Chapter 26 Dorian
“Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
— Hebrews 4:13 KJV
Dorian was vibrating.
It was a physical hum, a low-frequency buzz rattling his teeth in his skull. He was running on fumes, three hours of fitful sleep, and what any medical professional would classify as a lethal dose of caffeine. The empty cans of Monster rattled in the passenger footwell of his car like spent shell casings.
He took the long way to his mom’s house. He needed the asphalt, the mindless rhythm of the tires, the blur of suburbia passing by the window. His brain was too loud. There were a thousand thoughts screaming for attention, a cacophony of guilt and desire and panic, and absolutely none of them were suitable for a casual Sunday afternoon chat with his mother.
Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Just drive.
He chewed his bottom lip until he tasted copper. The silence in the car was getting heavy, suffocating. If he didn’t let some of this pressure out, he was going to explode right there in his mom’s living room. He’d end up word-vomiting something insane about priests and jawlines and the specific heat of a man’s skin.
He groaned, dragged a hand down his face, and slapped his phone screen. He hit the contact for Elara and waited. The ringing sound through the Bluetooth speakers did nothing to settle his heart rate.
“Hey!” Elara’s voice crackled through the speakers, distorted but painfully cheerful. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until later. What’s up?”
Dorian gripped the steering wheel tighter. His knuckles were white. “Well, I’ve probably had one too many energy drinks and now I can’t get my head to shut the fuck up, which is objectively not a good thing considering I’m visiting my mom in ten minutes.”
“You’re spiraling,” she noted. “You’ve got like fifteen minutes before I have to hit the road for work. Go for it. Unload.”
Dorian took a breath that shuddered in his chest. “Okay. So. Like half my thoughts—maybe seventy percent, actually—are about the situation. With Callahan.”
The name felt heavy on his tongue. Dangerous.
“I’ve got a zillion things buzzing around in my skull because I realized something. I realized that you, in your infinite and annoying wisdom, were absolutely right. I do have a thing for him. Like, a real thing. Which, fuck you, by the way.”
“Excuse me?” Elara’s voice pitched up, cutting out slightly. “What did I do?”
“You made me aware of it!” Dorian shouted at the windshield. “I was happy in my denial! Which brings me to point number two. Holy fuck, Elara. I have feelings for our fucking priest? Who the fuck does that?”
“You do, apparently,” she snorted.
“You’re hilarious. Stop. I’m going to pee myself I’m laughing so hard,” Dorian deadpanned. He aggressively signaled a left turn.
Elara huffed. “I am hilarious. But keep going. Process.”
Dorian rolled his eyes, even though she was miles away. “As I was saying. Who develops feelings for their priest? That makes him literally the most unattainable person in existence. It’s like falling in love with a statue. Or a... a traffic cone. It’s pointless.”
“Well, clearly not a traffic cone,” Elara said dryly. “You said you two are in some sort of no-strings attachment thing, right? That’s happening?”
“Yeah.” The memory of Callahan’s hands on his hips, the rough friction of the recliner fabric, hit him like a physical blow. His stomach flipped. “Yeah, that’s happening.”
“Which means, A, he obviously finds you attractive. And B, he is interested in you enough to entertain whatever it is you two are doing,” she stated, her voice taking on that matter-of-fact tone she used when she was right and knew it. “So, you’re stressing over nothing. The attraction is mutual.”
Dorian made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t say nothing. It’s not like I can ask him to leave the church for me, Elara. That’s not... that’s not a thing that happens.”
“Well, yeah, I wouldn’t go that far. Not yet.” She paused. “But you can definitely see if he’s interested in something more. You know. More committed. Long term maybe. Plant the seed, see if it grows.”
Dorian’s stomach knotted. The anxiety twisted tighter, a physical cramp around his ribs. Admitting he wanted more? Admitting that the "no strings" arrangement was starting to feel like a noose?
“Elara, I have the worst green thumb imaginable,” he muttered. “I kill succulents. The chances of anything growing here are slim to none. Negative, actually.”
