“We have to call someone, Cora. He can’t do that to you.”
She turns to me in horror. “No. They’ll take me away from my mom, and it would break her heart. I can’t. Please, Roman. Don’t.”
Her pleading tears me in two. Very rarely does Cora ever call me by my first name alone, and when she does, I know it means that she’s addressing me as a friend and not a priest. I can’t hurt her. I just can’t.
But I have to do something.
“Okay, I won’t. But do me a favor and sleep here tonight. So I know you’re safe. I’ll make sure you get to school in the morning.”
She nods with a tight-lipped smile. “Okay, deal.”
* * *
After bringing her a pillow and blanket, we open the couch to the pull-out and I wait up until I hear her breathing change to a sleeping cadence before I leave. Changing out of my uniform, I quietly slip out the back of the church and get in my car.
I should feel bad for this, but I don’t. I’ll confess my sins tomorrow.
The beauty of living in a small town is that I know Cora’s father by name, and I know he lost his job at the mechanic shop last spring because he was caught drinking on the job. I also know he can be found every night at the corner tavern on Mill Street.
Parking my car in the back next to his motorcycle, I head into the seedy bar and immediately spot him in the corner. He looks drunk enough to fall off his barstool. Taking a spot across the bar where he can’t see me, I order a pint of beer and wait.
I sip slowly, in case he plans on staying long, but it’s late as it is, so I’m only halfway through when he finally stumbles off his seat and moves toward the door. I drop a five on the bar for my drink and stay close behind him. Once we’re alone outside behind the bar, I make my move.
“Hey,” I call out, and he spins lazily to glare at me with a furrowed brow.
“What the fuck you want?”
I don’t answer his question. Instead, I throw a hard right directly into his nose. He stumbles then falls to the ground like a heap of bricks, letting out a wild howl of pain as he does.
“What—what the fuck? I don’t got no money, man!”
While he’s down, I kick him hard in the ribs and grab him by the collar. The rage that courses through me is all-consuming. All I can think about are Cora’s bruises. The sad look on her face when she thinks about it. The pain and fear she must have felt, and I punch him again and again.
“I don’t want your fucking money,” I snarl at him. He looks almost ready to pass out, so I hold back from hitting him again.
He gurgles as he tries to speak, but he’s too disoriented.
“Listen to me, you piece of shit. Listen!” I shake him again and he opens his eyes. Even if he could focus, I doubt he would recognize me. And I don’t care about that now. If he tries to tell anyone a priest beat his ass behind the bar, who would believe him?
“If you touch Cora again, I’ll come back, and I won’t let you off so easy, understand?”
“Cora?” he asks in a gasp.
“You like to knock around little girls? You think I don’t see the bruises on her face?”
“I— I...it was an accident!”
My knuckles turn white as I clench his collar tighter. “Yeah? Well, so is this.”
Dropping him again, I give him one more swift kick to the gut. He vomits almost immediately. As I stare down at him, I think about God and about my duty to his flock. This is not what a priest does. I serve all of God’s creation, and maybe I should have gone about this differently. I could have offered him rehabilitation. Called the authorities to handle it.
But I’m not acting as a priest tonight.
I’m acting on behalf of Cora, because she is mine.
Chapter 4
Cora
* * *
Present day
* * *
His eyes find me often during Mass, more often than normal. Even as I assist him during the Eucharist, I feel the heavy weight of his stare on my face.
I was such an idiot to admit my feelings to him. The shame and embarrassment I feel is intense—but then he confessed that he feels the same way for me.
Father Roman, this man I have looked up to and crushed on for years, has feelings for me too. How long has he thought about me like that? I go through my memories of him, the casual late nights together and all of the times he listened to me talk about my life. There are no signs in these memories that he ever saw me as anything more than a kid. Even as I grew into a woman, Father Roman’s behavior toward me didn’t change.
Until now.
At least he had the good sense to keep these thoughts to himself. Unlike me, he suppressed them and kept his vows, without ruining everything like I did.
If I ruin our friendship, I don’t know what I’ll do. Father Roman is practically the whole reason I even joined the convent. To be in his life, to be near him.
I mean...of course it’s for God, but Father Roman was the one who got me here.
He’s tense during his entire homily, not at all the same passive, comfortable priest he normally is, and the guilt eats away at me. And when Mass ends, I have a feeling he’s avoiding me. He intentionally moves out of every room I’m in, and it’s late by the time we run into each other again. I’m putting his robes back on the hangers when he slips into his office, not spotting me until it’s too late. We’re finally alone.
In a panic, I move quickly toward him to apologize for what I said earlier, but before I can, he catches me by the arm, so we’re practically pressed up against each other.
“Cora, we need to talk,” he says, his voice dark and low, and it’s not like him. He seems desperate even...afraid. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up and an ache brew low in my belly.
He quickly shakes off the urgent look on his face and loosens his grip on my arm. “I mean...I’m here to listen to you. I don’t want you to feel ashamed.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, gazing down at my feet. It’s as if we’ve swept away the earlier conversation like it never happened, and as embarrassed as I was about that encounter, I don’t really like this feeling.
“But,” he adds, and I lift my eyes. “I have to know. Are you sure about this commitment? Is this really what you want?”
“To take my vows?”
He nods.
“Of course,” I reply. “I don’t want any other life. I want to be here at the church. With you.”
The grip on my arm tightens. “Cora…”
He looks almost disappointed. Isn’t this what he wanted me to say?
I want to feel like us again. I want all of this uncomfortable talk about crushes and commitments to wash away so we can just be Roman and Cora again, two people who spent nearly every evening together for the past five years. We used to order pizza delivery and eat together in the rec room and binge-watch Netflix shows. And then there were times when we just prayed and worshipped and shared our stories, talking about heaven and the people we hoped to see there.
He kept me safe when my home wasn’t.
So, whatever is happening between us right now is not worth ruining everything we’ve built.