I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t remember if that was an intentional decision or not, whether I’d decided to trade radio silence on her terms for radio silence on my terms—because I knew, deep down, that she wouldn’t text me or call me, she never had when we’d fought, and I also knew I would make myself miserable with the constant checking, the disappointment when there was nothing on my screen but the time.

And when I pounded at Jordan’s door at midnight, and he opened the door to me and the relentless rain, he didn’t turn me away like he had done last time. He gave me long look—piercing, but not ungentle—and then nodded.

“Come in.”

I confessed right there in Jordan’s living room. It was fucking miserable.

Unsure of where to start or how to explain it all, I simply told him about the first day I’d met Poppy. The day I’d only heard her voice. How breathy it was, how layered with uncertainty and pain. And then the story unspooled from there—all the lust, all the guilt, all the thousands of tiny ways I’d fallen in love, and all the thousands of tiny ways I’d crept away from being a priest. I told him about calling Bishop Bove, about my handmade bouquet. And then I told him about Sterling and the kiss, and how it was as if every fear and paranoia I’d ever had about them had been birthed into something monstrous and snarling. Infidelity was terrible, but how much worse was infidelity when you’d suspected all along that there was something between the two parties? My brain wouldn’t stop screaming at me that I should have known better, I should have known, and what had I expected to happen? Had I really expected a happy ending? No relationship with such a sinful start could lead to happiness. That much I knew now.

Jordan listened patiently the entire time, his face devoid of any judgment or disgust. Sometimes his eyes were closed, and I wondered what else he was hearing besides my voice—who else, rather—but I found I no longer had the energy to care about anything, even my own story, which ground to a slow, painful halt after I got to the part where I found Sterling and Poppy. What else was there for me to say? What else was there for me to feel?

I buried my head in my hands, but not to cry—anger and grief still hovered elusively out of reach—there was only shock and emptiness, the blank stunned feeling one might have after stumbling out of a war zone.

I breathed in and out through my palms, and Jordan’s voice drifted in, like it was coming from someplace remote, even though we were sitting close enough that our knees touched.

“Do you truly love her?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said into my hands.

“And do you think it’s over between you?”

I took a moment to answer, not because I didn’t know, but because the words were so hard to speak. “I don’t see how it can’t be. She wants to be with Sterling. She’s made that abundantly clear.” Of course, if she showed up on Jordan’s doorstep, I’d take her into my arms without a single word.

Less the unconditional love of God than the keening need of an addict.

“Without her…” Jordan met my eyes. “Do you think you still want to leave the priesthood?”

Jordan’s question hit me with the force of a cannon. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted now. I mean, I’d never wanted to be with a woman rather than be a priest, I’d wanted to be with Poppy rather than be a priest. I didn’t want the freedom to fuck, I wanted the freedom to fuck her. I didn’t want a family, I wanted a family with her.

And if I couldn’t have her, then I didn’t want this other life. I wanted God, and I wanted things the way they were.

I supposed I could call the bishop and explain and hope that he would allow me to stay in the clergy. It would be hard to stay in Weston, knowing Poppy was there too, seeing all the places we’d been together, but then again, at least I’d have my parish and my missions to fill my time. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded—at least I could keep a sliver of my life the way it was. I could keep my vocation, even if I lost my heart.

“I don’t think I still want to leave,” I answered.

Jordan was quiet for a minute. “Are you ready for your penance?”

I nodded, still not bothering to lift my head.

“You will offer God one day in its entirety, a day of complete and utter companionship with him. He wants to talk with you, Tyler. He wants to be with you in this time of suffering and confusion, and you should not shut Him out in your grief.”

“No,” I mumbled. “That penance isn’t enough. I need something more—I deserve something harder, something worse…”

“Like what? A hair shirt? Walking barefoot for three months? A thorough self-scourging?”

I looked up, so I could glare at him. “I’m not being funny.”

“Neither am I. You came to me for absolution and I’m giving it—along with God’s message for you. In fact, this day of penance should be tomorrow. Stay here with me tonight, and no matter what happens, you spend tomorrow here. You’ll have the church to yourself after the morning Mass, so plenty of time and space to pray.”

Jordan’s face was as it always was—calm and beatific at the same time—and I knew without a doubt that he was right. A day of reflection after the heady exhilaration of the past three months was no small thing for me to muster, and it was also the exact thing I needed. It would be painful, to spend hours examining myself honestly and conversing openly with God, but necessary things are often painful.

“You’re right,” I conceded. “Okay.”

Jordan nodded, and he said a quiet prayer of absolution, and then we sat in silence for a few minutes. Most people were uncomfortable with silence, but Jordan wasn’t—he was at home in it. At home with himself. And that made it slightly easier to be with myself, even with all the unfelt feelings still looming above me.

At least until the phone rang.

Jarred out of our reverie, we both stared at Jordan’s phone on his kitchen counter. By this point, it was almost two in the morning, and Jordan stood quickly, because phone calls at this time of night were generally of the bad kind—car crashes, unexpected turns for the worse, hospice patients finally gasping their last breaths. The kinds of things where people needed their priest by their side.

I watched him answer the phone, silently saying a prayer that nobody was seriously hurt—a prayer purely out of habit, words spoken from rote—and then watched as his eyes flicked over to me.

“Yes, he’s with me,” Jordan said quietly, and my heart started beating in erratic staccato thumps, because it couldn’t be Poppy, it couldn’t be, but what if it was?

Oh God, what I would give if it were.

“Of course, just a moment,” Jordan said and handed the phone to me. “It’s the bishop,” he whispered.

My heart stopped beating then, plummeting down into my stomach. The bishop at two in the morning?

“Hello?” I said into the phone.

“Tyler,” and all it took was that one word for me to know that something was deeply, troublingly wrong, because I had never heard my mentor sound this upset. Could it simply be about me quitting?

“About that voicemail,” I said, “I’m so sorry for not waiting to speak to you properly. And now that I’ve had some time to think, I’m not sure that I do want to leave the clergy. I understand that I have a lot to explain and a lot to atone for, but things have changed for me today, and—”

The bishop’s voice was heavy as he interrupted me. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that some other things have come to light…rather publicly, I’m afraid.”

Shit. “What things?”

“I tried calling you all day, and I called your parents and some of your parishioners, but no one knew where you were, and it wasn’t until tonight that I thought you might have gone to your confessor.”