Like something holy cracked clean down the middle.
He looked at me like I’d just stepped through his church doors with hell on my breath.
Like my existence was a bruise God didn’t know how to heal.
I squeeze my eyes shut harder. I want the dark. I want blindness. I want anything but the memory of his brother flinching like I was already a ghost.
“I didn’t want this,” I whisper to no one. To stone. To saints that never listened. “I didn’t want this.”
The courtyard refuses to answer.
No wind.
No voice.
Just cold, old rock and the weight of a family I never should have touched.
The church looms behind me, huge and watching. The windows are black. The doors closed.
Like I’m already exiled.
I wipe my face with the heel of my hand, and my skin comes away burning. Everything burns. Inside. Outside. Memory to marrow.
I came into this place thinking I would bleed it dry.
I didn’t know the church would bleed me back.
And somewhere in the dark—
A little boy is learning to fear women with my face.
I wrap my arms around my knees and rock once, hard.
Not because I’m weak.
Because I don’t know how to carry this—
and survive.
The Moment Santino Pulls Away
The crunch of footsteps drags me out of my head.
They aren’t rushed. Not heavy. Just… deliberate. Each step grinds gravel like bone under a boot.
I lift my face from my knees.
Santino is crossing the courtyard toward me.
The security lights catch on his collar, the edge of his jaw, the lines carved into his forehead like someone took a blade to him and forgot to stitch him back up. His shoulders are rigid, but every few seconds I see them tremble—just enough to tell me it isn’t the cold getting to him.
It’s me.
It’s this.
He stops a few feet away.
Not close enough for me to grab his sleeve. Not far enough to pretend he’s just passing through.
