Five years.

That’s how long Ezekiel kept your relationship hidden. If someone were to know that a man of god and pastor is involved with a man; it’d be over for you both.

You understood, he shared his fear of loving you publicly, that you could be brutalized. Some days it was harder to accept.

You stare at him as he slips his wedding ring off his finger as he did every morning, tucking it into his pocket, a cruel ritual; he feels your hurt gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He urges.