a commandment about taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
But she never even hears me, because she leaps out of the priest’s booth, flings open the penitent door, and kisses me, longer and harder than she ever has. And when she kisses me, there is no confessional, there is no altar or chapel, no fear or hurt, sins or forgiveness. There is only us, wrapped up in a moment and in each other.
I don’t believe in God, but that doesn’t mean I believe in nothing.
I believe in love. I believe in the love Lucy shows me, the kind I’ll try hard to give back to her in full. I believe in things I can’t put into words, but things I know to be true.
I believe in us. I believe in this.
Amen.
Acknowledgments
Saint Ambrose once said, “No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” And while he had some unfortunate opinions on heretics, I think he was right about gratitude. So let me start by returning thanks to my childhood church, Newman Hall–Holy Spirit Parish of Berkeley, California. Thank you for showing me the best of what religion can be. Sorry about the cannibalism joke in chapter five.
All the gratitude in the world to my agent, Sarah LaPolla, who first encountered this book in its infancy and expertly guided it through its awkward, adjective-heavy adolescence. Thank you for seeing what this book could become, even when I couldn’t.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Ben Rosenthal, for championing this book from the beginning. Your enthusiasm was infectious and your insights were invaluable. I’m forever in your debt. Thank you to Mabel Hsu, David Curtis, and the entire Katherine Tegen Books team for all your hard work—and of course, to Katherine Tegen herself. Thank you for believing in this book.
To my writers group—Brian, Emily, Michelle, Siena—thank you for all the snacks, book recs, and endlessly helpful notes. Thank you also to the Electric 18s and the Class of 2k18. I feel so lucky to have shared my debut year with such talented people.
Thank you to all my writing teachers over the years, especially Doug Zesiger, Myla Churchill, Kate McKean, Deloss Brown, and Matt Carton. Eternal thanks and gratitude to Chris Malcomb, the first person who made me believe I could be a real writer. I wish you could have seen this.
All my love to Rob. Thank you for every single conversation about medieval history, depressing cartoons, and weird hagiographies. Most of all, thank you for sharing your life with me. On our first date, you admitted to not really liking young adult fiction. Four years later, you’ve celebrated every little victory by my side, talked me through my toughest moments, and even read a YA book or two. So I guess the joke’s on you, buddy.
Thank you to my large, loud, loving family, new and old, biological and chosen. If I named every one of you, this would go on for pages, but I hope you know who you are. Special thanks to Carrie, for bursting into tears when she heard this book would be published. A lifetime of hugs to Leah, my brilliant, precious sibling and the bravest person I’ve ever met.
And finally, thank you to my parents, for supporting my writing career every step of the way and without any hesitation. This book would not exist without you, and not just because you literally gave me life. This book would not exist without you because without your unwavering love and encouragement, I never would have been brave enough to write it. Mom and Dad, I can’t thank you enough, but I’ll try anyway.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
About the Author
Photo credit Chris Macke
KATIE HENRY is a writer living and working in New York City. She received her BFA in dramatic writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a published playwright, specializing in theater for young audiences. Her plays have been performed by high schools and community organizations in over thirty states. Heretics Anonymous is her first novel. You can find her online at www.katiehenrywrites.com.
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Heretics Anonymous
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Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
HERETICS ANONYMOUS. Copyright © 2018 by Catherine Henry. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art and design by David Curtis
Toast photo by Sascha Burkard and Kamyshko/Shutterstock
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Henry, Katie, author.
Title: Heretics Anonymous / Katie Henry.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2018] | Summary: When nonbeliever Michael transfers to a Catholic school in eleventh grade, he quickly connects with a secret support group intent on exposing the school’s hypocrisies one stunt at a time.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034682 | ISBN 9780062698872 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Conduct of life—Fiction. | Catholic schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Faith—Fiction. | Self-help groups—Fiction. | Family problems—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1H4646 Her 2018 | DC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034682
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Digital Edition AUGUST 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-269889-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269887-2
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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