Emily and the Priest (2 page)

He raised his eyebrows. “Scary?”

“No, actually. I dreamed I was going blind, but I could see everything. I was just seeing it…from inside.” She glanced at him, seeing the quizzical look on his face. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I think I understand.” He leaned forward,
putting his feet on the floor, elbows on his desk. S
he could see the dark hairs covering his forearm. “Do you know how Lucy lost her sight?”

“Yes. She plucked out her own eyes and sent them to the man who
was in love with her
.”

“Why, do you think?”

Emily shrugged.
“Well, the book said it was because she wanted to give her heart to God, not to a
mortal man. So when her admirer
said she had beautiful eyes, she plucked them out to prove that her beauty wasn’t external, and she was devoted
only
to God.”

“Why do
you
think she did it?”

“I think…
” Emily looked up, meeting his eyes fully.
“
I think she was afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what?
” Father Mark looked surprised.
“
Doesn’t it take a great deal of courage to pluck out your own eyes?”

“I think it was cowardice.
” She bit her lip, watching his reaction.
“
I think she was afraid of love.”

Father Mark stood,
pacing for a moment, contemplative, then
coming around to the other side of the desk to lean against it in front of her.
“
But
Lucy loved God.”

“
Yes,” Emily agreed, looking up, up, into his handsome face.
“But
she was afraid of men. Of the way they looked at her. Admired her. I think she wanted to make herself ugly, so no one would notice her.”

He seemed to contemplate this, and sh
e noted the way his gaze fell to
her hemline, where she was playing with the edge of her uniform skirt.

“
But God restored her sight,” he reminded her.

“Yes,
and made her eyes
more beautiful than ever.”

“Proving that no matter what you do, you can’t hide inner beauty.”
He smiled, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“You’re a very
beautiful
girl, Emily.
There’s just no hiding it.”

Emily’s heart swelled in her chest, even though she knew she shouldn’t be feeling what she was. He was so close she could smell him, a clean scent, like soap, and something else, masculine and heady. She was intoxicated by his dark green gaze, fixed in her chair, all of their long conversations constellated in that moment,
hours spent in this office
talking about everything from school and her scholarship to one of the most prestigious Catholic
girls’
colleges in the country, to her overprotective mother and her long-dead father whose image glowed like an angel in the distance of her memory.

“I don’t try to hide it with you.” She turned her face so his palm was cupping her cheek, relishing the touch of his skin against hers. Was this really happening? “You make me feel beautiful.”

“You are. You really are,” he whispered hoarsely, his thumb moving along the line of her jaw, sending little shivers through her.

“I love you, Father.” Emily turned and kissed his palm, eyes closed,
breathing in his scent, her confession bubbling up without thought.
“I love you.”

The silence stretched between them and she didn’t need to
open her eyes to feel his shock;
she could see it clearly enough with her eyes closed. But he didn’t move his hand from her cheek, didn’t withdraw. Instead, his hand moved down to her shoulder, his finger moving along the sensitive area of skin over her collarbone, tracing it under the open
V
of her blouse. She held her breath, waiting, hoping, praying, not daring to move.

“Emily…”
H
e whispered her name and the sound was heaven. “
Oh G
od
,
help me…”

He kissed her and the sensation carried her skyward. She wrapped her arms around his neck,
standing to meet him,
reveling in the hot press of his lips, the
way he gathered her to him, pressing his hands to the small of her back so her hips met his under his robe. There was no mistaking the hard steel of him pressed against her pelvis.

And then he was letting her go, gasping, apologizing, waving away her attempts to reengage him.
She couldn’t believe what had just happened—and clearly he couldn’t either.

“Please,” he begged, turning toward the window.
She saw his hand trembling as he lifted it to his
pale face
, covering his eyes.
“
Please you have to
…
you have to
g
o.”

She did as he asked, her heart still pounding, her mouth warm from his kiss. She floated back to the dorms, unmindful of the cutting October wind and the fact that she
wasn’t wearing a coat. Jenny
and Eve had already thrown her stuff into boxes and left them outside the door. Even that didn’t dishearten her. Nothing could, not anymore. She had seen the truth in his eyes before he turned away. He loved her too. She was sure of it.
She just didn’t know what
it meant, what
they were going do about it.

Emily dragged her boxes of stuff down the hall and knocked
tentatively on
her
new
roommate’s
door.
Alexis
, still red-nosed and red-eyed, stood there blinking at her for a moment before offering a smile and swinging the door wide. She had changed out of her uniform and was wearing a pair of pink flannel pajamas.

“Hey.” Emily smiled
back
,
tugging one of the boxes into the room
.
She was trying hard to forget what had happened in Father Mark’s office, and moving
all her stuff into her new room
seemed like a good distraction.
“You ready for a new roomie?”

