“You refused.”
Not a question.
“I did.”
She squeezes me.
“I refused to the point where they decided to choose a different means of gaining my compliance. They’d take a woman from a village, from a town, or wherever they were attacking. Sometimes, it happened once a week, sometimes it was once a month. But they always did the same thing.
“They’d bring them, strip them of their clothes, and rape them in front of me. It was—”
“Hell on Earth.”
“Yes.” Even that couldn’t describe it. “I fought, I even killed some of the rebels, but they’d torture me beforehand. Punish me until I was nothing more than a shaken bag of bones and I had no will to do anything other than lie on the ground.
“That was when they’d drag me out and do it.” I cleared my throat. “About two weeks before I was liberated, they brought a little girl.”
The sob that escapes me this time is impossible to contain.
She squeezes me so tight that it hurts, my wounds, my organs, but it feels so fucking good.
And I know, all of a sudden, what I need.
I drop out of her hold—literally, sinking to the ground so she has no choice but to release me or fall with me.
When my knees collide with the wooden floor, I bow over, pressing my forehead to her knees as I rasp, “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Her hand strokes through my hair, mimicking the touch I gave her earlier.
“You absolved them,” she intones calmly.
“Y-Yes. I couldn’t let them—”
She hushes me, bows over me, and she reaches for my chin, tugging my head back until we could press our foreheads together.
“And they did it anyway?”
Tears burn.
I can’t answer.
“This is why you struggle with your faith,” she whispers. “This is why you go through the motions, because you know that confession means nothing. If you truly believe that God will allow those monsters into heaven because you absolved them, then I’m not the one who’s crazy here, my darling.”
I flinch at her endearment, but the rest of her words?
They sink into me like a stone through water.
Is she right?
I’d never thought of it that way.
When all I heard was the child.
And those fucking animals.
No.
She was right.
God wouldn’t...
He couldn’t.
Would he?
And if he did, what use is this faith? What point is there to my position as a priest if the God we cherish, revere, would allow that?
How do I only see this now?
Confession is a pivotal point of the religion I preach, but I can’t believe in it.
If I do, my shattered sanity will fall around me, until I’m nothing more than a walking bag of bones.
It’s only now when she says this, phrases it like that, that I know how right she is.
Confession is more than just an act. Without the desire for forgiveness in one’s heart, it means nothing, and if anyone is going to know that, it’s God.
As a crisis of faith that’s a decade in the making blows me apart, my arms slip around her thighs while the broken fractures in my mind cluster together like a cancer, tossing out poison for me to process, I whisper, “The screams.”
Another husky hum escapes her, and it sounds crazy, but it soothes me.
I feel it in my being.
It whispers through my body, making me feel at ease, even as I want nothing more than to sink into her.
“You’re not a priest, my love.” A kiss goes to my forehead as she pulls away. “You’re not. You’ve seen the reality of life. Just like I have. I didn’t hear it or endure it like you, but I saw the aftermath. I see it now. In you.”
“I’m not a victim—”
“If you can’t see that, then, love, you need me more than I even realized.” She sighs, her breath brushing over my forehead. “The past skews your vision. You see everyone as a sinner with no hope of redemption... does that mean you have no hope of redemption either?”
“I’m a killer.”
“You are, but does that stain you forever?”
“You don’t know my past. You don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t deserve—” I gulp. “The only way I can make it right is if I punish those who hurt the innocent.”
“No, I don’t know what you’ve done. But I’m here now. You can tell me.”
I haven’t had a truthful confession in so long. I lie to the bishop when he comes to take mine, and I do so with ease because she’s right.
I’m not a priest.
I’m a man just going through the motions of life. Sticking to a calling I’d once had because, in the aftermath of a catastrophic life event, I have no idea which path to take next.
“I killed a boy when I was thirteen. Death has stained my soul since I was a child, but I know my soul is clean of that particular sin.”
“Why? Who was the boy?” She doesn’t sound shocked or terrified, if anything, her hand gentles as she strokes it over my head.
“My tormentor.”
“Was it an accident?”
“Y-Yes. That’s the only reason I didn’t go to prison.”
“What happened?”
“He started a fight, I ended it. I beat him badly, but he fell and hit his head on a stone verge that lined the playground. I pushed him though—”
“Savio,” she whispers, “you’ve shed blood for that boy. You shed it tonight. You shed it every time you hurt yourself. You’re a sinner seeking redemption, but you won’t find it on your current path.”
“How do you know?” I whisper thickly.
“Because you’re giving your victims peace and torturing yourself even more.”
And at that, I have no words, because this crazy angel with wings written in Aramaic is right, and my entire life, I suddenly see, is a complete and utter lie.
Eight
Andrea
“Did you seek penance for your part in the boy’s death?”
“Yes,” he whispers, sounding so miserable that my heart hurts for him.
“And did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Then his death isn’t on your soul, is it?” That didn’t mean the other stuff wasn’t. But damn, I could only deal with so many issues at once.
He blows out a breath that gusts against my belly, pooling warmth there. “I’ve never been a popular priest.”
His sermon was a little wooden, but I’m not sure I can see him being disliked. If anything, the way he cares for his flock makes me suspect his perception is skewed. If anyone is suffering with PTSD here, it’s Savio. I’ve seen those pictures on Facebook. I’ve seen how the brain works, or doesn’t work, when someone is depressed or in pain or dealing with PTSD.
Savio’s clearly just as damaged as I am—but in a different way.
“Why do you say that?” I inquire instead of disagreeing with him.
“I ask too much of parishioners. They don’t want to give it.”
“That’s modern life. We want to go to church, want our soul to be pure for heaven when we die, but we’re lazy.”