22. Savio
CHAPTER 22
Savio
Afraid - The Neighbourhood
H er words have me releasing a shaky breath. The responsibility is?—
Before I can complete the thought, she untangles the hold we have on each other’s wrists, reaches for my hand, and with a delicacy that takes me aback, presses a kiss to my palm.
The gesture is so sweet, so tender, I can’t shove her aside. A part of me might want to, but I can’t shut her out, not when her presence is beginning to feel like a gift I don’t deserve.
“Didn’t you ask your friends to explain to them how you saved them?”
“They’re all over the world. It wasn’t like they could come into the hospital. My physicians didn’t believe the emails they sent either. They thought I wrote them.”
Even as I question if that was true, if maybe she had created these friendships, she sighs. “You don’t believe me either.”
“I’m not sure what to believe,” is my honest reply.
“I have wings.”
“If that’s supposed to convince me—” I start, my tone rueful, until for the first time, she concedes her gained territory.
Rolling over, pushing two feet of distance between us so she can lie flat out, she shows them to me.
They’re mostly hidden beneath her camisole, but I can see the ink playing peekaboo.
Of course.
So, her every delusion is founded in a truth.
The ink is not new, but still pristine. All harsh black and lavender lines for the feathers, with a watercolor background making them appear as if they’re in mid-flight. When I peer closer, I can see that each line consists of a word.
They’re not something I can read. No language I’ve come across. It’s neither Latin nor Greek.
I can no more stop myself from reaching out to trace a word than I can stop my pulse from pounding.
“What language is it?” I ask thickly.
“Aramaic.”
“You speak it?!”
“No. I was told what to inscribe there.”
I shy away from her justification, the truth of why the specialists believe her to be mentally unwell growing more evident with every word she utters.
But even terrible priests are taught to find miracles, to embrace them, not outright reject them.
Even if it all sounds a little too insane to be believed.
And with her past, her illness, even a priest could be forgiven for discounting her story.
“I showed the doctors Diana’s pictures, the ones she sends me of her with her husband and daughters, and they said she was a figment of my imagination. I told them what I did, but they wouldn’t look into it. Her father is in prison, for God’s sake. No matter what I said, they wouldn’t listen,” she whispers. “So I lied. But I won’t lie to you. I promise.”
She sounds so heartsick that I press my hand to her back and trickle it over the smooth curve.
“I-I believe you.”
My words have her flipping over, and excitement fills her eyes. I’m surprised when she jumps off the bed with more exuberance than sense considering her condition and pads out of the room. For a second, I sit up, unsure what’s happening.
Light spears my eyeballs as she turns into the hall and hits the switch beside my door, and then I hear rummaging around in her room before she returns with a phone in hand.
I settle back, waiting for her to climb into bed—I don’t question how right it feels for her to come to me the way she is. My focus is elsewhere.
She doesn’t turn off the hall light upon her return, and it halos around her as she walks, making her hair and skin gleam like gold.
When she clambers onto the mattress beside me, I’m glad because it means I can’t see that anymore, and she tilts her screen to me.
I notice it’s midnight as she pulls open her messaging app.
She finds a conversation, one that’s pretty in-depth for a fake, one that consists of her friend telling her not to wake me from a night terror, then types:
Andrea: Diana, you awake?
For a few seconds, nothing happens, and I eagerly await a response.
It doesn’t come.
In a rush, she excuses, “Di works Hong Kong hours, but she’s on vacation right now so I’m not that surprised she isn’t answering?—”
“We can try again later,” I soothe, finding myself in the odd position of wanting to make sure her feelings aren’t hurt.
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
Like my words are fate-driven, her phone pings.
Diana: What’s wrong? Did he hurt you? I told you not to prod a sleeping bear!
Andrea: I’m fine
Diana: You’re never awake this late.
Andrea: I am today
“You could never show the doctor this?” I rasp.
“She lives unusual hours because her work is based on Hong Kong time. They didn’t care that she’s in a different time zone. They thought I was just feeding the delusion, trying to make them believe the lie. I’d schedule calls with her, but something always went wrong.
“One time, she stayed awake to talk to them and then her daughter got stung by a wasp and had an allergic reaction. Four times we tried, and in the end, I told her to stop because her husband broke his hand and then she had a small fire. That last time, her kitchen flooded?—”
“ Putain! ”
She hums. “It was so bizarre. Anyway, the more I pushed the doctors to understand, the crazier they thought I was. It was a vicious cycle. They didn’t want to believe me, to believe in me, and whenever I tried, it terrified my mom and dad, so I gave up and played their game until I could discharge myself.”
