Black Sheep

by Rachel Harrison

Kerri told me I should try not to think the worst of people.

“I don’t,” I’d told her. “It’s intuition.”

Some people need conspiracies, finding the simple horror of the truth too brutal.

We worshipped gods of our choosing. Satan. Christ. America. Celebrities. Capitalism. Clean living. The New England Patriots. La Croix.

I found it interesting that those who believed themselves righteous only ever cared about those who agreed with them, and were keen to let those who didn’t suffer whatever brutal fate. There seemed to me an inherent hypocrisy in faith itself.

I was tired of being bitter, tired of my cynicism. It had never saved me from heartache, never insulated me from hurt. It had only made me miserable. Maybe I wanted to be the kind of person who, in spite of everything, still chose to have a little fucking faith. To have some hope. Not to give up.