Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She knew she had it coming.

Because the air had hung heavy with the gravity of inevitability when Frankie bought the gasoline.

The clerk at the gas station, a grizzled man with tired lifeless eyes, stared at her as if he could see the spark of ruin in her hands.

She had felt it too—the wild, reckless pulse that thrummed through her veins, whispering that something irreversible was about to unfold. She didn’t care. The fire was already burning inside her, long before she had doused Ronnie’s car and watched the flames lick the night sky.

She expected prison.

The cold clang of bars, the weight of a sentence. But instead, they offered her a deal—a twisted mercy she didn’t ask for.

Her mother, with her trembling hands and tear-streaked face, called it a blessing. The lawyers, sweating in their ill-fitting suits, marveled at the prosecutor’s leniency.

Ronnie, of all people , had pushed for it.
His parents, pillars of some Catholic diocese, wanted Frankie tucked away, not in a cell but in a place where their influence could keep her under watch.

St. Agnes Retreat for the Afflicted, was a Catholic-run asylum in the heart of Louisiana. A place for men and women, they said, where faith and healing intertwined. 

What a bunch of bullshit. They just wanted to ship her away while still keeping her under watch.

And Ronnie’s parents happened to be the owners of many businesses with branches in the South, having a longstanding relationship with St. Agnes. —probably because Ronnie himself would’ve ended up there more than once. He had always been a fuckup .

And he had it coming. 

The trial was a hushed affair, held in a courthouse that smelled of mildew and old wood, its windows smeared with the damp breath of New Jersey. The judge, a wiry man with a face carved from years of bourbon and regret, leaned forward as Ronnie’s parents spoke in low, pious tones.

They painted Frankie as troubled, not criminal —a lost soul who needed St. Agnes’s holy guidance. They needed her out.

They needed her out of Jersey to avoid her stirring up trouble or embarrass the Radke family any further.

Because sooner or later, it would become evidently clear that the real embarrassment wasn’t the crazy “ex girlfriend” (who wasn’t even a girlfriend), but their shitty ass son.

And the parents knew that. They knew that. 

And although Frankie refused to take the money, or the deals, her own mother had been so distressed and anguished by the past few years, from all the trouble Frankie had caused. Not even mentioning that the idea of having her own daughter imprisoned made her cry already.

They were financially strained after all. And it was a more than merciful deal. All costs covered, even transportation.

But Frankie knew too well. This wasn’t mercy, this was textbook exile. 

Her public defender, overworked and reeking of cheap coffee, barely argued. Frankie sat silent, her knuckles white from clenching, as they announced:

No prison.

Instead, a year at St. Agnes, court-mandated treatment, and a probation officer who’d check in monthly.

The prosecutor, a red-faced man with a voice like gravel, muttered about “princess treatment ” as he stormed out, furious that Frankie’s fire hadn’t landed her behind bars.

On the plane ride south, Frankie stared at her fingernails, the skin still faintly smelling of ash. Her mother sat beside her, clutching a rosary, her lips moving in silent prayer.

A police escort, a young officer with a buzz cut and nervous eyes, sat across the aisle, his handcuffs clinking softly.

Frankie didn’t bother with music or books. The hum of the plane felt like the drone of her own thoughts—flat, endless, and heavy with doom. She wondered if St. Agnes would swallow her whole, if she’d ever see Ronnie again.

Because If she did, she wouldn’t just burn his car. She’d burn everything.

Starting with his disgusting greasy ass hair, that would probably torch up like a fucking campfire. 

Her mother drove her the final leg, a winding road through Louisiana’s bayou, where cypress trees clawed at the sky and the air tasted of mud and decay.

They passed a rusted gate, its iron cross warped by time, and arrived at St. Agnes Retreat.

The facility loomed like a fever dream: a sprawling, antebellum mansion turned asylum, its white columns stained gray by moss and neglect.

The roof sagged under the weight of years, and cracked stained-glass windows—depicting saints with hollow eyes—glinted in the dying light.

Beyond the main building stretched a pasture, its grass choked with weeds, dotted with gnarled oaks draped in Spanish moss that swayed like ghostly veils.

A crumbling barn, its red paint peeling like flayed skin, stood at the edge, leaning as if it might collapse under the next storm.

The air carried a sour tang of swamp water and something sweeter, like rotting fruit, that clung to the back of Frankie’s throat.

Inside, St. Agnes was a labyrinth of contradictions.

The halls smelled of wax and antiseptic, with flickering fluorescent lights casting shadows that danced like specters. Crucifixes hung on every wall, their Jesuses staring down with accusing eyes.

The facility operated on a rigid rhythm: morning Mass in a chapel where candles sputtered and the organ wheezed, followed by Bible study led by nuns in starched habits, and the therapy sessions, run by a weary psychiatrist with nicotine-stained fingers.

Patients—men and women, young and old—shuffled through the days, their faces blank or twitching with private torments.

Some were addicts, others deemed “unstable” by families or courts. A few, like Frankie, were there to avoid prison, their sins cloaked in diagnoses.

And the nuns, Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, were a study in extremes.

Most were either painfully young, their faces smooth and fervent with fresh devotion, or ancient, with skin like crumpled parchment, and eyes clouded with decades of prayer and disappointment.

Frankie’s room was a small, solitary place on the third floor, a rare privilege secured by Ronnie’s parents’ influence. The walls were bare except for a wooden cross, and the single window overlooked the pasture, the barn, where mist curled like spirits at dawn.

If she jumped, she’d break bones on the cracked earth below— not enough to die, just enough to hurt.

But she didn’t deserve more pain, she told herself. Not when Ronnie deserved it more.

The first night in Saint Agnes clawed at her skin—unnaturally cold for summer. It was the day after the Fourth of July, though fireworks had been swapped for recycled air and the low hum of jet engines. She’d spent the holiday scrunched beside her mother in a plane seat, gnawed by guilt for turning yet another celebration into a silent apology.

She thought about asking for an extra blanket, something soft to barricade against the chill, but she was too depleted to chase comfort. And she didn’t want to be branded by the nurses as that needy, whining patient—the kind they rolled their eyes at behind clipboards.

Her body shut down before her pride did. Eyes sealed. The room was ink-dark, but inside her head, everything flared to life with cruel clarity.

Ronnie’s hair. Lit like a fuse. Just the image of it—orange and furious—washed over her like a fever. And in the glow of that fantasy, she finally found warmth enough to rest.

The days dragged, heavy with routine.

Frankie spoke little, save for Anthony, a lanky patient with haunted blue eyes who sang hymns during Mass, his guitar strumming a mournful counterpoint to the nuns’ chants. 

She didn’t ask why he was there, and and he never brought up the burns on her hands. Her fingerless gloves made a quiet effort to conceal them, though if you looked closely, faint scars still peaked through.

When they offered her a spot in the choir, she refused, not out of defiance but because nothing made sense anymore.

Music, faith, redemption— they were all hollow, like the barn’s empty stalls where she hid to smoke stolen cigarettes.

She found herself staring at the barn from her window, as if one day it could become her refuge, its sagging beams and rusted tools smelling of earth and forgotten labor. At dusk, she’d lean against the window wishing to gather courage to jump off, and to run towards the splintered walls, just to see what’s inside.

And that’s all she could do since she had nothing left to do here, she had no one to talk to besides Anthony. And she started to regret every choice that led her to this destiny. 

Because no one had noticed her absence.

No one cared.

Not her father. Not her friends who never showed at her trial. Not her former bandmates. Not even Ronnie, whose version of the story would be the only one people heard from now on, and the only one they’d believe.

She was gone. As good as erased.

She thought of escaping—fleeing into the vast, swampy nothingness beyond the pasture, where gators lurked and the trees whispered her name in their wet breath, promising secrets if she just kept walking. But where would she go? Who would she run to?

And who would she hurt next?

Her mother had cried through the whole trial, clutching tissues like talismans. Frankie remembered the plane rides, the long drive from the airport. The hotel smells. The silence. But under the grief, she’d seen it in her mother’s eyes—relief. Relief that Frankie was going to a facility with clean sheets and bottled water instead of rotting in some Jersey prison.

And maybe… maybe she was relieved Frankie wouldn’t be around to light another match.

That guilt festered like mold inside her chest.

St. Agnes wasn’t just a building; it was a sentence, a purgatory where the nuns’ prayers mingled with the patients’ screams. 

And yet, that crumbling barn kept calling to her like a low hum beneath the bones.

So one night, after dinner, she slipped away.

The exit rules said lights out at nine. But Frankie had never followed rules that didn’t make sense. Maybe it was her size. The way she moved. The muted palette she wore. Or maybe the world just didn’t bother looking for her anymore .

Because once again, no one noticed her leaving. 

She crept across the grass like a shadow, heart fluttering in her throat, and reached the barn.

Inside, it smelled exactly how she imagined—dust and iron, the stale sweetness of hay, the sharp tang of horse sweat and wood rot. 

And silence. 

That deep, holy kind of silence. The kind she used to find under stage lights just before the first note hit. Before she’d take a handful of pills and say goodnight to the bassist, because she was aware all those drugs would numb her till the next day. 

She lit a cigarette and let it dangle from her lips, breath curling in the cool air. Then she wandered down the aisle, past the stalls.

And there they were.

The horses.

Still and massive in the dark, eyes glinting like marbles in candlelight. Frankie stood motionless, reverent, her cigarette smoke curling up toward the rafters. Her chest ached.

Past Frankie would’ve gone for the pigs, the goats, the chickens. The noisy, chaotic things. The ones that screamed when you touched them. The ones that didn’t care where they shat. But now—now she preferred the horses.

The sacred silence. The graveyard hush. The way they held pain without turning cruel.

She reached out, gently brushing her fingers down one horse’s neck, watching the way it flicked its ear, indifferent but tolerant.

Her voice cracked, then softened.

“Oh mother…I can feel the soil falling over my head…”

She sang it slow, almost like a lullaby, her voice just a ghost in the rafters. The horse blinked slowly, like it understood.

She wanted to cry.

The barn’s shadows grew longer each night, and sometimes, Frankie swore she heard footsteps behind her—soft, humanly determined, like someone else was hiding too.

Frankie straightened, cigarette trembling at the edge of her mouth. Her eyes swept the barn. The shadows seemed to shift, as if something—or someone —moved just out of reach.

She held her breath and then asked:

“Hello?”

No one answered. Just the steady sound of the horses breathing, and the crackle of something unseen.

But a part of her knew. She wasn’t alone.

And maybe, just maybe, someone else came to the barn at night, too.

Someone who smoked where no one could see. Someone who hid better than Frankie ever could.

The psychiatric sessions were a ritual of silence for her.

She didn’t refuse to speak, didn’t lack the words—she was just sad , a bone-deep ache that settled in her chest like a clogged artery.

The psychiatrist, a stooped man with yellowed teeth and a clipboard that seemed older than the building itself, scribbled notes while Frankie stared at the floor.

He prescribed Prozac, small white pills that dulled the edges of her thoughts. They made her float through the halls, her footsteps soft against the creaking wood, her anger a distant hum.

For the first time in weeks, she felt something close to ease, though it was less relief and more like sinking into a fog.

The days blurred into a rhythm of routine, oppressive yet predictable.

One evening, as the sky bled purple and orange over the pasture, a young nun—Sister Hayley—came to Frankie’s room.

“Time for the rosary, Frances,” she said, her voice bright with the kind of faith Frankie had never known.

Frankie curled deeper into her bed, the thin mattress creaking under her weight, pretending to sleep.

It was the same tired dance: the nuns would prod, she’d resist, and then they’d drag her to the chapel anyway, her Prozac-dulled limbs complying against her will.

But this time, a faint voice broke the pattern, soft as a whisper in the dark.

“Don’t worry, let her sleep. I’ll watch her if necessary.”

Frankie didn’t move. She held her breath as the air shifted, the rustle of habits receding like a tide pulling back. When she finally turned, slowly, carefully, she saw someone seated in the corner. A nun. Tall. Unfamiliar.

She hadn’t seen this one before.

The woman sat on a stiff wooden chair that looked too small for her frame, her posture relaxed but alert, like she wasn’t sure yet if she was a guardian or a warden. Her face was half-lit by the yellow bedside lamp—mousy brown hair tucked beneath her veil, the glow catching her glasses just enough to curtain her eyes.

Frankie blinked.

She was all long lines—statuesque in the way that made her look like she’d once belonged to some distant era and got left behind in this one. Late thirties, maybe. Or maybe early-thirties and hiding fiends inside her bones.

Because if she was older, she looked enchantedly young , but if she was younger, then she looked haunted.

She reminded Frankie of the horses in the barn.

Not just in stature, but in presence— hardened, red-blooded, reserved, with that same unshakable calm. That same sense of being entirely somewhere else in her mind, but tethered enough to watch you quietly.

“Thanks,” Frankie muttered, unsure if the words meant anything anymore.

“No problem,” the nun replied, her voice soft, unreadable. She didn’t look up. Just kept reading her book, glasses perched at the end of her nose like she’d worn them since before the world ended.

Frankie squinted through the haze of medication. Maybe it was the Bible. Just black cover, perhaps a leather binding.

“What are you reading?” she asked, more out of the aching need for noise than curiosity.

“A book,” the nun replied dryly, but there was a flicker of something in her voice— teasing , almost amused.

Frankie didn’t press. The Prozac dulled the sharp edges of her thoughts. Made it easier to let things go. Still, she didn’t want to ruin this. Whatever this was.

Why risk turning the one nun who showed her mercy against her?

Besides, Sister Geraldine’s presence was a rare reprieve, like a crack of light in the retreat’s suffocating walls.

Then, after a beat, the faintest curl at her lips. “A vampire novel, actually.”

Frankie blinked, trying to make out the title of the book. No cross on the cover. No gold-embossed saints. She blinked again, her brow lifting. “Really?”

“Yeah, and I think I’m not allowed to read it,” the woman admitted with a small smile, finally lifting her gaze. Her sage green eyes were softer than expected. Warmer. “So don’t rat me out, Frances.”

The name hit hard.

“Frankie,” she corrected, too quickly. “Or Frank. Not Frances.”

The nun studied her then, like she was flipping through a file in her mind.

“That’s the name on your chart,” she said evenly.

Frankie narrowed her eyes a little. “What’s the name on your chart?”

The nun’s expression shifted, a little caught off guard—but not unkind.

“Geraldine,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “Sister Geraldine.”

Frankie let out a small, nasal laugh.

“Of course it is. You look like a possessed doll.”

Sister Geraldine raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Not sure that’s a compliment.”

“It is,” Frankie said, voice gentler now. “You kinda look… Mmh… like those pretty porcelain dolls my grandma has locked up in the glass cabinet.”

She meant it. Even if her voice cracked a little with the confession. There was something old and sacred and eerie about the nun. Like she belonged to a church that hadn’t existed in a hundred years.

Geraldine tilted her head, indecipherable, nonchalant. “Well… thanks.”

“Don’t you have a nickname?” Frankie asked, desperate to stay strung to her. To keep this strange line of connection alive.

Geraldine glanced down at her book again as if considering.

“Mmm,” she murmured, as if remembering something from a distant, foggy life. “Gee. That’s what my relatives called me.”

Frankie repeated it to herself, like tasting it. “Gee.”

Geraldine nodded faintly. “But that was when I was younger. Only among family and… yeah, family.” She looked up again. “Here, I’m Sister Geraldine.”

Frankie leaned back against the pillow, a strange enthusiasm settling in her chest. “I’ll keep your secret,” she said. “Since you’re keeping mine.”

Geraldine lowered her glasses, letting them hang off the tip of her pixie-like nose. Her eyes—up close—were tired. But not cruel. Not condescending. Just… tired. Like someone who’d seen too much and was still trying to love the world anyway.

“I’m not doing you any favors, Frances. It’s normal to not want to pray. Especially on new medication. It takes time.”

Frankie inhaled slowly. Her throat burned.

“Then I’ll tell you a secret,” she whispered, surprising herself. “So we’re even.”

Sister Geraldine's head angled slightly, her expression softening with a quiet kind of knowing—like she could feel Frankie reaching, not for words, but for release.

Maybe absolution. Maybe just the comfort of being truly heard.

 “Alright.”

Frankie’s voice dropped to a whisper, tears stinging her eyes.

“I regret arsoning that guy’s car.” The confession slipped out, raw and jagged, the weight of it heavier than the flames she’d set. She swallowed, her throat tight. “I should’ve just killed him.”

Sister Geraldine didn’t flinch, didn’t gasp or cross herself like the other nuns might have. She just frowned, her face folding into lines of quiet mercy, her silence louder than any sermon.

The room felt smaller, the air thick with the scent of old wood and candle wax from the chapel below. Somewhere in the distance, a night bird called, its cry sharp and fleeting, like a warning swallowed by the swamp.

Frankie waited, expecting a lecture, a prayer, or a call to the psychiatrist. But Sister Geraldine just sat there, her vampire novel forgotten, her gaze steady.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” She asked.

“Because then no one would kill me”. 

