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“You want it, don’t you?”

“No,” I answer weakly.

His hands move up to my breasts. “Tell the truth.”

“I don’t!”

“Tell the truth!”

“I don’t!” I scream, waking up with a gasp.

My body jerks upright, drenched in sweat, lungs heaving like I’ve surfaced from drowning. My heart pounds so hard it echoes in my ears—wild, unsteady, violent. The sheets are tangled around my thighs, damp and twisted. My skin is slick, flushed, fever-hot, as though his hands are still on me.

I look around, panting in fear.

He isn’t here, it was only a dream. He was never here.

I pat around for my bottle of water and when I find it, I gargle it like I have been parched for months. My hands quake violently, making the water spill on my night dress.

I sit there for a moment, staring at the pale walls, trying to remember where the dream ended and where the memory began.

I feel sick.

Disgust coils in my gut as I scramble to my knees on the mattress, fingers clutching the edge of the headboard, trembling under the weight of a thousand sins. The rosary lies beside me, cold against the sheets, the beads slick with sweat.

I grab it with shaking hands and press it to my lips, knuckles white from how tightly I hold it.

“Cleanse me,” I whisper, breathless, hoarse. “Cleanse me, Lord… please.”

The tears come fast, sliding down my cheeks and mixing with the sweat still clinging to my skin. I bow forward until my forehead touches the sheets, chest heaving, body curling into itself like a penitent sinner at the altar of her own shame.

“Purge these thoughts, purge these cravings… I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it. I didn’t mean to…”

What were these dreams? Why did they haunt me? Why do I not reject them?

“Take it away,” I whisper, over and over, rocking on my knees, voice cracking, throat raw.

“Take it away, take it away, take it away…”

No peace comes with my desperate prayers, just the echo of his voice from my dreams.

You can’t pray away the screams of last night.

Chapter One – Lunetta

The cobblestones are warm beneath our feet, holding the last of the morning sun. I walk with my hands folded gently in front of me, my rosary wrapped loosely around my wrist, the beads clicking softly.

Bea walks beside me, swinging her handbag in easy little circles. Her heels tap lightly on the stone, her skirt swaying with each step—pretty and bright, just like her. Every now and then, she bumps her shoulder into mine, playful and light, as if to make sure I’m still close.

We’ve just come from morning Mass—a quiet little service, the kind most people don’t bother with during the week. But I like it that way. The church feels softer when it’s quiet, like it’s breathing. The pews creek gently, the candles burn slower, and the prayers feel like they float higher when there aren’t so many voices all at once.

Bea doesn’t usually come on weekdays, but she said she would today. I think maybe her Nonna asked her to, but I didn’t say anything. I was just glad to have her sitting beside me in the pew, even if she fidgeted a little and forgot the second verse of the communion hymn.

I don’t mind. I like it.

Our arms brush as we walk. Hers warm, mine tucked closer to my chest. She smells faintly of orange blossom and lipstick. I still smell of incense.

“Mass was shorter than usual today,” she says lightly, looking up at the sky. “Reverend Father must have skipped one of his long-winded parables.”