Had I entertained the enemy? Had I dressed immodestly? Had I thought about touching myself?
“Silas,” I said, uncomfortable now—finding myself in the position of someone who needed counsel, rather than being the one with advice. I was struggling…and he was making it worse. “I need to tell you something before you say anything else.”
He met my eyes. Listened.
My stomach churned.
“I um…” I trailed off, stumbling over my words, hating myself for it. “I grew up in a church—well, a cult—like Amelia’s family. I was depressed, like a lot of teenage girls. And when I was fifteen, my parents took me to an exorcist.”
His face didn’t change, but I saw the shift in his eyes—the same shift I’d seen in the handful of other people I’d told about this. Horror—not at me…but at the weight I was carrying.
Still, it felt like it was about me.
“They asked if I had kissed a boy. I said no. But they didn’t believe me, and they kept asking, and they…they kept me tied up and starved me and…”
I stopped again, shuddering. Silas reached out and took my hand, but I pulled it away because Icouldn’t stand the ideaof someone touching me right now.
“June,” he whispered, but he gave me my space.
“They said I was full of demons and that I was dangerous, that my thoughts weren’t my own,” I continued. “I don’t even remember the worst of it, just waking up on the floor with rug burns on my face and bruises on my arms and my mom telling me I was healed.” I let out a laugh, but it sounded wrong. “But I wasn’t healed. I was just…empty. And the exorcism didn’t fucking work, because I tried to kill myself when I was twenty-one.”
The monitor beeped a little faster, Silas’s eyes darting toward it. He shifted. “June, you should get some more rest.”
“Stop,” I said, locking eyes with him. “No, you need to hear this. Because…I’ve listened to you, but now it’s your turn to listen to me, Silas. You keep talking about this snake like it was a punishment, a warning, and some stupid, buried part of me thinks you’re right.”
His eyes softened. He opened his mouth to reply, but I kept going.
“I’ve done too much work to heal from that,” I said. “I’ve built my life around unlearning that fucking…thatpoison. I believe in embodiment, in joy, in grace. I believe desire is holy and that touch can be sacred and that our bodies aren’t shameful. But when I kissed you, and that snake bit me, it was like being fifteen all over again. Like God turned Their face away.”
Silas exhaled like I’d hit him in the gut.
“I wanted you, Silas,” I said, not looking away. “Istillwant you. And I don’t regret that. I can’t. But now I’m sitting here with poison in my blood and pain in my body and shame I thought I buried coming back like a ghost with my mom’s voice. And I just…I need to say it out loud before it eats me alive.”
The silence that followed wasn’t gentle. It buzzed like the air before a storm, like something unseen was listening.
“I don’t know what I believe about the curse,” I said. “Or fate. Or protection rituals. Or Amelia. I just know that untilwe can figure this out…we should probably pump the brakes, right?”
Silas went still.
“I’m not saying never,” I added. “Just…my body’s still catching up to what happened and my head is a mess.”
He nodded once, standing up.
“Right,” he said. “Sure.”
I could tell he was retreating—not trying to be cold, but being cold all the same. And Silas? He built wallsfast.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I tried. “Silas—I still want to help with the church, we’re friends?—”
“It’s fine,” he said, not looking at me. “I know. You don’t have to explain…been through enough already tonight.”
“Silas,” I said, catching him before he could walk out the door. “Promise me we’ll talk when I get out of here.”
He looked over his shoulder, a sad smile on his lips. “I promise,” he said.
Then he was gone.
I stared at the empty chair he’d left behind.
