One bedroom. One bathroom. Kitchen. Living area. Furnished the way vacation rentals are furnished — nothing matches, nothing's beautiful, everything works. A bed with a mattress that sags slightly in the center. A couch that's seen better decades. Two kitchen chairs and a table with one wobbly leg.
She leaves. I lock the door. Deadbolt front, deadbolt back.
Then I do the sweep. I don't think about it anymore — it's automatic, the way you check your mirrors before driving. Windows: two big enough to climb through, ground level,lockable, adequate. Back door leads to a small yard, then nursery fields. Sight lines: screened from the road, main house has partial view of front door but not the back. Two exits. Not perfect. Livable. I've stayed in worse.
I walk into the kitchen.
I stop.
It's nothing. It's a gas stove — four burners, slightly crooked, the kind that clicks twice before the flame catches. A basic counter, worn but clean. A window above the sink looking out into darkness.
My hand goes to the scar on my inner forearm. I touch it without deciding to — thumb tracing the raised, smooth skin. Something tightens in my chest. Not grief. Not memory, exactly. Something older than both. The feeling of standing in a kitchen that isn't mine and remembering that kitchens used to mean something different.
I drop my hand. I move on.
I unpack, which takes about four minutes because my life fits in two bags. Clothes. Laptop. Charger. Toiletries. The ring stays around my neck. At the bottom of the larger bag, wrapped in a dishcloth, there's a wooden spoon. Old, dark from years of use, the handle worn smooth. I hold it for a moment. Then I set it on the counter by the stove, leaning against the wall.
Build something true to what you actually are, the priest said.
I sit down and open the laptop, looking for some way to get to Arturo Reyes. Maybe the priest was right, but before I can build something true, I need to burn down what's false. Starting with Julian's secrets.
3 - Gabriel
Ilast three days before I break.
Thursday morning, I drag myself through the routine that's held me together for three years. Five AM alarm. Running shoes. Out the door before my brain wakes up enough to object. But today the run stretches to seven miles, not five. Seven miles trying to outrun the sound she made eating that pie. Seven miles with her voice from last night's confessional playing on repeat—I only feel real when things are on the edge of disaster—like my subconscious has decided to torture me with a greatest hits album I didn't ask for.
The cold shower afterward is so long my lips turn blue. I stand under the spray counting Mississippi's like a kid playing hide and seek, except what I'm hiding from is the memory of being hard in a confessional while a woman I'd just met described the inside of my soul.
Thirty-eight Mississippi's. That's how long it takes for my body to stop responding to the thought of her saying "fucking relieved" in the dark.
I eat my toast and eggs standing at the counter. Black coffee. Except today I catch myself wondering what she eats for breakfast. If she's someone who cooks elaborate meals for herself or just drinks coffee standing at a sink. The thought is so domestic, so pathetically normal, that I almost laugh.
Thursday's parish duties blur together. I drop a stack of bulletins during the morning mail sort. Mrs.Alvarez calls about the food pantry schedule and I agree to something withoutlistening, which means I'll probably show up at the wrong time and she'll give me that look that saysFather Gabriel, where is your head?
My head is in a confessional last night. My head is at Alma's diner watching a woman eat pie. My head is anywhere but here, and the collar that usually keeps me anchored feels like it's made of tissue paper.
Thursday afternoon confession, and I can barely focus on Mr.Gutierrez's struggles with drinking. I'm nodding, offering absolution, but behind the screen I'm thinking about her voice, the way it dropped when she said "I chose not to ask questions." Mr.Gutierrez leaves. The next penitent enters. One of the teenage girls from youth group, something about lying to her parents. I give guidance on autopilot while my mind replays Sera's confession, wondering what questions she didn't ask, what world she inhabited that required such selective blindness.
Friday is worse. The diocese calls about some paperwork I was supposed to file. I haven't even started it. The secretary's voice on the phone has that careful tone people use when they're trying not to sound disappointed. I promise to handle it immediately, then forget the moment I hang up.
"You don't look like a small-town priest," she'd said, and the observation has burrowed under my skin like a splinter. Because she's right. I look like someone playing a priest on television. Hit your marks, say your lines, fool the audience. Except she saw through it in three seconds flat.
Friday afternoon I'm supposed to be working on Sunday's homily. Instead, I'm staring at a blank page thinking about the way her fingers wrapped around that coffee cup. The grace of her hands. The scar on her inner forearm she kept touching.
Build something true to what you actually are.
I said that. To her. In the confessional. Like I had any idea what being true to yourself looked like. Like I wasn't the world'sleading expert in building elaborate lies and living in them until they rotted from the inside.
Saturday morning, I meet Tomás at Alma's. Our standing coffee date, the one human connection I allow myself that isn't wrapped in pastoral obligation. He's already in our usual booth when I arrive, collar slightly crooked, hair too long for diocesan standards. Tomás wears the priesthood like a comfortable sweater. I wear mine like armor that's starting to rust.
"You look terrible," he says by way of greeting.
"Thanks. Very pastoral of you."
He grins, pushing a cup of coffee across the table. Already fixed how I like it, plain and black. "When's the last time you slept? Really slept, not that four-hour thing you do."
"I sleep fine."