Elara groaned loud enough to distort the speakers again. He could practically see her throwing her head back, dark curls flying. “I take back what I said about you not being stupid. You are the world’s largest dumbass that has ever dumbassed.”
“Wow. Thank you. Your unconditional love and support is overwhelming. I am so glad we had this talk.” He let the sarcasm drip, thick and heavy.
“You know what? Ever since high school, you’ve acted like this,” she snapped, losing the playful edge. “Like feelings are below you or something. But news flash, asshole: you’ve got ’em. And it’s okay to feel them and not understand why or how or what to do with them. What’s not okay is bottling it up and pretending they don’t exist until it becomes a massive issue. Which is what you do every single time you feel something that is mildly inconvenient to you.”
Dorian stared at the road, his jaw tight. She wasn’t wrong.
“So quit being so stubborn and let yourself feel,” she softened. “You might find out that it’s not that bad.”
A dog barked in the background on her end—loud, sharp. Elara sighed. “I gotta go. Work calls. I love you, but stop being an idiot.”
“Love you too,” he mumbled.
The line clicked dead.
Dorian drove the rest of the way in silence, the phrase stop being an idiot repeating in his head like a scratched record, syncing up with the frantic rhythm of his heart.
---
His mom’s living room smelled like vanilla candles and dust. It was a comforting, suffocating sort of smell.
Dorian sat cross-legged on the carpet, surrounded by the debris of memory. Dozens of photo albums were stacked like haphazard towers, and three shoe boxes overflowed with loose prints. It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned to spend the visit—he was vibrating with too much manic energy to sit still—but there was something grounding about it.
He picked up a heavy album with Our Story written across the front in his mom’s looping, careful cursive. The plastic pages made a crinkling sound as he turned them, yellowed with age.
It was the archaeology of a marriage. He flipped through the early days—who they were before they met, the awkward first dates, the terrible haircuts of the nineties. He stopped at a photo of his parents standing in front of a Ferris wheel. It was night in the picture, the lights blurring in the background. His dad’s arm was wrapped tight around his mom’s waist, pulling her in. They both had the widest, most unguarded grins Dorian had ever seen.
Underneath it was a smaller Polaroid. Them kissing. Just... kissing. Out in the open. Not hiding. Not afraid.
Heat flooded Dorian’s cheeks. It wasn’t embarrassment; it was envy. A sharp, acidic jealousy that burned in his throat. He thought about last night. The recliner. The way Callahan had looked at him, eyes dark and hungry and terrified. They had almost kissed. Inches away.
Would he ever do something like this with me?
Could they ever stand in front of a Ferris wheel? Could Callahan ever wrap an arm around his waist where people could see?
He brushed his thumb over the glossy surface of the photo.
“What’s on your mind, honey?”
Dorian jumped, his heart skipping a beat. He looked over at the recliner where his mom sat, a shoebox balanced on her knees. Her eyes were soft, tender. Too perceptive.
He looked back down at the album, feeling the flush creep up his neck. “When did you realize you liked Dad?” he asked. His voice sounded small. Childish.
She smiled, a distant look entering her eyes. “I think a part of me knew from the moment I met him. I was just too stubborn and afraid to realize it.” She tilted her head. “Why do you ask?”
Dorian shrugged, feigning nonchalance as he flipped the page. “Just curious, I guess.”
“Curious?” She paused, studying him. “Or wondering how to tell if you like someone?”
She said like with a weight that made Dorian’s stomach flip. He kept his eyes on the plastic pages. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Dorian closed the album. He set it carefully on the stack, aligning the edges. He needed to say it. He needed to say something, or the pressure in his chest was going to crack a rib.
“There’s this guy,” he started, staring at his hands. “That I’ve been seeing.” Sneaking around with. Corrupting. “And he’s got this... job.” He’s our priest. “That kinda gets in the way of us seeing each other. I didn’t think that I liked him at first. I thought it was just... whatever. But the longer we talk, and the more I see him, the more I think I want to be with him.”