Alexis
sniffed, grabbing the lip of another bo
x
and dragging it in.
“Jenny is
such a bitch.”

“Yeah, well, they deserve each other.”
Emily eyed the stripped twin bed in the corner, butted up to an empty desk.

“I guess y
ou’re right.
But I think Eve was just influenced by Jenny’s evil. It’s like she’s crossed over to the dark side or something.
”
Alexis
sat on her bed, watching as Emily started making her bed. “Do you like American Idol?
”

“Is that on tonight?
” Emily spread her
rainbow
crocheted blanket out
over the sheets. “
I usually go down to the common room to watch.”

“
We don’t have to.”
Alexis
rolled
over
her bed with a grin and lifted
a box off of something in the corner. “We’ve got our own TV.”

Emily blinked in amazement. “But… that’s against the rules.”

Alexis
held her finger to her lips. “Shhhhh.”

“Won’t Eve tell on you?”

“She threatened to, if I didn’t agree to switch roommates.”
Alexis
snorted
as she flipped channels. “But I told her I’d tell Father Mark about her vibrator collection.”

“
Her…
what?”
Emily sank down onto her own bed, wide-eyed.

“Why
do you think she and
Jenny
wanted a room together
?”

Emily blinked at her new roommate.
“What are you saying?”

“Don’t be naïve.
”
Alexis
rolled her eyed. “
They’re lesbians.
They’re a ‘couple’ now.
”

“They are?”
Emily asked, although suddenly things made so much more sense.
“Are you sure?”

“
Trust me.”
Alexis
smirked.
“
It takes one to know one.”

“
Oh.
”
Emily blinked at her roommate, surprised by this new information.
“Wait… were you and Eve…?”

“For a while.
” 
Alexis
shrugged. “Then Jenny came along and got her to join the axis of evil.”

“
Oh wow.” Emily was just now beginning to understand the scope of what had
really
happened in the roommate switch. “I’m so sorry.
”

“
I’m over it
.”
Alexis
settled on a re-run of TMZ, clearly not over it at all.
“
You really didn’t know Jenny was gay
?”

“
No.” Emily grabbed the edge of one of the boxes and pulled it nearer, starting to
pile
books onto her desk. “
But she never talked to me much. She didn’t like
me.
I think she
was the one pulling all those pranks
.”

Alexis
nodded knowingly.
“Oh it was definitely
Jenny
and Eve.”

“How do you know?”

“
Julia told me that Ellie
told her that she
over
heard Eve
and
Jenny
talking about it in Spanish
class
.
”

“
I guess t
hat
should
n’t surprise me.”
Emily sighed, lining her books up in the shelf built into the side of the desk.
She found a pack of Twizzlers in the box and held them up, grinning. “Score! Want one?”

Alexis
took the offered strand of licorice, chewing thoughtfully, her eyes narrowing.
“
We could plan a little revenge, you know.
We still have the keys to your old room, and all Eve and
Jenny
’s stuff is in there.”

“Nah.”
Emily shrugged.
“The best revenge will be you and me being the best
of
friends, I think.”

Alexis
smiled.
“
Want some help?
”

Together they finished
unpacking and then settled in on
Alexis
’s bed to watch American Idol, and when
Jenny
and Eve came to switch keys, they were surprised to find the two of them singing bad karaoke into a hairbrush and laughing hysterically.

* * * *

St. Mary Margaret’s
went all out
every year for the Halloween
carnival, and this year was no exception. Emily had volunteered to work the face painting booth because she had a flair for it, and she preferred to
do something where everyone
walked away smiling, instead of
watching kids
toss a
ping-pong
ball at a goldfish bowl
all day
and rarely
, if ever,
win.

Unfortunately, she was right across from t
he kissing booth, where Jenny
and Eve
were
flirting shamefully, teasing
all the boys from St. Luke’s.
The good news was that her new roommate had joined her at the last minute, so she didn’t have to deal with the long line of
waiting
kids all by herself. Although
Alexis
, she noticed, wasn’t as artistic as she was, but she could handle
the easy things like hearts,
balloons
and pumpkins
, and
leave the dragons and birds and more difficult things
to Emily.

“Look!”
Alexis
nudged her, taking a little boy’s ticket—each of them cost a dollar, and they could use them at any of the booths or on the ferris wheel or teacup ride or the blow-up house the church had ren
ted. All the proceeds went to the children’s charity at St. Mary Margaret’s.
“It’s Father Mark over by the kissing booth!”

Emily’s head came
up sharply and she saw Jenny
laughing and waggling her fingers, calling out, but at first she didn’t see him
—
then she realized why. He was wearing j
eans and
a
soft blue
,
denim button-
down shirt, so casual that Emily did a double-take to make sure it really was him—but yes, there were those green eyes, the long lashes, the dark hair. And that smile. That smile was definitely Father Mark’s.