Page 107 of Sinner (Priest 2)
“And it didn’t occur to you that showing up would make it all about you, again? That it would stir up bad feelings for me? That it might make things worse?”
“Oh.” Fuck. I hadn’t.
Shit.
My head drops down as I loosen my arms around Zenny to let her go. All I’d wanted was to make things better—take a page from all the pirates and peers in the Wakefield books and make a grand gesture, but a grand gesture to support her, not to win her back. To show her that she and her life as she planned it meant miles and miles more than whatever my pulpy idiot heart still longed for.
And once again, I’d fucked it up.
Zenny moves, and I sure it’s to get off my lap, to get away from me, but hot relief and confusion flood through my veins when I realize she’s not climbing off of me, she’s rearranging herself. She’s straddling my lap so she can look me easily in the face, and as her knees nestle on either side of my hips, her dress surges up around us in white, silk waves.
“Sean,” she says quietly, cupping my face. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“But—”
She presses her fingertips to my lips. “I know what I said. It’s true. And I’m still glad you’re here.”
A month ago, I wouldn’t have understood this, how something could have an and. How something could be flawed but still good, how something could be imperfect but still worth loving.
I’m beginning to understand now.
“I was crying because I missed you,” she says. “I was crying because I love you.”
My heart is flinging itself madly around my chest now, pounding at its prison and choking me. “Zenny.”
That’s all I can get out. It’
s all I have.
“You were right,” she says, looking away from me. “I’d begun to want this for all the wrong reasons. I was going to do this for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t about God any longer—it was about proving something to the people who doubted me. Everyone who thought my becoming a nun was ridiculous or wasteful, everyone who thought I wasn’t strong enough to give up money and sex.”
“Oh,” I say again. My tone says it all—that one noise is filled with a foolish hope the kind I’ve never dared to feel.
“Oh, Sean,” she says, and something like pity enters her voice.
My heart freezes.
“I still think I have to do this,” she whispers. “Just…for the right reasons now.”
“Oh.” That word again, like it’s the only word I know anymore.
“But you were the one who showed me that,” Zenny says gently—and dare I dream—sadly? Longingly? “I’ll always be thankful to you, not only for teaching me love, but for pointing me in the right direction. You’re right: I would have always regretted walking down that aisle and taking an oath with all the wrong intentions.”
I suppose this isn’t any worse than I’d initially feared and planned on, but somehow it feels like it. I try to regain control of my heart and fail; it’s vanished once again inside that hole in my chest. “I’m glad. I want you to have the life you want; I want all your choices to be yours. Always.”
“And you?” she asks, a little furrow appearing between her eyebrows. “What is the life you want? Are you going to be…”
She can’t finish, and I don’t need her to. She wants reassurance that I’m going to be okay without her, and I can’t unequivocally give it. I’m not going to be okay. But I guess that’s what I’ve learned over the past month: my being okay is not the most important thing in the world.
“God and I are on speaking terms now,” I offer, hoping to distract her from her question. “And for that, I have you to thank. You said belief was giving my heart and trusting that understanding would come later. And I realized at some point I’ve already given my heart without understanding—to you, Zenny. It wasn’t so hard to do it a second time with God.”
Her eyes flash anew with tears and she pulls me close. “Sean,” she breathes against my neck, and her breasts are flat against my chest and her thighs are tight around my hips and her ass is—
“Sweetheart,” I say, in a strained voice. “I need you to let go.”
“No,” she says, squirming even closer, trapping my rigid length between her mound and my own stomach. “That was beautiful.”
I endure this with as much forbearance as I can muster, although my voice is gravelled and harsh when I say, “Zenny, you have to stop moving around on my lap.”