The nights were no kinder than the days, each one sinking deeper into Frankie’s bones like the damp chill of the Louisiana weather.

The Prozac softened her edges, but it wrecked her sleep, leaving her tossing in her narrow bed.

The walls pressed in, ignited only by the hollow eyes of a wooden Christ.
And from the halls, the music was ruthless: patients screaming, their voices raw with anguish or defiance; others shouting at Anthony to stop his endless guitar strumming, his hymns drifting like mournful ghosts through the night.

Sometimes, Frankie wanted to yell too, to drown out the chaos with her own voice. Or just to feel part of the group. Just to feel like she belonged there too.

Since she was being treated like a mentally ill, she may as well behave like a mentally ill person. 

Other times, she wished she could sing like him, let the notes carry her somewhere else— anywhere but here.

She’d lie awake, staring out her window at the barn across the pasture, its sagging silhouette a dark bruise against the moonlit sky.

The pasture itself was a wild, untamed sprawl, its tall grass swaying in the night breeze, tangled with weeds and dotted with stunted oaks draped in Spanish moss. The barn, with its peeling red paint and splintered beams, looked like it might collapse under the weight of its own decay, its windows black and empty , reflecting nothing.

Frankie imagined climbing out, tying her threadbare blankets into a rope to shimmy down the three stories, sneaking to the barn to smoke one of her dwindling cigarettes. She could smoke in her room, hide the ash in the cracked floorboards, but the risk of getting caught—of losing her hidden packs to the nuns’ prying hands—kept her from trying.

Those cigarettes were her last rebellion, her only link to the girl who’d set Ronnie’s car ablaze.

When sleep refused to come, she’d stare at the ceiling, its plaster stained with watermarks that looked like faces in the dark.

She’d scribble in her notebook, jagged words or sketches of flames, or pick up a contraband paperclip, its edge sharp against her skin.

She’d press it, testing her limits, never quite breaking through.

Her eyes would drift to the cross, to Jesus’s carved face, and she’d think: Fuck you.

What if Jesus was just another Ronnie—a liar, a junkie, a manipulator who got what he deserved? Maybe the mob was right to nail him up.

Maybe people were right to burn things down.

And this whole circus just annoyed her: the nuns’ endless chants, their songs about suffering and sin, drove her crazy.

They way they sang of human filth, of punishing the body to save the soul, of a next life that might not even exist.

It was all a scam, Frankie thought, like an unpaid internship promising lessons or a job that never came.

Because you worked, you suffered, you prayed, and the people in charge—and not just the nuns and priests, but the people who made money out of this. Like the royal families, the millionaires, the rich folks with generational wealth, like Ronnie’s parents —kept you running in circles.

One night, the need to pee dragged Frankie from her bed, the urge sharp enough to overcome her dread of the halls.

She shuffled to the door, her bare feet cold on the chipped tiles, knowing she had to report to a nurse.

The rules were relentless—patients were watched, even in the bathroom, their privacy stripped away like their freedom.

The first time Frankie used the toilet, she’d cried, her sobs echoing in the sterile stall until Nurse Raymond, a tall handsome man with kind eyes and a nervous tic, slipped out to give her a moment alone. 

Not all nurses were like him. Some, like Nurse Evelyn would just not give a fuck. 

She found the janitor, an old man named Amos with a face like weathered leather, sweeping the hall. 

“I need the restroom,” she said, her voice flat. “Can you call a nurse?”

Amos glanced up, his broom pausing. 

“Nurses are tied up. Emergency.” His tone was clipped, and Frankie knew what it meant— someone had tried to hurt themselves, or someone else. It happened often enough, the retreat’s fragile peace shattered by a scream or a struggle. “I’ll see who’s free,” he added, shuffling off.

Frankie waited, leaning against the wall, the cross above her casting a shadow like a blade. 

Footsteps approached, light and quick, and Sister Hayley appeared, her ginger hair peeking from her veil, her freckled face split by a toothy grin that showed the gap between her front teeth.

She was young, barely twenty, with a bubbly energy that made Frankie’s stomach churn. Sister Hayley was all sweetness and chatter, a walking ray of sunshine in a place that thrived on gloom.

Frankie hated her—not for anything she’d done, but because she reminded her of someone.

“Okay, Frankie, let’s go!” Sister Hayley chirped, her voice like a bell in the dim hall. She bounced on her heels, her habit swishing as if she were about to lead a parade. Frankie followed, her bare feet slapping the cold floor, already regretting the interaction.

“Where’s Sister Geraldine?” Frankie asked, hoping for the quiet nun who’d let her sleep through rosary.

“Oh, she’s with a patient,” Sister Hayley said, her smile unwavering. “She takes the night shifts, bless her heart. So gracious, don’t you think?” Before Frankie could respond, Hayley barreled on, her words tumbling like water over rocks. “Why do you ask? I mean, Sister Geraldine’s sweet, but she’s not exactly popular, you know? Not grumpy like Sister Gabrielle—oh, that woman could scare a gator!—or chatty like Sister Patricia and me. She’s so quiet, kinda goes unnoticed, doesn’t she?”

Frankie nodded, half-listening as they reached the bathroom, a stark room with cracked tiles and a flickering light.

She peed, Sister Hayley standing just outside the stall, still talking.

“When she’s not working, you can find her in the library, nose in a book. Always the Bible, of course, or some saint’s biography. So devout!”

Frankie’s mind flickered to Sister Geraldine, her mousy brown hair and greenish eyes, sitting in her room with that alleged vampire novel.

Had she been joking about reading it, or was she hiding it from her fellow nuns? Frankie almost smiled at the thought of Sister Geraldine, the retreat’s quiet rebel, sneaking stories of blood and fangs under the guise of piety.

“Is there a library here?” Frankie asked, washing her hands in the rusted sink.

“Oh, yes!” Sister Hayley beamed, leaning against the doorframe like they were old friends. “It’s in the west wing, past the chapel. Just shelves of dusty old books—hymnals, prayer manuals, lives of the saints. Not exactly thrilling, but Sister Geraldine loves it. She’s there every chance she gets, reading like it’s her job. I tried it once, but I got bored after ten minutes. Too quiet for me! I’d rather be out, picking wildflowers, or helping in the kitchen. Did you know I baked cornbread for supper last week? Everyone said it was the best they’d had, though Sister Gabrielle didn’t smile once. She never does.”

Frankie dried her hands on her gown, tuning out Hayley’s chatter. The young nun’s voice was a relentless stream, filling the silence with stories of her childhood in Baton Rouge, her love of gospel music, her dream of visiting Rome.

Frankie didn’t care, but she let her talk, the words washing over her like the swamp’s endless hum. Sister Hayley followed her back to her room, still babbling about the time she accidentally spilled flour in the kitchen and made a “holy mess,” her laugh echoing in the empty hall.

Back in her room, Frankie sank onto her bed, the springs groaning. The cross loomed above, Jesus’s face unyielding in the moonlight.

She thought of Sister Geraldine, her vampire novel, her quiet mercy. And Sister Hayley, with her gap-toothed grin and endless prattle, a spark of light in a place that devoured it.

The screams started again, distant but piercing, somewhere down the corridor.

Maybe it was Clara, her rage no match for her demons. Maybe it was Anthony, his guitar silent for once. 

Frankie didn’t know, didn’t want to know.

After a day smothered in holy crafts, whispered prayers, card games with Anthony, and manic scribbles bleeding onto her notebook, the hunger surged.
Not for food or affection—but for the barn . It eroded at her ribs. Possessed her fingertips.

That place, dull red and dipped in the orange of restraint, practically begged for fire.

Frankie thought the color did it. Fire-hued and half-submerged in memory—like the match she'd struck.
She pictured the horses bolting free in a scream of hooves, the hay catching slow like seduction before unraveling into roaring combustion. She ached for it. The old wood, dry as bone, fragile as history. Every slat whispered: flammable.

Later, after the humiliating “hygiene hour”—when nurses pretended not to stare as she showered—Raymond blow-dried her hair like she was royalty rotting in exile. She sat there wondering if that pissed-off prosecutor had a point: this was some twisted princess treatment .

But not the kind with tiaras. The kind with torches.

She pleaded Nurse Ray not to cool the water. Scalding showers had become her altar, and in the cruelest twist of nature, water, not fire, now burned her with more devotion. It was irony she craved, the paradox of heat in liquid form—the closest she could get to touching some ardor without cremation.

She zipped herself into darkness—black hoodie, cargo pants, battered Converse—and slipped from the cocoon of the facility like a shadow with a purpose.

Not to nurture. To smoke. To tease danger.

Maybe the fire turned her on. Maybe the thought of burning something sacred filled the itch she refused to scratch. She stood in the stall like a thief in heat, sweet horses watching, unknowingly captive.

With every flick of her cigarette, she flirted with chaos. Hoped the ember might catch. Might lick the edges of the world she despised. But the hay sulked damply beneath her shoes, frustratingly reluctant.

What a shame. The flame inside her deserved a stage.

She exhaled, the smoke curling upward, blending with the dust motes dancing in the moonlight.

Her thoughts drifted to the night in her room, the weight of her confession still heavy in her chest: I regret arsoning that guy’s car. I should’ve just killed him.

Sister Geraldine’s response had been a quiet shock—no sermon, no judgment, just that steady gaze and a question that cut deeper than any lecture: Why didn’t you kill him? Frankie’s answer had slipped out, raw and true: Because then no one would kill me. She hadn’t known what she meant until the words were out, but Geraldine hadn’t pressed, hadn’t recoiled.

That moment lingered, a thread tying Frankie to the nun who seemed too human for this place.

The barn door creaked, a slow groan that made Frankie freeze, her cigarette half-raised. A shadow moved in the doorway, tall and deliberate, the faint rustle of fabric betraying the intruder.

Sister Geraldine stepped into the moonlight, her habit blending with the darkness, her face half-lit and unreadable. Her sage-green eyes caught the glow, sharp and steady, like a predator’s. She didn’t look surprised to find Frankie here, nor did she look impressed.

It felt like Frankie’d ripped the thought straight out of her head and dumped it into the real world. Like she’d willed her into existence. Like she had been summoned . Or sensed Frankie’s incendiary fixation.
Just that burning urge, now standing right in front of her.

And whatever the doctors had scribbled in her file— this only made it worse.

Because now, it tasted like she had materialized her thoughts on a whim.

“Caught you,” Geraldine said, voice low—stern, but laced with a warmth that felt almost profane in the asylum’s chill. Or in the mouth of a nun . She leaned against a splintering beam, arms crossed over her chest, her lips twitching with a half-smile that knew too much.

Frankie exhaled slowly, a ribbon of smoke curling from her lips. Her grin was cocky on the outside but trembled slightly beneath it, like a match held too close to the flame.

“What, you gonna snitch, Sister?” she said. “Turn me in for a puff?”

Geraldine arched one brow, unimpressed but not unfriendly. She stepped forward, boots crunching on the dirt floor, and reached into the folds of her habit with practiced ease.

To Frankie’s surprise, she pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes—cheap, unfiltered, the kind that smelled like gas station tile and desperation.

“I could turn you in for being outside your room at this hour,” she said, pulling one loose and lighting it with a match that flared from nowhere. “But I won’t. You’re not the only one who knows this spot.”

Frankie’s cigarette dangled forgotten as she stared, delighted and baffled.

“You smoke?” she said, laughing softly, like it was the most indecent thing she'd ever seen. “Sister Geraldine, breaking the rules? Didn’t have that on my bingo card.”

Geraldine took a drag, the ember blooming briefly in the dark. The smoke curled around her face like a ghost in prayer.

“Smoking’s not against the rules,” she said coolly, her voice threaded with dry humor. “You’re just not allowed to do it unsupervised. Or carry lighters, Frances. You’d know that if you ever asked.”

Frankie barked a laugh—raw, unrestrained. It resonated in the hollow barn like something alive. She leaned back against a musty bale of hay, watching Geraldine through a haze of smoke.

She didn’t belong here —not in the barn, not in the habit, not in this haunted, god-forsaken place. There was something about her that didn’t sit still. Something coiled just beneath the surface, disciplined but not dormant.

Her face—lined, but not worn—held a quiet sort of violence. Not cruel, just alert. Focused.
Her hands were steady, calloused, the hands of someone who had survived something rather than prayed it away. Her eyes, though tired, were too awake to belong to someone who had given up.

Frankie’s gaze slid along the angles of her face. She imagined her lit by something more primal than a cigarette—by incineration. A bonfire maybe, nothing hurtful. Just enough to catch the torrent of heat against her cheekbones, to see how the orange light would reflect around her skin like syrup on porcelain.

Not that she wanted to set her on fire. That wasn’t the point.

Frankie just... liked watching things brighten, or how they looked next to a fire.

She liked revealing things through flame, and what fire did to faces—made them almost virginal.

Honest.

Or demonic.

And the candlelight would glorify Sister Geraldine. Frankie could already see it—how the flame’s sunset hush would spill across her skin, and her face, pale and powdered like a crushed aspirin, would shine with something half-divine, half-haunting.

Her under-eye shadows would darken in the outburst, deepening like a plump pernicious injury. And those sharp cheekbones—jagged and cold—might jut out like the peaks of a frostbitten mountain, lit softly by slivers of winter sunlight.

But her eyes? That part stayed blurry. Frankie couldn’t pin down what hue the firelight would pull from them.
She imagined a glint of amber, maybe something gold-like— godlike. Maybe something that didn’t exist at all.

A sudden pull dragged Frankie toward the next afternoon mass. Not for the prayers. Not even for the ritual.
Just to watch Geraldine bask in that soft inferno and see what kind of art her face could become beneath the waxy flutter.

“You don’t act like a nun,” she said, almost gently, the cigarette burning untouched between her fingers. “No offense, but you don’t quite fit. The others—Sister Patricia, Sister Hayley—they’re like… really into it .”

Her voice captured on the edge of a laugh, too brittle, too vulnerable. Still, she pressed on, letting the smoke fill the silence.

“Why’d you even sign up for this?” she asked, flicking ash toward the floor. “You could be out there—living a real life. Not stuck here babysitting an arsonist.”

It slipped—too fast, too raw. Fuck. She hadn't meant to say it. But the word hung there like a flare, obvious and damning.

If Sister Geraldine had flipped through her chart, she’d have seen it by now. The diagnosis. The branding. And yeah—Frankie was almost certain “pyromaniac” had already scorched its way into those pages. It couldn’t be a secret among her caretakers. 

Frankie winced, her throat tightening. She dropped her eyes now guttering with shame.

“Sorry,” she added, but she didn’t know what she was apologizing for—her tone, the question, or the fact that she had reminded her that she was crazy.

Geraldine’s lips twitched, but her eyes obscured—just slightly. A shadow passed over her expression, quiet and precise, like a memory never spoken aloud.

She took another drag, and when she spoke again, her voice had thinned to something cautious, gentler, like wind brushing through tall grass.

“You think this isn’t real life?” she queried, glancing around the barn. Her tone wasn’t angry, but it held weight. It wasn’t the response Frankie expected at all. She felt outsmarted and pathetic. “I chose this. Not because I was born for it. But because it made sense at the time. Sometimes you make a choice, and it carries you. Whether you want it to or not.”

Frankie tilted her head, her grin fading into something more fragile. Her gaze searched Geraldine’s face like a map with no key.

“Do you still want it? ” She sidestepped the question, replacing inquiry with another. Her voice low, shaking slightly. “You could walk away. Say no. You have freedom. We don’t”. She gestured broadly—the barn, the asylum beyond, the fences and wards and whispered screams in the halls. The life of ghosts they were expected to live in. “What’s worth giving up everything for?”

Geraldine didn’t answer immediately. She leaned back against the beam, her silhouette relaxed but alert. Her eyes studied Frankie—not dissecting her, not diagnosing her, just seeing her. As if she were trying to remember her from some other life.

“You told me you regretted burning that car,” she said, her voice low, serious but not preachy. “You said you should’ve killed him. But you didn’t. You chose not to. Why ?”

Frankie’s throat narrowed, the images from that night—the gasoline, the match, the roar of flames, the excruciating pain in her fingertips—flashing behind her eyes. She took a drag, the smoke bitter on her tongue.

“I told you,” she said, her voice a rasp like bark splitting under rot. “If I’d killed him, then no one would kill me.”

“Well…” Sister Geraldine murmured, lips curling faintly. “That’s stupid. Or just plain bullshit.”

Frankie blinked. The words hit like ice water down her spine. Not because of the profanity—it was the way Geraldine meant them. As if truth didn’t need to wear clean clothes. As if ugliness was more honest than kindness.

“What do you mean?” Frankie quizzed, feeling once again, outwitted.

“‘Cause you don’t need nobody to kill you,” Geraldine said slowly, dragging on her cigarette like it was the only warmth in the world. “Life will do it for you. Quietly. Eventually. Death’s already in motion. Matter of fact, it's the only damn thing that’s certain.”