He swallowed hard. “That I might want more.”
“How long have you two been seeing each other?”
Since I got back to Dunwich, basically. Since I walked into a confessional and decided to ruin his life.
“I don’t know,” Dorian mumbled. “A while.”
His mom hummed softly. “It can be hard to figure out exactly how you feel about someone. It’s not easy discerning between lust and love. Especially at the beginning.” She looked down at the photo in her hand, her expression softening into something wistful.
“But...” She looked back at him, her smile a little sweeter, eyes a little brighter. “If you’re willing to sit down and share a meal with them without the expectation of anything else—because time with them is sweeter than life—then you’ve got your answer.”
Dorian went still.
Share a meal.
He thought of the cookies. The smell of chocolate and caramel filling the townhouse. He thought of Callahan sitting in the recliner, the way the tension had drained out of his shoulders when Dorian had just sat there with him. No sex. No touching. Just... being.
It had been the most content he’d felt in years.
A cold realization washed over him. He wanted that. He wanted the boring parts. He wanted to eat breakfast with Callahan. He wanted to argue about what to watch on TV. He wanted the silence.
His stomach rolled. The idea of anyone else seeing him like that—vulnerable, soft, domestic—made him want to throw up. But with Callahan?
Oh no, he thought. Oh, fuck.
The sound of the front door opening shattered the moment.
Dorian flinched, his shoulders hiking up instantly. The soft, nostalgic atmosphere in the room evaporated, replaced by a sharp, brittle tension.
Arthur walked into the living room. He looked tired. He paused by the door, toeing off his shoes with a heavy sigh.
“Hey, honey,” he greeted Dorian’s mom first, voice weary. Then he turned. His eyes landed on Dorian sitting on the floor.
There was a pause. A beat of silence that stretched too long.
“Dorian,” Arthur said. “Nice to see you.”
It was polite. Stiff.
An ugliness reared its head inside Dorian—a reflex, a habit honed over years of resentment. He wanted to sneer. He wanted to leave. He swallowed it down, forcing the peace for his mom’s sake.
“How’re you?” Dorian asked. The words tasted like ash.
“Tired,” Arthur admitted, moving to hang his shoulder bag on the hooks. “But that’s normal these days, I’m afraid. How about yourself?”
“Same as always.”
It was painful. The conversation limped along like a wounded animal. Neither of them knew how to navigate the space between them without crashing into the wreckage of the past. There was too much unspoken. Too many harsh words. Too much history.
Dorian wondered if it would always be this way. Just this polite, suffocating tolerance.
His mom clapped her hands together, the sound sharp in the quiet room. “I am going to start on dinner,” she announced, standing up. She looked between them with hopeful eyes. “Hon, are you able to join us?”
“Not tonight,” Dorian said quickly. Too quickly. He scrambled to his feet. “I’ve got to get down to Saint Jude’s before it gets dark. I’ve got one more bed to make for the garden. Promised I’d get it done.”
“That’s fine, hon.” She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t worry about cleaning up the photos, I’ll handle it.”
Dorian gave her a hug, holding on for a second longer than usual. He breathed in the vanilla scent of her sweater. “I’ll call you.”
“Sounds good. I’m glad you came over today. Drive safe.”
“I’ll see you out,” Arthur offered.
Dorian stiffened but nodded. He moved to the door, slipping his shoes on with jerky, impatient movements. He just needed to get to the car. To the sanctuary of his music and his caffeine.
He stepped out onto the porch, the cool evening air hitting his face. He was halfway down the steps when Arthur spoke.
“Before you head out, can we have a quick talk?”
Dorian stopped. He didn’t turn around immediately. He closed his eyes, exhaling a long breath through his nose.
“Make it quick,” Dorian said.
Arthur stepped out, the screen door slapping shut behind him. “I wanted to apologize again,” he said. His voice was rough, lacking the usual authoritative cadence. “For how awful I treated both you and Lauren.”
Dorian turned. Arthur was standing with his arms crossed, not in defense, but like he was holding himself together.
