What the ever-loving eff?
Huffing inwardly at the thought, I chivvy, “You know you love the spare room here.”
I found a great place off campus, and because my grandparents are fucking awesome and are paying my rent, I don’t actually need a roommate, but I like the idea of being able to send some money back to them.
Mostly, they just don’t want me to be influenced by the wrong sort.
They don’t know, of course, that I attract all kinds of people—good influences and bad—but they never affect me.
I affect them.
But my personal space is important to me. Really important. It’s the only place I can be myself, where I don’t have to...
Well, do this.
But that she knows me well enough to recognize how important my personal space is tells me that she understands me. Few people would guess I’m actually an introvert, but she picks up on that, and we can actually sit in my living room and read together without uttering a word.
I love that about her. About our friendship.
The truth is, this helping people shit?
It’s...
Tiring.
A breath of air almost gusts from my lips at just how tiring it is, and it only doesn’t because it would make her look at me and prompt her to wonder what’s wrong.
She isn’t the first person I’ve helped, no, that honor goes to ‘the boy I failed,’ but she isn’t the second either.
Along the way, since David’s death two years ago, I’ve helped a few other people, and I got the feeling that was my calling in life.
To see the real person behind the mask they choose to wear. To see what’s being hidden.
I’ve started calling myself a watcher, and it’s why I’m determined to become a writer. I love people watching, and I know I have enough stories in me to create a thousand tales.
Each person who comes across my path, I know, will someday appear in a book.
I just haven’t figured out the story yet.
Diana bites her lip. “I-I don’t think I could—”
Because she looks so miserable, I have no choice but to reach for her. Only, the movement’s abrupt. Sharp. Inadvertently unexpected. And she flinches.
She fucking flinches.
And I know. I know exactly what he does.
He hurts her.
He beats her.
She catches my eye, and like that, the truth arcs between us as if it’s lightning spearing from one end of the sky to the other. Tears appear. And they’re not all hers either.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whisper, and I move forward, shuffling down the length of my sofa to where she’s sitting on the floor, her back to it, her salad and my Kung Pao on the coffee table in front. I shove the table out of the way, plop my butt on the ground, and curve my arm around her, not stopping until she’s in a hug that we both need.
“You don’t have to deal with his shit anymore,” I rasp, squeezing her tightly, needing her to know she isn’t alone.
Not anymore.
She shivers in my arms. “It’s not as easy as that—” Her gulp is audible. “You know who he is.”
“Yes. It is easy. We can get you out of there, and we make it so that he’s too scared to touch you ever again.” More like petrified.
Diana twists slightly, her gaze catching mine once more. “How do we do that?”
“We threaten him.”
She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth before she repeats, “How do we do that?”
“We say we’ll tell everyone what he does to you.”
“He’s a powerful man,” she whispers miserably, shame shadowing her expression as she bows her head.
Like she’s to blame.
“So? All powerful men can be toppled from their pedestals. Don’t worry about that. Whether he’s powerful or not, he won’t like the truth being revealed, will he? He wants everything under his thumb—”
“He’ll never let me leave.”
My throat tightens. “Diana?”
“Yes?”
“I know he touches you—”
Her eyes clench closed like she knows the full extent of my question. “Yeah,” she whispers huskily, “in all ways.”
I squeeze her, and hope that I imbue some of my ferocity in her. “Never again,” I vow. “Never, ever, again. You don’t have to go back there. I’ll go to your place and get your stuff.” With the fucking police if I have to.
She blinks at me, her big green eyes batting behind her overlarge specs. They’re nerd-chic, and they suit her something fierce. She looks like a sassy secretary some guy would just love to have on his payroll.
Of course, the way she hides herself away now makes sense. The bastard is jealous. Jealous where his daughter is concerned. He wants her to conceal herself. Wants her to label herself as fat and ugly so she’ll never let someone into her life who’ll expose his secret.
My jaw aches from clenching down, and though it isn’t enough just to get her to leave his house, at the moment, that’s all I know she’s capable of doing.
Maybe, in time, she’ll press charges. Maybe she’ll tell the small town of Illsboro, Michigan, that her daddy is a child molester, but that’s up to her.
First things first, we need to get her out of that house, out from under his roof.
“Is your mom safe?” I ask, my brow puckering at the thought.
“Yes.”
More misery.
Do I even want to know that story? A story I can’t fix?
I mean, I can figure it out.
Does she turn a blind eye to his abuse?
Diana’s a year younger than me, just turned nineteen where I’ve just turned twenty.
Nineteen years of only God knows what, and all condoned by her mom?
Rage floods me, and I know I won’t be able to settle until Diana publicizes the truth of her ordeal, makes them pay for their sins.
But she’ll never, and I mean ever, have to deal with them on her own again.