The way she said it—low, final —made Frankie’s skin crawl. Not from fear, but from recognition. Geraldine’s stare held her in place like a pinned moth. Her eyes didn’t shine with divinity; they looked cavernous, and as if something sacred had once lived there but had long since packed up and left. 

Frankie tried to speak, but the words jammed behind her teeth.

Was this how a religious person talked? A woman supposed to care for the unstable? It felt less like comfort, more like provocation. A dare:

Prove to me how bad you want to die. Go on.

“I don’t know what dragged you here,” Geraldine went on, voice softer now, like a lullaby made of glass, “but don’t kid yourself, sugar. You chose it too.”

The words lodged in Frankie’s lungs. Her heart pounded, a slow, aching beat like it was trying to dig its way out through bone.

Something cracked open inside her—a slow leak of embarrassment, defiance, and the kind of inhibition that doesn’t have a label. Her throat itched.

The air between them thickened, humid with sweat and stagnant breath. It reeked of rusticity and nicotine and something ripe and dead beneath the floorboards. She opened her mouth to challenge the woman, to peel her apart, to ask her how she knew—how dare she to think she knows anything about her—but before the words formed, a high-pitched shriek sliced through the dark.

Not quite a bird. Not quite a human.

The sound tangled with the hum of insects and distant swamp gasps. Geraldine flinched—barely—but it was enough to see the crack in her stillness. Then, just as quickly, she crushed her cigarette under her boot with surgical finality and slid her face back into its mask.

Stern. Flat. Impenetrable.

“Finish that,” she said, gesturing to Frankie’s untouched smoke. “Then get inside. And don’t let Patricia catch you. She’s not as forgiving as I am.”

Geraldine turned, her habit swaying like a pendulum, then paused mid-step, half in shadow.

“If you need more cigarettes, don’t do anything stupid ” she said over her shoulder, voice suddenly raw, like something unsaid had torn her throat, “Just ask me. I mean it.”

Then she was gone—swallowed by the dark.

Frankie stood frozen, smoke weaving lazy spirits between her nails, the kiln clinging to the edge like it feared the fall.

Did Geraldine really see her? Had she spoken like that because she’d cracked the code, stepped into Frankie’s fire-soaked world with bare feet and no fear? Or was it something deeper.

Maybe Geraldine wasn’t just looking in. Maybe she was remembering.

Frankie couldn’t shake it—this vicious thought that somewhere in her past: Geraldine had stood in a barn like this, face hot from flames, heart pounding with the thrill of power and ruin. Maybe she’d once been her.

A girl with a match in her hand.

Chapter Text

The showers were a cold, clinical affair, the water spitting from rusted pipes in a tiled room that smelled of bleach and despair.

Nurses stood watch, their eyes sharp as they leaned against the cold sink, offering Frankie a dull razor with the same tired line: “ Are you sure? It’ll make you feel better.”

Frankie always refused, her voice flat, her gaze fixed on the cracked floor.

She liked her body hair—legs, underarms, all of it.

To her, it was resistance, a quiet rebellion against the world’s obsession with taming women.

And she had been tamed enough already. 

The nurses though, weren’t here for revolutions.

They were here to monitor, to ensure she didn’t turn the soap or the showerhead into something dangerous. Nurse Evelyn, with her tight bun and lips pursed like she’d tasted something sour, stared the hardest, as if Frankie’s unshaved legs were a personal affront.

Nurse Raymond, kinder but awkward, would sometimes look away, giving her a second of privacy in the sterile stall.

After Bible study, when the nun’s droning verses still echoed in her head, Frankie was granted free time—a fleeting hour to exist outside the retreat’s suffocating rhythm.

Most days, she’d slip to the barn, its sagging beams and musty air a refuge where she could smoke her dwindling cigarettes and watch the pasture’s tall grass sway under the weight of dusk.

The vast grasslands stretched beyond the retreat like a forgotten promise, its weeds tangled with wildflowers, bordered by cypress trees that leaned like mourners, their roots sinking into the swamp’s dark water.

But today, Frankie didn’t go to the barn.

She headed to the library, her footsteps soft on the warped floorboards, her heart quickening.

She wasn’t looking for Sister Geraldine— not exactly . But if she found her, tucked among the shelves with her alleged forbidden book, that would be enough.

It was a narrow room in the west wing, past the chapel’s flickering candles and the hallway’s ever-present crucifixes. Its walls were lined with sagging shelves, the air thick with the scent of forgetfulness and bury.

The books were a mix of new and old hymnals, tattered Bibles, and lives of saints. But there were oddities too— Man’s Search for Meaning , a beaten copy of Wuthering Heights , a surprisingly well-thumbed The Bell Jar. They even had Harry Potter and Nancy Drew, also a self help section, romance novels and the Sex and the City ones. 

A single window let in slants of gray light, filtered through moss-draped oaks outside, casting the room in a perpetual twilight.  A wooden table, scarred with scratches, sat in the center, flanked by chairs that wobbled on uneven legs.

Frankie paused at the threshold, her eyes scanning the shadows.

There she was—Sister Geraldine, alone, curled in a corner chair with that same black hardcover and no title visible.

Just like before her mousy brown hair concealed under her veil, those sage-green eyes catching the light like still water, her lips, thin but rosy and heart-shaped, curved faintly as she read, a quiet rebellion of tenderness in a world built on severity.

It takes strength to be gentle and kind. 

She stood apart from the rest of the convent’s cast—no stern sermons like Sister Patricia, no sour scowls like Sister Gabrielle, and certainly none of Sister Hayley’s exhausting optimism. And the more Frankie stared at her the more evident it became that there was no holiness in her gaze , no feverish devotion.

She moved like a librarian, content to lose herself in pages, as if the world beyond St. Agnes held nothing worth seeing.

Frankie didn’t know how to speak to her—not after their last conversation, not with the smoke still clinging to her memory like a second skin. The silence between them had hardened, brittle and sainted, and every attempt to break it felt like trespass.

She’d spent the last few nights watching the barn from her window, breath fogging the glass, ridiculous in her vigil. Waiting —not just for the orange flicker of a lighter, but for proof the Sister was real. That she still moved through shadow with that same quiet defiance.

And Frankie— God help her —was starting to measure her nights in glimpses of her. She was fast becoming a prayer Frankie didn’t know how to unpray .

“Hi,” Frankie said, her voice low, almost swallowed by the library’s hush. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Sister Geraldine looked up, her green eyes sparkling with muted amusement.

“Well, that’s because I take the night shifts,” she said, her tone soft but warm, like a candle’s glow in the dark.

“How gracious of you,” Frankie said, echoing Sister Hayley’s bubbly praise, a faint smirk tugging at her lips.

Sister Geraldine’s smile was small, almost sly, as if she caught the mockery but didn’t mind.

“Not really,” she said, tilting her head slightly, the book loose in her hands. “I’m more antisocial than I let on.”

“ You ?” Frankie asked sarcastically, one brow arching. “You don’t strike me as antisocial.”

“Maybe I’m just selective,” Geraldine replied, her tone dipped in velvet.

Frankie stepped closer, her sneakers whispering against the linoleum, and sank into the chair beside her—close enough to catch the subtle, improbable musk of lavender clinging to Geraldine’s habit.

So floral, so womanly. 

The library breathed a stillness so deep it felt excavated. The ancient bookshelf’s wood moaned in slow communion with the phantoms it had learned to house.

Just the two of them, suspended in a silence so thick it felt like it had teeth.

Geraldine watched her with a gaze that was neither mellow nor harsh—just seeing . Her eyes were fatigued, but not dull. Like someone who had read too much and wept too little. Frankie found herself holding onto that look as if it might offer shelter.

Because Sister Hayley would’ve gushed about banana pudding or Jesus or Baton Rouge. Sister Gabrielle would’ve pierced her with a stare meant to diagnose her soul. But Geraldine? Geraldine simply looked at her —without rescue, without judgment. It felt perilously close to intimacy.

She opened her mouth, as though about to speak, then hesitated—words caught on the ledge of her own restraint. Frankie leaned in slightly, voice lowered, like they were already in the middle of a long conversation.

“Aren’t you tired of reading the Bible?”

That earned a breath of a laugh from Geraldine—a quiet exhale that warmed the air like breath fogging glass.

“I told you it’s not the Bible,” she said, her fingers brushing the book’s cover, her eyes glinting with a hint of mischief.

“Is it Dracula?” Frankie asked, tilting her head, her tone playful, almost daring.

“Kind of,” Geraldine murmured, her lips folding into a smile that felt like a shared mystery or a half-remembered dream. Her eyes held onto Frankie’s, quiet and warm, the kind of look that didn’t reveal a thing—but made you want to search for it anyway.

“Can I read it with you?” Frankie ventured, her voice softer now, a thread of something bolder weaving through it. It wasn’t just a question. It was an offer. A key turned partway in a locked door.

Geraldine closed the book slowly. Her fingers moved with a quiet grace.

“Why don’t you find something to read for yourself?” she murmured, her voice solemn, but not stern. “If you’d like to stay.”

Frankie’s pulse ticked up. There was something weighted beneath the words—a permission that didn’t feel institutional. A small doorway in a wall no one else saw.

“Can I at least know the name of the novel?” she asked, angling her body just slightly toward her. 

“No,” Geraldine said, her voice faint, her smile softening into humaneness. “I don’t want trouble.” Her eyes flicked to the book, then back to Frankie, a spark of defiance in their depths.

“Why? Is it anti-Christian or something?” Frankie whispered, leaning in as if mouthing something forbidden, her breath catching slightly.

Her head shifted like a pendulum caught mid-swing, her lips twitching.

“Well… Anything supernatural’s a defiance to God around here. Though they let us read Lord of the Rings.” Her voice dipped into a velvety hush, conspiratorial, her eyes glinting like they held some sort of outlawing, exclusive to her.

Frankie let out a small laugh, startled by it. The sound didn’t reverberate—it settled , warm against the walls.

“Have you read it?”

“Of course,” Geraldine replied, her eyes lighting briefly. “Have you?”

Frankie nodded quickly, though not entirely honestly. She hadn’t read the books.

She’d watched the first film in someone’s basement when it came out on VHS, high off a crushed Klonopin and a stolen beer. Still, she liked the way Geraldine spoke—like she was being invited into something sacred.

“What’s your favorite character?” Geraldine asked more peacefully now, a touch playful, her expression a little looser than before. Her posture shifted, leaning in, her veil catching on the chair’s worn backrest.

Frankie hesitated, then smiled with a touch of mischief. “You go first.”

Geraldine’s lips parted in a grin that felt just slightly wrong for a nun.

“Shelob,” she said proudly, her voice dropping as if giving away a guilty pleasure. “The spider.”

Frankie blinked. “The spider?!”

Geraldine laughed—this time fuller, though still restrained. A sound like wind stirring forgotten curtains.

“You didn’t read them, did you?”

“No,” Frankie confessed, letting the grin stretch wider, something like warmth pooling in her chest, embarrassment probably. “I liked the movie, though.”

“You should read them. They’re over there,” Geraldine said, nodding toward the shelves across the room. Her speech took on an edge—just enough to be a dare. “Go on. Earn your favorite.”

Frankie rose slowly, her hands in her pockets, and ambled toward the bookshelves. Her fingers skimmed along cracked spines and multicoloured covers—gospel, saints, testimonies, light novels. She found The Fellowship of the Ring , the title barely legible by decades of use.

She turned, holding it up like a relic.

“I’ll read it,” she said, a flicker of something wicked in her voice. “Then I’ll tell you who I fall in love with.”

Geraldine’s eyes didn’t flinch. Her smile softened, but stayed—steady, unreadable.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, almost a whisper.

Frankie sank into the chair once more, the book heavy in her lap, its spine warm from her touch. Spiraling into madness.

Those words looped like a song twisting into ache. Her thoughts bathed in perversion and divine blasphemy, because all she saw now were Geraldine’s arms around her. Being . Held. By her. The image bloomed with such fragile beauty it felt damning.

Fantasizing to be cradled by a woman bound to God had to be more sinful than any arson crime.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. But the silence between them wasn’t empty anymore.

And Frankie wanted— really wanted—to focus on Frodo.

But her mind was loud. Slippery. Restless.

Her eyes scanned the pages, but the words wouldn’t stay still. They blurred and shifted like shadows at the edge of a dream. 

She thought of all of her bad choices , of her mother. Of all the silent, trembling moments that had bent their house out of shape. Of the slow decay: the unpaid bills curled up like dead leaves on the kitchen table, the lawyers that spoke in riddles, the hospitals with fluorescent lights that buzzed like flies. She thought of the N.A. meetings, the shame-soaked coffee, the night she lit the car on fire because it felt like the only way to make anything stop .

She thought of the cross above her bed, plastic and crooked. Of the scream she’d heard last night, two halls over, raw and animal. Of the barn and its impossible stillness, how it seemed to watch the facility rather than sleep beside it.

It was everything that had led her to this bizarre place.

And she thought of Geraldine—this quiet, almost sacrilegious interruption to all of it.

Sister Geraldine sat beside her, immersed in her own forbidden book, posture relaxed but always impossible to decode, like a painting no one knew how to interpret. The light from the overhead bulb caught the pale curve of her jaw, the slope of her cheekbone, the hint of a smile that came and went like it didn’t owe anyone permanence.

Frankie glanced at her again—just a flicker, a second too long.
Because to look at her was a disruption wrapped in calm—a kind of stillness Frankie hadn’t tasted in years. Geraldine’s presence glowed like fractured light on a broken floor.

Frankie feared she’d notice her eyeing and realize what was happening, since some kind of weaknesses aren’t housed in the body—it just hovers around. It slips between people like a shared fever. And now, those tender, volatile feelings floated freely, oblivious to the ruin or radiance they might unleash.

But watching her felt like absolution in disguise—so much solace, Frankie could forget the wreckage trailing behind her.

Staring at Geraldine brought her so much solace she’d almost forget herself for all the damage she’d caused.  

“You have to actually look at the book to read it,” Geraldine said softly, not looking up from her own.

Frankie blinked. Her mouth parted, something between a breath and a laugh caught in her throat.

“I am reading,” she murmured, a touch defensive, a touch shy.

Geraldine turned a page with practiced ease, voice a little lighter now. “You’ve been staring at the same page for fifteen minutes. Frodo deserves better. ”

Frankie bit the inside of her cheek, suddenly self-conscious.

“I got distracted ,” she said, letting the words fall casually, though her pulse betrayed her. “You know… trauma, or whatever.”

Geraldine’s smile was fleeting, but it lingered in her eyes. “Fair enough.”

They both fell quiet again. But the silence had changed—stiffen  now, crystallized into sweet rock candy. 

Frankie tried again to concentrate, but it was no use. Her thoughts kept orbiting Geraldine, tracing the way her fingers curled around the edge of the page, how her eyes narrowed slightly when she was focused, how her lips barely moved when she read.

She didn’t just want to look at her. She wanted to study her, the way you do with valuable and peculiar things. Like she might crack open if you ogled hard enough. Like she might tell you all the secrets she kept hidden beneath that habit.

And Hell—Frankie wanted those secrets. Wanted them like a good sleep , like silence, like the cigarette she'd stubbed out too early. She wanted them like she wanted to believe there was still something good that could unfold in her hands without trashing it.

She turned back to the story, pretending to care. But how could inked boys on a stupid hill compete with the living myth in her presence?”

She kinda looked like a mountain. A tall and solemn mountain.Her presence commanding in its quiet majesty. The black habit framed her like a shadow against snowfall, the soft cream of her shirt echoing moonlight on stone. And her eyes, moss-green and unwavering, carried the hush of high altitudes—alive, ancient, and impossibly motionless.

She glanced at Geraldine one last time. Just a glance. Just in case the nun wasn’t reading either.

But she was. She always was.

She’d finished The Fellowship of the Ring in a week, devouring it in her third-floor room, the pages lit by the weak glow of a lamp that flickers like it was on its last breath.

After all, she had more free time than she knew what to do with.

The book was dense, full of winding paths and epic quests, but no spiders.

She felt like a fool when she realized Shelob was probably in The Two Towers .

So she grabbed the next volume from the library, her cheeks burning with the thought that she was reading to impress a girl.

No—a nun. Sister Geraldine.

Frankie wondered how long it had been since someone looked at Geraldine the way she did, with a longing that felt dangerous.

She clutched The Two Towers , her fingers tracing the faded cover, and found Geraldine in her usual corner, her tall frame folded into a creaking chair, that black hardcover book in her hands—no title, no clue, just the same worn edges she’d seen before.

Geraldine’s pixie-like nose and thick eyebrows caught the light, her rosy lips parted slightly as she read, her sage-green eyes tired but sharp, like she saw more than she let on.

“Hey,” Frankie said, her voice low, a thread of nerves weaving through it. She slid into the chair beside Geraldine, closer than necessary, the air between them warm and heavy. “Finished Fellowship.”

Geraldine looked up, her lips curving into that faint, knowing smile that made Frankie’s pulse skip. 

"Did you?" she asked, voice low, playful, like she was nudging a bruise just to see if it still hurt. "And? What’s your favorite character?"

