“They know where you are, don’t they?”
She shrugs. “I send them texts. I tell them I’m fine.”
“How kind of you,” I say dryly, but even so, I’m taken aback. When she doesn’t say another word, I query, “Why are you obsessed with me?”
She furrows her brow at that. “’Obsess’ is a harsh word.”
Her huffing makes me smile. “I don’t think you’re a danger to me—”
“Good, because I’m not.” She rolls her eyes.
“But why are you?” What about me is so special that I’ve gained the attention of this beautiful woman?
I’m not sure she’ll answer, and because I know she responds to sharp, stern commands, I’m about to break out that voice, but she mutters, “Your story connects with mine.”
“Explain.”
She purses her lips. “I’ll explain if you tell me what happened to you too.”
I’d prefer to dance in sulfuric acid than share that particular story, but she’s right. She doesn’t have to tell me anything. Not unless I’m willing to open up to her also.
I know I could toss her out, know that I could discredit every word she could say to the police about Paulo, but something about her... I don’t feel as alone when she’s here.
And I’m not talking physically.
I’ve shared the house before. I still felt isolated.
She tears through that haze, and I have no idea why.
“I’ll tell you what I can bear to share.”
My qualification seems to appease her, because she grabs some of the cover off me and nestles it around herself like she’s getting ready for a long story time.
The gesture amuses me.
Even while there are many childlike gestures in her repertoire, she’s the most sensual creature I’ve ever known.
She’s so at ease with her body that I don’t think I’ve met a temptation more powerful than the one she offers without even really offering it. It just exudes from her, and because I’m so close, it’s like that’s all I can breathe.
“I see things.”
“What things?”
“Details. Stuff most people don’t notice.” She turns her head on the pillow to look at me. “I see someone’s pain. Someone’s fear. Someone’s anger.”
“You’re empathic,” I guess.
“Maybe. But not really. I don’t feel what they feel, I just see it. I notice what they’re going through, and instead of bypassing them, instead of just moving on, I figure out what’s going on and I help them.”
Her words have me tensing. “What do you see in me?”
After all, I have to assume that’s why she’s here.
“All three. Pain, fear, and anger. But that’s not why I’m here,” she murmurs, like she read my mind. It’s uncanny how she can do that.
Okay, that’s an understatement. It’s fucking freaky.
“Why are you here then?”
“I already told you that—I’m yours.”
“I’m not yours.”
Her lips twitch. “So stubborn. You are, you just haven’t figured it out yet. But I’m okay with that.” She gives a happy sigh. “I’m with you. I can wait. I’m patient.”
I blink at that.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
“You have a bed down the hall,” I rasp, my body tenses at the notion of us sharing a bed until morning.
Temptation.
I’ll be lying beside it.
“But this is nicer. You’re here, and it smells of you.” Her brow furrows deeper than before. “Why does nowhere else smell of you?”
“I clean it?”
“Is the mattress covered in blood?”
The question surprises me, even if I tell her, “There are stains I can’t get out, yes. Whenever I move, I always buy a new one and burn the old one.”
“How are you going to burn it in Rome? Do you have a backyard?”
“No.” I hum. “I don’t know how I’ll destroy it. I guess I’ll figure something out if the time comes.”
She pauses. “You see yourself being here for a while?”
I nod. “I do.”
“You moved a lot before. Why?”
“It never gelled.”
“Here does?”
“Yes.”
Andrea rubs her face into the sheets again. “I think that’s why I can smell you here. Your blood is in the mattress.”
“Blood doesn’t smell.”
“It does to me.” She purses her lips. “That’s why it surprised me how nothing else smells of you.”
I already know she’s crazy, but that confirms it again.
Still, I don’t leap out of bed, don’t drag her out too.
Instead, I roll onto my side and turn to face her.
“You said you see details and you act on them. How?”
“I befriend people. I watch them at first, then I get closer to them so I can help them.”
“From what?”
“The source of their fear,” she explains patiently.
“Give me an example.”
“I have friends all over the world now,” she says proudly. “I’ve helped a lot of people over the years. Whatever anyone says, they can’t take that away from me.”
I frown. “Why would they?”
“My parents tried to say that I was weird, strange even. But I was just helping people.”
“You told them about what you did?”
“Yes. I shouldn’t have. That’s why my father asked to be transferred closer to me. It’s why they were selling their house—”
“Okay, you’re going too fast. Start at the beginning.”
She heaves out a sigh. “If I have to.”
“You do,” I confirm, oddly amused by her.
Andrea rolls toward me, her body shifting on the sheets as she arcs into me. “Like, Diana. She was outside one of my classes. I saw her on the phone. I knew she was scared. Everyone treated her like she was a bitch, and they avoided her like she had the plague. Her dad was the mayor of the town where we lived— I couldn’t figure out how he could be so popular, and she was the opposite. No one saw the reality. No one but me.”
