The Opposite of Hallelujah Read Online Free

awkward phase I spent more than a little time staring at Hannah’s graduation picture over the fireplace and wondering if someday I might look like her. Hannah was gorgeous, at least before she entered the convent, because that’s how unfair the world is. What a waste. If she was going to be a nun, couldn’t she at least have been ugly? Who knew what she was going to come back looking like, but in her graduation photo, which still had its prized place on our mantel, she was radiant. Long blond hair and blue eyes—like mine, but way prettier—great skin, tall and effortlessly thin. She got all the good genes and at the first possible second covered everything up with a habit.
    “Did Derek like camp?” Reb asked, clearly trying to draw me out. “Have you heard from him?”
    “Got a letter a couple of days ago,” I told her. “He’shaving a lot of fun up there. Ever since we got together he’s been talking about that camp and finally going back as a counselor—or junior counselor, I guess. You don’t get to be a full counselor until you’re eighteen. He’s sad to be leaving.” Derek got shipped off to the same summer camp six years earlier when his parents were finalizing their messy divorce, and he said that rather than making him feel abandoned and lonely, the camp saved him. If they had it year-round, that was where he’d choose to be, he said.
    I was excited about Derek’s return, but I was nervous, too. We’d known each other pretty well for about a year before he asked me out, and when he came home at the end of the previous summer, he bragged about all the girls he’d made out with under the dock, which I guess was an amorous place at summer camp. I hadn’t had the guts to ask him before he left if our relationship status applied while he was in Wisconsin, and it seemed ridiculous to put the question in a letter and wait in agony for a response, so I decided to have a little faith. It was a hard thing for me to do, and very soon I was going to see whether it was justified. The thought of it made my stomach drop.
    “Reb?” I asked tentatively.
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you think it’s possible that Derek cheated on me at camp?”
    Reb thought about the answer before giving it, aswas her way. “I don’t know,” she replied finally, saying the words slowly. “I mean, I think he really likes you. But I don’t like to predict people’s behavior because it puts funny ideas in your head and then half the time you’re wrong. So.”
    I was silent.
    “I know that’s not the answer you wanted to hear,” she said after giving me a quiet minute. “But I don’t want to make you any promises just to soothe your ego or whatever.”
    “I know,” I said, secretly wishing she’d just said she didn’t think he’d ever look at another girl now that he was with me. “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome.” She smiled broadly and yanked me off the couch. “I think you need a refill.”
    We wandered into the kitchen. Erin had the contents of her father’s liquor cabinet displayed on the counter, and Reb set to preparing me a drink; when she was the designated driver, she liked to play bartender, and since she was the only one of us with her own car, she’d gotten pretty good at it. I was more than a little buzzed by then, but I didn’t want to let on and look like a loser. Reb handed me a Solo cup full of something that smelled like nail polish remover and fruit snacks.
    “Reb,” I said. “Do you believe in God?” The second I said it, I realized I had no idea why I was asking, and from the look on her face, neither did Reb.
    But that was what I loved about Reb—she was always game. She took a while to consider the question, then said, “Oh, I don’t know. Probably.”
    “Probably?” Reb was usually so sure about everything, one way or the other. It was odd to hear her expressing anything like doubt or uncertainty.
    “I mean, I’m Jewish, right?”
    “Right,” I said, not exactly sure where she