Frankie grinned. A wicked, sun-flare kind of grin that made Geraldine’s stomach do something small and chaotic. “He’s got that broody, stray-dog energy.” She paused. “But honestly? Kinda overrated.”

Geraldine blinked. “Overrated?” The corners of her mouth twitched. She looked both scandalized and deeply entertained.

“I mean, yeah. It’s just dudes in tunics running around after prophecies. No stakes. No real intimacy . Not even a kiss. Just a bunch of grown men trauma-bonding over an evil ring.” Frankie tapped her nails on the wooden table between them, restless like a moth thumping against a lightbulb. “Kinda dry , don’t you think?”

Geraldine chuckled, her fingers brushing a stray thread from her sleeve. "You’re not wrong. It’s a bit... chaste ."

"Like… where are the girls?" Frankie leaned forward. "So, you’re telling me this Tolkien guy spent a thousand pages writing about dudes in the woods. Not a single girl...? “I'd set myself on fire just for the drama. There’s no way I’d survive. I’d cause a scandal within twenty-four hours."

That pulled a real laugh out of Geraldine—sharp and sudden, like something knocked loose inside her. “You would.”

"I mean, I'm lowkey glad tho," Frankie continued, eyes glittering, "Imagine being stuck in the woods with those losers. Jeez, I’d lose it so quickly. The story would be so much shorter."

"How so?"

Frankie smirked, emboldened. “If I were Sam, I’d have kicked Frodo’s whiny little ass by the end of chapter two.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “ Shit —sorry. Can I curse in front of you?”

Geraldine gave her a look—half amusement, half reprimand. “I’ll let that one slide. But Sister Gabrielle wouldn’t”

“I mean, for real though—he’s just doing what Gandalf tells him. There’s no resistance. No questions. Just, ‘Yes sir, here’s my entire life, take it.’ That’s not heroic. That’s… I don’t know. Institutionalized.”

Geraldine’s fingers stilled on the book. Her expression shifted—barely—but it was enough for Frankie to notice.

“You’re not entirely wrong,” Geraldine said after a moment, her voice quieter now, more like candle smoke curling around the rafters. “The Church favors stories like that. Order. Obedience. Good and evil with no shade between.” She waved a hand, smiling. "Also, the lack of women is outstanding... But I still love the story. There’s something about the weight of it. The way Frodo just keeps going. It feels real, even without the romance."

Frankie rested her chin on her hand, her gaze never leaving Geraldine. "Real? It’s all wizards and hobbits. I understand now why we’re allowed to read it. It’s so... inauthentic . No actual humanity, no real complexity . In the end, they’re either good or bad."

Geraldine leaned in too, the space between them charged. "I think you’re being reductionist. However, even if that was the case… There’s power in these stories. Frodo’s carrying that ring—it’s not so different from carrying your own demons."

Frankie softened. Her fingers drifted to the edge of the table, close to Geraldine’s. "Demons, huh? Bet you think I’ve got a whole hive."

Geraldine met her eyes. Her gaze was steady, moonlit, and kind. "Don’t we all? Don’t you think Frodo’s choice—to carry the ring, to keep going—was his way of facing his own?"

Frankie hesitated. Her smirk flickered. She felt like she was suddenly holding something fragile and ancient. "I think Frodo is a pussy."

Geraldine broke. Her laugh rang out, sharp and scandalized and beautiful.

Frankie grinned, emboldened. "I think he’s just doing what Gandalf tells him to. He’s a pawn, not a hero. The whole book is about following orders, not questioning them. There’s got to be some religious subtext in that, right? Like, all these rules, all this blind obedience. It’s kinda culty…"

“Okay, fair enough Professor… What would you like to happen in the book? If you could rewrite it, what would Frodo do?”

Frankie leaned closer, her voice dropping to a husky murmur, her words laced with defiance.

“I’d have Frodo run away with the ring.” she almost whispered. As if revealing a proposition. “Screw the quest. I want him to test it, and let him decide for himself if it’s worth destroying, instead of just doing someone else’s dirty work.”

Geraldine’s smile returned, slow and deliberate, a spark of admiration in her eyes

 “That’s bold,” she said, her voice soft but edged with challenge. “But would Frodo be strong enough to make that choice? Or would the ring break him, like it breaks everyone else?”

"Does it matter?” Frankie said. “Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what a good person does after knowing evil power?”

“I thought that was what the book was about,” Geraldine replied.

“No.” Frankie contradicted “the book is about a dumb privileged hobbit who goes on a quest to destroy something he doesn’t understand. He is granted freedom, but he is too stupid to see that”.

“Freedom’s not as simple as running away, Frankie. Sometimes it’s about choosing what to carry.”

Frankie’s heart thudded, her fingers twitching closer to Geraldine’s hand, the space between them electric.

She wanted to grab her hand. She wanted to do something really wrong with those fingers, something perhaps unholy.

“Maybe,” she said, her tone teasing but sharp. “But at least he’d get to choose. Don’t you ever wish you’d chosen something else, Sister?”

Geraldine blinked with tardiness, her mouth still curved with amusement, but her fingers had stilled. Frankie watched her carefully.

"Haven’t we had this conversation already?" Geraldine murmured, her voice low, her eyes undecipherable.

Frankie looked away, embarrassed. "Sorry. I get carried away when I speak to you."

"Why?"

Frankie swallowed. "Umm... you’re kinda the coolest," she let out. Then, a little softer: "Wish you were my friend."

Geraldine nodded, and for a second, her smile turned inward. Sad. But sincere. "We can be friends. As long as we respect each other."

Frankie smiled, but it came wrapped in something bitter. Because she wanted more than friendship, more than this hushed little corner of a dying library.

She wanted to be back at a bar in New Jersey, her boots on a stool, her guitar plugged in, Geraldine leaning against a wall watching her sing with a drink in her hand and no crucifix around her neck.

But they were here. And Frankie couldn’t stop staring at the way Geraldine’s fingers curled around the spine of the book, like she was holding something alive and holy.

"So," Geraldine said, eyes sparking again, "What about Gollum?"

Frankie grinned. "What about him?"

"You didn’t mention him. And I feel like you have thoughts."

"Okay," Frankie said, leaning in. "Gollum is a victim. Straight up. PTSD, addiction, betrayal. He's the realest character in the whole damn saga. Everyone treats him like garbage, but he's just... broken."

"He is broken," Geraldine said softly. "But he’s also dangerous. That’s what makes him tragic. He can’t be trusted, but you can’t help but pity him."

"Maybe that’s why I like him," Frankie replied. "Because people always expect the broken to be pure. But they’re messy. Dangerous. And still worth saving ."

Geraldine didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at her, lips parted, breathing slow.

“Do you relate to him?” the nun questioned. “Do you think you’re worth saving?”

These were the moments that truly unsettled Frankie—just like their first quiet meeting in her room, or that conversation in the barn— the way Geraldine gloomed.

She would get really fucking dark. She pondered things that a nun shouldn’t touch, let alone cradle. Thoughts about mercy twisted into something cruel, making you doubt whether God ever truly looked anyone in the eye.

Her voice would dip, soft as ash, and Frankie could feel it—something sacred and partially evil burning sideways.

Because in those glimmers of suspicion, of darkness gently folded into faith, she saw someone cracked in all the right places. And that terrified her more than any sermon ever could.

“I don’t know yet”. Frankie confessed. “Now, for some reason… I feel filthier than ever”.  

She felt like an insect under a microscope—studied, dissected —by the creature before her, a woman who held equal measures of heaven and hell in her gaze. It made Frankie feel unbearably small. Not just sad, but insufficient. Because each time Geraldine unraveled into shadow, Frankie felt herself pulled deeper, more willingly than she ever admitted. And she knew—one day she’d wake with the serpent curled around her throat, or the venom already blooming sweetly in her heart, too late to resist, too gone to regret.

"You’re really something," she said finally.

"You too," Frankie agreed.

The air between them thickened, charged with an unspoken tension that made Frankie’s skin prickle.

She wanted to keep talking, to swerve closer, to see how far this could go in a place that forbade it. But before she could speak, a scream tore through the library’s quiet—sharp, raw, coming from the hall. Geraldine’s head snapped up, her composure shifting to alertness.

Like she could smell Frankie’s inner desires.

“I have to go,” she announced, standing, her tall frame unfolding with a grace that made Frankie’s chest ache. She left her black book on the table, its cover worn and unmarked, and hurried out, her footsteps fading into the chaos beyond.

Frankie stared at the book, her heart pounding.

The library was empty now, the shelves looming like silent witnesses. She reached for it, her fingers trembling, and flipped it open, the pages yellowed and rough.

She scanned quickly, her eyes catching a name— Laura —before footsteps echoed in the hall again. She snapped the book shut, shoving it back onto the table, her pulse racing like she’d been caught stealing. Laura.

A vampire novel with a character named Laura. It was all she had, but it was enough to spark a desperate need to know more.

She needed answers, needed to understand what Geraldine was hiding. Or thinking. She wanted more of her.

When the bell rang for evening phone hours, Frankie slipped past the murmuring rec room and ducked into the tiny office where the landline lived—a squat beige relic on a scratched desk that reeked of dust and instant coffee. It wasn't actually her day to make calls. She dialed her mother’s number with shaking fingers.

“Frankie?” Her mother’s voice crackled through, surprised and laced with worry. “Is everything okay?”

“Hi, mommy, I’m fine.” Frankie swallowed and softened her tone. “I called you earlier this week because I just… I need you to look something up for me. Online. A vampire novel—there’s a character named Laura. It’s important.”

There was a pause. Then the tired sigh of someone navigating both concern and dial-up limitations.

“Sweetheart, I’d have to disconnect the phone to get on the internet. Remember? One line.”

Frankie gave a breathy laugh, almost fond.

“It’s 2003, Mom. You’re the last person on Earth without a cellphone.”

“I like my landline,” her mom huffed, but without heat. “How’s the place? Are they treating you okay? Are they… respecting the vegetarian thing?”

“They mostly think tofu’s a vegetable,” Frankie muttered, then shrugged even though her mom couldn’t see it. “But yeah. I’m managing. There’s a lot of Jesus everywhere. And the nuns are cool… in a weirdly polite way . It feels like high school, actually.”

“I’d feel better if you’d just tell me what this is about.”

“Oh it’s just a dumb book people keep talking about…” Frankie hesitated, her voice slipping back into urgency. “Please just find it. Buy it, send it to me. Please? Promise?”

Another pause. A softer breath. “Okay, honey. I’ll try.”

Frankie closed her eyes. “Thanks, Mom. Swear I’ll call you again, during my phone hours!”

She hung up before she could say anything else, the words tangling in her throat. The office door creaked as she leaned back against it.

Had she ever gone this far before? Would the old Frankie have hunted down a name like this—chased after scraps of a girl’s existence like a fucking creep?

This place was getting under her skin, into her bones, maybe into her head. But how could she blame herself? What was she supposed to do here—pray like a ghost and rot in regret, like the sisters wanted? No. Not her.

She knew exactly why she came. She wasn’t crazy. A little criminal, maybe . But not insane. And the way her body thrummed near flames, the way the burn felt like truth? Everyone’s got something. Frankie just happened to like fire , a little too much.

But that wasn’t the real reason why she was sent here. 

Thanks to Sister Geraldine she’d tried escaping into high fantasy novels, tales of elves and quests, but their pages had grown brittle and predictable, unable to hold her attention against the suffocating reality.

The library was her only refuge, not for the books but for her — the stern nun whose presence was both a challenge and a fascination.

Frankie would linger in the shadowed stacks, pretending to read while stealing glances at the older woman.
Geraldine’s bushy eyebrows furrowed as she turned the pages of her missal, her thin lips moving silently in prayer or study.

The severity of her habit couldn’t hide the human beneath—the faint lines of age, the calloused hands that betrayed a life of labor.

Frankie wondered what else was hidden, what secrets lay beneath the starched veil. Her thoughts strayed to places they shouldn’t, dark and tangled as the asylum’s corridors.

She wondered what else was tangled under her clothes. 

She stopped herself, heart thudding. She was crossing a line, one she’d danced along for weeks.

But why not? The whole charade of treating nuns like saints and priests like gods had always rankled her.

Even in Catholic school, she’d seen through the facade. Priests were men, nuns were women—flesh and blood, not divine. Their “holy” garments were just costumes, granting authority without morality.

She remembered her confessions at fourteen, the priest’s probing questions: Do you have a boyfriend? Have you kissed? How does he kiss you? His voice had been oily, too eager. She’d frozen, then fled, telling her mother everything. The complaint got him relocated, whispers trailing him like smoke—apparently, he preferred boys. Frankie, with her cropped hair and boyish swagger, might’ve confused him. She’d always been a puzzle, even to herself.

Now, in the common room, she sat across from Anthony, cards splayed between them on a scarred oak table.
The other patients milled about, their murmurs blending with the creak of the floor.

Anthony was different from the rest, all softness—long lashes, a poet’s sensitivity, his words lilting like Kurt Cobain after a helium hit.

It made sense why he was here; that kind of fragility made the world a razor’s edge. He scribbled poetry in the margins of his prayer book, verses about stars and sorrow, and Frankie liked him for it, even if she didn’t trust his charm.

“Don’t you wanna make out?” Anthony asked, tossing down a card with a grin.

Frankie snorted, flipping her own card.

“I’m kinda gay , dude.”

“I’m growing my hair out tho,” he teased, running a hand through his shaggy locks. “In a few months, you won’t even notice I’m a man.”

She smirked, studying him. Maybe it was true. Anthony’s delicate frame and soft voice blurred the edges of masculinity.

He was pretty, in a way that made you forget gender entirely. But she wasn’t fooled. 

“I’ll notice,” she murmured, leaning back. “I’ll notice once the clothes are off.”

Anthony’s laugh was bright, cutting through the room’s gloom.

“Frankie, you're a slut. I never mentioned nudity”.

“I’m a romantic, I could never just kiss someone I like,” she confessed jokingly.

“Don’t worry then, we can always scissor ” he said, playing another card. “My dick’s so small it might as well be a clit.”

Frankie burst out laughing, the sound raw and unguarded.

“Really? Maybe I’ll let you hit… just ‘cause you know what a clit is.”

Anthony chuckled as well. 

“I wish I had one, though,” he said, eyes glinting. “Women are multiorgasmic, right?”

The room erupted, other patients hooting and chiming in, debating dicks versus vaginas with the kind of reckless abandon only the desperate could muster.

Sister Hayley joined in, her laughter too bright for the place’s decay. Frankie envied her ease, her ability to float through this purgatory without sinking.

“There was a time I wished I had both,” Anthony said, his gaze locking onto Sister Hayley with a mischievous edge. “But that’s the whole point of copulation, isn’t it, Sister? To get both parts to collide.”

Frankie caught the shift, the way his words weren’t for her but for Hayley. The nun’s cheeks flushed pink, her hands fluttering like startled birds.

“Well,” Hayley stammered, “the point of copulation is procreation. According to Genesis 1:28: ‘God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’”

Anthony’s grin widened, a fox in a henhouse. He shot Frankie a look, pleased with himself for rattling the nun. Frankie leaned in, not ready to let it go.

“But not all sex ends in kids, Sister,” she said, her voice low, challenging. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ”

Hayley’s eyes lit up, delighted by the Bible quote, oblivious to the barb beneath it. She didn’t know Frankie’s history, the years of Catholic school that had drilled scripture into her skull.

“Well, that doesn’t mean sex is less of a covenantal act,” Hayley said, her voice earnest.

“Then why’d God give me a clit? Female pleasure has nothing to do with procreation.” Frankie shot back, her tone sharp but playful. “And it’s forbidden”.

Hayley blinked, unfazed.

“It’s not forbidden,” she said, her cheer undimmed. “It’s tied to divine intention.”

“Hell yeah,” Anthony said, nodding like Hayley had just preached gospel truth. His eyes danced with amusement, clearly enjoying his role as instigator.

Frankie grinned, finding his audacity infectious. He was really trying to flirt with a nun, and it was working—Hayley was flustered but engaged, her innocence making her an easy mark.

“But it’s considered dirty,” Frankie pressed leaning forward, unanticipatedly the discussion stopped being a joke to her, and more like a personal attack. “Don’t they say that ‘Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.’”

Hayley nodded, undeterred. “Well, of course the Bible says that. Adultery is sexually immoral.”

“Pleasure is sexually immoral”. Frankie added.

“Enjoying delicious meals, the love of family, and the physical pleasures of marriage are considered gifts from God and not sinful in themselves, Frankie.”

“But you wouldn’t allow my marriage,” Frankie pushed, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Wouldn’t you?”  

“Oh how couldn’t we?” Hayley added “If there’s love”

“Then you’d allow sodomy.”

The room froze.

Hayley’s gasp was audible, her eyes wide as she struggled for a response.

She was caught, trapped between her faith and the room full of patients—many here because of the scars left by conversion therapy or homophobic violence.
She couldn’t condone sodomy without betraying her vows, but she couldn’t condemn it without alienating the broken souls around her.