Arthur held up a hand before Dorian could speak. “I know that doesn’t make up for anything. It most likely never will, but...” He lowered his hand, looking defeated. “We need to find a way to make things work. For her.”
Dorian froze. Every instinct screamed at him to run. To get in the car and peel out of the driveway. To pretend everything was fine, that he didn’t care, that none of this mattered.
“I know,” Dorian said. The words felt heavy. He was caught between the old frustration and a new, confusing remorse. “I just...” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, hunching his shoulders. “I need time.”
“Of course.” Arthur looked like he wanted to reach out, maybe touch Dorian’s shoulder, but he stopped himself. He crossed his arms tighter. “Whenever you’re ready. I’ll be here. I know I haven’t been the best person to talk to, but I’m trying to change that. I don’t want to be the reason why we aren’t a family anymore.”
Pressure built in the back of Dorian’s skull. His eyes burned. He thought about Elara’s voice on the phone. Stop being an idiot. Let yourself feel.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. It felt like swallowing glass. “I don’t either,” he admitted, his voice quiet. “I know my temper hasn’t been the best. Still isn’t, really. That hasn’t helped.”
“Like Lauren said, you get it from me,” Arthur joked. It was dry, brittle.
“Wild, since I’m not even your kid,” Dorian shot back.
Arthur flinched slightly, but he nodded. He looked out across the yard, staring at the oak tree near the street. “Speaking of... I know I wasn’t an easy kid—”
“What kid is easy?” Arthur interjected with a huff. “Kids aren’t meant to be easy, Dorian. They’re kids. But I...” Arthur took a deep breath through his nose. His jaw worked. “I didn’t act like a father. So I don’t expect you to forgive me. Especially not after what I said to you.”
A small, humorless laugh escaped Arthur. He looked back at Dorian, and for the first time, there was a glimmer of something like respect in his eyes.
“You’ve got one Hell of a right hook, by the way,” Arthur said. A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips.
Dorian stared at his shoes. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the heat rise in his face. The memory of the punch—the impact, the shock—still made his hand ache.
“About that,” Dorian mumbled. “I’m—”
“Don’t,” Arthur said firmly.
Dorian looked up, surprised.
“I deserved it.”
The words hung in the air between them. Simple. Absolute.
“You stood up for yourself,” Arthur said. “And I’m proud of you for that. I know I haven’t said that in a while. Maybe ever. But I am. Really.”
Dorian looked away fast. He sniffled, blinking rapidly as tears threatened to spill over. He bit the inside of his cheek to ground himself.
“Fuck, shut up,” he grumbled, his voice cracking. He glared at the driveway. “Don’t go getting all soft on me now. You asshole.” He forced a laugh, but it sounded wet.
“That’s what happens when you get old,” Arthur said. His own voice was thick, watery. “You get soft and sentimental.”
Dorian wiped aggressively at his eyes with the heel of his hand. He side-eyed Arthur, trying to summon a glare and failing. “Don’t expect us to start hugging just because you’re senile now.”
Arthur let out a gruff laugh, a genuine sound. “I said sentimental, not senile.”
Dorian waved a hand, scoffing. They stood there for a moment in the fading light, balanced on the precipice between crying and laughing. The silence wasn’t heavy anymore. It was just... quiet.
Dorian took a shaky breath. He felt lighter. Like he’d set down a bag of rocks he hadn’t realized he was carrying.
“I’ve got to get going before it gets too late,” Dorian said. “I’ll see you around.”
“See you around,” Arthur agreed.
Dorian walked to his car. He didn’t run this time. He opened the door, paused, and looked back over his shoulder. Arthur was still standing on the porch, watching him.
Dorian raised a hand. A wave. Small, cautious, but real.
He got in the car. As he backed out of the driveway, he thought, Maybe there is a way to fix this.
And if he could fix this... maybe he could fix the other thing, too. Maybe he could plant a seed in a garden bed at Saint Jude’s and see if it actually grew.