EWEN
That confession just rocked my world—and not in a good way. I’m flabbergasted by what that man said. I could hear in his voice that he didn’t care about absolving his sins. When he prayed, it lacked meaning and emotion. But when he talked about taking a life, or protecting that woman, that’s when it seemed like his true feelings were showing.
So why did he come here? Did he think I would tell him to keep taking lives? I couldn’t. When he spoke about the young girl being raped, that hit me deep down. I felt for that girl. I know real monsters exist. I’ve seen them with my own eyes, in a dark alleyway.
That alley still haunts me. I walk by it often. Sometimes I look down it and remember everything. Like I’m watching it all over again as if it were a movie.
I have always tried to move past things. I never let the tragedies of my childhood dictate my life or future. I’ve shoved it down and moved on like none of it ever happened.
But not that night. I can’t forget that night. It was such a scary moment, yet I only remember the feelings. The way that stranger took me in his mouth. The way he had made me feel things I’d never felt before—or after. He was the one time Iquestioned my decision to be a priest. Because he was right, I liked everything he did to me. The way he touched me. Devoured me with his eyes. Almost like I was a normal man who was sexually aroused.
But those feelings and emotions were a one-off for me.
Dreams of him have played in my mind at night. Dreams of what would’ve happened if I hadn’t walked away. Hadn’t cowered in my apartment. I’ve speculated if he would have killed me. And I’ve wondered why I never called the police on him.
Yet I just had a man tell me he killed people and I told him to turn himself in to the police. So, how was one situation different from the other? How could I tell someone to do right when I had the chance myself and never did?
I often question what Mr. Alleyway is up to. Did he ever get caught? Is he still out there?
Does he remember me too?
No idea why my subconscious went there. Even if I knew who he was, it would never be anything other than that one night. I’m a priest. I’ve taken a vow of celibacy and abstain from sexual relations.
My one sexual experience was not conventional, but it was exhilarating. At times I think about what I would do if I saw him again.
Hearing the door to the confessional open, I hold my breath, waiting for the person to get situated, and wonder if the man who was just here has come back.
We don’t get many people who come to confession these days. Usually, it’s the older folks of the congregation who are set in their ways. But the man from earlier wasn’t nearly as old as the normal confessors. He sounded closer to my age. I’d tried to see him, but his hood concealed his face.
Just like the stranger in the alley.
Why can’t I shake the memories of him, or the emotions he invoked in me?
“Father, are you there?” an elderly woman asks.
Clearing my mind and pushing aside my thoughts, I answer, “Yes, forgive me. I was deep in prayer and didn’t hear you. Let us proceed.”
I know now is not the time to remember dark things. It’s time to be Father Ewen.
I sit and listen to the older woman as she confesses to cheating on her husband of forty years, telling me all the sordid details. When did confession become so open with details? I’ve held confessions before at my previous church, but nobody went into depth. Maybe it’s just a Boston thing.
After she leaves I stay and wait for others, but no one else comes. I use the time to do my prayers. My mind goes back to my first confession of the day and then whirls to the mystery man from the alley, blurring them into the same person. Those memories have been coming back more frequently. I thought I would never think of that night again, but it creeps back more vividly than ever before. Almost like it wants me to be back there. Making connections when there are none.
8
DECLAN
Fuck!
I’m officially broken. After talking to Ewen two weeks ago, my head hasn’t been the same. Yes, I still watch him, think of him,lustfor him, but this is different than before. I feel like a junkie trying to quit. And I can’t.
He made it sound so easy. Just turn myself in. Yeah, that’s never going to happen.
I was so frazzled by him and all his prayer bullshit that I might have gone a little off the deep end. Ciaran had informed me of the Bianchis’ drug deals encroaching on our territory, and I may have slaughtered the dealer like a mad man. Possibly even burned his dead body and left him in the same alleyway.
Ouralleyway.
For the same reason I did years ago, they’re getting greedy again. It was a yet another sign for them to step the fuck back.