“Well,” Hayley began, her voice trembling, “Leviticus says: ‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination…’”

“Leviticus can say whatever the hell they want” Frankie debated “but what do you say Sister?” 

The room exploded in noise, patients shouting over each other, some laughing, some angry.

And that was the thing that infuriated Frankie the most about Catholics: the way they hid behind scripture like it was armor.

Just say you don’t believe in homosexuality—don’t pawn it off on “the Bible.” It’s a book, not a weapon.

It doesn’t wield power on its own; people give it teeth when they choose to bite. 

Part of her—maybe the softest part—had hoped Sister Hayley wouldn’t be like the rest. That she’d speak up, challenge the dogma. But instead, she’d just stood there, quiet behind her collar. Passive. And that silence stung worse than any preachment.

She was caught in the turmoil of the debate she started, when a soft, cold voice cut through the chaos like a sword, and she could sense the people start to gang up against Sister Hayley.

“Leviticus also states “And with a male you shall not lie. ”

Sister Geraldine stood in the doorway, her silhouette stark against the inconsistent light. Her face was a mask of misery, her eyes boring into Frankie with an intensity that felt like a physical weight.

The air grew heavier, the walls closing in.

Frankie met her gaze, unflinching.

“Oh, don’t worry, Sister,” she said, her voice dripping with defiance. “I won’t lie with a male.”

Chapter Text

It was about her third week at Saint Agnes. Although she kept track of the days, some were so repetitive they would blend into each other.

She wasn’t sure if she was here to heal or to hide, but the promise of a trip to Lake Cataouatche—a late Fourth of July celebration—felt like a spark in the darkness.

Sister Hayley, with her honeyed drawl and persistent merriness, had been waxing poetic about the outing all week. 

“Y’all are gonna love it!” she’d said, her eyes bright as she leaned across the dining hall table. “We’ll swim, fish, grill some burgers—vegetarian as well— and light a big ol’ bonfire by the lake. It’s gonna be magical!”

Frankie barely registered the swimming or fishing talk, except for the bonfire.

That word ignited something primal in her, a hunger that crooked tight in her stomach.

The Fourth of July wasn’t about flag-waving or anthems for Frankie.

Because a part of her hated America. And despised how patriotism was understood as white supremacy. But within all that conflict, she still loved the Fourth of July.

The same way you love your father even though he’d hurt you.

Yet her fascination with the holiday had nothing to do with Uncle Sam and more with her one true love.
Pyrotechnics — fireworks shattered the sky into a million reckless stars, the way flames danced with a life of their own.

She could still feel her first kiss at thirteen, pressed against a high school freshman girl under a Jersey boardwalk, the air thick with gunpowder and cherry lip gloss.

She remembered the night she saw a man’s hair catch fire at a beach party, the crowd’s screams mingling with the crackle of flames as he stumbled, crowned in fleeting, terrible glory.

And fire was her muse , her stage.

It was her father’s gigs in smoky dive bars, where she’d watch him coax magic from his drums under lights that burned like small suns.
Later, her own shows—screaming into a mic, the crowd a writhing sea of shadows—felt like offerings to that same untamed force.

But fire had also led her to ruin.
It led her to Ronnie, with his sly grin and sickly promises.

College had been a haze of stolen nights and shouted betrayals, culminating in the moment she doused his car in gasoline and struck the match. The flames had roared with her fury, but they left her with nothing but sirens and a one-way ticket to Saint Agnes.

Fire gave , and fire took .

She respected it. 

Now, Frankie sat in a creaking yellow cracking bus with her fake memories, since everything became blurry with the passage of time. Rattling along a narrow road through the wilds of Louisiana.

The seats were worn, the air heavy with mugginess and anticipation. For a split second, she felt like a kid on a school field trip, caught between nostalgia and unease.

The landscape was a gothic painting come to life—bayous stretching like dark veins, their surfaces glinting under a sky beaten with twilight.

Those cypress trees had grown familiar with the days, wearing Spanish moss like old dames in lace gowns, whispering secrets through gossamer sighs. Their roots curled from the earth like arthritic fingers hunting for tea leaves in the soil, and the road beneath trembled like a child sneaking past sleeping giants. Above, branches pirouetted in wind that smelled faintly of memory—of carnival popcorn and rain-soaked letters never sent.  Yet it carried the scent of wet dirt, magnolia, and something faintly feral.

It was nothing like Jersey’s concrete sprawl, its strip malls and smokestacks.

This place pulsed with a heartbeat, it breathed through the leaves, mumbled lullabies in a language only the foxes truly understood. The sounds came like riddles in a dream—soft, sly, almost teasing—as if the trees were gossiping about her behind their bark.

Frankie, wide-eyed and half-lost, found herself smiling at it all. As though the ground itself had invited her in for a tea party.

She sat next to Anthony, the golden boy of Saint Agnes.

Anthony was royalty here—blond hair that shimmered, spun gold, blue eyes that pierced like winter light, and a voice so smooth it could charm snakes from the swamp.

Every nurse knew him by name, even those who didn’t work the third floor, west wing. And It wasn’t just his angelic looks, though they were undeniable.

It was his manners, his charm, the way he spoke— always too attentive, too polished , like he didn’t belong in a place like this. Like her, maybe. Maybe he was just another privileged soul who’d stumbled into this limbo.

Or another white person who avoided prison by having money and connections. 

Anthony leaned back, his grin infectious as he raised his voice over the bus’s rumble. “Alright, everybody, time for a sing-along! Who’s got a song?” Before long, he had the group belting out “Sweet Caroline,” a choice so absurdly out of place that Frankie couldn’t help but smirk.

Patients who usually stared at their shoes were singing, their voices a chaotic, joyful mess. Even Nurse Evelyn, with her starched uniform and perpetual frown, was tapping her foot, a rare smile tugging at her lips.

Anthony nudged Frankie, his elbow brushing hers. “Come on, Jersey girl, you know this one. Sing it with me.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smirk betrayed her. “I’m more Black Flag than beach party anthems.”

He laughed, a bright, easy sound that cut through the bus’s din. “Black Flag, huh? Save that for the bonfire karaoke. For now, you’re stuck with my playlist.”

“Fine,” Frankie said, her grin widening despite herself. “But don’t mind me if I’m out of key”

As the singing continued, Anthony leaned across the aisle to Kim, another patient with a sharp wit and a habit of sketching in the margins of her notebooks.

“Look, it’s like they put the grumpy ones together,” he whispered, nodding toward Sister Geraldine and Sister Gabrielle, who sat side by side at the front, their faces turned to the window. “They’re like the evil step-sisters.”

Naturally, in his warped fairytale, Hayley sparkled as Cinderella. And he, no surprise, saw himself as the charming prince with a crooked smile. Frankie paused, unsure of her role in the make-believe.

Maybe whoever falls for the wicked stepsister, only to remember—that part doesn’t exist in the story. Since the old stupid men who wrote these stories loved to antagonize women whose personality isn’t overtaken by their looks.

And even stupider men and crueler women love to perpetuate the concept. 

And she’d marry the evil step-sister if she was like Geraldine.  

Kim snorted, but Frankie shook her head.

Geraldine wasn’t grumpy. Not even close. She was sugar dusted with quiet—more ballad than growl. Sure, she kept her voice tucked behind her teeth sometimes, but calling her grumpy was like mistaking moonlight for frostbite.

A stretch . A fumble. A misread of softness for storms.

Frankie did her best to stay grounded, but watching her—lost in a daze of sorrow and reflection—made Frankie wonder. Had she too spent nights unraveling the choices that brought her here? What leads a woman so beautiful, so intelligent, so poised , to don a habit and devote herself to a life inside a mental retreat?

“Geraldine’s not grumpy,” she admitted quietly, her voice firm. “She’s nice. We talked in the library the other day—Lord of the Rings, all that nerdy stuff. She’s cool.”

Anthony raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “No shit? I had her sorted as the silent, judgy type.”

“Nope,” Frankie said, glancing at Geraldine’s profile against the window. The nun’s face was calm, her eyes tracing the passing landscape as if searching for something. “She’s sweet, just… shy , you know? Like she’s got layers.”

“Layers, huh?” Anthony quizzed, teasing. “You’re getting soft on us, Frankie.”

“Shut up,” she shot back, but there was no heat in it.

“I would’ve bullied her in High School, for sure” Kim blurted out, and Anthony laughed agreeing.

“Yeah, you would’ve”.

They continued talking about that. About how she would’ve also bullied Sister Hayley. And of course he’d defend her.

For a moment, Frankie found herself studying the choreography between Anthony and Hayley with unnerving interest.

Something about their interactions and banters made her curious—like maybe she could glean tips on how to flirt with a nun.

Then it hit her. That thought sat in her head like a loose tooth—risky, ridiculous, and so deeply wrong it made her flinch. She turned to the window, hoping the glass might forgive her.

The deeper they drove into Louisiana, the more it felt like a dreamscape. Marshes stretched endlessly, their waters dark and still, reflecting the twisted silhouettes of woodland.

Every now and then, a heron would lift off, its wings slicing through the golden air, or a ripple would betray an alligator lurking beneath the surface. Frankie felt a pull, a quiet thrill at being here, so far from everything she’d known.

The bus slowed, gravel crunching under its tires as they neared Lake Cataouatche. The singing tapered off, replaced by a hum of excitement. Frankie leaned back, closing her eyes, letting the rhythm of the road steady her restless heart.

Anthony nudged her again. “You good? You got all quiet.”

She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. “Yeah, just… taking it in. This place is wild. Nothing like Jersey.”

He nodded, glancing out the window. “Oh yeah, Louisiana’s got a soul to it. Wait till you see the lake at night—the stars, the fire, the whole deal. It’s like something out of a story.”

The bus rolled to a stop, and the group spilled out onto the shore. The lake stretched before them, its surface a mirror for the fading sky, fringed by wildflowers that glowed into the sun. 

Frankie caught Sister Geraldine’s eye as they unloaded supplies—coolers, fishing rods, bags of buns and patties. The nun offered a small, knowing smile, like they shared a pact forged in their library talk of hobbits and quests. Maybe later, by the fire, they’d pick up where they left off. For now, there was a lake to explore, burgers to grill, and a flame to light.

“Let me carry this stuff… Gee –Sister,” She remarked. And Geraldine nodded, thankful.

It landed on Frankie then, that all the patients were either following Hayley or running towards the lake with the other nurses and nuns. Only Geraldine, and old Sister Gabrielle were getting the stuff from the bus.

Maybe they were “grumpy” for a reason.

“Where’s The Stallion when you need it?” the eldest grunted under her breath. And Geraldine let out a choked laugh.

Frankie had no idea what they were talking about, until Geraldine suggested calling him.

“Raymond! Can you help us?” She chirped.

That’s when Frankie laughed.

They were talking about Nurse Ray. He was The Stallion.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Sister Hayley announced. “Everybody come here, we’re handing you a custom made bracelet with your name and then I’ll show you guys our amazing schedule!”

“We’re also gonna have it printed here, so don’t worry, don’t get anxious ,” Nurse Evelyn warned.

The first activity was to set up the camp and offer intentions for the day, at 10 they were meant to have some quiet time fishing and enjoying the lake.

From 11:30 they’d play games that the Sisters had prepared, some Saints and Symbols Scavenger Hunt, to find nature items that match virtues or saint stories. Along with some hidden items.

Then they’d have a rosary relay, yes, a rosary relay. It was the way they named those activities that made Frankie fail to take them seriously, but it basically consisted of teams completing tasks inspired by mysteries of the rosary.

At 12:30 they’d grill the burgers and vegetables and have a nice picnic. Of course they’d pray before the meal. Later they’d swim, supervised only, and have a group discussion, scripture reflection.

Additionally, some free time, a guided walk for those interested and finally the bonfire at 17:30.

As lame as it sounded, Frankie found the whole itinerary… endearing .

The entire day had been so carefully planned. And from what she overheard, this was already the third retreat of its kind that summer. Group three out of six.

No wonder the nuns looked like they were running on nothing but grace and grit.

So she behaved. Kept her mouth shut and her energy contained. She didn't want to add to the burden, not today.

She wandered toward the big clearing, just past the main picnic area, where the Sisters had set up the grill and several fold-out tables. A huge cooler full of burgers and buns stood open, sweating in the heat.

And there she was—Sister Geraldine, all alone, sleeves rolled to her elbows, expression pinched with focus. She moved briskly between trays of vegetables, foil-wrapped patties, and a worn-out grill that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since forever.

Frankie hovered at the edge of the clearing, watching for a moment. Geraldine always looked a little lost when left to manage something loud and human on her own. Like she wasn’t built for chaos but chose to meet it anyway.

Frankie stepped closer, dragging a cooler behind her with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever. “Need a hand, Sister?”

Geraldine looked up, startled, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t tell me you’re skipping the rosary relay.”

“Oh no, they haven’t started yet,” Frankie said, waving a hand. “And I figured you could use some help. Everyone else is either neck-deep in lake water or chasing metaphors in the woods.”

Geraldine sighed and looked around. “We do have more staff than needed… but I don’t know where they are now , so sure. Just—nothing sharp, please.”

“Noted.” Frankie smiled, stepping up beside her. “Since when am I a danger to the onions?”

Geraldine gave her a very specific kind of look, dry and pointed. “Since your file says you lit a Volvo on fire.”

Frankie snorted. “Yeah, well . He had it coming.” Then, softly, more serious, “I’d never hurt you… or myself. You know that, right?”

The way Geraldine blinked at her—once, slow—made something squeeze in Frankie’s chest. She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she moved to a crate nearby and rummaged through a bin, returning a moment later with something in her hand.

She handed Frankie a child-safe plastic knife. Red, dull-edged, the kind toddlers used to slice playdough.

“There,” Geraldine said, gently but firmly. “You can chop the onions now.”

Frankie stared at the knife. Laughed once, dry and stunned. “Wow. Okay. This is humiliating.”

Geraldine gave her a tired smile, but it was kind. And somehow, it hurt more than if she'd laughed in her face.

It crossed Frankie’s mind, what kind of horrors had she been exposed to?

Still, Frankie took it. Sat down on the little folding bench and started in on the onions—awkwardly, inefficiently, the knife barely making it through the first layer.

She could feel Geraldine behind her, sorting buns and counting burgers, but it didn’t feel like surveillance, more like company . It felt like being trusted. A little.

“Since when are you vegetarian?” Geraldine asked, breaking the silence.

“Since I was a kid, I once ate a chicken and almost died,” Frankie shared. “Also… I dunno. I like cows.”

“More than horses?”

“ Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe I just like the barn a little too much .”

Geraldine huffed a laugh, and Frankie turned her head to look at her—only to find her already watching. Caught in the middle of checking on the grill, her face flushed pink from the sun and exertion. A loose strand of hair stuck to her cheek.

They could be anywhere, Frankie dreamt suddenly.

Not at a religious retreat. Not at a mental institution.

Just two women at a campsite. A lake trip. Cooking. Laughing. Like a couple.

And the thought hit her in the sternum like a rock.

Frankie had the overwhelming urge to kiss her cheek. To rest her hand on Geraldine’s waist and feel the give of her body there. To move beside her with the practiced ease of someone who belonged next to her. The thought itself was so stupidly domestic, it made her stomach flip.

“Do you want me to… uh… light the fire?” Frankie offered, voice a little too casual.

Geraldine paused. Her body tensed almost imperceptibly. “Are you asking to start the grill… or the bonfire?”

“Grill,” Frankie said, but smiled. “Promise not to burn down Louisiana.”

Geraldine hesitated for a beat longer than necessary, then nodded. “Fine. But I’ll be watching.”

Frankie saluted with her plastic knife, then set it down.

“You always watch me,” she hinted, too flirty to be friendly.

“I have to,” Geraldine replied evenly. But she was smiling again.

Frankie’s chest ached in the strangest, gentlest way.

If this kept up, she was going to fall in love with a nun.

Frankie crouched by the grill, her fingers moving with an ease that made the hairs on Geraldine’s arms rise.

The way she laid the coals, stacked the kindling—delicate, exact—wasn’t rushed or careless. It was almost reverent. Like she wasn’t just starting a fire, but conjuring something from beneath the skin of the world.

She struck the match with her thumbnail, and the flare of orange made her pupils swell. The flicker licked up her wrist in gold, and she stared into it, lips parted slightly like someone being kissed from inside their own mouth.

Geraldine cleared her throat. “You’re good at that.”

Frankie didn’t look away from the flame. “ Yeah . I know.”

The fire caught quickly, snapping and twisting in the pit, already curling around the first edge of charcoal. She watched it the way other people watched lovers sleep. Eyes dark, but fond.

“You make it look like a... spiritual practice,” Geraldine said, watching the way Frankie’s face warmed in the orange light, the shadow along her jaw flickering.

“It kinda is,” Frankie admitted. “Or at least… as long as I remember.”

Geraldine stepped closer. “When did it start?”