“He was hurting her?” I guessed.
“Yes. Badly. So I got close to her, befriended her, made her move in with me.”
“You took her away from him.”
“I did.” She smiles, her pride evident. “We even managed to get him in jail. She was brave. She went to the police. Sadly, they don’t always do that.” Her frown turns gloomy. “I’ve helped men and women alike, and they all love me. Each of them would lay down their lives for me—”
“I’ll bet. You saved them from themselves.”
“I saved them from their monsters,” she corrects.
I shrug. “Same difference. A monster is only in our life because we let them in.”
“Once they’re in, it’s hard to get them out again. It can be impossible too, depending on how tangled your life is with theirs. If you have a child or if your money is tied up with theirs—”
“I wasn’t arguing,” I appease softly. “I was just saying... you save them from themselves.”
“And their monsters,” she tacks on stubbornly.
I nod rather than argue. We can agree to disagree on this score. “Were you always this way?”
“No. It started when I was seventeen, and according to the specialists, that’s when the cyst started to become large enough to impair my brain function.” She makes a scoffing noise. “How does that sound like it’s impairing it? They’re trying to make it sound like I was crazy or something. Like I made it up—”
Because she’d lost me for real this time, I squeezed her wrist—yeah, I was still holding it, and I didn’t want to let go. Her pulse had increased, throbbing with her exasperation, and I liked the insight into her responses. She didn’t react like a regular person, and this gave me more of a clue about her.
“Explain.”
“I was h
aving psych evaluations after the surgery,” she mutters. “They were making me talk about that period of time. I had to lie in the end. Or they’d never have let me out. They’d have locked me up just to stop me from harming myself.
“That’s how I knew it was meant to be. When I learned you were in Rome? I had to come here.”
“That’s what brought you here?”
“Yes. I finally found out where your new parish was. Not all of your archdioceses would tell me what was going on with you, some were trickier than others.”
“So the catalyst for you leaving the hospital was me?” I question, aghast at the prospect.
“Yes,” she murmurs, her eyes soft as her graze drifts over me. “It’s always you.”
I release a shaky breath, not certain I want the responsibility—
But then, she untangles the hold we have on each other’s wrists, reaches for my hand, and with a delicacy that takes me aback, presses a kiss to my palm.
The gesture is so sweet, so tender, I can’t freak out. I mean, I want to. But I can’t.
Whether she needs help or not, she’s too open for me to shut out.
It would be like kicking a puppy.
I clear my throat. “Didn’t you ask your friends to explain?”
“They’re all over the world. It wasn’t like they could come into the hospital. They didn’t believe the emails they sent either.”
Clearly, the doctors had believed she’d sent the emails.
Even as I questioned if that was true, if maybe she had created these friendships, she sighs. “You don’t believe me either.”
“I’m not sure what to believe,” I reply honestly.
“I have wings.”
“If that’s supposed to convince me—” I start, my tone rueful, until she twists over and shows them to me.
They’re mostly hidden beneath her camisole, but I can see the ink playing peekaboo.
Of course.
So, her every delusion is founded in a truth.
I get what she’s saying.
The ink is definitely not new, but still pristine. All swirling curlicues for feathers, and when I peer closer, I can see that each curlicue is a word.
It’s not something I can read. No language I’ve come across. It’s neither Latin nor Greek.
I can no more stop myself from reaching out to trace a word than I can stop my pulse from pounding.
“What language is it?” I ask thickly.
“Aramaic.”
My brows rise. “You speak it?”
“No. I was told what to inscribe there.”
I shy away from her justification, and it’s quite clear why the specialists thought she was mad.
I mean, I think she’s nuts too. And when she says things like that? It sounds nuttier still.
But, even if I’m a shitty priest, we’re taught to find miracles, to embrace them, not outright reject them.
Even if it all sounds a little too insane to be believed.
And with her past? Her illness?
Even a priest could be forgiven for discounting her story.
“I showed the doctors Diana’s pictures, the ones she sends me, and they said she was a figment of my imagination. I told them what I did, but they wouldn’t look into it. Her father is in prison, for God’s sake. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, they wouldn’t listen,” she whispers. “So I lied. But I won’t lie to you. I promise.”
She sounds so heartsore that I let my hand press to her back, to the smooth curve.
“I believe you.”
And God help me, I’m not lying.
My words have her flipping over, and excitement fills her eyes. I’m surprised when she jumps off the bed with more exuberance than sense considering her condition, and pads out of the room. For a second, I sit up, unsure what’s happening.
Light spears my eyeballs as she turns into the hall and hits the switch beside my door, and then I hear rummaging around in her room before she returns.
Phone in hand.
I settle back, waiting for her to climb into bed—I don’t even think to question how right it feels for her to come to me the way she is. My focus is elsewhere.
