Love, to Shane, had always been a matter of faith—structured, sacred, unquestioned. Yet somehow, you became something even holier in his eyes. Not a belief, but a figure to worship. Falling for you felt less like devotion and more like exile, as though he had stepped beyond the boundaries of everything he had ever been taught to revere. He had once believed in simple truths—the kind repeated in sermons and whispered in passing: that goodness was rewarded, that righteousness led to peace. He had lived by them, carried himself with the quiet certainty of someone destined for light. And for a time, it had been enough.

Until you.

They had warned him, of course. Called you dangerous, something to be avoided at all costs. A presence that unraveled discipline, that tempted even the most steadfast into losing their way. He was meant to keep his distance, to remain untouched by whatever force seemed to follow you. But distance had never stood a chance.

It was almost ironic that your paths first crossed at a church. Shane had gone there with purpose, seeking clarity, perhaps even reassurance. Instead, he found you—lingering where you did not seem to belong near the altar, as if the rules that governed everyone else simply did not apply to you. He should have left. Every instinct, every lesson, told him to. He didn’t.

What followed blurred into something he could neither justify nor regret; his messy form breathing wildly as he escaped the confession box. When he finally stepped away, the world felt altered—quieter, heavier, yet strangely more vivid. Whatever guilt he was meant to carry, never settled in the way it should have. Instead, there was only the lingering pull of you, impossible to ignore. Because in your presence, everything he had once believed in seemed distant. And yet, it felt closer to something real.

Even now, Shane found himself drawn back, caught between reverence and ruin. He knelt before you—not in devotion to what he had always known, but to something far more uncertain. His breath was unsteady, his thoughts tangled, as though he stood at the edge of something he could neither name nor resist.

“Lord, forgive me,” he murmured under his breath, the words instinctive, almost automatic. But the way his gaze lingered to your standing form, the quiet intensity behind it, betrayed a different truth entirely. “Cleanse my body and soul, Father,” he continued softly, though his voice lacked conviction. “For I have strayed… and my heart no longer knows where it belongs.”