Collared(22)

His head lowers even more, and I know that whatever he has to tell me, it might finish the job of breaking me. “You’re comforting me,” he says to himself. “You’re the one who’s been through hell, and you’re comforting me. It should be the other way around.”

I focus on the exposed back of his neck, the bands of muscles pressing through the skin. “Just tell me, Torrin. You and me, that was a lifetime ago. I’m a different person now. You probably are too.” I swallow, but this time instead of flames, ice encases my throat. “It’s okay.”

When he catches himself popping his knuckles again, he slides his hands in his front pants’ pockets. “I came prepared to talk about you . . . to see you . . . not to talk about me.”

“Plans change.” I’m hinting at more than his conversation agenda, and from the way he tips his head back at me, he knows it.

“I wasn’t going to tell you this until later. With everything . . . everyone . . . I didn’t want to spring one more thing on you right at first.”

He’s got someone. He’s moved on. Part of me is happy, but part of me feels like I’m losing my whole life all over again. Ten years is a long time—a lifetime for teenagers like we were when I was abducted.

He’s moved on, and that’s a good thing, I remind myself because I know I can’t love him anymore the way he deserves to be loved. I’ve gone too long without feeling it, too long without expressing it, and learning to love again is not like riding a bike—it doesn’t come back naturally.

“I’d rather have it all come at me now than spread out over weeks,” I say, my hand gripping the bedrail a little tighter. I’m not sure if it’s keeping me from drifting off or falling away, but it’s keeping me here, with him, and that’s where I need to be right now. “The sooner I know it all, the sooner I can move on with my life.”

He lets my words stagnate for a minute, then he exhales. It sounds like he’s been holding his breath for the past ten years.

“I’m sorry, Jade,” he whispers, like he’s confessing a crime.

Then I hear him unzip his raincoat followed by the rustle of him shrugging out of it. His back is still to me, and I’m not sure why. Or maybe I do. He can’t look me in the face and tell me what he has to. I can’t imagine what could be so bad Torrin can’t look me in the eye and confess whatever it is.

“It’s okay,” I say again because it is. Once upon a time, I had the love of a really wonderful person. That’s more than most people can claim.

His shoulders tense at my words as he hangs his jacket over the back of the chair. He’s dressed in a dark, short-sleeved shirt. Torrin was never much of a black fan. He used to live in faded jeans and colored tees. It looks like darkness has touched him too though. I wonder how deep its claws have gotten into him.

“I thought you were gone.” This time it’s not a whisper—the words spill from his mouth like he’s cursing them.

The bedrail is sticky from my palm sweating. “I know.” I have to pause because those two words feel like I’ve just recited the Bill of Rights in one breath. “It’s okay.”

He stares out the window for another minute. The city lights don’t seem as bright as they did when I woke up. The sparkle’s been taken out of them.

Finally, he turns toward me. Slowly. Like he’s fighting a herd of wild horses pulling him the other way. His head is bowed, and his arms are at his sides, his hands open and his palms facing me.

At first, all I notice is how perfect he is. Standing in front of me ten years later. The boy I remembered is inside the man in this dark room with me. His dark hair is falling into his eyes, and his jaw is locked the way it’s been most of the night.

It isn’t until I lower my gaze from his face that I see it. The collar. His is black with one square of white nestled below his Adam’s apple, but a collar is a collar—an object meant to control and restrain its wearer.

Instead of answering my questions, it brings on a fresh landslide of them.

My gaze lowers to the black button-down shirt, the matching slacks, and the dress shoes. I can’t make any of it make sense.

“Why are you dressed like a priest?” The words don’t sound like mine, but no one else in this room could have said them.

His eyes meet mine. “Because this is what I am.”

The world is spinning faster than normal. My room is at the vortex of it. I replay my question. I replay his answer. I can’t make them agree.

“No, you’re not.” I feel my forehead crease.

He exhales slowly and moves closer. “Yes. I am.”

My heart is beating against my breastbone so hard, it hurts. “You’re lying.”

Torrin doesn’t stop until he’s beside my bed again. It’s the closest he’s been to me tonight. He’s close enough I can make out his scent, and it’s the same one I remember. It takes me back to that last night we were together, when I felt surrounded by that smell as I lay below him in his bed. The way it seemed to envelop me like nothing could cut through it.

“I’m telling the truth.” His eyes travel to the monitors on the other side of my bed. His brow furrows at one of them. “I finished seminary a year ago. I’m the priest at St. Marks.”

St. Marks. I remember it. I remember driving by it and admiring the stained glass windows and gothic architecture. Never once had I driven past it and imagined Torrin being the priest of it one day.