Chapter 3 #2
“Guess that’s my cue to hurry things up then, huh?” The priest’s sharply angled eyes, the color of coal, now danced with laughter, which never failed to highlight how young he looked in his clergy robes.
“Sit with me.” Father Murphy lowered onto a pew and gestured to the spot next to him. “Tell me where you’ve been, and why it took me threatening to hunt you down to get you to show up.”
Nicholas glanced toward the exit before taking a seat. Liam rested a hand on his bobbing knee.
“How long have we known each other? You don’t have to be nervous with me.”
Nicholas couldn’t remember a life without Liam. He was the single best person Nicholas knew, which made him feel less worthy of sitting beside him in this sacred place.
“I shouldn’t even be here,” he whispered.
“Of course you should. Why would you say that?”
Nicholas sighed. If only he could tell him the absolute truth.
“I’m withdrawing from seminary school.”
The words cut like razor blades on their way out, leaving his insides a bloody mess.
“My theology degree feels useless now. I’ll need to figure out a new major and readmit somewhere else before the fall semester starts.”
Father Murphy removed his hand, as if knowing Nicholas enough to understand he needed room to breathe right then.
But Nicholas had been abandoned at birth on those very church steps, left shivering in the darkened cold.
Oddly enough, that was how the loss of Liam’s touch made him feel. Cold and abandoned to the dark.
“Are you disappointed?” Nicholas asked stupidly. Of course he is.
After a few beats of silence, he chanced a side glance at his priest, mentor, and friend. Nicholas let loose his held breath at the love and acceptance he found in his expression.
“I was eighteen when I found you on those steps, Nicholas. You wore a green hat with your full name crocheted on the front, and there was a note inside your basket that said, ‘Love him, please.’ It was late, and I was high, or drunk—or both,” he tossed in dryly.
“I’d been living on the streets for a while by then, and I was at the end of my rope.
I was walking down this block, on my way to the pier with the intention of throwing myself off of it, when I heard you crying.
” His lips formed a grim line as he recalled that night.
“I can’t swim, Nicholas. You saved me. You and God. ”
Nicholas knew every word by heart, but it still caused him physical pain to imagine a world without Liam in it. A world without his goodness and light.
The story ended with Mrs. Bailey—a parishioner—taking Nicholas in, and Father Murphy finding his purpose within the church.
“This work isn’t easy, Nicholas.” He gestured to the walls around them. “But you can love and obey God without being a priest. I know you, and I know your heart. I could never be disappointed in you.”
Nicholas pulled his gaze away, blinking to alleviate the sting.
If only it were that simple. Nicholas had spent his whole life in the church.
He felt most at peace inside its doors, as if by dedicating his life to his religion, God would forgive the truth of who he was at his core, a truth he’d successfully abstained from until now.
Father Murphy made giving up sound so easy, but Nicholas was lost and drowning in his sins.
When not drowning, he floated aimlessly with no destination or shore in sight.
The contradiction between his values and actions was blinding, and yet he was helpless to his mistakes.
He felt betrayed by his own body and mind.
Lately, all he knew was his cravings, and he’d become a slave to them. He feared he’d become capable of anything just to satisfy them.
Liam didn’t need to be disappointed because Nicholas held enough disappointment within himself to close the gap.
“This is the only place where I don’t feel alone, and I hate feeling alone. Yet, I push people away. What’s wrong with me?”
Nicholas gripped the edge of his seat as his trials and tribulations threatened to take him to the ground. He eyed the crucifix suspended above the altar. His own replica, burning around his neck.
“I-I’m pushing you away. I’m going to walk through those doors and…”
Never look back.
He’d once blamed his distrust of others on being discarded by his birth mother and living with the fear—or hope—that she’d return for him.
Nicholas was self-aware enough to see the irony of his faith—which called for him to see the good in everyone—and his lack of faith in others.
It wasn’t that he believed people to be bad, he was just wired to question the motives of those who wanted a meaningful relationship with him.
Mateo thought it was a self-esteem issue. He thought Nicholas didn’t think himself worthy of love. It was more like his love was being protected, harvested for something greater. Nicholas had believed that greatness to be God. But now he wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure about anything.
“What aren’t you telling me, Nicholas?”
The old wooden pew groaned as Father Murphy angled his body toward Nicholas, resting a hand on his shoulder in a silent request for Nicholas to face him. The concern in Liam’s stare made him feel worse.
“Is it your dreams about the beach?”
Nicholas clenched his jaw. “I wish.”
He’d give anything to have his haunting beach returned to him. Better to be chased from sleep by a dark ocean than a beautiful monster.
“I don’t want to push, Nicholas, but I wasn’t always a priest. I may understand more than you know.”
Nicholas huffed. “I highly doubt it.”
Father Murphy’s expression turned helpless, and Nicholas hated himself a little bit more because of it.
“I know where to find you if I need you,” he said. “You’ll be the first one I turn to.”
Liam searched his gaze, and Nicholas did his best to convey that he’d be okay.
“Go find your answers, Nicholas. Go in good faith. But you don’t have to stay away just because you no longer want to be a priest. God loves you as you are.”
Nicholas wanted to tell him he’d gone a step too far beyond what even God could forgive. He pulled his gold pendant from beneath the collar of his T-shirt instead, his constant reminder of Christ’s sacrifice.
Father Murphy’s words were meant to provide comfort, but they only reminded Nicholas of how ungrateful he’d been for that sacrifice as of late. How he hadn’t been able to bear his own cross. God didn’t love him. How could he when Nicholas didn’t even love himself?
“Nicholas?”
“I’ve gotta go.” He stood, tossing his fencing pack over his shoulder.
Liam sighed, likely knowing he’d gotten all he could out of Nicholas. “I’ll see you out.”
They walked in silence, neither seeming to want to leave things as they were, but unsure of what else to say.
“What should I tell Mrs. Tilbury?” Father Murphy asked with mock severity. “I’ve had to comfort her after every sermon. She swears her gout pain subsides after praying with you. God initially brought her here, but I’m starting to think it’s you she keeps coming back for.”
They were at the narthex of the church now, inches away from the doors leading outside. “I saw her leaving when I got here. I may have ‘dilly-dallied’ to avoid being spotted by her.”
Liam gasped. “Heaven forbid we ‘dilly-dally.’”
Nicholas smiled to the priest’s obvious delight. He settled a hand on Nicholas’s forearm, halting his departure.
“St. Michael was a spiritual warrior in the battle of good versus evil. Considered a healer to the sick and the guardian of the church.”
Nicholas frowned, confused. “I know. You taught me that.” Which meant he believed the story related to Nicholas in some way, but how?
“Names can be burdens, Nicholas. Yours doesn’t have to be.
You don’t need to be a saint. You don’t have to be perfect or measure up.
” He withdrew his gold rosary. It’d been a graduation gift from the other clergy members when he’d completed seminary school years ago.
He took Nicholas’s hand, laying the beads in his palm.
“I can’t accept—”
“I’m lending it to you, which means you have to come back to return it. Now go, or you’ll be late.” He shooed him out, putting an end to any further objections.
“And tell Mateo I haven’t given up on him either.”
Nicholas had never learned the art of deep connections. He always held back a piece of himself. But if there was one person out there, besides Mateo, who held more of him than anyone else, it was Liam Murphy.