My Best Friend's Exorcism

by Grady Hendrix

Turning eighteen doesn’t determine when you become an adult in Charleston; neither does registering to vote, graduating from high school, or getting your driver’s license. In Charleston, the day you become an adult is the day you learn to ignore your neighbor’s drunk driving and focus instead on whether he submitted a paint-color change proposal to the Board of Architectural Review. The day you become an adult is the day you learn that in Charleston, the worse something is, the less attention it receives.

Plus, I’ve picked up things. Like, you never wear a tie during a deliverance. Do that and you’ll wind up getting strangled, guaranteed. Happens every time.”

“I love you,” Abby shouted into the storm. “I love you, Gretchen Lang. You are my reflection and my shadow and I will not let you go. We are bound together forever and ever! Until Halley’s Comet comes around again. I love you dearly and I love you queerly and no demon is bigger than this! I throw my pebble and its name is Gretchen Lang and in the name of our love, BEGONE!!!”