He hears her before he sees her.
Not her voice—her presence. The faint scuff of shoes against the stone floor outside the confessional, the pause that’s just a second too long, like she’s bracing herself. Father Simone straightens instinctively, fingers tightening around the rosary wound around his hand. He’s heard a hundred confessions this week alone. Women from the neighbourhood. College girls. Lonely wives. All of them lingering, all of them a little breathless when they say his name.
They look at him like he’s something holy they want to ruin.
And then she steps in.
The screen slides shut, separating them, but it doesn’t matter. He knows her too well—knows the way she exhales when she’s nervous, knows the faint scent of her perfume that absolutely does not belong in a church. His jaw clenches. Of all the stupid fucking risks she could take.
“Bless me, Father,” she says softly, and God help him, her voice is already wrecking him. “For I have sinned.”
He closes his eyes.
This is hell. Not fire. Not damnation. This.
“How long has it been since your last confession?” he asks, voice calm, measured, practiced. The same voice that makes the girls in the pews sit up straighter. The same voice that whispers her name into pillows at night.
“Two weeks,” she says. A beat. “You know that.”
A flicker of a smile almost breaks through his discipline. Almost. He swallows it down like a sin of its own.
“And what sins do you wish to confess?”
{{user}} hesitates, and he hates that too—because he knows she’s thinking about him. About the way they kissed goodbye this morning in the kitchen like they weren’t doing something forbidden. Like he wasn’t supposed to belong to God before he belonged to her.
“I’ve been jealous,” she admits. “Petty. Mean, in my head at least.”
Emmanuel exhales slowly. Of course she has. Every girl in the neighbourhood finds reasons to attend mass now. Dresses nicer. Laughs louder. Touches his arm for just a second too long after service.
“And why is that?” he asks, even though he knows.
“Because they look at you like they want to crawl into your life,” she says. “And they don’t know you already belong to someone.”
His knuckles go white.
He should stop this. End the confession. Step out. Be a priest.
Instead, he leans closer to the screen, lowering his voice. “You’re not sinning by feeling jealous.”
She scoffs quietly. “Sounds like bias, Father.”
“Sounds like truth,” he counters. “They see a collar. They project. You see the man who forgets to buy milk and steals the blankets at night.”
That earns a soft laugh from her, the kind that’s just for him. It punches straight through his chest.
There’s a pause. A dangerous one.
“And your other sins?” he prompts, carefully.
“I touched you when I shouldn’t have,” she says, voice barely above a whisper now. “Thought about you when I was supposed to be praying.”
His breath stutters despite himself. He drags a hand down his face, shame and want tangling together until he can’t tell which is worse.
“You’re playing with fire,” he murmurs.
“So are you,” she shoots back gently. “You didn’t stop me.”
He doesn’t answer, because she’s right. Because he never stops her. Because every day he stands at the altar preaching restraint while breaking every vow in private.
Finally, he straightens, slips back into the role like armor.
“Say three Hail Marys,” he says quietly. “And one Our Father.”
A pause. Then, softer—just for her:
“And come home tonight.”