42 | Closure

**GABRIEL**

I stood by the small balcony of my rectory and felt the chill on my face. The weather was bordering on winter now and the night colder than before. And nights like these reminded me of the old life once again.
*Chicago*. I wondered if that city was still a regret or a blessing in disguise for me.
I remembered that night again—the night that changed me forever. As I drove through the city in a mad rush, my phone blinked continuously to the point I simply tossed it out of the window. I don’t know what went through me, but I could feel the walls were closing up.
One lingering question hung at the back of everyone’s mind when I had come here: *why*?
Why leave a perfect life of wealth, fortune and influence? Why forsake the pleasure of flesh when I could practically have multiple women at my feet, ready to trade their own satisfaction for mine?
Why give up all of this—*give up sex*—for nothing?
Because if I had not, that darkness running in my veins would consume me. It would make me the very man I had come to loathe and make a liar out of me. My mother’s sacrifices would have been for nothing. And I could not afford to do that. So the day I had learnt the truth, leaving behind the old life was the only choice I was left with.
So I somehow managed to crawl my way back to Father Lucas, gasping like a drowning man who had just clawed his way to the shore. I believed that this was the only option and that God had given me one last chance to save my life from utter devastation.
Either way, that was the cost of surviving. My old, sinful life.
Things were reasonably easy when I had joined the theology classes, and Father Lucas took me under his tutelage. I was focused, determined and stronger than I ever felt in my past life. And for the longest time, I remained like this until a hurricane named Sienna Emerson swept me over and left me in ruins.
One by one, she broke into the barriers of my heart—the caged iron organ—and led me to question my own devotion to God. I came here to pledge my life to God and God alone, and so what does it say about my devotion when I surrendered my soul to Sienna? That no matter how much I pray or try and stone for my sins, a hunger for her will remain as long as I breathe.
Even though I managed to push her away, I knew it was not a *closure*.
I would never find closure, probably.
Long after she would leave, and she has to leave eventually, Sienna Emerson would leave a mark on my heart and soul, brand me forever with her innocence that even the darkest of hell cannot match.
“God,” I whispered, closing my eyes and tilting up my head in prayer, “give me the strength, please.”

**SIENNA**

*(A couple of weeks later)*

After that fateful night, Gabriel and I avoided each other in a very way conceivable. Our relationship was reformed into a strict teacher-student one, and not even the platonic touch of a man or woman. In fact, I could very well say that he was avoiding me.
During the Morning Masses, he would not lift his eyes from the pages of the Bible, and even when he would conduct the Eucharist service, his eyes would be anywhere but locked with mine.
But Gabriel did not stop being himself. He might not have subjected me to his firm discipline, as and when I ever needed, but the same was not applicable for Eva Porter. She continued to pay the price of her actions.
Though I had successfully recused myself from paying nay heed to what others were gossiping about, Harper would time to time, inform me about Eva. For a quiet, shy girl, she was pretty enraged after the church that day. I had never seen Harper so twisted up about someone, and it told me everything that I needed to know.
I found a friend in her, and she in me.
Even without knowing, we became the strongest pillar for each other, weathering the storms of Mount Carmel.
“She had to wash and scrub the floors of the church as well as the attic. Oh, and can you guess what she was wearing?” Harper enthused while I silently chewed my lunch.
“Do not tell me that she was naked,” I said with a bored expression.
“Nobody wants to see her naked,” Harper commented with disdain. “But she was wearing the hand-me-downs for the orphanage kids because somebody told me that she had given away her designer PJs to charity.”
“That must have killed her,” I said.
“Well, this is just the beginning.” Harper dug her spoon and fed a mouthful.
I recalled the long conversation I had with Gabriel the night he spilt the beans. He was so riled up that he had half a mind to expel her from the school, but that would not have satisfied anyone. Beating her was not an option because a few spanks would actually make her feel horny rather than punished.
The only weapon against her arrogance was humiliation.
The shame of confessing her guilt in open public and begging for my forgiveness did that to her. And before she could carry out anything nasty, Gabriel had her drowned in community service and heaps of homework, with a warning that if she failed, the consequences would be quick expulsion.
And Eva Porter could not afford it.
If she took a transfer before school ends or got expelled, the deal of not bringing the criminal charges would be off the table. Then she could get arrested and spent the rest of her life in jail. And she would not want that.
Oddly, every time I thought of Eva’s nasty moves against me, it reminded me of Gabriel. It was a glaring reminder that he was protective of me, cared for me enough to go on a length to fight for me but not enough to stay by my side.
“How long are the Holidays?” I abruptly asked Harper, cutting into her conversation.
“Why?”
“Just tell me.”
She shrugged. “Two weeks. Are you planning to go home?”
I noticed the obvious sadness on her face because Harper, along with a few students, had nowhere to go during holidays. Mount Carmel was their home. While Gabriel tried his best to provide them with all the happiness, it lacked the warmth of a home.
“Yeah,” I said with a heavy sigh. “It has been more than ten months since I have visited New York.”
I did not have a ‘home’ there because it was just a building where I lived. My heart was here, at Mount Carmel, except I could not help but look at his validation anymore. I had to find a way to move out of here.
Out of sight, out of mind. I hope it will work for me.
“You miss home,” Harper said quietly.
A sad smile crossed my face. “I miss me.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, stirring away from the thoughts. “I just need some change. I am impulsive, and I can’t stay in one place for long. But don’t worry, I would back before the new year.”
“C’mon! I am sure New York is much more happening than here. You should stay there for some time. Besides, Father Sullivan does not allow home visits often.”
“Come with me,” I offered. “I am going to be bored to death no matter ho happening in New York. Please!”
Harper let out a swirling laugh. “I can’t, I really can’t. Father would not allow, and I kind of like Galena during Christmas.”
There was no persuading her, no matter how much I pleaded. But I understood why Harper would not come out of her cocoon because she has been hurt numerous times already.
Days rolled away, and when the time came for the students to submit the application for visiting home during holidays, I did mine too. I watched how he stiffened, holding the paper in hand, but as usual, there was no strong reaction. He simply nodded and put his signature, sealing both of our fates.
The day I was supposed to leave, I cried for two hours in the church's bathroom while the other girls giggled in merry. It was fucking ironic.
I’d put so much time, effort, and energy to get expelled and go home, and when the time came, I wanted nothing but to walk away.
Stuffing a handful of things into my bag, I walked out of the dorm and towards the ground. I did not know what crossed my mind that I turned back at the main building and looked at the frosted window, the one just outside his office room. And there he was, a stern silhouette behind the glass, wrapped in unsettling shadows.
He was watching me. Avoiding me.
I shook my head and made my way towards the car as the man in a suit approached me. “Good evening, Miss Emerson. May I take those?”
I reluctantly handed over the bag and pulled the flaps over my sweater around me to get some warmth. But it was my heart that was frozen.
“I will ask the driver to pull the car closer,” he said and fished out his phone.
“It’s not needed. I can walk.”
I hurried towards the charcoal sedan parked outside the gate without turning back the second time, even though I badly needed to. But I reminded myself why I was going back home.
Why I needed to remember my identity and the future promise I made to the Abbott family.
I needed to be Sienna Emerson, the heiress and would-be-trophy wife of a businessman, and not the silly girl in love with a priest.
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**What do you think of the chapter? Will they be able to break their own shackles and accept each other?**