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I could swallow again; stick my head out a window and suck in the humid spring air instead of the humid interior air, recycled from too many sets of lungs.
A moment alone was all I needed. It was all the time I could afford, since I was the guest of honor.
I couldn’t ditch them for long.
Pausing at the top of the narrow attic steps, I took a deep breath and blew it out in a long, audible huff. I straightened the high collar of my robe. It still chafed after years of classes and services.
A heavy ornate cross hung just past my heart. It came with the uniform. A single point of ostentation. The filigreed setting of the jewels cut into my hand as I clutched it, but I didn’t loosen my grip as I turned the knob to the solitary attic space.
I took a step into the room and stopped.
Mottled colors from the stained-glass window painted a fractured portrait over a woman’s lithe body, and the long black hair that hung loose down her back.
Decca.
She spun around. Impossibly big, sage green eyes met mine. “Gus!” She huffed out a breath. “You scared me. I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be—“
“No, it’s fine,” I lied. “I’m the one who’s not supposed to be up here.”
“It’s… crowded down there.”
“Yeah.” I nodded once, slowly. “It is.”
I loosened my grip on the cross. The movement caught her attention. Her eyes glittered as she studied the silver and ruby emblem hanging from my neck.
“Everyone’s trying to set me up with random women in a last-ditch effort to get me married off before ordination.” I said it lightly, trying to hide that I felt like I was on a gallows; the rough fibers of a noose scratching my neck, compelling me to scream out for my executioner to just kick the damn stool out from under me already.
The deadline loomed. If I wasn’t married by the time I entered the priesthood, I’d be forced into a life of monasticism.
“None of the women you dated at seminary…?”
“No.” I smiled half-heartedly.
Something flashed in her eyes. “But then you… you’ll just have to put off your ordination. Until you’ve found someone.”
“Decca.” I stopped, searching for any words that didn’t make me sound pathetic. “It’s time.”
She nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
What was she apologizing for? For bringing it up? Or was she feeling pity because my dick would never get wet again?
We stood in silence for long, empty minutes. But slowly, the knots in my shoulders uncoiled. It was easier to breathe, and I felt like myself again.
Because of Decca.
She took a step closer as she adjusted her necklace, the emotion on her face unreadable.
Why wasn’t she leaving? She needed to leave. She couldn’t be here.
I had to start living my life without her.
Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled. She looked the opposite of how I felt.
“I was looking at your books. You have an enviable collection.”
Fuck.The books.
She moved to the bookshelf. It was weighted heavily with the texts I’d needed in school: dusty volumes written in Koine Greek, the original language of the Gospels. But there were also modern Bible translations, liturgies, and services—both Orthodox and Protestant. I owned a healthy amount of secular and religious philosophy and important translations of major religious texts: the pristinely translated Clear Quran, the Babylonian Talmud, Zohar, and Mishneh Torah, the Canaanite Baal Cycle, the Vedic writings of Hinduism.
