Twice.
Exactly where my heart would be if he were touching me for real.
“—it won’t.”
Tears burn behind my eyes.
No one has ever said that to me.Not my father.Not anyone.
I’ve spent my life proving I deserve air. Space. Mercy. I learned early that love comes with forms to sign and rules to memorize and conditions you’re expected to fail.
And this man—
This priest.This sinner in a collar—
Is offering absolution before I’ve confessed the crime.
“You shouldn’t,” I whisper.
I hate how small my voice sounds.
“You don’t know what you’re forgiving.”
He exhales slowly, as if each word is a choice.
“I know what I feel.”
My heart rams my ribs like it’s trying to break free.
“And it’s yours.”
The silence that follows isn’t empty.
It’s heavy.
The kind that bends bloodlines.
I sink down the wall until I’m sitting on the cold stone floor, knees pulled in tight, forehead still resting on the door. On the other side, I hear him mirror me—fabric shifting, weight settling.
We sit like that.
Split by steel.Connected by something forbidden.
“You shouldn’t want me,” I say quietly.
Not because I believe it.
Because it feels safer than believing he does.
“You don’t know what kind of person you’re binding yourself to.”
He doesn’t pause.
“I do.”
“Powerful and strong in the way truth always is. Life, hurt has made you hard, but truth in love finds the good in everything.”
I swallow hard.
