Chapter 23
Alot of shit in my life had prepared me to recognize all signs of fear.
Emotions didn’t have to look the same for everyone, or what the television wanted to portray. In my experience, fear and sorrow were smiles and a completely calm expression. The difference was the eyes. There was a soft emptiness that showed the terror and pain they were experiencing.
You only see that kind of pain…when you have felt it.
Otherwise, you only see the smiles.
The mop slapped the tile, and I smiled at the little kids in the rectory copying me. It made me miss my son so much. I did not get to see his first steps or hear his laugh. I was disappearing from his life, little by little.
He may not know his true name. I have to get my baby back.
I heard a disturbance upstairs that to anyone else would have just been shuffling, but I knew better, and the mop fell from my hand. The minute I got to the top of the stairs, I heard a worse sound that made my stomach drop.
Jedidiah was raising his voice.
It wasn’t loud in the way anger is. It was a sharp sound, cut short with a calculated breath. It sounded like something had been knocked out of him mid-breath. The counseling door opened seconds later, and I hid in a corner.
Miranda stepped out, but something was very wrong.
Her lipstick was smeared slightly at the edges. Not ruined exactly, but disturbed, and her blouse was crooked. There was something above all the rest that was the biggest red flag—her smile.
She didn’t look embarrassed.
She looked…satisfied.
Her eyes flicked to me standing at the end of the hall, and there was something smug and mean in them. It reminded me of a child who stole someone else’s toy when no one noticed.
My stomach dropped, and I stopped her.
“What did you do, Miranda?”
She walked past me without a word, knocking my arms a bit too roughly on her exit. I waited until she rounded the corner before I moved to the door. It was still open, and I could hear panted breaths inside.
“Jed?” I said softly, standing outside, even with it open.
He was standing near the desk, his hands braced against the wood as he needed it to stay upright. His head was bowed, and his shoulders rose too fast.
“I’m fine,” he said immediately when he looked up and saw me waiting.
He wasn’t.
His breathing was too shallow, too quick, and quite wrong. I stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind me. The click made him flinch. That was when I knew for sure Miranda had gone too far.
“Jed,” I said again, firmer this time.
He shook his head. “Don’t. okay? Please.”
His voice was controlled, but fragile, like cracked glass. One movement and it would all shatter.
I had heard that tone before…from myself.
In a bathroom with the shower running, so no one could hear me breathe, I let the pain consume me in private. I moved closer to him, slow and careful, allowing him to see me coming. His hands were shaking, and he shook his head, bowing his head again.
“Did she—”
“I said I’m fine, Sayuri. Please.” His breath hitched on the last word, and I felt my heart do the same.
I reached out slowly and touched his shoulder. “Okay. You are fine. I hear you.”
He folded.
There was no other word for it. His body just gave up pretending when he felt my soft touch.
He stepped into me like gravity had shifted, his forehead dropping against my shoulder.
His fingers gripped the back of my blouse, not rough but desperate like he was trying to connect us so he didn’t disappear.
He didn’t make a single sound at first, and when he did, it was small and broken.
“I couldn’t move,” he whispered. “I just sat here.”
My arms wrapped around him instinctively, remembering how much I needed to feel grounded in those times when I didn’t feel connected to my own body.
“I know,” I murmured, softly shushing him like a child.
His chest started shaking harder in my arms.
“I’m supposed to protect people,” he said, his deep voice cracking. “But…I can’t even protect myself.”
Outside in the hallway, I heard faint footsteps. Time was too thin in this damn church. I pressed my palm against the back of his head and held him steady.
“You didn’t choose this,” I said quietly.
He inhaled sharply, like that hurt more. “I didn’t fight, either. I froze.”
“That doesn’t mean you chose it.” His hands tightened slightly in my shirt. Not hurting, but clinging to me as his anchor.
“I didn’t fucking move while—” he said.
“Your brain couldn’t process,” I answered. “That is normal. It is called fawning.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His pale eyes were red. Humiliated and so lost.
“I’m disgusting,” he said. “I feel so damn dirty. You should go.”
The word hit something ancient inside me. ‘Dirty. Impure. Unclean. Infected with the abuse.’
I lifted my hands and cupped his face firmly.
“No,” I said, steadily, forcing his eyes to look into mine. “You are not dirty. You are pure. Miranda is the filthy one. This is not a stain on your heart or body.”
He shook his head weakly.
“I should’ve stopped her. I am a man. I should have thrown her off me.”
I held his gaze.
“You survived, Jedidiah. You didn’t hurt her despite her hurting you. You are good. More than she deserved. You are a survivor.”
His breathing was still uneven.