Frankie shrugged. She stood, brushing her hands on her jeans. “As a kid, I didn’t realize it was bad. You know, little stuff. Birthday candles, dry leaves, Barbies with too much Aquanet.” She grinned at that. “But in college… that’s when it turned.”

Geraldine’s brow furrowed, gently. “What happened?”

Frankie hesitated. She didn’t like saying his name. It was like chewing paper.

“I met Ronnie.”

At that, Geraldine’s expression shifted—not just concern. Recognition. A shadow passed behind her eyes.

Frankie tilted her head. “You know him?”

Geraldine didn’t answer immediately. She looked past Frankie, toward the lake. The breeze lifted her veil slightly, soft against her cheek.

Frankie pressed, gentler this time. “He used to be here, right? I mean, that’s why I didn’t go to prison. His family... don’t they own the retreat or something? Said I needed ‘support ,’ not ‘consequences .’ Ironic, huh?”

Geraldine didn’t reply. She didn’t nod or shake her head. She just switched, seamless, like closing one book and opening another.

“And how does it feel? The fire.”

Frankie blinked. “You’re dodging.”

“I’m redirecting.”

Frankie smirked, despite herself. “Okay. Well... It’s not always about destruction, if that’s what you’re asking.” She stepped closer to Geraldine, her voice softening. “Sometimes it’s just about heat. Sometimes I just need to feel something hot. Like I’ll lose my shape if I don’t. There’s a voyeuristic aspect as well… I love to watch it being born, growing and…”

Geraldine looked at her carefully.

“Dying?” 

“No…” She divulged slightly embarrassed.  “I actually hate that part.” 

“You’d be a terrible firefighter.” Geraldine joked. 

“Yeah, I would,” she chuckled. “Lighting a candle helps,” Frankie added. “Or flicking a lighter for a while. Just watching it dance. It sounds stupid, but… it keeps my hands steady. It keeps my mind from eating on itself.”

Her eyes had drifted down, tracing the soft seam of Geraldine’s mouth now, that shy upper lip. She was too close. Or maybe just close enough.

“Maybe…” Geraldine said, voice so low it barely crested above the crackle of the coals, “maybe I can talk to the doctor, which one did you get? Dr. May? See if he’ll give you a lighter. Since… I can’t give you fire. ”

Frankie’s lips twitched. “Are you sure about that?”

“Totally, yeah, I can speak on your behalf… But you have to be good”.

Frankie felt bad just for a second, because Geraldine hadn't actually caught what she meant. That she could give her fire. Or maybe she had and decided to ignore her. 

“ I’d be so good just for you” Frankie teased.

Geraldine’s eyes snapped to hers, startled—and then she rolled them, and they softened with a huff of laughter.

“Oh… Please stop” .

But she didn’t step back. Didn’t shift away. Just stood there with the flames between them, her cheeks flushed, whether from sun or heat or something else.

Frankie turned back to the grill with a crooked smile and tossed a few onion slices on the pan with theatrical care. “Well…At least I was helpful.”

“And you cut them with a plastic knife”. Geraldine gave a small laugh that was all exhale and no sound. Frankie liked making her laugh like that—like it had snuck out, against her will.

“Let me know if I can earn myself a butter knife next time,” she uttered, still watching the fire, but thinking about how Geraldine had said can't give you fire like she meant it metaphorically too.

And she hated herself for the labyrinth her mind kept dragging her through. Maybe her diagnosis wasn’t just paper-bound pity or chemical hush. Maybe it was rot in the wiring, sickness spooling through her nerves like static, scrambling even the simple gift of warmth.

“At this rate—” Geraldine started, but was interrupted by Sister Patricia.

“Sister, what are you doing here alone?” she questioned all bright but suspicious. “Isn’t the patient supposed to be in the Rosary Relay? I hope you’re not encouraging the patient to skip any activities.”

Frankie snorted at that. She definitely couldn’t take the names seriously. And she couldn’t stand being called “ patient ”. 

“I was just assisting Sister Geraldine with the food, since you left her to deal with all this on her own”. Frankie replied rather pissed.

The tables stood ready, chairs sprawled open like petals mid-bloom. They’d built the whole camp from scratch—hands raw, spirits scrappy—save for the occasional nudge from Ray.

“Oh—” Patricia was about to begin but ended up being cut by Frankie.

“Is this how it’s been for the past camps?” Frankie asked, voice crisp like a snapped twig. “You guys chill in the lake while she does all the work?”

Sister Patricia’s expression didn’t shift, but the silence stiffened around her.

Frankie didn’t wait. She tilted her head, lips barely moving. “As far as I’m informed,” she muttered, “the relays haven’t started yet—but sure, I’ll go catch up with my group of patients.” Her smile was tight, rehearsed, the kind you offer right before slamming a door. “Let me know if you need anything else, Sister. I’m happy to help.”

Patricia’s face pinched into a tangle of confusion and simmering offense—like a question snarled too bluntly. Geraldine, meanwhile, lowered eyes, mouth stitched shut in quiet apology. Frankie saw it all, and it buzzed under her skin like static.

She left and for the rest of the day, Geraldine didn’t even look at her.

Not a glance. Not a nod. Not even a breath in her direction.

She'd vanished into herself, neat as folding laundry. And every time Frankie so much as approached—offering to carry things, to help slice the bread, to ask if she could pass the napkins—Geraldine shut her down. Sometimes with the flat edge of politeness. Sometimes with that distant, formal tone that made Frankie feel like a wrong number that kept calling.

She’d gone back to being a nun.

And Frankie had gone back to being a patient in a mental hospital.

Notwithstanding, it was probably the most fun she’d seen any of them have.

The nuns were vibrant —Sister Patricia laughing so hard she snorted juice through her nose, Sister Hayley climbing a tree for reasons nobody quite understood, and Sister Gabrielle yelling at the people like she was a coach for the Saints.

Even the nurses were letting loose: Evelyn had braided daisies into her hair, Ray was doing cannonballs, and Nicky and Lorna were pretending to judge dives like it was the fucking Olympics.

Frankie guessed it was because this group— their group —was chaos incarnate in the best possible way.

Anthony led the charge, of course. He got everyone singing Ain’t No Mountain High Enough while holding a water bottle like a mic, and made the nuns cry-laugh when he tore his shirt off and dramatically begged Sister Hayley to join him in the lake. She only dipped her toes in, but she was giggling the entire time, red in the face and shaking her head like a schoolgirl.

Frankie sat in the grass with a paper plate on her lap, chewing half-heartedly through a veggie burger while her eyes stayed locked on Geraldine across the field.

She watched her with the eyes of someone haunted—like a stray too used to slammed doors.

Guilt tangled with longing, each glance a confession she couldn’t translate. She didn’t know if it was joy or agony that kicked her in the gut whenever their eyes met. Because when it was just them, the world cracked open and spilled heaven. But add witnesses, and the magic rotted fast. Then it all felt cursed. And she felt stupid. Pathetic .

Like a girl playing house in a hospital gown, nursing a crush on sainthood. A broken mind spinning fairy tales where she wasn’t the monster.

Every flick of her wrist, every toss of her veil in the wind, every time she bent to pick up a wayward frisbee or refill a cooler.

She was gorgeous and aloof and completely uninterested.

The bonfire came at sundown. It was beautiful. They all sat in concentric rings, like some midsummer ritual, the flames licking high into the dusk. And Frankie, still dazed, still hurt, hovered at the edge of it all. She watched the fire. She listened to Anthony tell jokes. She caught the edge of Sister Patricia trying to play ukulele.

Eventually, as the embers rose into the low navy sky, Frankie circled the back of the group and walked over to where Geraldine stood apart—alone, at the edge of the trees, arms crossed, half-lit by firelight.

She kept her voice low. Careful. But aching.

The bonfire was meant to be a communal ritual, a moment of unity under God’s watchful eye, but to Frankie, it was just another reminder of the flames she couldn’t control.

Sister Geraldine lingered at the tree line, a quiet outline swallowed by dusk. Her habit fluttered like wings of an imaginary insect—half there, half mystery—threading between shadow and tall grass. She didn’t belong among laughter and noise, not really. There was something spectral in the way she hovered.

Frankie watched her, the question stacking up like a stone: Why always so painfully alone? 

Her arms were crossed, her posture hunched as if to shrink from notice, her eyes—Frankie’s favorite meadow—, glinted with a wariness that she was beginning to spot too accurately.

So, she circled the back of the group, her sneakers crunching on pine needles.

She neared Geraldine with caution, breath catching in her throat, the fire’s glow a mere echo of the ache pulsing behind her ribs. Her words came out hushed, deliberate—but soaked in a longing that no restraint could bury anymore.

It comforted her that Geraldine worked nights, while she slept; that their interactions were tucked into stolen moments during Geraldine’s off-hours. Because if every day mirrored today, she wouldn’t stand a chance at concealing how deeply she’d fallen.

The day had been both a windfall and a torment. Watching her while—so quiet, so carefully contained—biting back words and glances with trembling restraint. Yearning, aching, and sending looks that made it hard to breathe.

All these eye signals that seemed to not land. 

She loathed the distance, the cold silences. Loathed the heaviness that pressed in when Geraldine retreated into her shadows. Loathed the way unspoken things turned their connection into some sort of wrongdoing, or worse, something volatile.

“Got a cigarette?”

Geraldine flinched at the sound, her shoulders tensing, then sighed, a plume of breath rising like smoke. “Frankie. You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her voice low, stern, but threaded with a quiet panic that caught Frankie off guard.

“It’s a public bonfire,” Frankie told her with a shrug, her grin defiant but unsteady, a spark flickering in the dark. “Didn’t know your holiness had jurisdiction over the woods.”

“I’m serious,” Geraldine added, her voice wavering, then edging like a blade honed by fear. “You can’t talk to me like this. Not here. They’re watching.”

Geraldine’s low profile was her shield, and Frankie’s persistent closeness—her everlasting glances, her teasing words—was starting to raise behavioral flags within a system optimized for compliance and surveillance. Or at least that’s what she feared . 

Frankie blinked, her face against the fire, her grin faltering. “Who’s watching?”

Geraldine’s eyes darted toward the crowd, her posture rigid, her arms crossed so tightly they seemed to hold her together. “We can’t be seen like that. You’re being too friendly. You know that.”

“Oh,” Frankie said, her voice soft beneath the hurt. “I thought we could be friends.”

“That’s not—” Geraldine’s voice cracked, then hardened, her eyes avoiding Frankie’s. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t , actually,” Frankie refuted, stepping closer, her boots scuffing the dirt, the air between them thick with the scent of smoke and pine. Her voice dropped, a smoldering challenge. “One second we’re talking about Gollum’s fucking trauma and you’re telling me you’ll talk to the doctors about getting me a lighter and letting me chop onions with baby knives—and the next you can’t even look at me?”

Geraldine’s jaw tensed, her gaze fixed on the trees, their branches clawing at the sky like charred remains. “You know how this place is,” she said, her voice low, strained, like a firebank holding back a blaze.

“Yeah,” Frankie snapped, her words flaring. “I live here too , remember? I’m not an idiot.”

Geraldine turned, visibly tense, her arms crossed so tight they might snap, her eyes glinting with a mix of frustration and fear. “I never said that.”

Frankie was close now, too close, the fire’s heat mirrored in her chest, her voice a low burn. “You don’t have to.”

Geraldine looked down, shook her head once, fast, like she was trying to douse a sparkle before it spread. The bonfire’s roar filled the silence, its light flickering across her face, revealing lines of worry etched deeper than Frankie had noticed before.

Frankie leaned in, just a hair, her voice cracking like kindling under pressure. “Come on, don’t be stingy. I’ll smoke it so quickly… They prolly don’t even know I’m gone.”

That’s when Geraldine’s eyes met hers—hard and cold. “I can’t get caught giving cigarettes to a patient,” she expressed, her voice tight, her lips barely moving, as if the words themselves were contraband.

“You told me to ask you if I ever needed one,” Frankie countered, her tone enticing, a vine curling overnight around your wrist.

“And I told you to not do anything stupid, this is stupid . Sister Gabrielle is over there.” Geraldine barely moved her lips when speaking, her eyes flicking toward a stern-faced nun near the fire, her rosary glinting like a chain. “And the nurses too… they’re gonna gossip.”

“About?”

“About how a nun is handing cigarettes to a pyromaniac,” Geraldine hissed, her paranoia and wariness couldn’t outlast Frankie’s charm, which dripped like honey from the edge of a wine glass.

Frankie grinned, slow and velvety, like melted candy dripped over a razor’s edge. Her charm shimmered, with a kind of sugar that didn’t dissolve— it stuck, slow and golden, like caramel on scorched skin. Sweet enough to make you lean in. Sharp enough to make you bleed. Her charm didn’t flirt—it crawled through the bloodstream like something candied and venomous, a sweetness that smiled while it stole.

“ Gee ,” she whispered, all syrupy, drunk with this fight against temptation. “Trust me… or at least, share the one you’re already smoking .” Beneath her smile pulsed something older than seduction: A hunger dressed in her face, a sadness too pretty to name.

Geraldine hesitated, her hand trembling slightly as she passed her cigarette, the end glowing like a shared pact.

Frankie slid the filter between her lips, languidly , as if she was kissing her.

She waited—savoring the chance that Geraldine’s trace might still creep there, phantom-sweet and unspoken. She dampened the tip ever so slightly, a cursed wish wrapped in saliva, praying Geraldine would do the same when her turn came. It felt wickedly intimate. Like stealing a breath from someone else's dream. When she exhaled, it wasn’t just smoke—it was possession. 

She felt like a winner, like the fucking snake convincing Eve to give her a bite of something delicious.

She blew the smoke all over Geraldine’s face, a deliberate power move, like wanting to drench her in her own essence, like a dog marking its territory with incense. The smoke curled between them, heavy with the scent of rebellion. Frankie’s grin grew bigger, quiet and cruel—because at that moment, she didn’t need Geraldine to kiss her. She only needed her to inhale.

“See?” Frankie mumbled, her voice soft yet cocky. “The world’s still spinning around. But don’t you feel better?”

Geraldine stood straight, which was odd for her—she always hunched, kept her head down, a quiet figure blending into the smoke. Now, her posture was rigid, her eyes glinting with a mix of unruliness and unease. “You feel better,” she corrected, her voice low, stern, but with a crackle of hurt. “I just feel used.”

“Used?” Frankie questioned, her grin fading, the cigarette burning low between her fingers. “How so?”

“You’re jeopardizing my job for a drag”.

But Frankie knew this wasn’t the case. It wasn’t the case at all.

Geraldine’s paranoia wasn’t about the cigarette—it was about Frankie’s closeness , the way she sought her out, the way their conversations crawled like bad weed. They’d never crossed a line, never broken a rule, but maybe Frankie was wrong, maybe even friendship could spark suspicion, and Geraldine’s quiet life depended on staying unseen.

“Baby, I’m risking getting a strike just for a minute with you,” Frankie said, her voice low, earnest.

Geraldine huffed, completely incredulous, her eyes narrowing as if Frankie’s words were an eyesight test impossible to figure out. 

Frankie knew she could get a strike—not for talking to Geraldine, but for straying from the bonfire. If a nurse or a righteous nun like Sister Gabrielle noticed her absence, and demanded her return, and if Frankie resisted or snapped, she’d earn a write-on.

Three strikes meant “ timeout ” which was code for solitary confinement, or worse, some type of shock therapy. And Geraldine could lie her way out, claiming she was watching Frankie, keeping the “pyromaniac” away from the fire. It’d make sense.

Nevertheless, there was something else here, something Geraldine wasn’t saying, and her anxiety was a terrible liar.

“Why are you mad at me?” Frankie asked, skimming through the facades.

“I’m not mad at you,” Geraldine mumbled, voice barely a thread, as she reached for the cigarette.

Her fingers grazed Frankie’s—brief as breath—but Frankie felt it like lightning split into skin. She trembled. Not from fright, but from the unbearable shyness of it.

And as Geraldine placed the cigarette back between her lips, Frankie watched every movement in slow motion— fixated on the press of the mouth to the filter, searching desperately for a glimpse of tongue, something wet and careless and holy.

Her knees weakened beneath the weight of unbroken eye contact, that sacred stare that felt both cruel and divine. Frankie wanted the moment to stretch forever, or collapse into something sinful— to steal the cigarette, bite the same edge, taste whatever fragment Geraldine had left behind.

An atom of her would be enough. More than enough. Because wanting her was no longer about desire—it was survival .

“Yeah, you are,” Frankie pressed, her eyes searching Geraldine’s face for the truth.

“You shouldn’t have said those things to Patricia,” Geraldine declared, tense, looking toward the fire where Sister Patricia stood, her thin frame rigid, her gaze sweeping the crowd like a searchlight. “Now she’s on my neck. She’s gonna say that I’m radicalizing the patients or playing the victim for sympathy.”

