1
ALESSIO
THE CONFESSIONAL SMELLED like old wood and incense, but there was a faint scent I recognized that hit me straight in the chest every time I breathed it in.
I didn’t think priests usually wore cologne, but Father Rafael Vitale wasn’t just any priest.
He was my priest.
My…
I shook the thought away before it could fully materialize in my mind and rubbed my hands on my jean-clad thighs. I’d been sitting here on the narrow bench long enough that my ass had gone numb, but it was better than kneeling. I couldn’t do that—wouldn’t do that. Not for him. Not anymore.
As his scent entered my lungs again, I closed my eyes and let it wash over me. It was fresh and reminded me of the sea, and it didn’t belong here in an ancient confessional booth in the oldest church in Manhattan.
Just stop…It was the mantra I repeated to myself over and over every time I came here, but it didn’t help. Nothing did.
I opened my eyes and stared at the lattice screen that separated us and wished like hell I had a clearer view of the man on the other side. Part of me was glad he was in shadow, becauseI didn’t think I could take him staring at me with those blue eyes that sometimes had a hint of green or grey depending on the light and what he wore.
Though those black vestments he lived in now didn’t do him any favors.
The bench creaked as I shifted my weight, the only sound that had been made in however many minutes I’d already been in here. I came once a month, and for years I’d never bothered entering the booth. I let my brothers—by choice, not by blood—make their confessions and receive their absolutions while I waited alone in a pew and tried not to feel anything when I looked at our priest.
Ridiculous, since I was the one who’d brought him into their lives and insisted they go every month. There were so many sins between the seven of us, though, that it felt necessary to ask forgiveness and free my brothers from the weight of the decisions we made.
The minutes stretched on and I didn’t speak. He knew I wouldn’t. Still he waited.
He always was the more patient of the two of us.
I imagined him sitting there, his shoulders impossibly straight, his hands probably folded in his lap on his robes. Such a holy man now, one end of our two extremes.
What did he think of me now? Did he even think of me at all?
God, why did that hurt worse than anything? A tight fist reached into my chest, wrapped its cold fingers around my heart, and squeezed so hard I reached for the wall to steady myself.
“Are you ready?”
His voice had me jolting in surprise. I hadn’t been expecting him to speak. He knew to let the time pass between us without words, an act I put on for my brothers so they wouldn’t worry about me. They’d been doing too much of that over the past few months, and if sitting in this booth gave them a bit of relief fromthinking I was losing it, then I’d suffer through the torture of being in a confined space with the one person who’d hurt me the most.
I swallowed and wondered if my voice would shake if I answered him.
Fuckdid that make me weak. I didn’t want to show he still had any effect on me, so I clenched my jaw tight, staying silent even as I dug my fingers into my thighs.
He’d never pushed before, not once. Never demanded confession, never reminded me why I was there. Never complained about my silence.
After all, he knew better than anyone that I didn’t come to be forgiven.
I came because…
Well…fuck. Because it was the closest I was allowed to be, which made me reckless or a masochist, though my money was on both.
But what was the alternative? Live without him?
That was never an option. Not for me.
Must be nice for him, though, to be able to turn his feelings off. To be able to just…decidethat he wouldn’t feel all the things he felt back then and go on his merry way.
Yeah, that must be real fuckin’ nice.
