Forgive me, Father

“Father Bastion, I’m not confused, or a criminal, or a murder, or prideful, or envious, or wrathful, or even that much of a believer in the Catholic church, but I do have something I need to confess,” I said. I paused for a moment to think through what I was doing. I had one out and this was it and I knew if I was going to tell him it needed to be here and now and I knew I could keep this secret from him just like I had already done for a year or so now and I knew things would be so much easier and simpler if I just didn’t say anything at all and I knew that I could keep talking to him if I just never brought it up to him and dread filled my thoughts with all the ways he possibly would respond and yet: I knew that if I waited any longer my heart might burst.

“I am in love with you,” I said. I sat there in the confessional, its walls feeling as if they were tightening around me. I picked at the fabric of the bench I was sitting on. There was a bald spot from how often I came in; little specks of the velvet scattered all over the floor. I felt an entire monarch butterfly migration float through my gut. I leaned up against the wall between Bastion and me.

 I could hear a stutter and his toe began to tap. He always tapped his toe when he was thinking, the timing so perfect I swear I could hear a song every time he did it, one of the unheard wonders of the world; it was a song that even a hymn would be jealous of.

“How can you be sure?” he asked. 

I wonder what he meant by that. Maybe it was that we’d only ever talked in this box or the fact that I had told him about some made-up love interest to find another excuse to talk to him or that the first time we ever met I was crying about a woman who left me at the altar or maybe it was the fact that it’s not very often that someone confesses feelings of love to someone sitting in a confessional. “I’m not sure, but that’s the beauty of it,” I said. 

He returned to his thinking. The room had the smell of home when you’ve been gone for months, but with the saltiness of the ocean air, something more like wind rushing up against your face even though the air in the room was stagnant. It may have been Bastion’s cologne.

    “Well, you’ve never seen my face, so what is it you like about me?” he asked.

    There were a number of things I had come to love about Bastion. The bigger question was what wouldn’t I list? “Well, whenever I’m in love with someone, the way they laugh when I catch them off guard with a joke, the way they speak to me like I’m the only one that matters, the way they try to hide their toe-taps that they only do when they’re thinking and all the times they open up to me to try and make me feel better, those are the things I fall in love with. I’m not in love with your appearance. I’m in love with you,” I said. Bastion went silent. 

I could almost feel the earth’s rotation as I waited. I couldn’t keep myself busy for long, so I instead tried to focus on other things. I tried listening to the people that shuffled about outside. The sounds their shoes made wormed their way through the thick walls of the confessional. I counted the number of fine carvings of crosses and wooden filigree that lined the walls, touching each and every sanded surface as I counted. I twirled my hair around my finger, wondering what people normally did in confessionals. None of that really mattered though, not to me. 

    “So?” I asked.

    “I don’t know,” he said. I could hear my heartbeat come to a screeching halt. ‘I don’t know’ could’ve meant anything. I don’t know could mean that he was interested in someone else, or it could mean he wasn’t looking for love, or that he wasn’t ready yet, or that he didn’t know me well enough to make a decision, or maybe he simply didn’t like me. I gripped my shoulder, digging my nails in just enough for it to hurt. 

    Bastion sighed. “If you give me some time, I’ll think about it,” he said. 

“You will?” I let go of my shoulder. Maybe he only needed time. Everything living needed it: time to grow, time to understand, time to process, time to think, and Bastion just so happened to need it too.

“Of course.” I heard the creak of the door on the other side of the confessional.

“Thank you, Bastion,” I said.

“Thank you, Father Bastion,” he corrected. The door closed and I was alone with the ambient hum of the box and the distant chatter of members of the church.

The next day dragged on too long for my liking. There wasn’t a second that when by when I didn’t think of Bastion. I imagined what he might look like, or what his favorite color could be, or what hobbies he liked, or whether or not he had a cat. Millions of questions for him swirled in my mind, all the questions I’d never been able to ask him. At the end of the day, I found myself in the same confessional I had been sitting in for over a year, picking at the same spot in the velvet, counting the same wooden carvings, and asking the same question, ‘Does he love me?’

The door opened with its same creak, but the normal smell of home wasn’t there. I thought maybe Bastion was trying a new cologne. “Father Bastion?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” responded the voice of an older man. The man continued, “He did say someone would be looking for him though. He told me to tell you that he’s decided to go on his mission.”

For a moment, all the cogs in my brain stopped moving. I wanted to come to some sort of conclusion or answer, or even come up with some opinion or feeling, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

“I’m always here to lend an ear if you’ve got something you need to confess,” said the man. The confessional I had once felt so safe in just felt empty. It was as if I had moved out of my childhood home and all that was left was the empty floors and walls, all the joy and memories had been stripped away and I had nothing left but a feeling. Not the pleasant feeling of family, or love, or even something simple like waves in the ocean, but a cold, empty feeling.

“Oh, no. It was just a question, but I think I found my answer. Thank you though,” I responded. 

I opened the door to the confessional, and let my eyes adjust. Just outside the confessional, reds and oranges and blues from the stained glass windows pooled across the bricks on the floor. The air was fresh and flowing, just warm enough to be comforting. It was nice to get out of that confessional, for once.