Page 175 of Dark Romeo

ROMAN

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It was late, very late. The cathedral was locked when I arrived. But locked doors had never deterred me.

I had received a lock-picking kit from my father when I had turned fifteen. He told me I had one week to learn how to open any door or I’d be sorry. Exactly one week later my father locked me in the basement without food, water or light and told me the only way I was getting out was by my own skill. Turns out that fear was a very useful learning incentive.

I was here because I had nowhere else to go. I wouldn’t seek refuge with my father. No doubt he had heard what I’d done and was scouring the city looking for me. Perhaps part of me was waiting to get caught.

I sat in one of the pews. The large wooden Jesus stared down at me from his eternal place of suffering. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but he gazed at me with such pity, or perhaps the few candles I had lit about the empty church caused the deep shadows around his eyes. Fuck your pity.

I turned my head and found a pillar closest to me carved with an image of Satan, his face monstrous and warping as if it were melting wax. Here was a figure I could relate to.

“Roman? Is that you?”

I didn’t have to turn to know that Father Laurence had entered the main section of the cathedral. I must have woken him.

I said nothing. I didn’t have the strength even to hold my own head up under all this crushing guilt. Under all the tormented chants of if only…

Father Laurence slipped into the pew beside me, dressed in striped pajamas and slippers. He placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me, my son.”

I confessed everything. I had no strength to hold it all in. My guards were down, my will wrecked upon the rocks of fate. I told him about Julianna, about the duel, then about what had happened to bring me here. Even as I spoke, some of the heaviness lifted, but still the guilt remained.

I’d shot a man out of fury. I’d killed him out of pure revenge. This was worse than any death I’d dealt before, because no one had forced me to pull the trigger that severed a man’s connection to this Earth. Not just any man. Julianna’s friend.

And Mercutio… My heart twisted in agony every time I thought of him. He had been innocent in all of this. He died to save my wretched life. Why couldn’t he have just let me take that stupid bullet? Of the two of us, I deserved it a thousand times more than he did. If he’d just let me take that bullet as punishment, I wouldn’t have had to kill a man to avenge him.

“Oh, Roman,” Father Laurence breathed. “I am so sorry.”

“Pity Mercutio. Pity Espinoza. But do not pity me. I don’t deserve it.” I stared at the sculpted pillar of the ultimate sinner. “I am no better than Satan himself,” I said, quietly.

The Father was silent for a long time. Then he hummed to himself and leaned back in the pew, folding his hands over in his lap. “Do you know what Satan’s only mistake was?” he said.

“Going against God, being an evil bastard, that about sum it up?”

“It was not his rebellion or his wickedness that was his mistake.”

“Really? They seem like pretty big mistakes.”

If my sarcasm affected the Father he didn’t show it. His demeanor remained calm and steady. “His only mistake was to believe that God would not forgive him.”

Father’s words settled on my skin like a fresh layer of snow. It began to melt and seep in slowly, like the end of winter.

I shook my head, not ready to hope that I could be forgiven. “By now I should be a wanted man. I’ll leave before I force you into an uncomfortable situation.” It was the Father’s moral duty to call the police, even if the law protected my confession to him. I couldn’t hate him for turning me in. Just like I couldn’t hate Julianna for eventually speaking the truth about what I did.

Father Laurence patted my hand resting on the back of the pew in front of me. “You will always have a safe place here, Roman. Come, you must be tired.”

I stared at Father Laurence as he stood and slipped out of the pew. He couldn’t possibly mean to help me. He looked back at me and motioned for me to follow him.

“You’d be harboring a criminal,” I said, still stunned at his benevolent intentions.

“Roman Tyrell, all men are sinners. All men are thus equal in the eyes of the Lord.”

I still couldn’t stand.

He walked back to me. “Come,” he repeated softly as he pulled me to my feet. “Things have a habit of looking more hopeful after a good night’s sleep.”

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