I knew that rhythm, the spiral coming back in my own thoughts and memories. Maybe the number of times my body had been used had made me numb to it all.
“Look at me,” I whispered. “Please.”
He did.
“Right now,” I continued softly, “You get to choose something.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “What?”
“Anything.”
He blinked.
Outside, Gloria’s voice drifted faintly down the hall. “Father Franklin?”
We didn’t have long before the old bat bashed down the door.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” I said. “Right now. Take control and see that you have the choice.”
He stared at me like I had spoken a foreign language.
“What?”
“Say it,” I urged gently. “You decide. Anything.”
His throat worked, but for a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer.
“I want you to stay with me. Don’t…leave,” he said in a barely audible tone.
My chest tightened at his words. I wouldn’t do it, despite Gloria and the implications that could happen if she caught me here.
“I won’t,” I said. “ I am right here.
His breathing slowed a fraction.
“What else?” I said.
He swallowed.
“I can’t have what I want.”
I breathed deeply and looked at his shaking form. “Tell me what you want?”
He sighed, and I wrapped my arms around him tighter. But this time, it was slower, so he could see it happening, and he knew it was intentional.
He exhaled against my shoulder, and his hands came up uncertainly, hovering before resting at my waist. Careful and ask permission without words.
“What do you want, Jed?” I whispered again.
He inhaled, shaky, and held my waist tighter. “I want…you, but I don’t want to corrupt you, too.”
I took one of his hands gently and placed it over my heartbeat.
“Feel that?”
His palm was warm against my chest through the fabric.
“It’s steady,” I said. “You’re not breaking anything, you aren’t dirty. You are beautiful, and you set me on fire, Jed. Nothing about you is corrupted.”
His fingers trembled.
“I don’t know. I won’t touch you for the wrong reason,” he said quietly. “I don’t want it to be because of that…”
“Then don’t,” I replied.
He looked at me again, confused.
“If you touch me,” I continued. “It’s because you want to. Not because you’re trying to erase her. And you can stop anytime. You have control and my permission.”
I lifted my hand to his, placing a kiss on his palm.
“You choose,” I said.
His eyes searched mine, making sure there was no trap in them.
Slowly, hesitantly, he lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles along my jaw, soft and testing.
I didn’t move. I let him feel my skin.
His thumb traced the edge of my cheekbone, as if he were reminding himself what skin felt like when it wasn’t forceful, and slowly, little by little, his breathing steadied.
Outside, Gloria knocked once on the distant wall.
“Father?”
Jed’s hand froze.
I shook my head slightly. “Stay here.”
He swallowed and leaned his forehead against mine.
“You have endured this…invasion…haven’t you,” he said. Not a question.
My heart twisted, and I slowly nodded.
“You aren’t broken or dirty either,” he said, placing a soft kiss on my neck and cheeks, before pressing them lightly to my lips. I could feel the cold metal of his rosary.
“It wasn’t one person, Jed. And it wasn’t one time. Your soul can heal. But mine…”
“No,” he said firmly, the tone catching me off guard. “You are not irreparable. You are brilliant and pure and beautiful and…”
His eyes closed briefly, relief flickering across his face like light through stained glass. He leaned in and kissed me again, this time tracing my lips with his fingertip.
“And?” I pressed, returning the slow, tantalizing kisses one by one.
His eyes held a question that burned into me.
“And you’re mine, Sayuri. You always have been.”
I answered the words just as slowly with my tongue, linking it with his and pressing my body into his.
Maybe…I am.
His hands stayed where they were, one at my waist and one at my jaw. He wasn’t grabbing me, and there was no more desperation. It was just presence—a calm assurance.
He pulled back first.
“I’m choosing this,” he said quietly. “I am choosing you.”
“Choosing me?”
He nodded once, grounding himself in that truth. Then he kissed me again before I could question what he meant.
When Gloria’s footsteps passed the door again, we separated naturally, and he straightened, wiping at his face quickly, rebuilding the priest versus the man.
Before he reached for the handle, he looked at me, not broken or bruised.
But standing.
“Say it,” he said softly.
“Say what?”
“That you aren’t broken either, and you are just as pure.” I didn’t truly believe that, and I smiled weakly.
“I will make you believe each and every word, Sayuri. In time, you will see yourself as I see you. Whole and unbreakable. Our past doesn’t define us, nor do other people’s hands. We decide our own destiny.”
I swallowed from that, the lump forming in my throat thicker than ever.
I wanted to choose my own destiny, but what I wanted was impossible.
I can’t have them both.
A monster has already chosen my ending.
I must slay a good man.
A man…I am falling in love with.