Forgive Me, Father...I’m About to Sin"

Chapter1:Sanctuary or Snare?

Layla

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

My voice trembled as I knelt inside the dark wooden booth, the screen separating me from whoever sat on the other side. My palms were too clammy for my liking, pressed tightly together in a prayer that felt half-hearted...maybe even half-alive.

“Tell me, my child,” came a smooth voice, very low, calm, yet sinfully rich. “When was your last confession?”

I froze on hearing that. That voice was not the one I remembered.

This happens to be deeper, even sharper, already having a place in my heart.

“I… It’s been a few years, Father. I don’t really remember.”

“Try,” he said softly. “Your soul remembers, even when your memory doesn’t.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I was only eighteen, right before I left for college.”

There was a pause as I said that. “Then it’s time to finally return.”

His tone wasn’t harsh. But it wasn’t gentle either. It had weight, like something dangerous restrained by a vow. I could feel the heat of his presence even through the screen. The chapel outside was quiet, the scent of old incense clinging to the air like smoke on skin.

“What brings you back?” he asked.

“My father.” I exhaled slowly. “He’s been… unwell. Slipping into depression. He barely talks. I left school to take care of him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “And how are you doing, Layla?”

I blinked in confusion. “I didn’t say my name.”

“You didn’t need to.” There was a beat of silence. The kind that almost deafened my sense of reasoning.

My heart thudded uncontrollably in my chest, too fast and loud. I peered through the screen, trying to make out what his face looked like, but the shadows were deep.

“I remember you,” he added after a moment. “You used to sit in the second pew from the front. Always with your mother.”

That ache returned...the soft, sharp pinch that lived in my chest whenever someone mentioned her. Also, how did he escape my memory? How was I not able to remember him, his voice at least.

“She died seven years ago.”

“I know,” he murmured. “She had a voice like spring rain.”

“You knew her that well?”

“I was newly assigned here when she passed,” he said. “I saw her once. She smiled at me as if she knew I didn’t belong here.”

I swallowed trying to understand him. “Do you belong here, Father?”

There was another pause. A longer one this time. Why is he here if he doesn't belong here?

“I'll try my best,” he said.

Try, not do, not am. Just… try.

There was something in the way he said it that didn’t sit right. Like his voice was coated in ash, something burnt and half-forgotten rising to the surface. I came here to confess, but he's the one taking my seat instead.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shifting uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean to...”

“No, don’t apologize.” His tone shifted...slightly softer now. “Questions are not sins, Layla. They are invitations.”

“Invitations to what?”

“To know the truth. And truth is always painful.”

I laughed quietly. Though that's all I could do, as my heart was filled with a lot, distracting even from my reason for coming to the booth. “That sounds more like philosophy than theology.”

“Perhaps it’s both,” he replied. “And perhaps that’s the real sin: thinking we must choose.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I wasn't used to such conversations.

I hadn’t come here for riddles. My problem is too big to waste time in endless and meaningless talk. I’d come here because I was tired, lost, and half-hoping someone in a collar could fix what therapy, friends, and medication couldn’t. But what am I seeing? It seems I would be going home with a double of what I came with instead.

“You said you had sinned.”

“Yes.” I hesitated. “I think about things. Things I shouldn't have in the first place.”

“What kind of things?”

“I don’t know if I should say.”

“This is the one place where you can. The booth is sacred.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Touch,” I whispered. “I think about… being touched.”

There was huge silence.

Then, in a voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear it: “By someone in particular?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. My throat was dry. I felt feverish, flushed.

“I think I should go,” I said suddenly, standing up.

“Layla.”

Just my name. Nothing else. But the way he said it...firm, reverent, dangerous...froze me in place.

“You haven’t received absolution.”

“I don’t think that’s what I came for,” I murmured, barely able to breathe.

“Then what did you come for?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to.

I pushed open the door of the booth and stepped into the chapel. The stained glass above cast long ribbons of color across the pews. My knees wobbled weakly. I turned to look back at the confessional, but the screen door remained shut. I couldn’t see him. And yet… I felt him watching.

Outside, the wind howled like an omen. The church was colder than I remembered, or maybe it was just me...body reeling, nerves alight.

I took one shaky step down the aisle.

And then stopped suddenly.

There, on the first pew, was a folded slip of paper.

I glanced around to get a glance of anyone. But the chapel was empty.

With my heart still thudding, I picked it up and unfolded it with trembling fingers.

All I saw was just four words.

Some desires are sacred.

My breath hitched immediately.

The handwriting was sharp. Elegant. And unmistakably masculine.

I turned toward the confessional again, but the light inside was gone.

I was alone.

Or… I wasn’t.

Maybe I would never be again.

Because as I stepped out of the chapel, the words echoed louder than any sermon has ever done since my existence:

Whose desires?

His… or mine?