Page 119 of The Sinner's Sanctuary

“Can you feel mine?” I ask.

He wraps a hand around my calf and sighs again. “Yeah. Thank you, Gibson.”

I run my fingers through his sweaty hair. “You’re welcome, baby.”

His hand tightens, and I have to reckon with the fact that I just said something I’ve never said to anyone but my wife.

I brush my knuckles down his cheek and close my eyes.These feelings…when did they getso big?

“How are you doing?” I ask, checking in as I drag my fingers through his sweaty hair.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” I sigh, nervous but compelled to ask. “Are you finding what you need here? Still?”

“Do you still think you know what I need?” he asks.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m asking.”

His hand moves back and forth over my right pec, making my nipple hard. “I wonder sometimes if part of me died with her.”

I shut my eyes, understanding deeply what a raw and real thing that is to admit.

“Like I just feel numb. Invisible. I have all these disjointed thoughts, and they’re angry or sad or filthy or whatever, but none of them unstick me. Like I’m still just lying there oblivious thinking she’s asleep.”

His words land like lead in my chest. I try to decipher the meaning of them, piece them together into something I can comprehend, but he goes on. On Tuesday when he spoke aboutTrinity it was more of a rant about what her church had done with her—the personality changes he blamed on them. It had very little to do with him or his feelings, more of a diatribe on purity culture and the damage it does to young women. He railed against the unfairness of it all, and I didn’t disagree.

Emilia has a similar story about her own upbringing, but she’d been able to grow up, get away. Her faith is unshakeable, but she took total autonomy over her body, which even she’ll admit was a response to being told it was sinful.

“You know there’s no way you could have known, don’t you?” I ask softly.

“I was half asleep, too,” he says. “But you know how it goes, right? What if I had been paying more attention? What if I asked what kind of sleeping pills they were, and looked it up? What if I knew better and watched her closer instead of just being lazy and falling asleep?”

“You were just a tired kid.”

His body shudders against mine, and he lets out a choked sob. I move my hand to his cheek to wipe his tears. It doesn’t last long. Only a few minutes pass before he’s speaking again. “Pain makes more sense when it’s physical. Suffering feels like the least I can do.”

“For her? For God?” I ask.

“For me.”

I hate hearing that. “Is it helping?”

“Yeah,” he whispers.

“How?”

“I’m starting to understand my limits, I think. Not in terms what I can handle physically—I mean, that too—but the restraints…being helpless…just a reminder I guess that I can’t control everything.”

“And no one expects you to,” I add.

“Yeah. True. There’s something comforting about that. Knowing my body—like this thing I’m trapped in—it’s vulnerable,and no matter how hard my brain works, there’s only so much control I have over what I’m feeling before I break.”

“Where does God fit into all this?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. I’m starting to think He’s got nothing to do with it. God may be something else entirely.”

I can’t pretend to understand all the places Christian’s mind goes, but I do love his openness, and sometimes I even get what he means—if not intellectually, then on a gut level. “I think you might be onto something.”

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