Chapter 7 Waverly
WAVERLY
Ican't stop hearing the whispers.
They echo in my head as I walk home from the church, as I climb the stairs to my apartment, as I lock the door behind me and slide down to the floor with my back against the wood. The woman who corrupted the priest. The scandal that drove him away. Such a shame, he was a good man, before her.
The worst part is that they're not wrong.
Before I walked into St. Augustin's, Cillian had a life.
A purpose. A calling, even if he claims now that it was never real.
He had stability and respect and a community that looked up to him.
Now he has me, and what am I? A lonely girl with no family, no connections, no ability to give him anything close to what he's giving up.
I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
I've spent the past week in a dream, wrapped up in the warmth of his body and the sweetness of his words, and I let myself believe that this could work.
That love would be enough. That we could build something beautiful out of the ashes of everything he's destroying.
But love isn't enough. I know that better than anyone.
My parents loved each other, and they still died in a car accident when I was eight.
My grandmother loved me more than anything, and she still left me alone in the world.
Love doesn't protect you from consequences.
Love doesn't stop people from whispering.
Love doesn't keep the man you care about from waking up one day and realizing he gave up everything for nothing.
My phone buzzes with a text from Cillian. Where are you? We need to talk.
I don't respond. I'm not ready to face him, not with all these thoughts swirling in my head. Instead, I curl up on my couch and stare at the ceiling, replaying every moment since I first walked into that church.
I think about the confessional, about the way my voice shook when I admitted my sins. I think about his hand on my face in the alcove, the way he said my name like it meant something. I think about waking up in his arms and believing, for one perfect moment, that I'd finally found where I belonged.
And then I think about the whispers. About the way Mrs. Patterson looked at me during mass, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. About the way the congregation will look at me once they figure out the truth, if they haven't already. The homewrecker. The temptress. The girl who seduced a man of God.
Maybe I am those things. Maybe I saw a broken man hiding behind a collar and I pushed until he broke further. Maybe I wanted him so badly that I didn't stop to think about what it would cost him.
My phone buzzes again. Please, Waverly. I'm worried about you.
I turn it off.
The next few days are torture. I go to work, shelve books, smile at customers, and feel absolutely nothing. Odette gives me worried looks but doesn't pry, which I'm grateful for. I can't explain this to her. I can barely explain it to myself.
Cillian comes to my apartment every evening, but I don't let him in. I stand on the other side of the door and listen to him knock, listen to him plead, and I don't open it. I can't. If I see his face, if I feel his arms around me, I'll forget all the reasons why this has to end.
On the third night, he stops knocking altogether and simply talks through the heavy wooden door, his voice muffled but unmistakable.
"I know you're in there, Waverly. I can see the glow of your light beneath the door frame." His voice is rough and worn, exhausted from days of pleading and sleepless nights. "I'm not leaving this hallway until you talk to me. I'll stay here all night if I have to."
"There's nothing left to talk about." My voice sounds hollow and flat to my own ears, like it belongs to someone else entirely—someone who's already given up.
"That's not true and you know it." A weighted pause follows, and I can almost picture him leaning his forehead against the door. "I love you. I'm in love with you."
The words strike me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs.
He's never said those exact words before, not like this.
We've danced carefully around them, implied them through glances and touches, shown them in a hundred different wordless ways, but neither of us has ever dared to speak them out loud until now.
"Don't," I whisper, my throat tight with unshed tears. "Please don't say that to me."
"Why not? It's the truth. The only truth that matters."
"Because it makes this harder." I press my forehead against the door, imagining I can feel the warmth of him on the other side. "I'm trying to do the right thing, Cillian. I'm trying to save you from yourself."
"I don't need saving. I need you."
"You need someone who won't ruin your life. You need someone who won't make you give up everything you've worked for. You need someone better than me."
Silence. For a moment, I think he's left. Then his voice comes again, softer now: "There is no one better than you. There's no one else at all. Just you. Just us. Whatever comes next, we face it together."
I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears that threaten to fall. "Go home, Cillian. Please. Just go home."
I hear him exhale slowly. Then footsteps, retreating down the hallway. When I peek through the window a few minutes later, I see him standing on the sidewalk below, looking up at my building. He stands there for an hour before finally walking away.
The next morning, I make a decision.
I pack a bag with the few things that matter: some clothes, my grandmother's photo album, the locket I wear every day.
I leave most of my apartment untouched, like a crime scene waiting to be discovered.
I'll send for the rest later, or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll start over completely, become someone new in a place where no one knows my name.
The train station is crowded with morning commuters, businessmen in suits clutching coffee cups, families with children and luggage.
I buy a ticket for the first train out of the city, destination irrelevant.
Anywhere is better than here. Anywhere is better than staying and watching him throw his life away for me.
I find a bench on the platform and sit down, my bag at my feet, my ticket clutched in my hand. The departure board flickers with times and destinations, and I feel the dull inevitability of what I'm about to do settling into my bones.
This is the right choice. I know it is. If I leave, he can take it all back. He can tell the diocese it was a moment of weakness, a temporary lapse in judgment. He can return to his congregation and his sermons and his safe, structured life. He can forget about me.
