9. Ewen
EWEN
OJesus, eternal Priest, keep your priests, within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart, where none may touch them. Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with your Precious Blood.
The sound of someone coming into the booth pulls me out of my Midday Prayer. I honestly spend more time in here doing my prayers than listening to confessions.
The shuffling subsides, and I slide the window open. It’s not really a window but an opening covered by a wooden screen, allowing me to see the person’s profile.
I rarely look over, giving the person a bit more privacy. Sometimes they confess things they’re ashamed of, but the fact they’re here is always the right step toward cleansing the soul.
“Forgive me Father for I have sinned again. I took another person’s life.
Well, actually two lives.” It’s that voice again.
The one that sent me through a loop of emotions a couple weeks ago.
I’ve replayed that conversation over and over trying to figure out how I felt about the exchange.
Because what he said made sense, but he killed someone.
And now he’s telling me he killed two more.
What do I say to him? I’ve never been at a loss when it comes to receiving confessions.
“Father, you there?” His dark voice calls to me.
I nod, though he can’t see that. “Yes, my son, I am. I am trying to process your confession. Why? Why did you do it again? Didn’t our last talk help you repent and want to do better?”
“Oh, Father, you remember me. I’m flattered.” He chuckles. “I will admit our talk did mess with me, but it actually made me angry. I did unthinkable things to a person. Then I ended another’s life because I had to. Like all of them. I have to remove them.”
“You are not meant to be the one to extinguish someone’s light. Only God is the one who decides that.”
He shuffles around, probably turning toward the screen. Maybe trying to see me. This is a time I wish I could see him. The urge to look and to actually see this mystery of a person is pulling.
“I’m not going to debate what you think is right from wrong when I’m the one out here, living life.
Seeing the terrible things humanity is capable of.
Yes, the people I end could have families.
But they’re also disgusting humans. They do unthinkable things.
I just do what needs to be done to protect mine. And I will until my final breath.”
He’s wrong. I do know the horrid things people are capable of.
I’ve witnessed them firsthand. But I know it’s not what God wants us to do.
“He has a plan for us. All of us. Living through tough times is his way of testing us. Testing our faith. Only once we have embraced His plan do we earn our right to be in his grace. To be accepted into Heaven with His arms open.”
“I can promise you I will not be going to Heaven. Even if I confessed every detail I’ve done, I still wouldn’t want to go. If he has a divine plan for us, then he’s an asshole. Putting innocents through nightmares.”
How can he say that? Why wouldn’t anyone want to be granted entry into Heaven?
“My son, you don’t know His plan. He could have bigger plans for you. You could be one of his chosen ones. But you have strayed from Him.” I need to find the right words to help him. “What was the cause for committing your first murder?”
If I can get him talking about what caused this, then maybe I can get him to see what led him from the light.
“My first murder was when I was fourteen. I smashed a kid’s face in with a brick for trying to force my little sister into something that would have taken her from pure to broken. I did it without remorse. Without feeling anything other than joy for saving my family.”
He was fourteen? He was still a child himself. Again, I get why he did it, and I hate myself for siding with his motives. He saved his sister from something some people never come back from. A situation that would have shaped her life completely.
He continues. “I was brought into my grandfather’s office before the blood had finished drying on my hands.
He sat me down and asked how I felt. When I said I felt nothing but joy for saving her life, I was introduced to my family’s real business.
I was trained to be a killer from that day forward.
I am the guardian angel for my family. I protect them and our businesses. ”
He’s involved in a family-run organized crime organization. What knowledge I have is that this is very common for Boston. We’re a city founded and ran by the Families. There’s the Irish, Italians, Russians, Chinese, and probably more that I’m not even aware of.
Do I try to help him? Get him to see his ways are wrong?
Or do I let him speak? Sometimes just saying things out loud relieves the stress of holding them in.
God’s plan to listen never felt this hard.
I know this man will never turn himself in.
I won’t even suggest that again. Do I have him say prayers with me? Clearly that didn’t help last time.
What do I do?
A knock comes from his side. “Father? I lose you again?”
I clear my throat. “No, my son, I was processing all that you said. It truly is a lot to hear. I don’t condone your way of life. It is not what I feel His way would be accepting of.”
“Ha! You got that right. You’ve always been smart, Aingeal.”
What did he just say? Did he just call me Aingeal? The name I was called years ago in a dark alley. That night I was forced to feel things.
My world implodes in front of my eyes.
Everything about that night has lived with me.
