The Confessional

With her shoulders exposed in an almost see-through blouse, a thick mass of straight blonde hair falling down her back, and a sultry lipstick pout, she was as beautiful as she was godless stepping out of the cab that afternoon. Her heels, four inches tall and pencil thin marked an impatient staccato on the pavement as she moved away from the street. She looked up towards the red brick building, so tall it partially eclipsed the sun. Her father would have declared it an eyesore, judging by the unhealthy crumble the brick was starting to display.

She checked the time on her small silver watch that drooped from her too slender wrist. In the middle of the week at three-thirty, the place was bound to be empty. It just had to be.

The blonde, feeling more out of place than she had since her first and last day at PS 166 surrounded by losers and the less fortunate, dug in the pocket of her on-trend jeans. She located the crumpled piece of paper she’d planned to throw away, to disregard. There was even a visible carelessness to her handwriting; she hadn’t imagined she would actually go through with this.

1027 Seventeenth Street. Yet, here she was, lingering on the sidewalk like a coward. The area was almost devoid of foot traffic since it was the middle of the workday, but it still felt like the passersby were staring at her. Though she’d always thrived in the spotlight, she found it strangely unnerving.

Are you afraid of something you don’t believe in? She asked herself with a toss of her hair. She waked up the concrete steps. Sweet Mother Mary stared down at her from a stained glass window admonishingly.

Gazing up at the figure peering at her from above the aged wooden door, the blonde paused, almost faltered.

“Fuck you,” she told the saint. She shook her head as she struggled to open the door, pitting her own small mass against that of the ancient oak.

“You get just in the vicinity of a church, and you’re already acting like a goddamn lunatic,” she murmured, wondering why she was still talking to herself.

It smelled musty inside; she wrinkled her turned up nose as she stepped inside. Goosebumps captured the smooth, tan skin of her arms. Through the tiny lobby, she could see the high ceiling of the room she presumed to be the sanctuary.

Always one to feel entitled, she walked inside after determining there was no receptionist to fake a smile and salutation to. Speculatively looking inside the larger chamber of worship before she walked inside, she couldn’t help but feel a little pathetic for creeping around the church. Moving down the aisle slowly, she noticed that the room was freezing. Couldn’t they keep a little bit of the offering back to keep the damn churchgoers warm? It would get on her nerves to be trapped in this place too early on Sunday morning, especially if the establishment was too cheap to pay for heat. As she approached the alter, she noticed a fine layer of dust that had settled on the wooden surface.

“Makes sense, this city’s headed for hell anyways,” she muttered.

“Can I help you?” a voice demanded. She turned around to see a stout man in normal clothes (had she expected a monk in a brown robe?) walking toward her briskly with his arms crossed over his chest. He obviously wasn’t thrilled to have some uppity primadonna standing before him, only a small step up from scantily clad and most likely just wanting directions.

“I’d like to see the priest,” she said almost coldly. It was a shame her tone had no effect on the tossing of her stomach.

“That’s me,” was the instant reply.

She had to answer then, it wasn’t exactly avoidable. She hesitated for a moment. She didn't want to say that single damned word, she absolutely hated it!

In a much quieter, and significantly less haughty tone, she said, “I’d like to confess.”

The man softened, if only for a second. He’d been ordained, sure, but this hot worldly mess probably had more confessions than he had time for. He had honest people to help, after all, and she was not one of them. If she was a practicing Catholic, she would have known that the tradition was slightly outdated anyway. Even so, something in him compelled him to be sympathetic. He turned, moving smartly towards the confessional. “I don’t usually do this now, by the way,” he said over his shoulder, a touch condescendingly.

The girl followed a few steps behind him, wondering what the hell she was even doing here, but even more prevalent in her mind, what she was going to tell him.

Her vaguely Catholic childhood had not prepared her for this. She tried to remember if her only pious aunt, who loved to drone on about her experiences at mass, had ever mentioned a ritual associated with that small, tearstained box.

All too soon they were together in the confessional, silent as the preacher gathered his breath and the girl her thoughts.

The man drew a breath to speak, but he was cut off immediately. “I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know how this goes,” she paused and the man heard her sigh of resignation. “I don’t even believe in God.” Her eyes were cast down in her lap, locked on her fingers that were spinning her watch around and around.

The priest released a slightly angry breath, wondering if she was here on a joke or a dare or both. “Why are you here?” he asked bluntly.

He couldn’t see her shake her head with annoyance, or dig her expensive manicure into her palm. “Someone suggested I come here,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have.” She started to get up, to release herself from the small darkness of the confessional.

The priest was a little stunned by the response, and by the bitterness in her voice. He was curious. Who would recommend his small chapel to someone that looked like her daddy ran the city from his leather and teak office at the top of his own personal skyscraper?

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt for you to say what you came here to say,” he said wearily, leaning back against the wall.

“My name is Shay Jones. I’m twenty years old, and I’m currently styling for a fashion company in the city,”

The preacher cut her off. “You know, you really only need to tell me what you’ve done wrong.”

He didn't see her dramatic eye roll, but he might as well have, her voice was thick with such emotion. Her response was indignant. “I know that,” she snapped. “I just wanted to start at the beginning. You know, introduce myself.”

“Alright, alright,” the preacher said quickly.

The blonde released an exasperated breath, and then began again.

The preacher did not expect to be touched or even sympathetic after as she started story. In fact, he was thinking, as she started her tale, that he didn't particularly like Shay Jones and didn’t exactly care what she had to say.

As she spoke though, the preacher found himself being drawn into what the girl was saying. From her early teens (peppered with alcohol, nearly neglectful parents, and random sex) to her high school years (predominantly filled with drugs, sex, and practically no parents) she’d faced nothing but pressure, which she’d obviously given in to almost every time. But she had everything going for her, financially as well as socially. There was obviously nothing wrong with her life; her various addictions didn't stop her from landing her dream job while she was still at her dream school. Armed with her parents’ money, she lived in a beautiful penthouse and partied her way around the city on a daily basis.

It was also evident to the preacher that Shay Jones was not happy, despite everything. Little stories she told, growing in intensity as she grew up, gave him the impression that the girl was surrounded by regret. She wanted to be a better person, but it would require a complete overhaul, a change in her fundamental programming. And even that wouldn’t change the past, the things she’d already done. She could not take back the things that she had said, the necks she had snapped on the way to the top, the hearts she had broken or the lies she had told. She could not repair the brain and spine of the man she’d paralyzed in a drunk driving accident when she was seventeen; she could not go back to the judge that had let her walk away, her record blemish free. Likewise, she could not bring the child that she and her current boyfriend has aborted four months ago back to life. She could be good, easily.

“But that would require me to give up everything that I’ve built for myself, all of the fun, all of the fame. And I would never do that.”

Thirty minutes after she began, the blonde was finished with her life story. The preacher was stunned for a moment, and said nothing. He could not see it, but tears were running down her cheeks.

He was about to say something, but he didn't know what he should tell this girl that had come to him with her problems, seeking something that even she didn't know.

That was when the other door opened and the girl exited the confessional. Her pencil thin heels clicked down the aisle quickly, and she was almost out of the building before the preacher could collect his thoughts enough to follow her.

“Wait!” he cried as he almost ran after her. He wanted to help the girl, to pull her out of her struggles for no reason other than that she was beautiful and didn’t deserve the awful burden she carried with her every day. “I want to help you,” he said. “Did you come here looking for forgiveness?”

The blonde whirled around and looked him straight in the eye.

“No,” she said coldly, narrowing her eyes. “Condemnation.”