Page 54 of Of Angels & Absolution

You.

I want to say it, but I can’t. Not after he told me he didn’t want me. There are too many people I love who feel nothing in return. I can’t bear to be told one more time, that one more person doesn’t care about me the way I care about him.

“I want to be loved,” I admit, feeling raw and naked admitting it aloud.

“You are loved,” Father Salvatore says. “God loves all His children.”

“Maybe I want one of His children to love me too.”

“There is one,” he says slowly. “One of his children that you can make love you.”

“Really?” I whisper, not daring to breathe, to hope. I would do anything he asked, no matter how impossible, how revolting, if he could feel it too. “How?”

“It’s you, lamb,” he says gently, giving my hand a comforting squeeze.

“Me?” I ask. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“You must first know yourself,” he says. “Just as it is for anyone else. You can’t control someone else’s heart. You can only let them know you, and if they choose to love you, that is a blessing you can choose to accept or refuse.”

If only it were that easy. I can’t tell him the truth though, that I let people know me, and they hate me now. I don’t wanthim to think I’m unlovable, or to take it as self-pity, when it’s simply a statement of fact.

“What if I can’t do that?” I ask.

“The body is an easy place to start,” he says. “Knowing the parts of yourself you can see and feel with your fingertips, understanding your desires, accepting that they are God-given and holy, is a gateway to the soul.”

“I thought the eyes were the windows to the soul,” I say, a bit shakily.

He doesn’t smile, his dark eyes earnest and gentle behind the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Sorry,” I mutter, shifting on the kneeler to take some of the pressure off my kneecaps.

“Would you like to practice now?” he asks.

“Practice?” I whisper, my throat going dry. “Like… Like I did in the confessional?”

He doesn’t answer, just keeps watching me squirm on the kneeler in front of him. It was one thing to do that when he couldn’t see or didn’t know I was doing it. How can I do it now, here, while he’s watching me like that? While we’re in the church, with the huge cross looming over us and Jesus watching from the stained-glass mosaics?

“Is that what you were doing in the confessional?” he asks.

I feel a prickle of sweat at my hairline at the thought of telling him. I can’t do it. He knows.

“You saw,” I whisper, staring at the gold wristwatch around his wrist. It’s such a masculine thing to wear, an adult thing. I feel like a child who was caught doing something wrong, forced to confess what she did before she receives her punishment.

“Tell me,” he says, confirming my fears. “I want you to say it every time, until you can do it easily, with no shame.”

“I touched myself,” I whisper.

“Do you want me to tell you to do it again?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask.”

I swallow hard, my whole body flushed, my heartbeat erratic. “Can I?”

“Can you what, lamb?” he asks gently, patiently, even though he should be disappointed that I can’t say it without shame like he instructed.

“Can—Can I touch myself, Father?” I blurt.

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