Frankie’s brow furrowed, the accusation was borderline absurd. ‘ Radicalizing the patients? For helping you chop some onions? Wasn’t it a little extreme?’ , she thought, but didn’t say. Instead, she leaned closer, her voice a low smolder. “I’ll apologize to her, or whatever you’re supposed to do, you tell me,” she stated, her words firm, a firebank holding strong. “I’ll explain exactly what happened.”

“No. That would only make it worse. I warned you I don’t want trouble,” Geraldine announced, icy. “I don’t want any more attention”. 

“How is this trouble?” Frankie rebuked. “No one was helping you set the camp and I offered a hand. Because you’re my friend. You’re drowning in a glass of water.”

“I’m not, you don’t know her,” Geraldine said, her voice tight, her paranoia a flame licking at her composure. “It’s weird that you’re always around me”.

“Why is that so weird?”

“Because no one likes me!” she revealed, not loudly, not defiantly, but like someone confessing a secret they wish weren’t true.

And Frankie froze. It was less a disclosure and more a defeat; a whisper so charged it rang louder than any shout. Frankie had no words. She just stood there, tasting the weight of a silence that roared. She wondered how it was possible for a person to scream in complete reticency. Because her tone was muted as ever, but she had just shouted in confidence.

It saddened her deeply. How could anyone not like her? She was kind, smart, and strikingly tall, with eyes so large they seemed to hold whole seasons, and a voice as gentle as a lullaby. There was something watercolor-soft about her—everything blurred at the edges in the most beautiful way. And she liked her. Really liked her.

The whole thing pissed Frankie off even more. But only because she felt like she was right.

She had heard Anthony and Kim making fun of her in the bus this morning, and because she remembered Sister Hayley mentioning Geraldine not being ‘exactly popular’. Therefore Patricia’s aparent astonishment over Frankie’s friendliness towards Geraldine—although still exaggerated and targeted — made a little sense to be seen as questionable or out-of-order. Because why would the new girl be so neighborly with the lonesome nun?

And not only that but the fact that now at least four people were aware of their closeness.

It had to be that, the thing that upset her, how the wrong people were noticing—the wrong eyes were watching. And If four already perceived it, even just a glimmer of it, then that number felt like a countdown

“You’re allowed to have friends”. Frankie encouraged her. “And we aren’t doing anything wrong”.

“Right now, you’re missing the bonfire”.

“Because fire makes me nervous, and I am being assisted by someone from the personal whom I trust”. Frankie said, her statement clean, convincing.

The bonfire was dazzling, a blaze of color and warmth she thought she’d never want to look away from. But Geraldine’s face, bathed in this frail, debilitating candlelight, kissed by the fire’s last golden traces, was the thing she couldn’t stop watching.

Something in the way that light clung to her cheekbones, how it made her eyes fucking twinkle—it consumed her more than the fire ever could. She craved to see it full force. To bring Geraldine to where the flames were, just to watch her shine, to drag her by the wrist and make her sit next to her in the campfire. Her fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, take her hand, and pull her into that shimmer—if only to feed her obsession a little longer.

“Is this how you move through life?” Lying and manipulating everybody to get your way?” Geraldine quizzed, slightly skeptical, slightly jealous.

“Yes,” she admitted, sourly. “You should try it sometime”. Frankie suggested. “To stop suffering a little… and go after what you want for once”. 

“Yeah, right,” Geraldine uttered sarcastically, cutting like a sword through her heart “You think you got it all figured out. But your party is over as long as you’re here”

Frankie blinked, her breath catching before she could mask it with something clever. “Why?”

“No one will take the word of a lunatic over a nurse… or a nun. You stopped being a person when you entered St. Agnes, you’re a case now ”.  

It hit Frankie like ice. A little part of her cracked, barely audible, a fracture too internal to scream. She wanted to say something smart. To twist it all into a joke or deflection. But she couldn’t. Geraldine didn’t look at her again.

And Frankie stood there, mouth dry, wondering if that was the closest she'd ever get to being seen.

Frankie’s throat burned, her heart a smoldering ruin, the sting of Geraldine’s words spreading inside her stomach like a contagious disease. “You know... If you’d ever fucked up, no matter what it is, I’d never tell on you,” she whispered, her voice soft yet raw, a dying living thing.

Geraldine didn’t move, her eyes fixed on the ground, her posture rigid, like a firebank holding back a blaze.

“But I’d gladly tell on a bitch,” Frankie spitted.

With that, she turned and walked straight back to the fire.

The ride back to St. Agnes was thick with a silence that didn’t feel like rest. The bus that had once been noisy with off-key singing and dumb lake jokes now buzzed only with the soft hum of the tires over asphalt and the occasional rattle of someone’s leftover soda bottle. No laughter. No music. Just the hollow sound of everyone attempting to sleep. 

Frankie sat by the window, forehead pressed to the glass, watching the southern twilight. The sun had already set behind the woodland and telephone wires.

She didn’t speak.

Not to Anthony, who had sensed something and stopped trying after the third shrug. Not to Kim, who mouthed something about her burger being raw.

Not even to Nurse Evelyn, who gently handed out water bottles and asked if she was okay with a look that didn't quite reach her voice.

And certainly not to Geraldine.

Geraldine, who sat several rows ahead, spine straight, head tilted like she was watching the passing scenery but not really seeing any of it. At no point did she turn around. Not once did their eyes meet.

It was like they were strangers. Or worse—like they’d never even been that.

By the time they returned to the cracked parking lot of St. Agnes, the cicadas had taken over the air with their harsh, electric dirge. The building loomed against the sky like a carcass waiting to be picked clean. Frankie stepped off the bus like she’d never been there before—like everything she’d thought she knew about this place had curdled into something sour.

She didn't speak during evening meds. Didn't flirt with Ray. Didn't pretend to like the tea.

Back in her room, she didn’t bother changing. Just kicked off her shoes, pulled the scratchy blanket up to her chin, and lay still—her eyes open, her mouth clamped shut.

Usually she’d stay awake, straining for the sound of Geraldine’s quiet steps during the midnight checks. Sometimes, just sometimes, if she faked a toss or cough, Geraldine would show up at the door. Sometimes even whisper something barely audible, like: Sleep tight, Frankie.

But tonight Frankie didn’t want to hear her voice. She didn’t want to look at her face. If she did, she’d cry. Or scream. Or say something that couldn’t be taken back.

So instead, she lay there in the stale dark, letting the silence do the work.

And for the first time since meeting her, she hoped Geraldine wouldn’t come at all.

Chapter Text

Her consultation with Doctor May was earlier than expected. It was normally the same drill, he’d ask her about the meds and she’d ask about Ronnie. He’d tell her that he’s unable to disclose information regarding another patient, even if he’s no longer one. And then she’ll shut up. Not out of rebellion.

She’d just tell him the truth: if you’re already aware of how fucked up he is, then you’ll understand me just fine. I’m just collateral damage of your golden boy.

Then the doctor would claim he doesn’t have favorites. But Frankie would look at him and denounce: if he ever told you the truth, and you kept your mouth shut, then you do have favorites. Because you know he should be in jail. And I should be free.

But this week. Doctor May, as sweet and friendly as he was with his puffy white curls, surprised her.

“Frankie! What’s been going on?”

“Nothing new” she answered, unamused. Rutinary.

“I heard a nun gave you a strike”. He confessed.

“What?”

Her thoughts scrambled, tripping over each other like schoolkids chasing rumors. Who had the gall? The malice? The authority? Had Geraldine done it?

Her mind twisted in on itself—had last night been too much? Was the smoke blown too deliberately, her grin too hungry, her hand too slow to let go of the cigarette?

Had Geraldine seen her not as someone worth saving, but someone worth silencing?

Frankie’s chest tightened. It couldn’t be her. She was all softness tucked in shadows, a spectral kindness behind cold glass. But then again, kindness cracked easily under pressure. And love, true love— had teeth.

Frankie felt the heat climb her spine, dizzy with dread and craving. Was Geraldine protecting herself? Pushing her away under the guise of protocol? Was this punishment or mercy?

She didn’t know. She just knew that if it was Geraldine… it’d hurt more than the strike ever could.

“She says you called her “a bitch”. He revealed attempting to conceal a chuckle. “I’m by any means encouraging this behavior,” he mentioned “But calling a nun a bitch?” his tone went up and down, for a second he sounded like Santa Claus and then went as low as a whisper “We cannot allow that. Tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t…” Frankie wanted to cry. She’d ratted her out. “I didn’t call her a bitch, I told her… to not be a bitch or something”.

May tilted his head, curls shifting. “Why?”

Frankie hesitated. “Wait… what exactly did she tell you?”

“Sister Gabrielle was the one who brought it up,” May replied carefully, watching her reaction.

Frankie exhaled slowly. Ah . So not Geraldine.

And fuck, she had been right, they had been watching. —Those little surveillance nuns were always fluttering nearby, all veil and venom.

“Okay. I’m so sorry,” she said, voice softer, calculated. “She was just doing her job. And I got a little... overwhelmed. The fire, you know . I was trying not to spiral, and the other Sisters sort of ignored that I even had a condition . They made me go along with the bonfire stuff like I was just... normal .”

May nodded, giving her space.

“I told her I wanted to stay away from the fire,” Frankie continued. “To help with whatever, if she needed, like I’d already been doing all morning. I was calmer that way. But she got worried, she mentioned that Patricia would think I was being favored or something. And I get it, I do. She didn’t say anything cruel. She just... shut me down.”

“And you took that personally?,” May offered, his voice gentle, like he was patting her on the back with a glove.

Frankie’s lips twisted. “No, not really, I just got pissed because she wanted to help me but felt like she couldn’t because she was also being watched.”

“Watched by who?” May quizzed.

“By the other Sisters, Patricia probably. She told me Patricia would say that she was ‘radicalizing me’ or something. Like being away from the bonfire was an act of insubordination, I guess.”  

He tapped a finger on the desk. “So you’re telling me you helped Geraldine earlier, too?”

Frankie nodded. “Yeah, I helped her set the camp, since all the staff bailed on her apparently, she was alone chopping vegetables for like thirty people. So I offered a hand, and she gave me this little baby-safe knife to chop onions. It was kind of sweet, honestly. She didn’t treat me like I was a nutcase.”

May smiled, just a flicker. “That’s the way the staff should behave.”

“But then Patricia showed up,” Frankie added quickly. “Demanding me to be in all these activities, that hadn’t even started yet. She sort of implied that Sister Geraldine had pulled me aside to do her job or something, and that’s not true. I just... I saw her struggling, and I wanted to help. That’s it. I didn’t skip any activities.”

“That’s what Patricia told me,” May revealed, half chuckling. “That she was covering up for you so you’ll skip activities.”

Frankie’s shoulders twitched, a muscle memory of old fights. “I’m sure she did. She was on poor Sister Geraldine’s neck all day.”

May let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, well, she tends to exaggerate certain details. And the other Sisters?”

“Geraldine, Gabrielle, and Hayley all saw me helping, being cooperative,” she replied. “I wasn’t lurking. I was pitching in.”

May nodded. “Mmm, they all agreed on that. And Geraldine? She’s someone you trust?”

Frankie hesitated, just enough to draw attention to it. “Yeah,” she said finally. “I do. I talk to her more than anyone else here. Other than you.”

“And why’s that?”

“I don’t know, she gets it,” Frankie said, eyes narrowing slightly. “She talks to me like I’m a person. She recommended I read Lord of the Rings , and we’ve talked about the books, not Jesus. She knew the meds were fucking with me and let me rest instead of making me push through the rosary for a couple of evenings. Now I know, Sister Patricia probably disagreed with her at that time, and now believes Geraldine is straying me from God or some crazy story.”

Doctor May leaned in slightly. “You know Geraldine is a nurse too, right? She went to college and everything.”

Frankie blinked. “Huh. That makes sense. She definitely prioritizes health over religion. Maybe that’s why Patricia can’t stand her.”

“And you’re sure your comment wasn’t an outburst?” May asked. “That it didn’t come from... somewhere else?”

Frankie grinned slowly, all teeth. “Sir, I curse the way some people sneeze. It’s not personal. It’s just Jersey. So please don’t punish her for my actions, it was out of place.” Her words were a shield, protecting Geraldine, but also a tether, pulling her closer, ensuring she stayed in her orbit.

Doctor May’s eyes widened, a laugh bursting out, warm and unrestrained, though his professional tone quickly returned. “Punish her?” he said, his voice tainted with surprise and amusement, delighted by a patient’s passion. “Jesus, Frankie, no! That's God's job” He teased jokingly as he wiped a tear from his eye, his laughter subsiding into a kind smile. “I’ll tell you what? I’ll erase the strike, and I’ll make sure Sister Geraldine stays on your rotation. We were shifting the schedules anyway.”

Frankie’s heart flared, a flame leaping high. She’d won .

He had bought the story completely, true or not. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, letting just a hint of warmth slip into her tone.

Frankie’s heart thudded. A little thrill under her ribs. As she walked out, the air outside the office felt thick, like the weight before a summer storm.

The swamp clouds hadn’t broken yet. Neither had she.

She’d done what needed to be done—no applause, no second thoughts. Frankie had guarded Geraldine, even when the cost came with bruises to her own pride, even when their bond soured into silence and sharp glances. Loyalty, it seemed, had no off switch with her.

She didn’t just deflect Patricia’s pointed whispers—she reshaped the story. Now Geraldine stood taller, framed as the thoughtful, capable caretaker she’d always been beneath the veil. And Patricia? Reduced to a religious freak with no tact, more sermon than substance.

Frankie had won that battle. But the war inside her raged on.

Because every time she tried to sever the tie—to label this affection as delusion, to write Geraldine off as just another habit in a long list of obsessions— she failed .

She failed herself. She failed the version of her that swore she wasn’t falling. And she failed to forget the way Geraldine's silence could feel like a fucking dagger, stabbing her with an infernal sadistic force.

Guarding Geraldine hadn’t been a strategy. It had been survival . Because if she was growing addicted to her, then eventually she’d need a fix. And she needed her by her side.

And now she’d drawn her closer. Tied her tighter. And if she had to play the part of the harmless moth a little longer to keep buzzing near the flame?

So fucking be it.

A week later, the package arrived.

It was plain, the kind of brown box you’d expect aspirin or stationary in—quiet, harmless. But when Nurse Raymond handed it to her, already torn up and revised, his kind eyes flicked away, like the weight of it embarrassed him. Like he felt embarrassed for having to inspect such an innocent item. 

Frankie tore it open with trembling hands, knuckles pale with anticipation.

Inside, nestled in a bed of packing paper, was the book.

The one Sister Geraldine had been reading that night in the library. The one she’d held like it was something holy and forbidden at once.

Frankie pulled it out slowly. It wasn’t bound in leather like Geraldine’s—it was softcover, blood red, with an old gothic typeface etched across the front:
“The cult classic that inspired Dracula.”

Hell yeah, this had to be it. Her stomach dropped.

There was a note tucked inside, folded neatly between the pages. Her mother’s handwriting:

Wishing you peace, my sweet daughter. Try to rest more. Call me when you feel like it. I miss you.

Frankie stared at the words for a long time, longing for her mother, being grateful she had taken the time to search for it, find it and send it. Then she turned back to the book.

The pages were yellowed, slightly brittle at the edges, and it smelled like someone else’s attic. She began reading, lips parted, heartbeat ticking faster with every paragraph. Within minutes, it was clear—painfully, wonderfully clear—that it wasn’t the vampires that had made this book dangerous. It wasn’t the monsters, the bloodletting, or even the rituals.

It was the hunger.

The desire beneath every sentence. The way it lit up the dark.

There was nothing innocent about this story. 

Frankie shut the book, her fingers still hooked between the pages. Her chest was tight. She imagined Geraldine reading those same words in secret, her pale fingers trailing over the same sentences, maybe in the same order.

Hiding in plain sight. Her habit crisp, the book glowing faintly under the flickering library light.

What a rebel. God, it made so much sense.

Frankie couldn’t stop thinking about her. She knew her schedule now—the way a stray cat knows the rhythms of a warm kitchen. Geraldine only worked nights.

Her shift didn’t start until 11 p.m., but sometimes she surfaced early, around 6, in the library. Or appeared at Mass around 4, seated in the back, quiet as a ghost.

She’d never seen her eat. Not once.

Still, Frankie knew her routes. Her rhythms. And she was beginning to worry—half-jokingly, half-dead-serious—that her diagnoses were shifting. No longer depression, no longer just trauma or impulse control.

Obsession . Not over fire. Over her.

Since when did her days become this? This, waiting. This slow, holy hunger. Just to catch a glimpse of her in passing. Just to hear her voice cut through the silence.

She kept reading ‘ The Two Towers’ too. She wanted to find Shelob , wanted to understand the strange charm Geraldine had revealed like a filthy pleasure. Maybe if she read the book, she’d come a little closer. Know her through her favorite villain. Or her favorite version of herself.

It was easier to get to know her this way. Through borrowed pages. Through sentences Geraldine had touched first. Through the ghosts of her thoughts.

And she needed something else to attract her, since their last conversation had been a mess and they hadn’t spoken in days. And when she’d sneak out to the barn, she wouldn’t show up. 

