Adrien #3
I circle around casually, as if I’m just checking for damage, stopping at the back entrance.
My fingers automatically reach up to the beam above the doorframe where the key has been resting for years and where I’ve put it back every time.
I unlock it quietly and slip the key into my back pocket before she notices.
“Nat,” I call toward the front. “Back doors were open.”
She walks around and steps inside. I close the door behind us so the wind doesn’t push it back open, and the familiar scent wraps around me instantly—cold stone, old incense, wax, and fresh varnish. It’s a strange mix. Sacred and profoundly romantic.
We set our helmets down on the nearest wooden surface, then I slide my hands into my pockets and just stand there, watching her wander through the place.
Colored light pours through the one renovated stained-glass window, fractured reds and blues spilling over the pews and across her jacket as she moves slowly between them.
Her fingers trail over the wood as if she’s trying to trigger something by touch alone. Like memory might wake up if she presses hard enough.
“Do you ever come here?” she asks, focused on the statuettes now, brushing over the carved edges gently.
Yes. Probably once a week. Which makes it roughly over three hundred visits in six years. Three hundred times I sat exactly where she’s standing now.
“Sometimes,” I say, the word catching slightly. “Just occasionally.”
She shifts her gaze to me, brows lifting in surprise.
“So you’re a believer now?”
“No. Definitely not.” I scoff. “You’re the only divinity I worship,” I add, and I don’t even bother pretending there isn’t a sinful undertone in it.
She rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth betrays her. “Stop flirting.”
“I haven’t even started yet,” I murmur, my lips curving into something dangerously pleased with itself.
“Then don’t,” she shoots back, already turning her attention to the altar as if that somehow saves her from me.
“As you wish.”
She crouches beside the old coffer near the altar and lifts the lid. Dust shifts in the air as she pushes aside a stack of worn-out books, fingers moving with focused curiosity until she pulls one out, clearly satisfied with her discovery.
The binding is so faded it’s almost anonymous. She flips it open and scans the first page, trying to decode what she’s holding.
“Oh my God!” she squeals suddenly. “You idiot!”
“What now?” I ask calmly, walking closer, though I already have a feeling.
“It’s an encyclopedia about Italian catholic holidays,” she says, scandalized, like she’s been personally betrayed.
She’s holding that book, the one I scared her with. The one that once felt mysterious and sacred and dramatic in the worst possible teenage way. She keeps flipping through the pages, visibly offended by the absolute lack of mysticism.
“You understand Italian now?” I ask, half teasing, half genuinely stunned, with something warmer already creeping in.
She quickly glances up at me as if I pressed something painful with that question, then shuts the book and returns it in the coffer.
“Yeah,” she says, too fast and casual.
But that answer isn’t enough.
“Why?” I breathe out, and my pulse instantly spikes because I think I already know. I just don’t know if hearing it will feel like being stabbed or healed.
She straightens and faces me. Her jaw tightens. There’s tension in her shoulders and in the way she holds herself.
“Because,” she says, then pauses. Her eyes sharpen deliberately, like she wants the words to land exactly where they’ll do the most damage. “I wanted to feel closer to you.”
The silence after that is heavy.
And it hurts.
I swallow the guilt that rises so violently it makes me dizzy. My face stiffens, every muscle pulling tight under the pressure of everything I never fixed, never explained, never redeemed. I can’t stand the weight of it sitting between us like this.
I step toward her and reach for her hand.
My lips part, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Sorry sounds pathetic. Thank you sounds insane. I love you sounds manipulative.
Everything feels wrong, hollow, and insufficient.
She lets me take her left hand and I hold it in both of mine like it’s something fragile I don’t deserve to touch. My thumbs brush over her skin absently, as if maybe I can smooth out six years of damage with a simple gesture.
How do I fix this? How do I tell her I regret everything without sounding like a coward begging for absolution? How do I explain that I’ve been coming here because this is the only place that still remembers us correctly?
But as my fingers brush hers, I realize something. I look down.
Her ring finger is empty.
Of course it is.
Of course it’s empty.
Why the fuck would I expect anything else?
The absence aches harder than any slap she’s ever given me. A quiet, gleaming proof of what I destroyed. I stare at the bare skin like it might rearrange itself if I look long enough. Like the diamond might reappear out of pity.
I brush the pad of my thumb over the place where the ring used to sit, gently and reverently. And then I see them, two faint white lines, the tiniest scars.