“What about your other friends?”
“It just never worked out. Bad luck, I suppose. When the doctors came for an appointment with me, they’d be at work or school.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. So long as you believe me, that’s all that counts,” she tells me even as she sends a text back to Diana.
Andrea: I just wanted to prove you exist.
Diana: Lol. Existing is something I don’t do anymore. Because of you. Now, I live and I love!
Andrea: :*
Andrea: It’s late, babe. Going to sleep some. Love you.
Diana: Sleep well. Love you too. XOXO
Reading her messages, I muse, “She knows you’re in Rome?”
“I didn’t want to tell her, but she’d have called the cops if I just ran away from the hospital without looping her in. She’s a worrywart, but she promised not to share where I am with my parents.”
“She cares about you.”
“I saw her,” she says with a shrug. “You don’t let someone like that go when they saved you.”
What must it be like to be saved?
To no longer exist, but to live and to love…?
It’s impolite of me but I brush my fingers through her hair.
The side closest to me is spiky, short, and oddly crispy, but moving around a pillow has mussed it up.
My fingers drag against the scar, and the ruffled skin rams home what this woman went through.
She deserves my empathy, my sympathy, and yet, that isn’t what I feel.
In all honesty, I don’t even know what I’m feeling.
Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I watch as she stretches like a cat being stroked at my touch. Her eyelids flutter closed and she turns her cheek toward me, like she’s giving me better access.
My stomach immediately free-falls with my body wanting to move closer, but my head knows this is an impossible, untenable situation.
She’s sick.
It’s wrong.
“I’m not sick.”
Her words have me tensing.
How the?—
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’re thinking,” she rumbles, sighing some more as she snuggles into the covers, which brings her closer to me again. So close that her breath brushes my chest.
I shudder.
It’s been a long time since someone has been this close to me, and it’s not the kind of temptation I thought I’d face after so many years in a cassock.
The temptation for full skin-to-skin contact, for affection and warmth, intimacy, is almost overpowering.
“Don’t tense up,” she mumbles sleepily.
I sigh at the sound of her tired voice, and I get the feeling that she could rest, but I still need answers.
I know that I’m diving headfirst off a cliff, but I tuck my hand around the back of her head and gently press her into me until her forehead connects with my chest.
At that moment, I’m in a world of confusion.
My back is aching. Normally, I appreciate how it grounds me and makes me feel alive.
But my front is in Heaven. And suddenly, feeling alive isn’t enough for me.
For her to be this near, her softness against all my hardness…
“How have I lived without this for so long?” My words are soft, barely whispered on my breath, but she hears them.
And call me as crazy as she is, but I can’t hide from the belief that she was born to.
“You weren’t ready for me, and I wasn’t ready for you,” she mumbles then pats me like I need comforting. Like her words make complete sense.
And par Dieu , maybe they do.
I take a deep breath, process, and then inquire, “What made you realize you were sick?”
“I’ve helped a lot of people?—”
“And not a single one of them could corroborate your story?”
Suddenly, she’s not so sleepy as she barks, “I shouldn’t need my story to be ‘corroborated.’ Honestly, you’d think I was a criminal!”
I wince—she’s right.
“And, no. I either couldn’t get in touch with them or some weird disaster befell them. Charlie fell off his motorcycle. Jasmine’s house got torn up in a tornado. I’d receive emails or texts later on but?—”
“They wanted to think you were damaged.”
“Yes. I would never have been 100% there anyway because you’re here. I need you to get better. Just like you need me. We’re a team.”
“You say that as if we’ve known each other for a lifetime. Andrea, I haven’t even known you a day.”
“Maybe, but a part of you has. Do you know what a twin flame is?”
“The belief that a soul has two halves and they’re separated at birth.” I sigh—I want to say that’s silly, but I go around killing monsters in human skin.
Who’s the crazy one here?
She pauses then shuffles in the covers some. I tense when her leg kicks over my hip, but I know it’s to get closer to me. Out of nowhere, she’s trembling.
“What is it?” I rasp, and concern has me dragging my hand along her arm, both to soothe and to reassure.
“The last woman I helped, it went wrong. I didn’t save her. If anything, I got her killed.”
My eyes flare wide. “What? How?”
“Her husband came for her. He got to her because she was running from me.”
“What did you—” Her tension transmits itself to me. “ Oh .” And suddenly, I understand. “The wings?”
“Yes. I told her about them,” she whispers miserably.
“You didn’t show them to her?”
