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“Then I won’t accept it.” She laid it on top of the other books on its shelf.
I sighed. “It’s from my mentor at school. Father Nikiforos Giannapoulos. He was… he helped me start to overcome a lot of condemnation about myself. Things that came from me, rather than from God.” I opened the book to the inscription. I wouldn’t translate it directly, though I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted to hold those cards so close to my chest. “It’s about not losing the light of Liturgy.” I closed the book and handed it back to her. “There’s a reason our church hasn’t altered its Sunday service in almost two thousand years. It’s meaningful.”
She looked at the book, then looked up at me. Her lips pressed together in a line, her mind obviously conflicted.
“Take the book, Decca.”
She nodded. “I’ll treasure it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that serious.”
“It is to me.” She swallowed and had trouble speaking her next words. “This is the expression of your faith. I want to become familiar with yours. You’ve obviously spent quite a bit of time trying to discern mine.”
I winced. She’d seen the books then, realized their significance. Heat rose in my throat and face. My little secret had been exposed.
“Why?” I sneered.
“Because we’re friends.”
I snorted.
“Because I do everything for my friends. Your God said, “‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’”
“John chapter fifteen, verse thirteen.”
“Well, I didn’t know that part. You’re lucky I got the quote right. Granny loved that verse. She would’ve laid down her life for her friends, and I would do the same.”
Her words—the sincerity behind them—hit me viscerally. My ribs collapsed around my heart, squeezing itso that every beat hurt with the thought of losing even the small part of her that I’d gotten to know. But a monk couldn’t be friends with a woman. Not howwewere friends.
I stared at Decca. I allowed myself this one final moment to see her not just as a friend, but as someone I wished could be…mine.
“Were you coming here to pray?”
“I…” I cleared my throat. It was exactly what I’d thought to do, only I hadn’t expected anyone to have noticed.
Of course, Decca had. She noticed everything. She noticed me. Always.
I straightened my shoulders, knowing there was nothing I could hide from her. I’d never hidden anything before, when our conversations had been over the phone or through a computer screen. But here I was… vulnerable. Raw.
“Yes, I came here to pray.” Though now it seemed silly. I already felt calmer just being here, talking to my friend.
“This is your safe place?”
Was it? Was this attic the reason I’d rushed up here in a panic to get away from all the well-wishers? I didn’t normally need to rush out of a crowd. I wouldn’t make a very good priest if I’d need to escape my congregants that quickly.
No. Something had called me up here. As though I were drawn.
But it wasn’t these four walls.
It was her.
I gritted my teeth and swallowed. “There’s nothing special about this room. Just that it’s far enough away from all the people downstairs. Even in school, with deadlines and the rigor of academia, times of prayer and reflection were carved into our schedules. A theologian once said, ‘When I prayed, I was new. When I stopped praying, I grew old.’ I guess once I got used to praying ceaselessly, I feel… oldwhenever I stop.”
She nodded and smiled tightly. It was meant to convey connection, but I’d never felt so disconnected from everything in the world. The foreignness of my future loomed before me.
A gaping hole.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