She didn’t turn off the hall light on her way back to me, and it halos around her as she moves. It falls on her in a way that’s uncanny, and I look away because it’s disconcerting. Sure, light pools that way around everyone, but it almost makes her skin gleam like gold and that’s nothing to the way it hits the blonde notes in her hair.
When she climbs into bed, I’m glad, because it means I can’t see that anymore, and she tilts her screen to me.
I see it’s two AM before she pulls open her messaging app.
She finds a conversation, then types.
Andrea: Diana, you awake?
For a few seconds, nothing happens, and I eagerly await a response.
It doesn’t come.
She huffs. “She lives in Madrid, so it’s not that much of a surprise. I just thought she’d be awake—”
“We can try again later,” I soothe, finding myself in the odd position of wanting to make sure her feelings aren’t hurt.
“Really?” She turns to look at me. “You mean that?”
“I do.”
Like my words are fate driven, her phone pings.
Diana: What’s wrong? You’re never awake this early.
My heartbeat soars at the words.
“You could never show the doctor this?”
“She lives weird hours. Whenever I tried, it wasn’t the right time. They didn’t care that she’s in a different time zone. They thought I was just feeding the delusion, trying to make them believe the lie.”
“What about your other friends?”
“It just never worked out. Bad luck, I suppose. When they came for an appointment with me, they’d be in work or school.” She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. So long as you believe me, that’s all that counts,” she tells me even as she sends a text back to Diana.
Andrea: It’s okay. I just wanted to prove you exist.
Diana: Lol. Put the fucking doctor on the phone. I’ll tell them I exist.
Andrea: It’s late, babe. I was just telling a friend about you, not a doctor. Going to sleep some. Love you.
Diana: Sleep well. Love you too. XOXO
Reading her messages, I muse, “She doesn’t know you’re in Rome, does she?”
Andrea pulls a face. “Technically, no.”
“I thought you didn’t lie. But those are two lies you’ve confessed to.”
She heaves a sigh. “Technicalities aren’t lies.”
I reach out with my free hand, and though it’s strange, I brush my fingers through her hair.
The side closest to me is spiky, short, and a little crispy, but moving around against a pillow has mussed it up some. My fingers drag against the scar, and the ruffled skin rams home just what this woman went through.
She deserves my empathy, my sympathy, and yet, that isn’t what I feel.
In all honesty, I don’t even know what the hell I’m feeling.
Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I watch as she kind of stretches like a cat being stroked at my touch. Her eyelids flutter closed and she turns her cheek toward me, like she’s giving me better access.
The sight does strange things to me.
My belly feels like it’s in a freefall, my body wants to move closer, but my head knows this isn’t possible.
She’s sick.
It’s wrong.
“I’m not sick.”
Her words have me tensing.
How the—
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what you’re thinking,” she rumbles, sighing some more as she snuggles into the covers which, for some reason, puts her scant inches from me, because I can feel her breath on my chest.
My bare skin.
I shudder.
It’s been a long time since someone has been this close to me, and it feels good.
Beyond good.
And it’s not the kind of temptation I thought I’d face after so many years in a cassock.
The temptation for contact, skin to skin, for affection and warmth, intimacy, is almost overpowering.
“Don’t tense up,” she mumbles sleepily.
I sigh at the sound of her tired voice, and I get the feeling that she could go to sleep, but I still need answers. It makes me feel like I’m diving headfirst off a cliff, but I tuck my hand around the back of her head and gently press her into me. Her forehead connects with my chest.
At that moment?
I’m in a world of confusion.
My back is aching like a bastard. Normally, I like that feeling. It’s grounding. It makes me feel like I’m still on this plane of existence.
Then, my front? Is in Heaven.
For her to be this close, her softness against all my hardness?
“How have I lived without this for so long?” My words are soft, barely whispered on my breath, but she hears them.
She was born to hear them.
“You weren’t ready for me, and I wasn’t ready for you,” she replies sleepily, then pats me like I need comforting. Like her words make complete sense.
And damn, maybe they do.
I gulp, process, then inquire, “What made you realize you were sick?”
“I’ve helped a lot of people. A lot—”
“And none of them could corroborate your story?”
Suddenly, she’s not so sleepy, and she huffs. “I shouldn’t need my story to be corroborated. Honestly, you’d think I was a criminal!”
I wince, because she’s right.
“And no. I either couldn’t get in touch with them, or it just never worked out. I’d get emails or texts later on, but they just refused to believe that I hadn’t set them up.”
“They wanted to think you were—”
“Damaged? Yes. I think so. I don’t know why, but I just knew I’d never get better in there.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re here. I need you to get better. Just like you need me. We’re a team.”
“You say that like we’ve known each other for a lifetime. Andrea, I’ve known you a day.”
“Maybe, but a part of you hasn’t. You lived in Spain, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“So you know what an alma gemela is?”
“The belief that a soul has a twin and they’re separated at birth.” I sigh—I want to say that’s silly, but I go around killing monsters.
The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale Page 13