When I reach for the communion vessels at the same moment he does, he jerks his hand back like I’ve burned him.
His tattooed arms stay rigidly at his sides, and he won’t look at me. Not once.
Those dark eyes that used to track my every movement now find anything else to focus on, the floor, the altar, the stained glass windows casting jewel tones across the worn pews.
I watch the muscle jump in his jaw, see his hands curl into fists when I pass close enough that my dress brushes his leg.
He wants to touch me.
I can feel it in the tension radiating from his body, in the way his breathing changes when I’m near. But he doesn’t.
He maintains that careful, devastating distance, but he lets his old flame get close and I don’t understand why.
Only Elijah maintains surface warmth, but even that feels wrong.
His crystalline blue eyes hold mine during choir practice, and I see the pain flickering behind them when he thinks no one’s watching.
His angel face smiles at the right moments, makes the appropriate jokes, but there’s a brittleness to it that makes my chest ache.
When he hands me sheet music, his fingers linger on mine for just a second too long. The touch is electric, desperate, then he pulls away like he’s been caught doing something forbidden.
What changed?
The question circles my mind like a vulture.
Three nights ago, they held me between them in Adrian’s bed, their hands and mouths claiming every inch of my skin.
They whispered promises about facing whatever came next together.
Now they treat me like a stranger, like those nights never happened, like I imagined the whole thing.
I know it’s the visiting Bishop, that if we can survive his visit then maybe we can go back to normal.
But my insecurities still eat at me.
Of course this won’t last,the familiar voice in my head whispers.People don’t keep broken things. They always leave.
By mid-morning, I can’t breathe. The walls of St. Michael’s feel like they’re closing in, the beautiful Gothic architecture becoming a prison. I lock myself in the church bathroom, the one near the parish hall that nobody uses because the lock sticks. My hands shake as I turn the bolt, and then the tears come.
I slide down the wall, my dress bunching around my thighs, and sob into my hands.
The sound echoes off the tile, ugly and desperate.
I’m twenty-five years old, crying in a church bathroom because three men who aren’t supposed to want me have decided they don’t anymore.
Everyone leaves.Mom left when I was two. Dad never tried to stay. I’m the girl men survive, not the girl they stay for.
The bathroom door rattles. “Charlie?”
Elijah’s voice cuts through my sobs, gentle and worried. I try to muffle the sound, pressing my hands harder against my mouth, but it’s too late. He’s heard me.
“Charlie, please. Let me in.”
I stand on shaking legs and unlock the door. Elijah slips inside, closing it quickly behind him. His golden hair is slightly mussed, and his blue eyes are dark with concern as he takes in my tear-stained face.
He reaches for me instinctively, his hands rising to frame my face, to pull me close. I see the need in his expression, the desperate want to comfort me, to explain.
But footsteps echo in the hallway outside, the distinctive click of Sister Margaret’s sensible shoes against tile.
