“With Angel?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him since the incident. He walked out afterwards.” My breath hitches, but I go on. “I felt good about it at the time, but after my brother walked in on us…” Shame burns through me at the memory.
“I meant God,” the priest says. “But go on.”
“Oh,” I say faintly. “I’ve been praying. For clarity and… And answers. How I could feel so violated in the church, but also so good. So helpless, and yet so powerful. And with Angel… How could he walk out on me like that? Saint said it was because Heath needed them, but I don’t think he did. I think… I think we’re actually okay. Me and Heath. I apologized, and he didn’t say it, but I think he forgives me. At least, I think he can. Maybe he’s only started. And Angel, he only wants to keep the peace, Ithink. But Saint… You should have heard how he talked to me. He hates me, Father.”
“I think we both know that is not the case.”
I sit with that a minute, turning it over in my head.
“He’s so cruel to me,” I whisper. “Crueler than the others by far. Does that mean he loves me more?”
“Only one person can answer that,” Father says. “But you must know the reason for his cruelty isn’t you, lamb.”
“He’s so angry,” I say. “How can I make him forgive me?”
“He’s not angry at you,” he says gently. “He’s angry at himself for the way he feels for you.”
“Then why doesn’t he just tell me?” I ask. “I feel the same. I love him, Father. He knows that. I told him.”
“And if you saw him with one of your friends?” Father Salvatore asks. “How would you have reacted?”
I feel like I’ve taken a hit to the solar plexus in the Slaughterpen. The pit in my stomach is endless, throbbing with a pain as deep and relentless as a toothache.
This time, the shame I feel is for being selfish, for never even considering his feelings. I knew he was angry, but beyond that, I didn’t stop to think why. To think that maybe it was about more than finding his best friend in bed with his sister. He wasn’t just being possessive or wanting to hurt me. Maybe he was hurt too.
And I know I’ll never be anything but the worst sinner when that thought brings a bit of comfort.
“What should I do?” I ask, desperate to make things better.
“What do you want to do, lamb?” Father Salvatore asks gently.
I remember him in my room, instructing that dirty thing I did with Saint. We didn’t touch, though. Saint refused when the Father encouraged us to test our bond.
“I…I could try to tempt him,” I whisper, my cheeks heating with shame at the thought of what I’ve become. Not just a sinner but a temptress, Eve offering her apple to Adam with the most innocent yet beguiling smile hiding her true intentions.
“Would that release you from your sense of shame?”
I squirm on the bench, my core pulsing at the thought of Saint filling me the way Angel did.
The way the stranger did.
I push the thought away. I will not think of him. I will pretend that never happened, that Angel was the first man to push inside me, to open me, to cherish my body like a treasure.
On the heels of that thought, though, is what happened next. The searing scald of betrayal, the crushing blow to my heart after he worshipped my body until I was drunk on the pleasure.
“I’d like you to try something different this week,” Father says.
“Oh?” I ask faintly, my pulse fluttering. “What’s that?”
“I’d like you to try talking to him,” he says. “You’ve cleared the air with your brother when it was just the two of you. Maybe it’s time you all sat down together and told each other plainly what you what.”
“Oh,” I say again, my heart racing at the thought of what he said. If I thought seducing my brother would be difficult, this seems impossible. Not only that, but at least I would get some pleasure out of the first option. Only dread rises at this new direction the priest has instructed me to go, the weight of it pooling heavy in my stomach.
“Do you think you could do that for me, lamb?”
“Can’t I just do a hundred Hail Marys or something?” I ask halfheartedly.
Father Salvatore chuckles. “Try it my way, and if that doesn’t help, you can say your rosary.”
