27 | One-Sided Shit

**SIENNA**


*Coward.
Asshole.
Moronic douchebag.*
A lot many adjectives droned around my head like a swarm of bees every time I saw Gabr—*no, Father Sullivan*. I won’t be using his first name because that somehow brought me closer to him in my head. I could not afford that any longer.
It was easier to perceive him as a douchy priest and a jerk of a headmaster of a school than someone I could not reach out to. For the longest time, I thought he was just a distraction, a tiny spark in my dull life, but as the days passed, things deepened. My feelings for him chnaged, molded into something forbidden and sinful.
But I was tired of this one-sided reaction shit and wanted to know what the hell was going on with him. Why could not he just behave normally?
As I was walking towards the library searching for Harper, someone snagged my arm and pushed me so hard against the wall that I thought my bones would crack.
“What the hell!” I groaned. Self-defence kicked in as I tried to push back when another person blocked my way.
Two known faces came into my view, and my mood soured further.
“You little bitch!” Eva *fucking* Porter snarled at me. And beside her was—*no points for guessing*—Mean Irene. The two pain in my ass kinda people at Mount Carmel.
It was only struck me then that I did not see these clowns for the past one week, and every time I asked about their disappearance from Father Sullivan, he cleverly dodged my question. 
“Where the hell did you two come from?” I asked.
“You must be gloating all this while, isn’t it? What did you tell Father Sullivan that he punished us?” Mean Irene demanded to know.
“If I say that I didn’t, you will not believe me. So, I am not going to waste my time. Now get the hell out of my way.” I jerked her arms away, trying to push past, but they blocked the path.
“You are nothing but a lying, conniving bitch!”
I rolled my eyes. “Congratulations, you passed the big-girl vocabulary test. Now find someone else to annoy because I am not bloody interested.”
 “We want to know the lies you told him. How did you manage to play the damsel in distress and threw us under the bus, huh?” Irene was relentless in her pursuit to annoy me.
I jabbed a finger into her shoulder. “Firstly, you threw yourself under the bus when you had attacked me. You could have stood aside and let me deal with this bitch by myself, but no. You had to interfere and poke your nose where it does not belong. So, do not blame me when you find at the short end of the stick.”
Eva’s expression contorted. “You are the one who probably told him to punish us, right? Father Sullivan has never behaved so roughly with us before.” 
“Why, what did he do?” I blurted out of curiosity and sheer jealousy. I have already tasted the brand of Father Sullivan’s discipline, I swear, that I’d burst if I knew he’d done the same with you.
*Since, when the fuck did I get so damn territorial?*
He could spank any student he wanted. 
“Don’t you dare act like you didn’t know!” Irene accused, almost making me roll eyes once again. 
“She’d probably shed those fat crocodile tears and turned him against us,” the other one added.  
“For the love of God, I did not even know you both were missing until you showed up barking in my face,” I growled. 
“You are a liar!”
I grabbed Eva by the collar of her soiled shirt and narrowed my eyes. “Call me names again, and I will miss your face so bad that next time, no one would even recognise you.”
“And then Father Sullivan will punish you the same way he did to us.”
I let her go and looked at Irene. “What punishment? What are you talking about?” 
The two girls exchanged a pained look before answering me. “He made us do the dirtiest chores like cleaning, washing, and scrubbing the floors. A fucking eighty hours of service! Can you imagine? And then we had to spend the nights in the church basement, sleeping on the dirty mattresses on the floor.”
*Holy shit.*
Is that why there have been missing for almost a week? The eighty hours of chore service? 
A part of me soared at the thought that he did not punish me as he did with me. 
“You should have been the one spending day and night cleaning the filth, and not us.” 
“I don’t think Father Sullivan feels the same way as you do,” I told Eva. 
As soon as I did, she slammed me against the wall once again, the impact almost hurting my head. And just then, when I was about to get defensive, a meek voice called out.
“What’s going on here?”
Both of them turned around and found Harper standing a couple of feet away.  
“Go away, you rat!” Eva spat. 
“Let her go, or I will call for help.” Even though her voice was trembling and she stood at a safe distance, I was so proud of Harper. I knew how difficult it must have been for her, but the fact that she did it for me made me feel lucky. 
Eva was about to retaliate, but Mean Irene grabbed her arm and pulled. “Let’s go. We don’t want any more trouble, remember?” she whispered harshly.
Snatching the moment, I shoved them away and made my way towards Harper when I heard Eva’s classless threat once again. “Emerson, I will make you pay for this.”

