Chapter 38
The water ran hot, rivulets of steam curling around the tiny bathroom as it felt like it was suffocating me in its hold. I slumped to the floor of the tub, my knees pulled up to my chest, and I couldn’t stop shivering uncontrollably.
My body felt foreign to my touch, unrecognizable…it was not mine. Just a map of pain and humiliation I couldn’t escape. I saw the look in Sayuri’s eyes when she saw my dirty clothes on the ground.
Could they be called clothes anymore? They were ripped to shreds.
They had been torn, bloodied, fucking defiled, and I hated how much the sight of them still made my chest tighten with this unrelenting shame.
Sayuri appeared behind me, silent and soft. I saw her shadow, and when I turned, I couldn’t see the mirror anymore. She covered it up with a towel and tape.
She knew.
That hurt worse somehow, because it made me realize why.
The marks on my body and the sinking feeling were just a mirror of her own past.
Her hands reached up to lightly rest on my shoulders. I couldn’t help it. I flinched at first, instinctively recoiling from any touch, but her warmth grounded me and pressed me into the present.
“You’re safe,” she whispered.
Safe. The word should have been meaningless, absurd. Safe didn’t exist for me. It hadn’t for a long time.
Not in the streets, or the club, and certainly not in my own body tonight.
The quiet determination in her voice made me want to believe her promise, and the steady pressure of her hands almost convinced me…
Almost.
She began her soft searching with my shoulders. Her hands were gentle but insistent, coaxing me into the warm water and away from the wall across from the spray.
“Mortifera…I’m trying, baby.”
I let her guide me where she wanted me, even though I was trembling. I was humiliated, yet utterly dependent on her kindness. I hated how fragile I felt, and hated how desperately I clung to her touch when even air felt too overwhelming right now.
How is that possible? How can I want to rip off my skin, but at the same time need her to stitch it back together?
“It’s because it’s you.”
I answered the questions in my head, but she didn’t mind, and her sad smile didn’t fall.
Every nerve ending felt alive and way too raw, screaming reminders of the night.
Beneath it all, I let her hands hold me steady and focused on her touch as she washed over the broken pieces of what remained of my flesh.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
“Shh…just breathe with me right now, ōkami,” she murmured. “You don’t need a title except for your own name. You are Jedidiah…Franklin.”
“Felix,” I said absently. “My middle name is Felix.”
“That’s a strong name. Jedidiah Felix Franklin. Breathe with me, okay? In and out.”
I did, but each shallow inhale felt like razor wire inside my ribs, and every exhale I felt blood leak down my legs. My head turned to see the blood wash down the drain, but Sayuri held my gaze, keeping my eyes fixed to hers with a gentle hand under my chin.
“Breathe with me again. You can do it. You are doing so well, Jed, slow and steady.”
I focused on her skin as the feeling continued, letting her warmth steady me. I pressed my lips to her forehead, shame flooding me the more that trickling sensation occurred. Maybe it was not just blood…
No. Don’t go there, Jed.
Tears burned my eyes, and fell down my cheeks. I didn’t move, letting her hold me as if she could stitch together the fragments of my shattered self.
Her light touch traced over my bruises, each tender stroke a reminder of the care I had no right to receive. I shivered violently as her hands lingered on the cuts, coaxing tension from my sore muscles that I hadn’t realized locked themselves against not just the world, but myself as well.
I wanted to pull away again and reclaim some tiny fragment of my pride, but my body betrayed me.
I needed her.
I hated myself.
But I needed her.
Because I loved her.
And she loved me.
“I’ve got you, baby,” she whispered again, softer as if she knew I’d crumble. “You don’t have to do anything, okay? You don’t need to be strong. You just have to exist.”
I let her scrub away the blood and grime from my body. Each flinch and shiver was a confession I couldn’t voice to her. I pressed back against her, instinctively, letting her absorb the trembling so I didn’t fall.
It was too much.
The shame, the utter loss of control, I was breaking apart. Her hands never faltered or judged. She simply held me together in a way I hadn’t allowed anyone to do in my entire life.
“May I?”
I didn’t know what she was doing, but I nodded. She tilted my head back to rinse my hair, her fingers tangling gently in the wet strands. Allowing myself, I shut my eyes, humiliated beyond measure.