She licks her lips and her tongue accidentally pokes my chest. I know it’s not on purpose because it slips back in as fast as it popped out, not caressing me like she might if she were trying to seduce me.
I wouldn’t put it past her, but still, at this moment, that isn’t her intent.
“I had the tattoo done after she died. Before my surgery.”
“Why?”
“I just needed to. W-When she... she looked at me like I was a freak. I’d been helping her, had spent months building her up to leave her husband, and she treated me like she was escaping one lunatic only to fall into the arms of another.” She shudders. “I went to the doctor. It was the least I could do in her memory. She only died because I terrified her.”
I tighten my embrace around her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You got me through it.”
“I did?” My brain brakes to a halt. “How?”
“At every pivotal point of my life, you’ve been there. When I realized what my calling was. When I failed my first charge, you were on TV. When I helped save Diana, my sister from another mister, you’d just been freed and I saw the news report. Then, when I was diagnosed with the cyst, Diana shared an article about you and your move to Rome. You were along for the ride and you didn’t even know it.”
I could see how, when she was sick, that would make a difference.
But this talk of soul mates?
I sigh, my breath brushing her hair, making the slight scent of rose and vanilla waft around.
It’s stupid and makes me feel like I’m taking advantage because she’s ill, but I press a kiss to her head.
She nuzzles into me, and for a while, we’re silent. I know she isn’t asleep. It’s more like she’s resting her eyes.
After some time, she whispers, “Savio?”
“Yes?”
“I think I need to clean your back again. It’s wet on the sheets.”
I tense then register just how bad the pain is.
It’s odd how I was numb, my body blocked from me as I processed her story.
“I’ll put a shirt on.”
She frowns—I can feel her brow against my chest. “How do you keep this from people?”
“I don’t. Not always. When I was in Switzerland, the blood seeped into my chasuble. It caused complaints.”
She snorts. “I can imagine.”
My lips curve, and even though I never in a million years imagined smiling about something like this, I do now.
And it’s… pleasant.
“I’ll be two seconds.”
“Don’t you think it needs more than a shirt?” she asks, watching me move off the bed.
I wear a pair of boxer briefs, but it feels like I’m naked when I can sense her eyes drifting over me.
When she sees my back, she hisses at the wounds.
Then, from out of nowhere, she’s there, arms sliding around my waist, face pressing into my arm.
She doesn’t say anything, just holds me, and somehow, that’s what has my eyes burning with tears.
I don’t let them fall.
They’re not for me anyway.
They’re for the fallen. The innocent. Those I failed and who’ll haunt me until the end of time.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” she keens.
“The barbs in the whip make more of a mess than the leather itself. But it’s only when I bleed that I feel clean once more.”
“Clean from what? You are clean?—
“I was kidnapped because the rebels wanted me to absolve them of their sins,” I answer huskily. “They wanted me to hear their confessions and for me to permit them to commit the atrocities while whitewashing their souls.”
“You refused.”
Not a question.
“I did.”
That earns me a squeeze.
“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 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 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. One would rest his boot on my face, making sure I was watching.” I clear my throat. “A few days before I was liberated, they kidnapped 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 thighs. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Her fingers stroke 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, then she reaches for my chin, tugging my head back until I’m staring up at her. She leans over until our foreheads can press 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 sink into me like a stone through water.
Is she right?
I’ve never thought of it that way.
When all I heard was the child.
And those fucking animals.
No.
She is right.
God wouldn’t...
He couldn’t.
Would He?
He doesn’t absolve me. So, why would?—
And if He did, if we’re wrong, what use is this faith? What point is there to my position as a priest if the God we cherish and 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 tumble around me until I’m nothing more than a walking skin suit.
It’s only now when she says this, phrases it in this way, that I hear the truth.
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 thirteen years in the making blows me apart, my arms slip around her thighs. While the broken fractures in my mind cluster together like cancer, tossing out poison for me to process, I croak, “The screams.”
Another husky hum escapes her—there’s acceptance in that hum. Understanding. Compassion. Both sink into me like I want 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 as 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 hear the lie in those words, 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— 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 with another party that isn’t God in thirteen years. I lie to the bishop when he takes 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 once had because in the aftermath of a catastrophic life event, I had no idea which path to take next.
“Death has stained my soul since I was a child?—”
“Was it an accident? What happened with your bully, I mean?”
“Y-Yes. That’s the only reason I didn’t go to prison. He started a fight; I ended it. I beat him badly, but he fell and hit his head on a stone curb 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.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I do! 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 has a point, and my entire life, I suddenly see, is a complete and utter lie.