Page 45 of Saint
A short laugh huffs out of me. Most of our long flights were spent trying to figure out how we could fuck around on the plane without arousing suspicion from flight attendants or any nearby homophobes. But those flights were always to some fun, boozy place for fun, boozy sex. Not to a monastery filled with silent, watchful monks.
There is plenty of booze here though.
“I’ll see you for dinner, I guess,” Elijah says, and then he’s rolling his suitcase down the hall. I try not to notice the way his stylish shorts cling to the firm curves of his ass.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
I want to be a monk for the rest of my life.
And he’s engaged.
If I fuck up again, both of us will be miserable and heartbroken, and so my task beyond scouting out my potential future monastery is clear.
I can’t fuck up.
* * *
Dinner is a cheese soup,hearty bread, and a brown beer that the monks brew only for themselves, which is almost heartier than the bread itself. Dinner is silent, which is different from home where we usually read aloud from scripture or a book about scripture while we eat.
Allof it is different from before I became a monk and subsisted mainly on vodka and protein bars and also sometimes went to parties where platters of sushi were laid out on naked models instead of tables.
After we silently shuffle our dishes to the kitchen and help wash, everyone silently shuffles off to bed. Not surprising because vigils—the first prayers of the day—are atthree thirty in the morninghere. And here I thought that six in the morning at Mount Sergius was uncivilized.
And so even though the July sun is still visible above the forested hills, Elijah and I walk back to the guesthouse to retire for the night.
“Are you coming to vigils?” I ask him. We’ve been invited by Brother Xavier to come to all the prayers, even the ones not normally open to the public.
He looks over at me, the evening sun catching the amber threads in his eyes. “I suppose I should,” he says slowly. “For the sake of the article.”
We reach the guesthouse, which is empty of the German bicyclist, and I stop in the common room before going to my room, running my hand nervously along the edge of my scapular. “I’ve been meaning to ask...” I say, and his whole body stills, except for his eyes, which move carefully to mine.
The entire moment feels like it’s trembling on the edge of a blade. If I ask what I really want to ask—if I blurt out the things I really want to blurt—then something will happen. I don’t knowwhatwill happen, but it feels like whatever happens will be horrible. He will be angry or wary or filled with pity. He will turn away and keep his distance, or he will do whatever version of letting a man down gently happens when the man being let down is a monk.
I swallow. “So you really needed more for your article than what you got at Mount Sergius?”
There are so many questions inside that question, but they’re buried deep. A coward’s gambit. I know it. I think he knows it too, although he doesn’t seem to relax.
“I did,” he says, his body still held perfectly motionless. “I hope I’ll find what I’m looking for over the next three weeks.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, still a total fucking coward. I’m hoping he’ll volunteer something—anythingother than this cool reserve he’s put back in place between us. Even if it’s anger or something worse, I want to know.I want to know.
“Answers,” he says quietly. “Always answers.”
And I’m going to be brave, I’m going to ask if those answers are only about monastic life or if they’re about me, but then his phone buzzes and he sighs as he pulls it out to look at it. Whatever he sees only deepens his reserve—his face grows more expressionless, his eyes more closed off. But his hand is shaking a little as he tries to put it back in the pocket of his shorts, and it tumbles onto the floor—thankfully onto a nubby old rug instead of the polished bricks.
I crouch to pick it up for him just as he does, and our hands brush against each other’s, pinky to pinky. It’s warm and wonderful, but also it feels like I’ve just plunged my hand into a vat of molten gold. I jerk my hand away at the same time I hear him give a sharp inhale.
Our eyes meet, and then I drop my gaze to see the pulse thrumming in his neck. It’s quick and fast. Like his heart is beating as hard as mine right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and my voice comes out all strange and hoarse. My hand is still hovering in midair, and I drop it to my side, but I’m still crouching down and so it hits the floor as I do. I feel like a total dumbass.
“Don’t be,” he says, and then he puts the phone in his pocket and stands, and so do I.
Our eyes meet again, and it’s almost like there’s a small crack in his facade, a chink in that wall of ice revealing a stormy fire within, and then he turns to look down the hall toward our bedroom doors.
“I should get to bed if I’m going to vigils in the morning,” he says.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