I was a priest.
I was supposed to be untouchable and above harm.
Yet, here I was, broken, shivering, utterly dependent, letting a woman’s hands cradle me like a fucking baby. Tears fell faster without restraint. Every sob and tremble was a surrender I didn’t know if I could survive.
“You’re still you,” she said softly, seeming to grasp my thoughts. “Even like this. Even broken, even shattered. You are still you. They can break your body and spirit, but they can’t take away your name. They can’t remove who you have been. Don’t let them change your future.”
I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to insist I wasn’t me anymore, and there was nothing left to name. I am a priest who failed in every imaginable way. I am not Jedidiah.
Not anymore.
What’s a name if I can’t recognize the man who claims it?
“I can’t.”
I let her words wash over me like water over my bruised skin, letting them seep into places I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in hours.
“I don’t know who I am.”
She finished her cleaning and walked out of the shower to wrap me in a towel. I clung to her even now. Every fiber of my being screamed at me that I should reject this, that I should flee, that I should assert whatever dignity remained, if any.
But I didn’t.
I let her cradle me, using her like a lifeline.
“I…”
Love you.
I love you, my Mortifera.
I am nothing but a shell without your existence.
Out loud, I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. You have nothing to…feel guilty about.”
Something in her tone broke, and she guided me into soft, clean clothes. The sensation of fabric against my skin made me shake even more with a mix of relief and shame.
She helped me with my hair, and I stopped fighting it. Instead, I closed my eyes and listened as she brushed away wet strands, and my adjusted the blankets to slide me under the sheets.
“Would you like water?”
I opened my eyes, but I didn’t take the offered glass. Instead, I wrapped my hand around hers on the cup.
I managed to get through every motion. Every word she spoke anchored me back into this world, reminding me I hadn’t vanished entirely, even though I felt like I had lost everything.
I had to remind myself that every flinch and tear was proof of my humiliation and my devastation, yet she met it with care…not judgment or disgust.
Why?
I lay like a body inside the sheets, wrapped in warmth and quiet, but unable to truly breathe under the weight of my memories.
I wanted to disappear.
Let me crawl into the floorboards and never return. If you are a merciful God, hear me once. And grant my request.
Her continued presence tethered me and held me upright when my body wanted to collapse.
“Baby, what is your name? Tell me who you are.”
“Sayuri. Stop this. Please just let me rest.”
I couldn’t need her.
I had to survive without her.
She didn’t belong to me.
“I will. But please. I know it seems cruel, but it may help. I am only asking for your name. Tell me who you are. Tell me who I lo—I mean, look forward to in the morning. It’s okay to be broken, it’s not okay to refuse to heal.”
Her words hit me like a blow.
Cruel.
Being broken was not okay—not for me, not for someone who had spent years building an identity around discipline, control, and moral authority after the bullshit I got myself into.
I. Am. A. Priest.
Yet, here I was, trembling, humiliated, and entirely dependent on a woman who weighed maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet.
“You’re still you,” she said again, quiet but unwavering. “Even now. I see the man that I have grown to care for.”
I wanted to argue, to fight, to insist that I wasn’t. That I was gone, destroyed, but what she said made me pause.
Care for?
I was a man whose faith and pride had been shattered. How the fuck can you care for that?
The words lodged in my throat, and I found myself reaching for her instead, waiting to feel her hands cradle me again. I let her patience ease the shaking in my chest, finally feeling like something could breach the hollows of my brokenness.
“Stay with me.”
I buried my face deeper into her shoulder, afraid to hear her rejection.
“Don’t go,” I whispered again, my voice raw and broken. “Please, Mortifera.”
She pressed a hand to my back, tracing my Oni tattoo.
“I’m not going anywhere, ōkami. Your name is Jedidiah, and I am Sayuri. We have survived a monster’s jaws. I will not leave you to heal alone.”
For the first time in my life, I actually believed it.
Maybe, just maybe, I could exist in my own skin again, with time, as long as I had her in my arms to remind me why I had to be okay.
I said my words slowly, carefully feeling each syllable as it left my mouth. Sayuri listened, her head curled in the crook of my neck.
“My name…is Jedidiah Franklin.”