Every single day, and yet… I fail. I’ll never be like her. No matter how much I try. No matter how many times I do penance. Or how many hours I spend volunteering my time.
A whisper of movement from somewhere near the confessional draws my attention away from the window. The old wood creaks like a ship in winter seas, sending me off. I close my eyes and imagine silence big enough for me to hide inside. I imagine a life where my body isn’t a bargaining chip and my name doesn’t carry the weight of expectations.
Footsteps scrape against the floor, soft. Not a priest. A student? Security?
I open my eyes, expecting to feel haunted, but everything looks like it always does—gold, shadow, centuries of borrowed holiness.
“Perfection looks heavy,” says a voice from the dark. Irish edges sanded down to Boston salt. “You want a hand taking off that halo?”
I don’t startle. I am a Moretti, after all. We don’t admit to as pathetic of an emotion as surprise. I turn my head, urging my heart to stay calm.
The intruder is mostly shadow and a grin you could light a candle with. Handsome, in the way a fallen angel is.
“I’m praying,” I say, and it’s almost true.
He tips his head, studying me like he’s deciding where my edges end. “Right. I won’t interrupt that important task.” He starts down the side aisle anyway, slow, respectful. He’s not a threat. Not yet.
“Campus is closed to the public after seven, you know,” I say, because that’s what a good girl says.
He gestures at the door. “It’s not seven.” His mouth curves. “Happy almost-Halloween.”
“Almost,” I agree, and I feel it: the itch under my skin, the pinch turning into a pressure that wants to become a choice.
He stops one pew behind me and one pew over. Not crowding. Close enough I can smell soap and something colder—night air, maybe. I can see him without turning around, and I can’t decide if he’s treating me with respect or almost mocking me. His hands stay visible, palms on the pew back like he’s holding onto something, or holding himself back.
“Sanctuary,” he says, nodding toward the inscription on the marble wall. “It means ‘no one is allowed to hurt you in here.’ You know that, right?”
My throat tightens against his ridiculously astute observation. “I read Latin.”
“Then you know the other meaning behind that word.” He leans his cheek briefly against his knuckles, eyes on the altar. “Places can be holy, like this one. But that’s not all. Your decisions can be holy. Those decisions can offer just as much sanctuary as the chapel.”
What the heck kind of conversation is this?I feel a bit like Alice, fallen down the rabbit hole.
I should stand. I should leave. I should never be the kind of girl who talks to a stranger in the dark and thinks about freedom like a moth drawn to a flame.
“I do read Latin,” I reply, just this side of tart. I try to ignore the fact that I like the amused smile that dances on his lips at that.
He’s a handsome man. Too handsome, with greenish-hued eyes and dusky brown hair that curls a little around his ears and at the nape of his neck. It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but it looks like there might be red tones in it if the sun hits it just right.
His chin is covered in a fine bristle that my fingers itch to touch, just to see if it’s itchy or soft. If I were the kind of girl who made bets, I’d bet he was the kind of man who broke hearts.
I shouldn’t be talking to him.
“Do you ever get tired of people naming you before you get to introduce yourself?” I ask, surprising us both. “Making assumptions about who you are. What your place in this life is?”
“All the time,” he says softly. “I’m Cay—” He stops himself, corrects with a smile that feels like a secret. “Casey.” Obviously he doesn’t want me to know his real name. Which is fine with me.
I breathe his not-name in, then tuck mine behind my teeth. “Catherine.”
“Saint’s name,” he says.
“Depends on the day.”
“Tonight?”
I look at the altar. At the door. At the empty confessional with its old, heavy wood and a little brass sign I could count the screws on if I needed to breathe. “Tonight I’m a girl who has until midnight before reality sucks me back in.”
He laughs once, quiet. “Then we’re pretty much the same. At least for tonight.”
