Page 5 of Unholy Obsession

The priest’s voice sounds ragged as he shouts, “Go in peace!” after me.

But I know the truth.

There’s no peace for someone like me.

THREE

FATHER BLACKWOOD

I watch her flee,frozen in place. Not by my legs, but by my fucking collar. By the eyes I feel on both of us. More churchgoers have arrived for the coffee hour between services, murmuring, sipping from Styrofoam cups, and absolutely oblivious to the war raging inside me.

I grip the wood of the doorframe, watching her already small figure shrink into the distance, my chest locked in a vise.

She didn’t come here because she followed me. She didn’t know who the fuck I was. She was a lost, tortured soul looking for something—anything—to hold on to. And yet, I can’t shake the gut-deep certainty that this is my fault. That I did this to her or at least contributed to it.

I was the one who let temptation draw too close to my doorstep. I was the one who broke his own goddamn rules and played with fire three blocks from my own church.

And now, hereshewas.

Seeking God. Seeking absolution. And I, his so-called messenger, failed her. Again.

I wanted to reach out and catch her before she ran, to say somethingrealthat might have met her where she needed to be met. But I didn’t trust myself.

Not here. Not with her looking up at me like that, so broken.

She doesn’t see her own light, the fire that burns in her even when she’s breaking. Even as she bowed her head before me, exposing her vulnerabilities to a man she thought could absolve her in God’s name.

A man she didn’t realize had already had her on her knees, begging, pleading—not for salvation but for?—

I breathe out hard.

Then she looked up at me with hope in those tortured, tear-filled eyes. For a moment, I thought I could saysomethingto keep that hope alive.

And then I watched it die.

Before I could stop her, she was gone.

Far older memories have me leaning against the doorframe, my grip tightening more as dizziness lurches through me.

I’m dragged back to my childhood in England. Back to that house. Back to the screams, the sobs, and all the rest a child never should have witnessed.

I’m dragged back to the day I saw desperate tears in another tortured woman’s eyes.

“Please, Charles. Just let me take him with me!” My mother’s voice. “This is no house for a boy to grow up in.” Her hands clutched together, knuckles white as she begged my father. “Then you can fuck your whores in peace!” She flung a hand out toward the stairs.

Behind the doorway where I crouched, I saw them—the other women sprawled along the grand staircase, tangled together in lazy amusement. They hardly paid attention to the fight happening only feet away. One of them laughed, sipping from a crystal glass.

My father barely looked at my mother as he unbuckled his belt.

“How much do you want it?” he asked, voice cruel. He pulled out his willy and held it out in challenge.

I didn’t understand. Not yet. But I understood the way my mother recoiled. The way her hands clenched. The way fresh tears welled in her eyes before she did something I never thought I’d see her do.

She got on her knees, bent her head and opened her mouth.

I didn’t understand then. But I do now.

My father was a goddamn monster.

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