Page 47 of Saint
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We agreeto skip vigils and lauds, and so when I open my eyes, it’s nearly seven a.m.—the latest I’ve slept in almost five years. I stretch in bed, yawning and then adjusting my cage. Thankfully my sheets aren’t damp or clingy this morning, but I have an unrelenting half-boner that doesn’t abate even after I take a cool shower in the shared bathroom.
Please,I tell God.Make it stop.
But God doesn’t do anything about my tumescence or the rapid thudding of my heart as I dress and prepare for the day alone with Elijah. I know after years in a monastery that God doesn’t do fast answers; that he doesn’t do easy ones. I will have to choose celibacy and devotiondespitehow hard it is. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a choice, it would just be the path of least resistance.
But you know what, the path of least resistance doesn’t get enough good press. Because this isn’t fun.
And fuck, couldn’t God have stopped Elijah from wearing that tank top and those short hiking shorts? Like maybe a tiny lightning strike to light his suitcase on fire? Maybe a little flood in his room? Would that have been so hard?
But no, instead I’m presented with thighs a figure skater would be jealous of and a collarbone that screams LICK ME.
I keep my eyes studiously on his face—which is no better. The high cheekbones and squared jaw are now liberally dusted with scruff, and he’s serving me the same eyebrow lift which used to give seventeen-year-old Aiden such mysterious pants-feelings.
“Are you really wearing your robes to hike?” Elijah asks dubiously, shifting a backpack on his shoulder. He’s got sunglasses hanging from the collar of his tank top, and they tug the fabric down just enough to expose a scalene triangle of brown chest, and I want to die.
“I only packed one pair of street clothes, and it’s khakis and a button-down, because the abbot made me,” I say. But I lift my habit and show him a boot. “These will be good for hiking though.”
He shakes his head, but then he smiles. “Aiden Bell not having the right outfit for the occasion. Who would have thought?”
“The habit is the right outfit for every occasion,” I explain as we make our way out of the guesthouse and walk to the kitchen. “It’s sturdy, easy to move in, and breezy when it gets hot.”
“Uh-huh,” Elijah replies. “I very much believe the full-sleeved, full-length robe made of all black material is super comfortable in July.”
In the kitchen, the brother on duty silently loads us up with apples, cheese, and bread, as well as a soft cooler case full of their 5.0% blond. After he tucks in a couple reusable water bottles and shows us the shallowest part of the river to ford, we’re off, ambling beneath the trees to the sound of the terce bells ringing.
We don’t talk much at first. Fording the river is easy enough with how shallow it is and how many sun-baked rocks break the surface, but it does require focus, especially with our cargo making us unwieldy, and then the path up the hill is a trial of faith and will. It’s steep andmeanand by the time we get to the top of the hill an hour later, I’m wheezing. I drop the cooler case and stumble over to a large, shady oak and fall to my knees, panting like Hidalgo’s horse.
(Or is Hidalgo the horse? I never saw that movie.)
Elijah is irritatingly not out of breath at all. He watches me with barely disguised amusement and then walks over to deposit his backpack next to the cooler, standing over me. His sunglasses reflect me in duplicate—twin monks on their knees with their shoulders heaving and their cheeks red over their scruff.
“Built for strength and not endurance, I see,” Elijah remarks, nudging me with his hiking boot.
“That’s not what the strippers used to say,” I pant, and Elijah laughs so loud and so bright—sohappily—that I feel his laugh running through my body like water. Likefunwater, like a rippling swimming pool or turquoise ocean waves. His laugh feels like a vacation destination all in itself, and then I remember that I used to hear it often. That even though I was a flake and a jackass, I could always make him smile. I could always make him laugh.
I roll back onto my ass and wipe at my forehead with my sleeve. I would never admit it to him, but a long black robe probably isn’t the best summer hiking gear. I feel like I’m being broiled alive.
“You need a beer,” Elijah says, taking pity on me. He comes to sit next to me in the shade, and then he rummages through the cooler case for a pair of bottles and the opener, and then hands me an open bottle. The cooler case has done its job, and the beer is still very cold.
We both drink in silence for a moment, letting the breeze and the bright, citrusy beer cool us down, and then Elijah says, “Fuck it, let’s eat too,” and we unpack our lunch early.
Just beyond us is the path, and beyond that is the steep slope of the hill, slanting down to the river and then to Semois Abbey itself. From our vantage away from the edge though, the river is invisible, and so are the abbey grounds. There’s only the broken upper teeth of the medieval ruins and the dark roofs of the modern buildings. And then hills upon hills upon hills.
“This is hobbit food,” Elijah says, looking over our spread of bread, cheese, apples, and beer.
“We’re only missing mushrooms.”
“I wouldn’t say I’mmissingthem,” Elijah mutters, reaching for an apple slice and then sticking it between his teeth before he digs in his satchel for his notebook and a fine-point Sharpie pen. He uncaps it and scribbles something down while I make myself a tiny cheese and apple sandwich.
“You know,” I say after a swig of beer. “You’ve been interviewing every monk you come across, but I feel like the only questions you’ve asked me have been purely functional, about how things work at the abbey and stuff like that.”
He glances at me, an eyebrow lifted over the edge of his shiny sunglasses. “What questions should I be asking you?”
I’m suddenly uncomfortable, unsure. “I don’t know. Like what I want out of being a monk. What I want out of this life.”
It’s so close to the things we’ve been avoiding—why I came to Mount Sergius, why I left him. How I feel about what happened between us in the hermitage. And I feel brave and cowardly all at once because it’s just close enough to lead him to those places, but far enough away that he’ll have to be the one to bridge the gap.
