I drop the cigarette and crush it underfoot, but I don't move. I can't. I'm rooted to this spot, watching her watch the night, and every wall I've built over the past eight years is crumbling around me.
I chose the priesthood as penance. My brother Danny died of an overdose when I was twenty-two, and I blamed myself for not being there, for not seeing the signs, for being too wrapped up in my own life to notice he was drowning. The seminary was supposed to be my redemption. A lifetime of service to balance the scales of my failure.
But what if the scales were always a lie? What if I was never really serving God? What if I was just hiding from myself, using faith as a shield against the messy, painful, glorious reality of human connection?
Waverly makes me want to stop hiding. She makes me want to be real.
I watch her for a few more minutes, until she finally steps away from the window and the light goes out. Then I stand in the darkness alone, breathing in the cold night air, and I make a decision that will damn me or save me. I'm not sure which yet.
Tomorrow, she'll come back to the confessional. And this time, I won't stay behind the screen. This time, I'll look into her eyes and tell her the truth: that she's not the only one with impure thoughts. That I've been watching her for months. That I would give up everything I've built just to hear her say my name.
I spent thirty years serving God, I think as I walk back to the rectory. I can spend eternity in hell for one taste of her.
The collar around my throat feels like a noose. But when I look up at her darkened window one last time, I think there are worse ways to die than this.
3
WAVERLY
Idrop the same book three times before Odette finally corners me behind the register. Thornbury Books is quiet this morning, just a few browsers drifting through the stacks, and my boss has had plenty of opportunity to watch me fumble through even the simplest tasks.
"Chérie." She leans against the counter with her arms crossed, silver bracelets clinking together. Odette is somewhere in her sixties, with sharp dark eyes and a French accent that gets thicker when she's annoyed. Right now, it's practically impenetrable. "You look like you haven't slept in a week. Man trouble?"
I laugh, but it comes out nervous and too high. "No. Just a lot on my mind."
"Mm-hmm." She doesn't look convinced. "The last time you were this distracted, you'd just lost your grandmother. You tell me if someone is giving you problems, yes? I know people."
The mental image of Odette sending her mysterious "people" after Father Brennan makes me choke on my own breath. "It's nothing like that. I promise. I'm just... processing some things."
She studies me for a long moment, then pats my cheek with a cool hand. "You process. But process while shelving correctly, please. You put the Brontës in horror yesterday."
"To be fair, Wuthering Heights is pretty horrifying."
That earns me a reluctant smile before she drifts off to help a customer, and I turn back to the cart of books that need to be shelved. My hands are steadier now, but my mind is still spinning in circles around tonight. The return to confession he demanded. The way he said my name like it meant something.
I check the clock for the third time in an hour. Five more hours until the bookshop closes. Then another two until evening confession. Seven hours to figure out what I'm going to say to him.
A customer approaches the register asking for recommendations on religious texts, and I have to physically bite my tongue to keep from laughing. The universe has a sick sense of humor. I smile and lead her to the spirituality section, pointing out various options while my pulse beats a rhythm in my throat that sounds suspiciously like his name.
By the time I get home, I'm a wreck. I stand in the shower until the water runs cold, then spend far too long choosing what to wear. It's confession, not a date. It doesn't matter what I look like. And yet I try on four different dresses before settling on a simple navy blue one that's modest enough to be appropriate but fitted enough that I feel pretty. Then I hate myself for caring.
The mirror shows me a woman I barely recognize. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes too bright. I look like someone on the verge of doing something reckless.
I touch my grandmother's locket and try to hear her voice in my head. She always knew what to say when I was lost. When I was twelve and terrified of starting a new school, she held my hands and told me, "Fear is just excitement that hasn't learned to breathe yet." When I was eighteen and didn't know what to do with my life, she said, "You don't have to have all the answers, sweetheart. You just have to take the next step."
"What's my next step now, Nana?" I whisper to the empty room. "What do I do about a priest who makes me feel more alive than I've ever felt in my life?"
She doesn't answer, of course. But I remember something else she told me once, late at night when I was sixteen and nursing my first broken heart over a boy who'd never even known I existed. "When it's real," she'd said, stroking my hair as I cried, "it won't feel safe. Real love is terrifying."
I'm terrified. That has to count for something.
St. Augustin's is nearly empty when I arrive. The evening light streams through the stained glass windows, casting patterns of red and gold across the stone floor. An elderly woman lights candles at the shrine to Mary, and a man in a rumpled suit kneels in the back pew, his lips moving silently.
I head toward the confessional, my heels clicking against the floor louder than I'd like. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. I open the door to the confessional and step inside, sinking onto the kneeler, and wait.
The silence stretches. One minute. Five. Ten. The confessional on his side remains dark and empty.
He's not coming. Of course he's not coming. He had time to think about it, time to realize what a terrible idea this is, and he's decided to stay away. To let me kneel here in the dark until I get the message. This is over. Whatever strange, charged thing happened between us yesterday was a mistake, and he's not going to let it happen again.
