20 Alexis
“Sister Bernadette!”
She turned to face me, smiling. For a second, my breath caught in my throat. She was even more beautiful than usual. The early morning sun’s glare looked like a halo around her. My chest thumped harder as she approached. My mind whirred.
“Alexis, you’re up early,” she said. “Or is it Aleks today? I hope that’s still okay to ask. I’m not sure how to tell otherwise.”
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. The words froze around my vocal cords.
The smile slid off her face. She stepped closer. “Something’s wrong.”
I nodded and coughed, trying to clear my throat. Everything was so dry, even my tear ducts. I swallowed, like saliva would wet my parched mouth. It did nothing. After last night’s revelations, I didn’t go to sleep. Now, it was six in the morning and my mind had whirred nonstop. Information sickness, wasn’t it called that? In a gravelly whisper, I said, “I need to talk to you.”
Her lips twisted to one side in hesitation. She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m guessing it’s not safe to talk here?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Where can we talk?”
“Somewhere no one will find us.”
“There aren’t many places like that around,” Sister Bernadette said. My shoulders dropped until she snapped her fingers. “How would you like to go for a drive?”
“You have a car?”
“You have a lot of weird thoughts about nuns, don’t you?”
I flushed as I walked beside her. Nun, not prehistoric, right. “You got me there.”
She patted my shoulder. “You’re not the only one, unfortunately. A lot of people assume we’re like the Amish. The two years in poverty to learn how to become humble can be rough, but even then, we have access to vehicles if there’s an emergency.” She pulled out her keys and beeped the doors to a dark blue jeep. A crucifix hung over the rearview mirror. I climbed in.
“How steady a driver are you?” I asked once we were a few blocks away from the church.
“Because I’m a nun?”
“No. Because I’m about to tell you something horrible and I don’t want you to run off the road.”
“That bad?”
“If it wasn’t that bad, I wouldn’t have made you drive all the way out wherever we are.”
She turned the jeep down a fork in the road. “I’ve got my foot right by the brake.”
“You’re gonna need it.”
“What did you do?”
“Okay, so try not to be mad at me and hear me out. Because a lot of this is out of my control.” I took a deep breath. It was time for me to do my own confessing. “My room—it’s right next to the confessional.”
Tires screeched. She pulled the jeep over to the side of the road so quickly that I grabbed my seatbelt for support. “You’ve been listening to people’s confessions?”
“There’s a vent in the wall—”
“Those are private conversations between a person—”
“—and a priest and God. Yeah, I know.” Because I sure heard all about it over the past couple weeks.
Her face flushed with anger. “Just because you don’t believe in it doesn’t mean you have any right to listen. These are people’s most painful secrets.”
Her anger, as deserved as it was, stung. “I told you, I know,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I wasn’t eavesdropping on purpose. I was trying to sleep and I heard it through the vent. I was going to plug it up but then this woman started talking about stealing food for her children. And I just . . . I got so sad. I thought maybe I could help her, you know?”
She re-gripped the steering wheel. “You tried to fix things for people.”
I nodded. “I did. Fix things, I mean. A lot of things. I wasn’t just trying to get gossip or anything.”
I watched her fingers stretch out before tightening again on the wheel, clenching and unclenching repeatedly. It was like I could see the gears in her mind on overdrive. She dampened her lips a few times. I swore there was the faint sheen of lip gloss. “Did you have anything to do with Wanda getting a job?”
I sucked in a breath. Sister Bernadette was about a thousand times more perceptive than I gave her credit for. And already I knew she was smart. I gripped my thighs, fingers digging into my jeans.
“Her information was all public online,” I said quietly. People talked about feeling lighter once they cleared the air, like getting their secrets out made everything so much better. “I just . . . spruced up a resume with what I could find. Hers was so, so bad, there was no way anyone would hire her. I posted the new one on some job seeker websites. I figured anything would be better than nothing. I mean, kids were involved.”
Sister Bernadette inhaled slowly through her nose like she was trying to process everything. “There’s more?”
“This guy—his girlfriend racked up all of this debt. So I—I tried to help.”
“The cash.” She looked over at me, her expression hard to read. “Anthony said the Archangel Raziel left an envelope for him specifically to pay off debt.”
“Yeah. I sold a lot of my cosplays and made some new ones.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head, bewildered. “He was a stranger.”
“He needed help.” I looked at my lap. “Someone confessed to abusing their brother.”
Sister Bernadette’s eyes hardened again. “Elizabeth Mackell’s brother was taken to a hospital. Involuntary stay. It’s not been going well.”
“Is that really the worst thing?” I asked. “If she couldn’t take care of him on her own, is it so bad that he’s in a place that can?”
“I think something that extreme would make anyone even more scared and panicked.”
“I’m not saying it’s ideal. But doing nothing would’ve been worse. I’d do it all over again if I needed to.”
Sister Bernadette seemed to be literally biting her tongue. She still didn’t agree with me. Not even remotely. “Was there more?” she asked after a moment.
I squirmed a little. “I found out about Deacon Jameson and Dima.”
Sister Bernadette blinked. “What?”
I paused. “You know, because they’re in love?”
Sister Bernadette snorted. “Unbelievable. First you think Joey’s in love with me, now you think he’s in love with Dima?”
“Why are you lying to me?” I asked, hurt.
“I’m not—”
“I heard you and Deacon Jameson talking about Dima. On the lawn. You talked about the kiss.”
Sister Bernadette paled. “You were spying on me?”
“That’s beside the point.”
Sister Bernadette sighed heavily. She looked . . . disappointed, maybe? I wasn’t sure. She tapped her fingers on the wheel. “Surely that’s not why you’re here though.”
“No. It’s not.” I took a deep breath. Now or never. “The other night, a priest went to my uncle for confession. I didn’t realize priests actually went, you know? I just thought . . . I thought it was all like once you become a priest, you get a free pass, or you confess to yourself, or whatever. But he said . . .”