The thought of him forgetting about me makes my chest ache so badly I can barely breathe.
I grip my grandmother's locket and close my eyes. "I'm doing the right thing, Nana," I whisper. "He deserves better than what I can give him."
But even as I say it, I hear her voice in my head, the way I always do when I'm trying to convince myself of something I don't believe. "Since when is running away the right thing, sweetheart? Since when is giving up on love before you've given it a chance?"
"I'm not giving up," I argue quietly with the phantom voice of my grandmother echoing in my mind. "I'm protecting him from the consequences of my presence in his life."
"From what, exactly? From experiencing genuine happiness? From having someone in his life who truly loves him for who he is? From living out the life he actively chose for himself?"
"He didn't choose this path freely. He only chose it because of me, because of what I represent. Because I made him desire things he shouldn't want, things that go against everything he's built."
"And who gets to decide what he should or shouldn't want? Is it you? Is it the church and its rigid expectations? Or is it him—the man himself?"
I don't have an answer for that. I never have an answer when Nana's voice challenges me. She was always the one who saw through my excuses, who pushed me to be braver than I felt. And she's not here anymore, which means I have to push myself.
But I'm not brave. I'm not strong. I'm just a girl who fell in love with the wrong man and doesn't know how to fix it.
The departure board updates. My train will arrive in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, and then I'll be gone. He'll never find me. He'll grieve for a while, maybe, but eventually he'll move on. He'll realize I was right. He'll thank me for leaving before things got worse.
I tell myself all of this, and I almost believe it. Then I hear my name.
"WAVERLY."
My head snaps up. He's there, at the far end of the platform, pushing through the crowd with a desperation that makes my heart stop. He's in civilian clothes again, jeans and a sweater, and his hair is wild like he didn't take time to comb it before running out the door.
"Waverly, don't."
I stand up, my bag forgotten, my ticket slipping from my fingers. He closes the distance between us, and I see the fear on his face, the raw terror of a man who thinks he's about to lose everything.
"How did you find me?"
"Your landlord said you'd cleared out. The only train station in the city is this one." He stops in front of me, breathing hard. "You were going to leave. Without saying goodbye. Without giving me a chance to fight for you."
"There's nothing to fight for." My voice breaks despite my best efforts. "I'm doing this for you, Cillian. So you can have your life back."
"I don't want my life back." He reaches for my hands, and I'm too tired to pull away. "I want the life I'm building with you. The one I chose. The one that actually means something."
"It won't mean anything when everyone looks at you and sees a failed priest, a man who couldn't keep his vows. When they look at me and see the reason you failed, the woman who led you astray, who ruined everything you worked for."
"Let them look. Let them whisper behind their hands in church pews and at dinner tables.
Let them think whatever they want, make up whatever stories they need to make sense of this.
" He squeezes my hands so tight it almost hurts, his grip fierce and unrelenting.
"I don't care about any of it, Waverly. I don't care about their judgment or their condemnation or their pity. I only care about you."
"You'll regret this. One day, you'll wake up and realize what you gave up for me, and you'll resent me. You'll hate me for it, for being the reason you lost everything you believed in."
"I could never hate you. Not in this lifetime or any other." He drops to his knees.
Right there on the train platform, surrounded by strangers, he sinks to the ground and looks up at me with those gray-green eyes that have haunted me since the moment I first saw them.
"I spent my whole life on my knees for a God who demanded I be empty," he says, his voice rough with emotion. "I'll spend the rest of it on my knees for you."
People are staring. I can feel their eyes on us, can hear the murmurs of curiosity and confusion. But I can't look away from him. Can't think about anything except the man kneeling before me, offering me everything I was too afraid to accept.
"Cillian, get up. People are watching."
"Let them watch." He doesn't move. "I want them all to see. I want the whole world to know that I chose you. That I'll keep choosing you, every day, for the rest of my life."
The tears I've been holding back finally spill over. "You're insane."
"Probably." He smiles, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. "But I'm yours. If you'll have me."
I sink down to my knees in front of him, not caring about the dirty platform or the staring strangers or any of it. I take his face in my hands and look into his eyes, searching for any trace of doubt or regret. There is none. Just love, steady and certain and completely overwhelming.
"I love you," I whisper. "I've loved you since the first time you looked at me during mass. I've loved you through every sermon and every confession and every sleepless night. I love you, and I'm terrified that I'm not enough for you."
"You're everything," he says. "You're my faith now. My reason. My whole world."
I kiss him. Right there on the platform, with my train pulling into the station behind us, I kiss him like my life depends on it. He wraps his arms around me and holds on like he's never letting go, and I realize that I don't want him to. I don't ever want him to let go.
When we finally break apart, the train doors are opening and closing, passengers flooding on and off. I look at the departure board, at the destination I'll never reach, and then I look back at him.
"Take me home," I say.
He stands and pulls me up with him, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Which home? Your apartment or the rectory?"
I think about it for a moment. About all the places I've lived and left, all the rooms that never felt like they belonged to me. Then I look at his face, at the love shining in his eyes, and I know.
"Wherever you are," I tell him. "That's home."