“I’ve been praying about this,” he’d said.
I’d rolled my eyes. “You pray about everything.”
Another fragment of a memory—his packing a small bag days later.
I could still feel the disbelief. Asking him if he was really leaving and knowing he was choosing a life that would no longer include me.
“I have to,” was all he’d said, but fuck that. He didn’t have to at all.
He was choosing the seminary. He was choosing it over me.
I woke up with a start, my heart racing and my head feeling like it was going to split in half.
“Fuck,” I groaned, and reached for my head like I could hold it together and stop the pain, but moving only made it worse.
No, worse was the taste in my mouth, tequila still lingering along with some serious regret.
Jesus, how much had Benoit let me drink last night?
I almost snorted at the thought, because if anything, it had probably been my idea to drown myself in liquor—not that I could remember. We’d done shots and he’d been asking about Rafael, and God only knew what I’d said after that.
Hopefully nothing.HopefullyI’d been too busy drinking and listening to Benoit gossip and give unwanted, explicit details about his escapades with Dimitri to open my own mouth.
But then something flashed through my mind. The inside of the confessional booth. My hand against the lattice.
That wasn’t last night…was it?
No, it couldn’t have been. I’d gone straight home after leaving the bar—hadn’t I?
But when I closed my eyes, I heard it: Rafael’s voice on the other side of the booth. Saying just one word, but it happened to be my name on his tongue, and that was all it took to have the rest of the night coming back to me with humiliating clarity.
“Oh fuck,” I said, horror dawning. “Fuck, fuck,fuck.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that didn’t help, because I could remember every single word I’d confessed. Things I’d never planned to say, not to anyone, but especially not tohim.
I’d told him about the sex club. About wanting to know what was under his robes. That would’ve been enough, but it was the hidden truths I’d never wanted him to hear that had me feeling the remnants of tequila coming back up my throat.
Do you ever think about me?
You didn’t choose me…and I chose you forever.
No. No, no, no, no?—
I could barely breathe as I shot up in the bed, my heart pounding so fast it made me dizzy.
Oh God. What had I done?
But God wasn’t going to help me now, probably not ever again. Not after what I’d said to his priest, and the fact that I hadn’t burst into flames there in the booth was shocking.
What the fuck had I beenthinkinggoing to Rafael last night?
But I knew the answer to that. Drunk me was too honest, which meant every single iota of hurt and pain and resentment had to come pouring out somehow, but Jesus Christ, couldn’t it have been to Benoit instead?
That would’ve been preferable to the knowledge that Rafael knew now just how much his leaving still affected me all this time later.
I tried to remember if there was anything he’d said, any little morsel I could grab and hold on to for how he’d reacted, but all I’d heard on the other side of the screen was silence.
Oh. Right. I’d told him not to speak.
