Page 104 of Bad for You

“Hush, child, you are a vessel of the Lord.”

The feeble voice of that scared child is foreign. I don’t know who she is any longer. All that remains is a vacant husk who knows nothing but pain.

Father Merry’s fingers cease from sliding over each rosary bead.

He knows I’m here.

“I always knew you’d be back,” he says, his back still turned. “A sinner always comes home. Pray with me.”

His voice is calm.

I do as he says and round the pew, coming face-to-face with the monsters in my dreams.

He hasn’t changed.

He still resembles a kind man with his blue eyes and blond hair. A cleft chin and silver glasses. He looks like a man here to save those who have sinned. But he is the most dangerous monster of all. The unsuspecting are the ones who lure those in with their smile and charm, as one is unaware of the demons they harbor and the fear they will instill in their hearts.

He doesn’t meet my eyes.

He bends his head and continues to pray.

I kneel beside him and interlace my hands. I can’t remember the last time I prayed.

Our Father…

I didn’t know how I’d feel being here again. Yes, the memories are rampant, but there is a clarity I’ve never felt before. I wait for Father Merry to finish his prayer because they’re to be his last.

“So you’re here to kill me like the sinner I knew you were?”

I’ll give it to him; even in the face of death, he isn’t afraid. I would admire that trait if it didn’t belong to my abuser.

“You’re right, Father Merry,” I reply, eyes focused ahead. “I’m a sinner. I always have been. But unlike you, I don’t hide behind a veil of falseness. I embrace who I am. I embrace the woman you created.”

“Do not blame your immorality on me. I looked after you when no one else did.”

“You looked after yourself,” I clarify without faltering. “You don’t remember all the times you came to me and told me to be quiet as you did God’s work? You don’t remember all the times you forced me to my knees so I could gag on your filthy cock?

“Because I remember. I cannot forget. You ensured you remained with me long after you were gone, for what you did was an act so heinous that I could never forget it. But that’s what you wanted, is it not? For me to always remember you.”

I finally turn and lock eyes with Father Merry, who was my boogeyman for as long as I can remember. But now, he doesn’t look that scary.

“You are a whore, just like Mary Magdalene.” He crosses himself as if that can absolve him of his sins.

A laugh bubbles from my throat, and Father Merry cocks a brow.

“Whatever are you laughing at?”

His stuffiness just has me laughing harder.

“You. I can’t believe I was afraid of you for so long. You’re pathetic.”

And he is.

I once thought him to be some magical being, him the puppeteer and me the puppet. But now I see him for what he really is. The monster I feared is nothing but a coward. A pathetic little man made up of nothing but flesh and bone.

Flesh and bone, which I intend to peel from his body until nothing is left.

Ashes to ashes.

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