We sit in silence, both of us processing how this conversation has come about. I’ve been building up the nerve to ask her to move in, to be my roommate, but this has blossomed from out of nowhere. I thought it would take a few more weeks, maybe a month. Instead, it’s going down tonight, and I’m glad for it.
She’ll never spend another night under his roof again.
I press my head against hers, tightening my hold on her so she knows she’s safe, then we focus on the TV we’ve had on in the background throughout this entire conversation because, at that moment, the pair of us are beyond words.
When a ragged face pops up on the screen, I feel myself tense.
“What is it?” she whispers, surprised at how I’ve frozen up on her.
“Those eyes—” I break off and stop hugging her for a second so I can lean over and grab the remote from the coffee table and turn up the TV. “He’s a priest. I’m sure of it.”
She snorts. “He doesn’t look like a priest to me.”
No, he doesn’t.
And somehow, though he’s different, harder, he’s definitely something.
Sheesh.
How is he even more handsome than he’d been the last time I’d seen him?
And, God, is it fate that I see him today? Just as I saw him back at the hospital with ‘the boy I failed?’ Yes, I’ve helped other people—like getting Judith Foster to admit she was addicted to weed—but the way I’m going to help Diana? No. She’s a first.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I process the news report, and a swirling kind of pain fills me at the revelations.
In the aftermath of the hospital incident, I lived on my nerves for a while, fully expecting to get blamed for the fire alarm—rightly so—but it had never come to pass.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified it would though.
And, with the blur of rage over what had happened, then a strange misery that had befallen me after the kid’s passing, I’d just forgotten about Savio Martin—th
e priest who’d been kidnapped by rebels in Algeria.
Free at last, the TV declares, and I have to shake my head at the news.
He’d been a captive for two years?
For two years, he’d been locked away? Made to... what? What did rebels need with a priest?
“Are you okay?” Diana questions me softly, and I know she’s probably freaking out.
No one ever sees my serious side. I guess I play a role sometimes. Everyone gets to see the playful Andrea, the cheerful girl who makes friends like flowers that have bees dancing around them. No one sees the depths of me, the heart of me that I know is a little twisted.
A lot unusual.
She sees me being quiet when I’m reading or studying, but somber?
No, that’s for those moments when I’m alone.
“I just remember when he was first taken,” I murmur, shaken at the amount of time that’s passed, time he’s spent in captivity. “He’s been held captive a long time.”
“I can’t imagine what he’s been through.”
Her words strike me as odd.
Hasn’t she been a captive, in essence? Her father the jailor?
I don’t say that. Don’t say a word. If anything, I just tuck myself tighter against her, only this time the comfort is all for me and not aimed at soothing her.
Savio Martin.
Inside, I whisper his name.
Savor it, really.
What has he been through? What has he seen and endured to come out on the other side looking so much harder?
Three years have passed, but it might as well have been a decade.
His eyes, no longer windows to his soul, are harsh and shielded. His face is lined, and there are several scars along his cheeks and about his eyes. His nose is broken in two places—nasty breaks, too, by the looks of it.
He has a scruffy beard and, to be honest, he looks like he’s escaped from jail.
My stomach turns, and I feel horrible, but I reach over and switch off the TV. I can’t deal with that. Can’t deal with learning what forged that man into this one.
I can only save so many people at once, and this is Diana’s turn.
She needs me.
And, like she knows I need her at that moment, she hugs me harder and whispers, “Did you know him? Was he your priest or something?”
I guess, from my reaction, that’s a sensible question.
Yet my answer is anything but sensible.
“Yeah, I did. Once upon a time.”
Savio
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
The grate in the confessional separates me from the man whom I’m coming to loathe.
He comes every day, wailing about his sins. Begging for forgiveness.
I give it to him.
But I make him pay for it.
Everyone knows not to expect leniency from me. They forgive me for it, ironically enough, but I know there have been complaints to the archdiocese.
Still, what could they say?
That I gave them too many Hail Marys? When each punishment is justified?
Just because they’ve had weak-kneed priests in the past doesn’t mean I’m doing my job wrong.
But this one?
There’s just something about this parishioner that gets to me. And he’s proved me right.
He’s gay—he admitted that to me a long time ago. Only, I don’t care who he screws. Don’t give a damn. Maybe the bishop would care, but I don’t. What occurs within this box is between me, Dirk Benson, and God.
But today, things are different.
Dirk isn’t here with a tale of woe about how hard it is trying to follow the Christian path, trying to stay straight, while intermittently admitting to me that he pays male prostitutes to ease himself.
No, today, he’s here with blood on his hands.
After my experiences, I know that I hate weakness. Not when someone is too frail to protect themselves—be it in spirit or in body—I mean people who are too fucking weak to admit to what they are.
There’s strength in owning what makes you you.
And everything about Dirk is weak. To the bone.
I’ve known for a while it would come to this. He’s admitted to beating the guys he’s paid to service him in the past, and though it’s irked me, I’ve listened to him.
But I’ve been waiting.