****************

“Thank you. I really appreciate the help,” I told Harper on our way back.
She shrugged a shoulder in response and let out a small smile.
“Listen, I need a small favour.” My hand snagged hers, stopping her mid-track. “I need to get into Father Sullivan’s office. Do you have any idea about the timings when he goes out?”
Harper has been staying here for years, and if anyone knew this place thoroughly, it was her.
Her brows scrunched. “Why do you need to go there?” 
“I am looking for something.”
“What exactly?”
Father Gabriel Sullivan was not going to open up unless I find out about his past. What exactly had happened that prompted a man in his prime to take a vow of celibacy? 
It was quite shallow of me to deduce it, but I was determined. So far, his rectory has nothing on his previous life, and the office was the only clue on my mind. 
*But was it safe to share this with Harper?*
“Forget it. I will manage by myself,” I said. “You go ahead for lunch, and I will join you in some time.” 
“Don’t go there alone,” she warned. 
“Why?” 
Her dainty lips pursed for a moment. “Father will not take it kindly if he finds out. You can be expelled from the school.”
I wish. Little did she know that he would never take the pain to expel me at all.
I shook my head. “He won’t expel me. And I don’t think he takes anything kindly, so I am good.”
This time, she snagged my arms in an earnest plea. “Sienna, please, don’t.”
“Harper, I am really grateful for the friend you are, but I badly need to go into his office. But don’t worry, I will be fine. I have seen the front desk lady taking a small break after lunch because she goes out for a smoke. So, I will just sneak in and come out before anyone finds out.”
She let out an exasperated breath after a long second and sighed. “Fine. I am coming with you.” 
“You might get caught,” I cautioned. “So, I am not taking the risk.”
“If we are careful, we won’t get caught. Somebody needs to keep an eye out for the door.”
We exchanged a sly smile, a rare phenomenon on her part, as we nodded in unison. “Let’s go.” 
Harper and I adhered to the usual plan of sneaking inside Father Sullivan’s office when the coast was clear. She waited outside the door while I rummaged through every shelf and corner. Stacks and stacks of administrative papers and files had filled the room, and there was no trace of any document that traced back to his old life.
Before joining Mount Carmel, I had already looked up for him on the internet, and suspiciously, there was nothing on him. As if the man had existed before. 
I should have bloody hired a private investigator, but between my father and stepmother’s bitching, I forgot all about it. I could have gained big leverage for myself, but it seemed I was too late now. 
It was a damn big office for a priest, and it seemed that Jesus apparently did not believe in computer filing. Every piece of information of the student, however big or small, was well-documented and manually filed. 
I heard the soft sound of the door opening as Harper peeked in. “How much longer do you need?” she whispered yelled.
“I am still looking for it. God knows, where the hell did he bury the papers!”
She tiptoed into the room and pointed to a piece of old wooden furniture behind the chair where Gabriel usually sat. “What about that cupboard? It’s locked all the time, though.”
*Right*. The ancient old structure was kind of Gabriel’s thing. 
I reached for the drawer on his desk. “The keys must be in here…somewhere.”
“Let’s try these,” I said, grabbing a dangling bunch that looked a little medieval like the dark wooden cupboard. 
We tried one after the other, desperately trying to open this shitty thing because my crazy instinct was fixated on the fact that I might discover something from there. And in our desperate hunt, we forgot about all about the door. 
“What are you two doing here?” The booming voice hit our ears, making us freeze in our couching spot. 
Father Gabriel Sullivan stood a few paces away, wearing the most dangerous scowl I have ever seen on a handsome man and that very sight was enough to make my heart stop.
Ohshit. Ohshit. Ohshit.
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**Thank you for reading the chapter. What do you think Father Sullivan will do?**