Page 122 of Divine Temptations

His voice, calm and steady, came through the screen. “Take your time, my son. God is listening.”

I swallowed hard, hands twisting in my lap. I didn’t know if I was ready to tell him everything. But I had to start. I had to try.

I sat in the booth, the carved wood pressing against my back, the faint smell of old varnish and incense crowding in. My knees jittered as I waited for the words I hadn’t spoken in years. Finally, I forced my voice out, starting over again.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… God, it’s been over a year since my last confession.”

The little wooden screen between us rattled as the priest shifted. “That’s all right, my son. Start wherever you need to.”

I drew in a ragged breath, my hands twisting together in my lap. “I—I left the seminary. I couldn’t take final vows. I knew it wasn’t right for me, but I can’t stop feeling guilty, like I failed God somehow.”

There was a pause, and then his voice came, soft but steady. “That is no sin, son. You followed your conscience. You were true to yourself. That is a holy thing.”

True to myself. The phrase struck me hard, because I’d been doing that a lot lately—ever since Noah.

I swallowed, my throat tight. “There’s… more.” My voice cracked, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’ve developed feelings for someone. Feelings that I can’t seem to control.”

“Love is not a sin,” the priest said gently.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head in the dark booth. “It’s not just love. It’s… it’s consuming. When I think of this person, it’s like light breaking through a stained-glass window, scattering color everywhere. It’s like the whole world finally makes sense. My heart pounds just at the thought of them. And when they smile—God, when they smile—it feels like grace itself. Like I’m finally alive, for the first time in my life.”

The priest made a small sound—an encouraging hum.

I let the silence linger for a moment before I said it, my voice barely audible. “It’s for another man.”

The air in the booth shifted. The priest cleared his throat, the sound echoing strangely in the tiny space. My stomach knotted.

“And I gave in,” I admitted, the words tumbling out in a rush. “We were together. Intimately.” My pulse hammered against my skull.

The priest hesitated, then said slowly, “Desire is natural. There is nothing unnatural about what you feel, even if it is for another man. But the sin, my son, comes when those inclinations are acted upon outside the bonds of matrimony.”

My fists clenched so hard my nails bit into my palms. A flare of heat burned in my chest. “Outside the bonds of matrimony?” I hissed. “You mean the matrimony your church refuses to allow me?”

A weary sigh filtered through the screen. “That is correct.”

Something inside me snapped. I leaned forward, my breath coming fast, my voice rising. “So let me get this straight. The Church says my desires are natural, but I must smother them. Deny them. Live my life celibate, alone, unloved—because of rules written two thousand years ago by men who never even dreamed of someone like me?”

“My son—”

“No!” My voice shook, raw and sharp. “Do you hear yourself? You’re telling me to lock my heart in a box, throw away the key, and call it holy. You’re telling every gay person alive that they don’t deserve the love you hand out so freely to straight people. And you think that’s God’s will?”

The priest tried again, his tone dipping into well-worn scripture. “Saint Paul speaks clearly about—”

“Don’t you dare quote scripture to me!” I spat, slamming my palm against the wooden divider so hard it rattled. “I know the Bible. I’ve lived my whole damn life in its shadow. And I’m telling you, the God I worship—if He’s even listening—would never demand such cruelty. Never.”

The silence after my outburst was thick, suffocating. My breath came in ragged gasps.

I shoved the door open, the creak of hinges startlingly loud. “This is wrong,” I said, my voice low but trembling with fury. “The Church is wrong. And I won’t chain myself to its lies anymore.”

Then I bolted—out of the booth, down the aisle, past the grotesque crucifix glaring down from the rafters. My footsteps thundered in the cavernous sanctuary until I burst through the heavy wooden doors into the blinding daylight.

I stood outside the heavy doors, my chest heaving, the warm sunlight too bright, too clean after the suffocating dark of the confessional. My hands rose to my face almost without thinking, and I found my cheeks wet. The tears surprised me—I hadn’teven felt them start. They burned as if my body were purging something I hadn’t managed to let go of inside. I wiped at them roughly, ashamed, furious, not sure who the anger was aimed at anymore—myself, the priest, the God I’d spent my whole life trying to serve.

I turned back toward the stairs, toward the stone facade that had once promised safety, and spit hard on the steps. The sound echoed faintly in the quiet noon air. For a moment, I wanted the earth to split open and swallow the whole damn place. My shoulders sagged, and despair crept in, heavy and unrelenting. Noah’s face came to me then—his smile, the way his touch had made me feel like I wasn’t broken. But how could he forgive me? I’d slipped out of his bed like a coward in the middle of the night.

Would he ever want to see me again?

Chapter Ten