Judging him.
Seeing where he’d go, which path he’d take whenever he hit a crossroad.
At first, it was whether or not he’d come out as gay.
He did, after a year of confession.
I forgave him for that, especially because this small town in Gronigen is particularly devout. Someone who is gay definitely doesn’t stick around long. They head to Amsterdam or one of the bigger cities to live their lives in freedom.
Dirk, however, owns the local hardware store. His family has run the same place for four generations, and he’s proud of his roots.
He has a wife and two sons.
He’s ashamed of who he is.
But his admission of being gay came as no surprise. The man is repressed beyond belief, and while I’ve often seen marriages with no chemistry, the interactions between the family are awkward. Almost like he has no place with them.
His confession pleased me. I hoped we’d turned a corner.
Then came his next confession—he’d gone to Amsterdam on business, and he paid for sex.
I absolved him, because we all make mistakes.
But three times more, he’s paid, making special, unnecessary trips to the city to fulfill his needs.
I didn’t absolve him the last two times, because if he was truly repentant, why would he have returned for more?
His visits to church waned, and I was glad. Grateful. Dealing with him was tiring.
Then he returned.
His knuckles were bruised. Bloodied.
News had spread around town about his trip to the city where he’d been mugged and had defended himself.
I’d known what it was—bullshit.
He’d come to me and admitted to beating up his prostitute when he’d taken a photo of them in bed together.
I hadn’t absolved him.
Today?
He’s told me he killed the prostitute.
Why?
Blackmail. Because his prostitute was underage. Because the kid was fighting back, and demanding money.
Sins on top of sins on top of sins.
I can’t say anything to the police. The seal of confession is absolute. I’m supposed to use my lack of absolution as a means of leveraging him to admit to the truth to the authorities, but Dirk won’t do that.
He’s just going to do it again.
Maybe not the murder, unless he gets blackmailed again. But screwing around on his wife? Yes. And the violence is in him. I can feel it.
Seething inside.
I’m a violent man myself. I can control it. I learned to do so a long time ago, but Dirk?
He’s weak.
And so it comes full circle.
“F-Father?”
His rasping words make me clench my jaw. “What do you wish me to say, my son?” He isn’t my son. “I stopped absolving you of your sins because you refused to adjust your behavior. Yet here you are now, with more sins on your soul... how can I guide you down the path of atonement if you’re not penitent?”
“But I am, Father. I’m penitent. I regret—”
Fury swarms me like a tornado that’s reached its peak. “You regret nothing,” I hiss. “You wandered down this road yourself. You could have abstained, you could have avoided this fate, instead, you walked straight into it. You could have been candid with your wife, led your life with the free will God granted you, but instead, you hid behind your image, behind your name and position in the town, and chose to lie with a prostitute—” Anger has me breaking off, and I shake my head, even though he can’t see me, before I press it back into the wall behind me.
Sometimes, thi
s booth feels like the cell back in Oran.
I’m not sure whether that’s reassuring or hell itself.
Mouth dry, I reach for the water bottle I have for these moments when my past threatens to overwhelm me. But because I’m not weak, I don’t lace it with whisky like I want.
Once my mouth is wet, I drop the bottle on the ground and my fists turn into hard balls that I dig into my lap.
I know what’s wrong with me, so does the Church. It’s why I’m here, in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere—because I’m a charity case.
They wanted to retire me, but I couldn’t. How could I? Retire? At thirty-two? Impossible.
So, when I wish to drown myself in alcohol, I make myself take a sip of water.
And I pretend.
I pretend and I abstain, because unlike Dirk, I’m strong.
Incredibly strong.
Strong enough to live. Strong enough not to take the razor blades to my wrists when the urge to escape hits me.
When I hear Dirk blubbering beside me, I wonder how he has the audacity to come to me, to force me to listen to his nonsense.
They all know who I am.
They all know what I’ve been through.
And they’re all slightly scared of me, as well as faintly in awe.
They know I’m a survivor. They know what I’ve done for my faith, even though I’m not entirely sure I believe in what originally took me to the priesthood in the first place.
But what else can I do?
This is me.
I just...
Listening to these sinners, men who are diluted versions of the bastards who held me captive for years, sickens me.
I want to punish them as they deserve to be punished—make them pay.
An idea clicks into my head, and I shudder with it.
It’s wrong.
So wrong.
I’m a man of God.
But...
The church isn’t enough.
If anything, it’s soft soap to the sins on people’s souls—cleaning them instead of cleansing them.
Dirk will not learn.
He won’t.
I know his type.
He’s a hypocrite. He’s staunch in the fact that he’s a respected man about town, his family solid with ties to this place that are cemented for decades to come.
He’ll carry on sneaking off, paying men to service him behind his wife’s back, and he’ll hurt those men if he doesn’t learn his lesson and they take advantage of his weakness to blackmail him.
The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale Page 3