My stomach freefalls.
No, no, no.
It was supposed to hurt when she took it off. Yes. Symbolically. A small sting. A reminder. Not enough to break skin. Not unless it was ripped off too fast, or unless someone forced it.
When I glance up at her, she’s tense. There’s a flicker of nerves in her eyes, like she knows exactly what I just noticed. Before I can even form the question, she pulls her hand out of mine sharply, like my touch suddenly burns. She exhales slowly and turns away, silently begging me to not ask.
So I don’t. We stay quiet.
Somewhere above us, a long branch taps lightly against one of the windows. A rhythmic, patient knocking.
I should trim that branch soon, before it breaks the glass.
Her head drops back, looking up at the window, while I stay frozen, unable to take my eyes away from her.
I can’t wrap my head around how strong she is now. After everything, after what they did to her, after what I did to her. She’s still standing, stronger than before, somehow. Not tamer and definitely not broken, just sharpened.
Peacefully twisted, slightly unhinged and insanely beautiful.
“What is that?” she asks suddenly, pointing toward a couple of open buckets near the wall—fresh paint, varnish lids left ajar.
I instantly fall into denial. “I have no idea,” I say.
Then she looks around, eyes flicking from one window to the other as if she just realized something.
“There used to be different windows,” she says quietly. “These look new.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble, my heart taking up speed dramatically.
She looks at me as if she doesn’t believe a word I say, then she scans the surroundings, looking for something else out of order. Her gaze lands on a T-shirt draped over the back of one of the benches, splattered with dried paint.
Mine.
She walks over there and her fingers brush the wood once more.
“This is painted, not long ago,” she says and looks at me.
I panic and lift my shoulders in a clueless shrug, playing dumb. She squints her eyes as if she just decided she’s about to crack this case, like a cute cartoon detective character, solving the puzzle.
She glances around, looking for more proof.
Her attention catches on a tall ladder leaning against one of the walls.
A thin line of newer plaster cuts through the aged surface, brighter and smoother compared to the surrounding decay.
A plastic bucket of lime plaster sits on the stone floor beside the ladder, half-covered with a torn sheet of foil, just as I left it a couple months ago.
At this point I just close my eyes, trying to think what I’ll say in advance.
But no explanation seems good enough. Everything I come up with just sounds like some attempt to make her pity me.
Or too much like a calculated grand gesture meant to win her back, and I don’t want her to take this as something… planned.
I exhale in surrender and open my eyes, seeing that she’s already studying me like she knows damn well I’m full of shit. She tilts her head, silently pushing me to explain.
“Okay,” I start. “I sometimes come here and fix something,” I say with a shrug, like it’s nothing, like I haven’t been crawling back here—guilt-ridden ghost trying to rebuild the past with tools and insomnia.
“Why,” she says flatly, urging me to elaborate.
“I don’t know,” I say with one slow shake of my head.
Her eyes don’t leave mine.
“Why,” she repeats it, like she knows.
“Some kind of quirk of mine, I guess,” I say lightly, forcing an innocent smile.
“Why? Do you have that much spare time?” she asks, the edge of mockery slipping in because she can smell the lie from a mile away.
“Yeah,” I say weakly. “I can’t fall asleep when I know something’s broken,” I say, smiling like it’s a joke, with a cocky tone, openly making fun of my own despair.
She snorts softly.
“No. Kasien’s the one with OCD. You can peacefully fall asleep in the middle of the filthiest mess imaginable.”
She’s absolutely right. She just means a different kind of mess.
“Maybe I’ve changed,” I say proudly, lifting my chin in an exaggerated, theatrical way.
“I was just in your room,” she replies flatly. “You haven’t.”
Fair.
I smile anyway, because she caught me.
“So what,” she says, clapping her hands lightly against her thighs as she shifts her weight. “Big bad mafia by day, and then you pull on overalls and play church handyman by night?”
That gets me. I burst out into real laughter, the kind that punches straight out of my chest.
“Basically, yes,” I manage between breaths. “It’s just…” I gesture vaguely with my hands, trying to compose myself. “The schedule’s usually reversed.”
She narrows her eyes.
“What’s reversed?”
I grin, unable to stop myself, because this is too funny.
“The big bad mafia part usually happens at night,” I explain. “And a church handyman requires daylight.”