Page 19 of Forgive Me For I Have Sinned

I push the wooden door to the confessional, knowing the priest is still here. I keep the hood from my coat in place and the rosary between my hands as if I'm praying.

"Welcome, my child. If we confess our sins, God is faithful, forgives, and cleanses us. But we must confess our sins."

I follow and motion the sign of the cross. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been two weeks since my last confession. I have tried to be good, but the voices inside my head won't stop. They don't help. I want to do good, but I have to repent for the sins I have already committed."

"What kind?"

"Sex. The kind out of wedlock, and I think of sex and what it does. How it destroys. I also keep thinking…what does God think of fatherless children? I mean, if they didn't have one."

"God says he is the father to the fatherless. There is a place for them with the Lord." I wonder where that place is because if he was a father, why do I feel so alone and unloved. Why do I feel so much pain? "Are you fatherless, my child?"

I shake my head. "No. I have a father."

I do, and I don't because he hates me.

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

"What if I feel like he isn't."

"Parents are to bring their child's discipline to the Lord. Now tell me about these voices and thoughts–"

After I've said my prayers, I walk up to the fourth floor inside the left wing on campus and into Dr. Wick's office for my scheduled appointment.

"I'm glad you could make it, Veronica."

"I'm ecstatic to be here," I respond, taking a seat after shutting the door.

She crosses her legs like a queen, but it's mostly because she is squeezed into a black pencil skirt, and there is no other option.

I open the inner pocket of my coat and light a Virginia Slims, taking a drag and exhaling with an audible sigh of relief, watching the smoke in the air like a dark cloud.

"Do you have to smoke in here?"

"I prefer weed. But if I have to be here and they are paying you to, then yes." I tap the middle of the cancer stick with my middle finger so the ash can fall to the floor, hoping I make a hole in the carpet. Maybe she would remember me by the burnt hole and not forget me as soon as she closes the file after telling my father everything I've said because this bitch doesn't know the meaning of patient confidentiality.

"How are the voices? The dreams?"

I take a drag, exhale, and tamp the cigarette on the plastic arm of the chair, and I smile inwardly because she's annoyed. But so am I because it's the same narrative.

"They're still there." I tap my temple and smile. "The voices in my head keep telling me to do stuff."

"Like?"

I watch her solemnly as she waits for my answer. "Like fucking, Mrs. Wick. They tell me to fuck, and then I have these dreams where they tell me that I have sinned. In those dreams, I'm nothing but a sinner."

She shifts in her seat uncomfortably and places her thumb on her bottom lip like she is thinking, but she isn't. She's listening.

"Is that the only time you have intercourse? When the voices tell you to?"

I laugh hysterically. "Well, of course. They tell me who to fuck and how hard I need to fuck them."

"How do you feel after?"

"How do you feel after you fuck, Dr. Wick?"

"We are not discussing me. We are discussing you."

"Of course!" I snap my fingers looking up at the ceiling. "It started when I was twelve, you know––the voices telling me to do it, but it didn't manifest until the sacrifice."

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