Mina has been reportedly carrying the Lord’s child since the beginning of the summer, which means, oh dear world, that we can expect the baby’s grand arrival in early March. We see it as our divine duty to spread the TRUTH as far and wide as possible, and ask that you please do the same. We have created this Virgin Mina website to explore Mina’s nine-month journey, and we ask you to leave your observations, questions, concerns, etc. in the comments section, as we want this to be a forum for group discussion. We also ask you to send any pictures and suggestions for the site to the e-mail address provided on the contacts page.
Please note: ONLY BELIEVERS MAY ENTER. (And for all you nonbelievers—SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU F*#@ING CRAZY?! Who doesn’t believe that babies can magically appear out of thin air without sperm or penises or any kind of sexual interaction?! Didn’t you read the BIBLE?!)
Our most sincere blessings to all,
TEAM VIRGIN MINA
Hannah’s voice stopped reading, but I could still hear all the words, looping and weaving like bright red ribbons through my mind.
Who could have started this? Who would hate me this much?
I mean, even if everyone thought I was lying, why couldn’t they just ignore me? Leave me alone? I hadn’t asked for any of them to believe me. I hadn’t asked for them to worship me.
I hadn’t asked them for anything.
“How many . . . ?” The question froze on my lips, but I didn’t have to finish. I’d seen the answer for myself as Hannah silently clicked on to the comments page. Nine hundred people had already left responses. Did I even know that many people, even if I counted every single person in my high school?
“It was at around eight hundred last night when I first found the page. It seems to be . . . spreading pretty quickly, I guess. From the posts I saw, I think it’s been around for a little while now, a month maybe, but it seems like it’s just starting to pick up speed. I’m so sorry,” Hannah whispered, her head in her hands. “Do you want to read any of it? What people are posting? Or is it too much right now?”
“Now. I might as well see it all now.” My mom reached out and squeezed my hand, steadying me.
Comments varied on a spectrum from incredibly shocked and entertained to incredibly cruel and hateful: OMG, this bitch needs a TV show! to I can’t believe she hasn’t been struck by lightning yet, but I guess Hell will be burn enough. There were plenty of pictures, too, on the dedicated photos page. Me in a tight hot pink minidress and matching heels, a Barbie costume I wore for a party last year, the caption saying THIS IS OUR VIRGIN?!!? A classic painting of the Virgin Mary with my face Photoshopped in over hers, Menius scrawled along the bottom; another photo of me and Nate at last year’s prom, a bright red line drawn in between us and the words I’M NOT THE DADDY written in a bubble above Nate’s head. The most recent was a picture that must have been taken just yesterday, judging from the outfit—I was standing at my locker, Jesse holding my books as I was reaching out for something on the top shelf. Jesse’s eyes were on me, and we were both grinning. I hadn’t noticed at the time, but my shirt had ridden up, leaving the bottom of my stomach exposed for somebody’s waiting camera. That was my bump, right there on the screen, for the whole online world to see as proof of my pregnancy. The caption made the post infinitely worse: COULD THIS POSSIBLY BE THE REAL DADDY, VIRGIN MINA?
The idea that someone had been watching so closely, holding a camera for just the right angle, just the right pose, made my stomach erupt in hot swirling waves. I put my hands on my bump, holding my baby to ground myself. To remind myself what really mattered. But I could still taste bile in the back of my throat. There were no boundaries anymore. I was public property.
As Hannah scrolled through more of the posts, I realized that I barely recognized most of the names—it seemed as if the majority of comments came from people who were from other schools and towns, other states, even. This wasn’t Green Hill’s secret. Not anymore. The names that I did recognize were mostly strangers or very casual acquaintances—no sign of any of my old friends yet. They were probably just too scared to get publicly involved, too worried that I’d try to get them in trouble once I discovered the page’s existence. No doubt they were all sitting around that very morning checking for updates, prepping for in-depth conversations about the most recent posts.
“What’s going on?”
I jumped at the sound of Jesse’s voice from the doorway. I’d forgotten that school would actually be starting soon, that time had been moving while we’d sat there staring at the screen. He’d had his camera out, filming his walk up the stairs, probably—I’d gotten used to its constant presence, his constant need to document—but he shut it off now and dropped it onto my dresser.
“Look,” I said, waving my hand at the screen. “Just look.”
Jesse came over to the desk and hovered behind Hannah as she clicked and scrolled, silent as he took in everything there was to see on the screen.
“You should call the police, Mina,” he said, turning to face me, his cheeks splotchy and red. “This is slander. This is harassment, and you can’t let them get away with it. Whoever started this deserves to be punished. I’m sure the cops can easily trace this.”
I looked away, his steely, penetrating gaze more than I could handle at the moment. “But they’re doing this for a reaction, aren’t they, Jesse? They want me to freak out. They want me to scream and cry and run away with my hands up in the air. I don’t want to give them that. They don’t deserve that much from me.” Could Kyle be smart enough to make an entire website? Maybe if some of his friends helped, too—he had always been good at getting people to do his bidding.
“So what, you’re just going to walk into school today with all these terrible people and act like everything’s fine? Act like it’s okay that they’re doing this to you?” Jesse’s hands were knotted up in his unruly dark curls, and I could tell that he was struggling hard to keep his voice level. “Mrs. Dietrich, you agree with me, right? It’d be crazy to not report this. It’s practically a hate crime.”
“I don’t know,” my mom said, shaking her head as she reached across the desk and closed the web page. “I don’t know the right answer yet. I think we need more time to think about it before we make any rash decisions.”
“I agree. What if the police getting involved just makes everyone even angrier?” Hannah asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “I don’t think that we can stop people from having a reaction to Mina’s story, and the bigger deal we make out of all this, the louder and more cruel their responses might be. I think Mina might be right, at least for now. She keeps holding her head up, she keeps pushing through. We keep pushing through with her.” She gave me what I knew she meant to be a reassuring smile, but I could see the strain of her lips, the worry clouding her eyes.
“This is absurd,” Jesse said, “completely and ridiculously absurd.” He latched his hands on to my window ledge, his knuckles white from the pressure, and stared out at the fields, shaking his head. “But it’s not my decision to make, is it? So do what you think is best, Mina. It’s your life, and I’ll stand behind you. I promised you at least that much, and I promised Iris, too.”
I blinked at the sound of her name, the ring of those two syllables that had become so significant, so earth-shattering when strung together side by side. I-ris. I wanted to tell them all that I’d seen her, that she was still around, somewhere, hovering in the air around us like dust particles, but I couldn’t. Not until I saw her again. Not unless I was sure.