Page 10 of Saint
It had built and built and built, hadn’t it, for years and years. My older brother’s best friend. What a cliche. And yet nothing about it felt trite or threadbare when he’d brushed his lips over mine. When he’d taken my hand and brought my fingers to his mouth.
What if...
I shift automatically, trying to relieve some of the pressure on my cock, even though it’s a welcome counterpoint to the pressure in my chest and throat. I can speak today, now that I’ve kept my promise, but I’ve found I hardly want to, because what can I say? What can I say other than the man I love is getting married and that I need to accept it?
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wide trunk of the oak. Even in the days after coming here, fresh from leaving Elijah—fresh from that oil-black night in the farmhouse when there was nothing, nothing, nothing crawling along my skin until my phone flashed in the dark—even then, I wasn’t as raw and restless as I am now.
Which is stupid. So stupid. I’m taking my solemn vows next year; there was never any plan to stop being a monk. There was no way Elijah and I were ending up together anyway, because I’d chosen to leave, and some choices can’t be undone, and oh God, what if I want this choice to be undone?
It can’t be undone. This choice is the only reason you’re alive right now.
The only reason you’re going to be okay.
No, I don’t want to undo my choice. I’m certain of it. I came here after the bleakest night of my life; I came to somehow turn a selfish, horny millionaire into a good man, and this doubt—this selfish need for love and sex—is the proof that there is still more work to be done. I am an undone man; I am unfinished; I am so far from where I want to be, which is as close to God as a person can get.
I am so far from being a saint.
And this restlessness—maybe it’s proof that I need something harder, harsher, meaner. A rigor and asceticism I can’t get here from the gentle Benedictines.
A shadow comes across me, and I open my eyes to see Brother Connor’s faded gi pants in front of my face. I tilt my head up to see him extending a hand.
“Thinking of your visitor?” he asks. His voice is so mild, so serene, that it doesn’t feel invasive, this question. More like he’s remarking on it the same way he would remark on a pretty cloud or a fox darting along the edge of the barley.
I accept his hand, still surprised at how someone so compact can shift someone of my bulk as he pulls me to my feet. “Yes,” I admit, my voice rough and scratchy from my muddy lamentations yesterday. “I was.”
“This visitor—he was your Elijah?”
I nod, looking off towards the graves. When I first came here, I imagined where my grave would be one day, nestled among these holy men who’ve lived and died here learning how to be humble and simple and close to God. But now I’m not so sure where my one-day grave will be.
I think of the papers in my hand, of the abbot’s office only a short walk away.
I huff out a breath and then look back at my friend. “He’s—he’s getting married.”
“Oh, Brother Patrick. I’m so sorry.”
I wish I could shrug or smile. I wish I could turn it into a joke, laugh it off, make it a hilarious story to tell over a beer and some of Father Matthew’s homemade pretzels. Before—in the Aiden-times—I was so good at faking what people wanted to hear. I was so good at making a moment feel as light and as sweet as cotton candy, at sweeping anything remotely uncomfortable under the rug until it disappeared.
I used to think I was so good at it because I had to learn how to make people love me again after I fucked up, and it turned out that was useful in all sorts of social situations, not just the ones where I needed to charm my way into forgiveness.
But I don’t think that’s true anymore. Or at least, it’s not the entire truth.
I think the real reason I know how to divert people away from my pain or my fuck-ups is the same reason I was on the floor of my house the night before I came here. Staring out the window as my mind chanted poison to itself, like a corrupt but suspiciously comforting litany.
I know that I am very far away from that night; I understand things now that I didn’t before.
One of those things is that confession isn’t about sitting across from a priest and doing a moral Schedule C. It’s meant to be small moments of honesty shared with those close to us, and it’s not only for sins, but for confusions, hurts, and hopes too.
I confess now, to Brother Connor. “I’m still in love with him.”
He nods, as if this doesn’t surprise him. “You loved him deeply when you came here.”
“I don’t want to love him.”
Brother Connor regards me. “I hope—sincerely—that you do not believe it’s a sin for you to love him. You did not used to.”
“It wasn’t a sin for me to love him then, but I can’t help but feel that it isnow. I came here to pledge my heart to God and God alone, and so what does it say about me that there is still another object of my devotion? That no matter how much I pray and work, a hunger for someone other than my lord still gnaws at me? I would feel the same way if I were still in love with a woman after four years of being here.”
“I think,” Brother Connor says, “that is a very human way of seeing things. If God’s love is boundless, then becoming more Christlike means growing a love that is like Christ’s—without boundary or border. And a boundless love, by definition, would effortlessly encompassmanyloves, would it not?”
