A voice booms. ‘You shouldn’t be up there.’
My eyes fly open and I turn around. Just as quickly, I turn back, carefully placing my hands on the altar, willing them not to tremble. I ignore the warning and the footsteps getting closer.
‘Still can’t talk to the dickhead, hm?’
Oh, God. I have to say something. ‘That’s not a word you should be using in church,’ I answer.
I hear him getting closer, his footsteps softening as he walks up the steps. ‘Then I guess we both have one mark against us. You walking where you shouldn’t, and me saying a bad word.’
I hear a few more steps and his shoe banging the railing as he steps over it. I turn around and face him. ‘Two.’
‘What?’
‘I only have one mark against me. You have two. You also stepped over the railing.’
His face contorts to an unflattering mix of frustration and anger. ‘You are so—’ but just as quickly, his scowl is gone and the sharpness vanishes. His soft brown eyes stare into mine for a second or two. Or three. ‘Jenna,’ he sighs, ‘I don’t want to argue. I just came looking for you. You were supposed to meet me over an hour ago down at the lavanderia. If you don’t want to work on the project with me anymore, Father Rico has someone else who—’
‘No,’ I say.
He walks closer, an arm’s length from me. ‘No, you don’t want to work with me?’
I can’t answer. What I should say and what I want to say are two different things. Have I always been this mixed up?
Ethan grabs my arms. ‘Jenna, you have to talk to me.’
‘I need to—I want to keep working with you, Ethan. But—’
He bends over and kisses me.
And I kiss him back.
We are kissing on the altar. We are passionately kissing on the altar of the church in front of all the sainted statues. How many marks against us is that?
I push him away. ‘This isn’t right,’ I say.
‘Listen, I know I’ve done some things in the past—’
‘Ethan. This isn’t about you. Things have changed. It’s me. There are things.’
‘Tell me,’ he says.
I look into his eyes. They call them windows to the soul. I think I can see Ethan’s. What does he see when he looks into mine? I look away and see more eyes, the statues of the saints watching us from their niches. Joseph. Mary. Saint Francis. Their gazes split me wide.
You mustn’t tell.
For all our sakes.
Especially yours.
You mustn’t say anything to anyone.
‘Not here,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s go outside.’
Telling
Like the church, the cemetery is empty, but here there are no corners or shadows to hide listening ears. Just the dead. They may hear, but they can’t tell and never will. They are one step past the dark place. I haven’t even told my parents about that. How can I tell Ethan?
We walk on the grass, stepping over and around the tarnished markers that remember lives and moments in time. Where we are going, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be the place that is important but the steps in between. Ethan finally stops at a dark, moldy niche holding a statue of a watchful saint that is streaked with years of weather and grime. This must be the place of telling.