Chapter 3: A Fast That Breaks Me
744 Words
Wednesday came heavy with clouds. The kind that looked like they were holding back tears. Alma stood outside the church gate, palms sweaty, regretting the tight jeans she’d worn under her long sweater. Modest enough — but somehow, under his eyes, everything felt... too much.
As she walked in, the youth group buzzed with laughter. A few teens waved at her. One of them, a shy girl named Mercy, offered her a purple pen and a hesitant smile.
“You look like someone who writes pretty,” she said.
Alma laughed gently. “Pretty? I don’t know about that.”
“She does,” said Sister Martha, walking past. “She has handwriting like calligraphy. We might finally have someone who can update the prayer board without it looking like a toddler wrote it in the dark.”
Everyone chuckled. Alma’s cheeks flushed.
Father Caleb appeared behind them, arms crossed, expression unreadable. “Is that so?” he asked. “Calligraphy?”
Alma shrugged. “It’s just something I picked up in high school. I used to design wedding place cards for my aunt’s catering business.”
“Hmm.” He tilted his head. “The Lord does say, ‘To each their own gift.’ Yours is ink.”
Alma arched a brow. “And yours is silence?”
That caught him off guard. For half a second, his face cracked into something rare — an actual laugh. Not loud. Not showy. But real.
“I suppose so,” he said, the corner of his mouth still curved.
By noon, Alma found herself hunched over the community prayer board, writing verses and names in elegant loops. She felt oddly peaceful. The smell of markers, the quiet hum of voices, the occasional shout of laughter from the teens nearby — it grounded her.
Father Caleb passed by once, pausing to look over her shoulder. His voice close to her ear. “That’s beautiful work.”
Alma didn’t turn. “It’s just letters.”
“No,” he said. “It’s care.”
Later, during lunch, she sat with a few volunteers under the shade outside. Someone handed her a boiled maize cob wrapped in foil. She bit into it absentmindedly, until a hot kernel shot sideways and smacked a boy in the face.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” she gasped.
The whole group burst out laughing — including the boy.
“That’s holy maize,” someone joked. “Blessed missile!”
Even Father Caleb, sitting on the bench nearby with a cup of tea, chuckled.
“Careful with that aim, Alma,” he said, raising his cup like a toast.
She held up her cob. “Weapon of mass distraction,” she quipped.
He laughed again — fuller this time. She liked the sound of it. It was rare, like thunder in summer.
As the group began to disperse, Alma lingered behind, collecting cups and foil. Caleb approached quietly, helping her stack plates.
“You seem lighter today,” he said.
She nodded. “I guess I forgot to feel sad for a few hours.”
“That’s a kind of healing too.”
She glanced at him. “And you? Do you ever forget to feel anything?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then, “When I fast.”
She frowned. “Are you fasting now?”
He nodded. “We fast every Wednesday and Friday. Not just food — silence, distraction, sometimes even comfort.”
Alma looked down at her half-eaten cob. “Guess I broke your fast with flying corn.”
He smiled again, but this time… slower. More controlled.
“Not everything that breaks us is bad,” he said. “Sometimes it’s how the light gets in.”
That night, Alma sat in her room, writing in her old notebook. She hadn’t touched it in months. But today had felt different. Maybe it was the laughter. Maybe it was the prayer board. Maybe it was the way Father Caleb had looked at her — like she wasn’t broken, just unfinished.
She found herself sketching the words:
> “Even a fast can break open something soft.
And still be holy.”
But even as she wrote, she couldn’t shake the image of him kneeling at the altar again — head bowed, body still, as if hiding something much deeper than prayer.
And she wondered…
> What was it like to love someone you were never allowed to touch?
- Writer
