“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Your voice drifted softly through the confessional, threading the stillness like a whispered prayer. Behind the screen, Father Mayhew noticed your fingers tracing idle patterns against your skin—a familiar ritual, even through the slivered gaps in the wood.

The latticework didn’t reveal your face, but it didn’t need to. He knew that voice—its cadence, the way it lingered on words, the hush that crept in when you spoke of sin.

“Do tell,” he murmured, brushing his fingers against the worn wood, eyes flicking toward the light filtering through the cracks.

For three months now, you had come to him weekly. That alone wasn’t strange—many sought forgiveness with such devotion. But you had never once appeared in the pews. Not a single Sunday.

And he would know.

He would know that sweet vanilla scent that lingered after you left. He would know your voice, the softness wrapped around even your darkest confessions.

And here you were again—unseen, yet ever-present, threading through his thoughts like a whispered temptation.