I turn to see the man opposite beside me but can’t make out anything except a shadowed figure. That’s it, I’m breaking the rules. I need to see if this stranger is the man from the alley. I storm out of the confessional booth and practically rip open the door to the other side.
There, sitting in the booth, is the man with the green eyes that haunt my dreams. They’re still so vibrant it’s as if they’re on fire.
The cocky smile is the first thing I notice. He’s wearing a hoodie, very similar to how he was dressed our first encounter. Everything about him right now is almost identical to that night.
“You,” is all I can say. We both know who the other is.
He stands up and starts walking out of the booth. As he steps forward I step back, giving him space so he’s not touching me. “Yes dear Father. It’s me. I was afraid you had forgotten me.”
“No. You took things from me years ago. I could never forget the face of the Devil.”
He cocks his head to the side, a devilish grin pulling his lips up. “Yes, Aingeal, I am the Devil. Your devil.” He steps closer, removing the space I created between us. He leans his head in and sniffs me. “You still smell as delicious as you did that night.”
I’m completely frozen. Just like I was six years ago. Afraid to move. Brain short-circuiting. Every emotion and feeling I had in the alley comes barreling to the forefront of my mind. This is the stranger who I watched end a life. Who forced me to make a life-or-death decision.
I’ve never been able to forget it.
Or him.
Fear grips me. The fear of seeing him again. Fear of what he’ll do to me. Fear of the way he made me feel.
His lips caress my ear as he whispers, “Tell me Father, do you hate me? Hate what I did to you? Or did I make you feel alive?”
What can I say? Yes, I felt amazing. Having his lips wrapped around my manhood, making me come. Making me feel sensations I’d never felt before. I was okay living a life of chastity. Denying all those feelings and desires. All before he came into my life.
“I stand by my words that night and now. I will keep your secret. I won’t tell anyone what I saw, nor will I tell your confessions.”
He tsks and looks deep in my eyes. “That’s not what I asked. I’m not worried you’ll tell my secrets. You already proved you won’t. I asked why you hate me.”
“I—I don’t hate you.” My brain is a barrage of words. None of them fitting to this moment. I want to push him away. Scream at him to leave me alone. Yet I can’t bring myself to do any of it. Why? One single night and a handful of minutes couldn’t really cause so much turmoil in one person. Can it?
“Do you want me to leave?” he asks.
I look at him—truly look at him. Past his eyes that hold me captive.
He’s taller than me but not by much. He sees me taking in his appearance and pushes his hood back, helping me see more of him.
Making it easier for me to take him all in.
He has dark hair. So dark it’s practically black.
He keeps it very short on the sides, with the top slightly longer.
It’s styled back without looking greasy or gross and I wonder how long it is.
He has a perfectly straight nose. Almost Grecian in shape.
A light stubble covers his jaw—not full enough to be defined as a five o’clock shadow.
He is what most would call the perfect male specimen.
He crowds me, more so than he already was. “I’ll leave right this minute. Walk out and you’ll never see me again. I can promise you that. But if you don’t tell me to, I will stay and get to know you. The man that is Ewen and not the priest.”
“Ho—how do you know my name?”
Slowly, but without putting any space between us, he walks around me. Almost rubbing up against me like a cat. Normally I would be against this closeness, but in this moment I don’t mind it. Is it fear keeping me frozen, or him directly.
“Oh, I know so much about you my sweet Aingeal. I told you you were an angel. I’ve watched you.
Ever since I first met you, you’ve been an obsession of mine.
” He stops directly in front of me, forcing me to hold his gaze.
“You may not have seen me, but I have seen you thrive in life. A life I think is wasted on not truly being free.”
I shake my head in disagreement. “I’ve lived my life as I planned. I have fulfilled my dreams of becoming a priest and leading a parish. I have lived following the Bible.”
“That’s not living. That’s following rules. Rules set hundreds of years ago.”
Suddenly he turns and moves away, leaving a frost in his absence. “I’m gonna go now. I clearly fucked up your head because, Father, you didn’t seem to care that I admitted to stalking you. To following you. To knowing things you didn’t tell me. So, take some time to process everything.”
I can’t move. Can barely breathe. A situation I continue to find myself in when he’s near.
He stops at the doors and turns back to look at me. “Till we meet again, my sweet Aingeal. I hope next time we meet it’s under a circumstance where we can have a more constructive conversation.”
The doors open as if they were opened for him. He disappears into the bright afternoon sun like he just stepped into Heaven. But he was right, Heaven wouldn’t want him. He said he’s the Devil, and the Devil rules Hell.