So in her free time—when she wasn’t roped into yoga, or making clumsy crafts, or playing cards with Anthony—she haunted the library. She paced the halls. She listened for her footsteps, praying to find her.

Frankie slouched in her chair, hoodie drawn up like a husk, the sleeves frayed from being chewed at in bored fits of restraint. Her fingers tapped against the table with an insective rhythm—twitchy, crawling, compulsive. She’d been in a mood ever since the bonfire: Geraldine’s cutting silence, Patricia’s snitching, and the cold little mark on her record that Doctor May had only just peeled off like a scab. Bible study today was just another cage, another sterile spoonful of faith they expected her to choke down.

Sister Hayley presided over the table like a rabbit in lace—sweet-faced and overexposed, cheeks pink from too much effort. Her habit slipped slightly off-center, like it too had trouble believing in the performance. She gripped her Bible with enthusiasm that felt brittle at the edges, like it might crumble if you breathed too hard on it.

Across from her, Sister Patricia loomed, perched rigid and watchful like something taxidermied and cursed—sharp elbows, skin pulled too tightly over her bones, smile fixed with the precision of a surgeon’s stitch. She had the air of a woman who delighted in extracting splinters with tweezers too large. And the way her gaze snagged on Frankie—it wasn’t just vigilance. It was ownership.

The patients gathered—Anthony with his glossy magazine charm, Kim with her quiet knife-eyes, and a few more background ghosts shuffled into chairs. They were all inmates here, but some wore it easier than others. Anthony wore it like silk. Frankie wore it like it itched under her skin.

Yet she hid it well, her voice dripping with false warmth, her gaze flicking to Frankie with a sharpness that promised retribution.

The patients—Anthony, Kim, Frankie, and a handful of nameless others—sat around the table, their faces a mix of boredom and defiance, each carrying their own scars from St. Agnes’s relentless salvation.

They had Bible study that day, an hour-long discussion of Sodom, of all things. It was rich, considering the nuns usually danced around the grimmer corners of scripture.

Skimming the fat, skipping the rot.

They cut the Bible into parables and promises, serving heaven without blood, forgiveness without price.

It pissed Frankie off, the way the Church erased the horror from its own holy book, and refused to name the crimes it committed in God’s name. It handed out miracles like candy while branding every real thing you loved—every touch, every desire—as dirty.

Frankie’s anger was a live ember, stoked by years of Catholic school, by priests who asked too much, by nuns like Patricia who wielded faith like a whip. She wanted to burn it all down, to expose the rot they hid, but here she was, trapped, her fire banked but never out.

Anthony, with his movie-star face and sultry tenor voice, leaned back in his chair, his delicate features lit by the lamp’s glow, his eyes glinting with mischief. He lived to poke the bear, to bring up sin just to watch Sister Hayley blush and stammer, and Frankie admired him for it—a holy act of sabotage, a match struck in a room full of kindling. Kim, quiet and watchful, sat beside him, her dark eyes darting between the nuns and patients, her hands folded like she was guarding a secret. The other patients, nameless in Frankie’s mind, murmured or stared blankly, their presence a dull hum against the room’s charged air.

Sister Hayley opened her Bible, her voice bright, almost sing-song. “Today, we’re reading from Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah,” she said, her cheeks already pink, as if the topic itself were a forbidden fruit. “It’s a lesson about God’s justice and mercy.”

Sister Patricia’s smile widened, her eyes gleaming like polished glass. “Oh, yes, a powerful lesson,” she chirped, her voice syrupy, her gaze sliding to Frankie like a spark seeking tinder. “God’s wrath purifies, doesn’t it? Sin cannot stand before His light, and all sins deserve punishment.”

Frankie’s jaw clenched, her fingers stilling on the table. Patricia’s words were a veiled jab, a reminder of the strike, of her whispered accusations to Doctor May. Her knuckles were pale where they gripped the edge of the table. She’d never wanted to spit so badly in her life.

But she kept still. Held the rot in her stomach like spoiled fruit.

Anthony, lounging like a model waiting for his close-up, and stirred the pot like it was his God-given duty. “So, Sister Hayley, what exactly was Sodom’s sin?” he asked.

Laughter buzzed around the table, low and hot. Kim smirked. Frankie did too, though hers came with more teeth.

Hayley blushed so hard her freckles blurred. “Well, um, it was… wickedness,” she said, her voice faltering. “They turned away from God, living in… immorality.”

“Immorality’s a big word,” Anthony replied, his eyes dancing with amusement. “You mean the gay, the sex stuff, right? Men lying with men, like Leviticus says?”

The room erupted in murmurs, a few patients snickering, others shifting uncomfortably. Kim’s lips twitched, her eyes flicking to Anthony, approving but silent. Frankie grinned, her anger flaring into admiration. Anthony was a firestarter, and she loved him for it.

Hayley’s face was scarlet, her voice trembling but earnest. “It’s not just that,” she said, clutching her Bible like a shield. “Sodom’s sin was pride, inhospitality, rejecting God’s law. It’s about… turning away from what’s right.”

Patricia’s smile didn’t waver, but her eyes narrowed, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Exactly, Sister Hayley. And we must be vigilant, mustn’t we? Sin creeps in when we’re not careful, when we… stray too close to temptation. ” Her gaze lingered on Frankie.

Frankie’s heart thudded, her anger a beast she could barely contain. She wanted to call Patricia out, to expose her hypocrisy, but her throat felt packed with wool. Instead, she waited. And Anthony, praise be, carried the torch.

Kim spoke up, her voice soft but playful. “What about Lot’s daughters?” she questioned a little too accusatory, her eyes on Hayley. “They got their dad drunk and slept with him. Isn’t that sin, too? Why’s Sodom the bad guy, but Lot’s family gets a pass?”

The room fell silent, the air thick with tension. Hayley’s mouth opened, then closed, her blush spreading to her neck. Patricia’s smile twitched, her fingers tightening on her rosary, her glee faltering for a moment.

“That’s… a good question,” Hayley stammered, flipping through her Bible, her voice desperate to regain control. “Lot was righteous, saved by God’s mercy. His daughters… they acted out of fear, to preserve their family line.”

“Sounds like an excuse,” Frankie snarled. She leaned forward, her eyes locked on Patricia, her anger impossible to bank. “The Bible’s full of that, isn’t it? Some get a pass, but everyone else burns. Sodom’s destroyed, but Lot’s daughters are just… misunderstood ?, you guys are kinda choosy about what counts as a sin.”

Patricia’s smile tightened, her eyes glinting like embers in a dying fire. “Frances, we mustn’t twist scripture to suit our… feelings ,” she said, her voice sugary but sharp, a blade wrapped in honey. “God’s word is clear. Sin is sin, and we’re here to learn humility, not defiance.”

She wanted to snap, to call Patricia the bitch she was, but the memory of Doctor May’s mercy—and Geraldine’s trust—held her back. She wasn’t here to protect herself; she was here to shield Geraldine, to keep Patricia’s venom from spreading. But the urge to burn it all down, to expose the Church’s lies, was a spark she couldn’t fully douse.

“Her feelings?” Kim snapped for her. “That story is sick to the bone, they literally justify incest. Also how convenient that it’s the daughter’s ideas. Sounds like a fantasy made by a rapist”. Kim’s voice tore through the room, every word hurled with raw conviction. And in that moment, it became unmistakably clear—her fury wasn’t aimed at scripture alone. She was speaking of something deeper, something personal.

The conversation was dragging her back into frustration—like reruns of the Leviticus clash, with all the same suffocating indignation.

How could people like this wield any authority? Beliefs warped beyond recognition, paraded as truth. How was anyone still defending this garbage?

She questioned everything: Was Geraldine truly different, or was it a fantasy she built to justify the way she stared, the way she craved? Maybe Geraldine wasn’t exempt—maybe she was just quieter about her indoctrination. If she subscribed to this rot, then what was the point? Where did admiration end and delusion begin? How deep did the programming go? How tightly did guilt sink its teeth into someone before they stopped thinking for themselves?

Anthony caught the change of dynamic quickly, his voice a sultry purr, still wanting to rebel, not out of flirtiness anymore, but to stand up for Kim. “But Sister Hayley, if God’s so merciful, why burn a whole city? Couldn’t He just… talk to them? Sounds like overkill to me.”

Hayley’s eyes widened, her voice trembling but earnest. “God’s justice is perfect,” she said, her words a fragile shield. “He gave them chances, but they chose sin. It’s… it’s about protecting the righteous.”

“Protecting who?” Kim rebuked, her tone charged with emotion, her eyes boring into Hayley. “The angels? Lot? Or just God’s ego?”

The room erupted again, patients laughing, murmuring, the air crackling with contrariness. Patricia’s smile froze, her fingers strangling her rosary, her glee a cracked mask. “ Enough ,” she said, her voice dagger-like, cutting through the noise like a whip. “We’re here to study God’s word, not mock it. Let’s focus on repentance, shall we?”

Frankie sat back, unhappy and frustrated, the taste of bitterness thick like spoiled milk curdling in her mouth. She couldn’t help but respect Anthony and Kim’s bravery—like tossing meat into a pit of maggots just to watch it writhe. But Patricia? She was the disinfectant. Bleach in the wound. Her control scraped the chaos clean before it could spread.

The Church always came out pristine, scrubbing away the blood, perfume-layering the stench, repackaging decay with bows and smiling saints. Frankie still simmered with it all—gut full of acid—but she’d swallow it down for now. For Geraldine.

As the study wrapped up, the patients oozed out like residue, dragging the stale air with them. The lamp’s dying hum cast the room in a sickly pallor, shadows stretching like mold over cracked tiles. Frankie stayed behind, her eyes fixed on Patricia’s retreating spine, her grin tight and sour—like someone savoring the aftertaste of something rotten, already plotting the next dose.

The more she chewed on it, the more the disgust bloomed.

What did she actually know about Geraldine? This fascination felt less like affection and more like infection —creeping, festering, warping her perspective. Was Geraldine really soft, trapped, quietly noble? Or just another hollow-eyed disciple like Patricia, stitched together with delusion and doctrine? The idea that she might be just another puppet dressed in restraint made Frankie’s insides twist.

Every conversation left her more disoriented, like licking rust and calling it sugar. Geraldine was sweet one moment, all reluctant tenderness... then bitter, distant, like she’d been dipped in vinegar. And that last time—God—it had collapsed so fast. Frankie had spat something cruel, laced with venom and insecurity. Not directly. But enough to taste. Enough to know the wound was mutual.

That night, over supper, they were ranking the hottest people at St. Agnes. Anthony grinned and clarified: “Besides us, obviously.”

Frankie smirked. It was harmless enough at first. Most people mentioned other patients. A few chose Nurse Ray—tall, kind-eyed, the only sexy male nurse on staff.

But then Anthony, mouth full of mashed potatoes, mumbled: “Y’all are cowards. Let’s talk about nuns.”

Everything shifted. Laughter turned nervous. A few eyes darted toward the cameras.

Frankie excused herself with a half-smile and a muttered excuse— fresh air, she said, like it was a cough, not a craving. But really, her lungs ached for something else. Not oxygen. Not peace.

Just the barest confirmation that Geraldine was still out there, somewhere under this same sky. She walked fast, then slower, like the stars might judge her for needing so badly.

And she was. After all these days. 

And there she was. After all those aching days, Sister Geraldine stood alone in the barn’s mouth, haloed in moonlight so pale it looked brittle—like cold breath on glass. She was smoking again. Of course. Still wrapped in mystery and guilt, still distant as prayer, still too beautiful to belong to anything as breakable as the world.

Frankie’s heart twisted. This wasn't a relief. This was a tragedy given shape. To be near and never closer. To chase spectres with trembling hands.

She stared, wondering if Geraldine felt the pull too, or if she was just a flicker Frankie kept chasing through fog. And her sweet face was silvered in the dark, the ember of her cigarette pulsing a breaking dawn, like she held a fucking small version of the sun between her fingers.

Frankie stopped at the edge of the doorway, just watching.

She didn’t know what she loved more—the sight of her, or the light that made her visible.

Frankie wanted to see her near a fire again. Not endangered. Just illuminated. Bathed in the kind of warmth that painted holiness in shadow—soft flames licking the edges of her habit, turning it mythic, feral, like something out of a pagan dream.

Like during the Lake visit. Although it hadn’t been enough. 

She pictured herself feeding the fire, just to keep Geraldine etched in light longer. Red and amber dancing against those lacerating lines on her face—lines sharp enough to slay a virgin, but softened now, melted by glow. Smoke would rise, curling like ritual, thick with the scent of rebellion and incense—scent no nun should carry, but God, how it suited her.

Frankie didn’t want to hurt her. She just loved combustion. The way heat and ache tangled when Geraldine was near. But she was so angry, so desperate, so undone. Her rage clawed at her ribs, equal only to the hunger of missing her.

And in that smoke-laced fantasy, she wondered— if longing could ever be loud enough to bring Geraldine back into the light.

Yet the object of her affection stood near a splintered beam, her tall frame half-swallowed by shadow, her habit a dark veil that seemed to drink the moonlight.

Her eyes glinted, lethal as a scalpel, knifing through the gloom. She didn’t turn right away, but she exhaled, slowly, a plume of smoke rising like blood seeping from a wound. “You again,” she said, not unkindly, her voice low, stern, but threaded with a warmth that resembled a pulse beneath skin, a human rhythm.

Frankie smiled, hands in her hoodie pocket, her heart thudding with something sharp and not at all holy, a blade slicing through her restraint. “Missed you too,” she said, her voice a soft taunt, her lips curling as she stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking to a dangerous thread.

She was glad they were not bringing up their last conversation. Or what she explained to the shrink.

Geraldine took another drag, the silence settling between them like dust on a corpse, heavy and suffocating. Frankie moved nearer, her sneakers scuffing the dirt, her breath shallow, her body drawn forward by a longing that gnawed at her like a parasite.

She wondered what she looked like in Geraldine’s eyes—a girl who’d torched a car, who’d confessed to wanting to kill, who stood here now, raw and unrepentant.

Did she look as lost as she felt? As an incision too deep to heal, too far gone to save? Either way, she kept moving, drawn like a vein begging to be cut.

And maybe— just maybe —Geraldine felt the pull too.

She didn’t move as Frankie approached, her posture steady, unyielding, like a statue carved from bone. She lifted the cigarette to her lips again, the glow painting her cheekbone in stark relief, then fading into ash and smoke.

The light made her face hard to read—half-shadowed, almost handmade, the lines of her mid-thirties etched like cracks in a cathedral’s stone.

Frankie stopped just a foot away, the air between them thick with humidity, hay dust, and a tension that pulsed like a heartbeat in a slit wrist.

Her eyes traced Geraldine’s form—the calloused hands, the mousy brown hair tucked under her veil, the faint scent of lavender clinging to her habit like a memory. A memory with the potential of morphing into a penance. 

“We talked about Sodom today,” Frankie broke the speechlessness, cautiously , a needle probing a bruise. “During bible study.”

Geraldine exhaled smoke like punctuation, a spiky release. “Mm.”

“They never let us talk about the real stuff, usually,” Frankie continued, stepping closer, her voice a low hum, her body now inches from Geraldine’s, the space between them a fragile membrane. “You know, the cruelty. The dark shit. But today they went there. Whole hour of brimstone and horror and divine punishment.”

“Anthony again?” Geraldine asked, her eyes narrowing toward the barn wall, her voice steady but tinged with a knowing edge, as if she could see the chaos he’d sown.

“Of course,” Frankie agreed, a smile fluttering, her body angled in, close enough to begin feeling the warmth radiating from Geraldine’s frame. “He gets off on making Sister Hayley squirm.”

Geraldine didn’t answer, just flicked her ash onto the dirt floor, and stared into the dark like it might whisper back.

Her silence was a wall, but Frankie could feel the cracks, the places where Geraldine’s humanity bled through.

Frankie leaned her shoulder against the beam, the wood rough and splintered, like her thoughts, her body now so close she could see the faint pulse at Geraldine’s neck. The distance between them was barely respectable, a thin vein of propriety stretched to breaking. Her voice dropped, teasing but gentle, a needle threading through skin. “Have you ever been to a place like that?”

Geraldine turned to look at her, slow, unreadable, her eyes catching the moonlight. “What place?” she asked with a tremor beneath it, like a shell about to be crushed.

“Sodom,” Frankie disclosed, locked on Geraldine’s, her body shifting closer, her breath mingling with the smoke.

A pause.

The quiet buzz of insects in the barn’s rafters, the swamp breathing in the distance, its pulse heavy and wet, like blood pooling in a grave.

Geraldine didn’t smirk. She didn’t flinch. Just stared, her gaze piercing. She stood firm, her body unmoving, a statue refusing to crumble under Frankie’s advance.

“I’ve seen what people think is sin,” Geraldine said at last, her tone almost solid, with a crack of something brittle, like cartilage giving way. “I’ve seen what they do with it. That’s enough.”

Frankie’s eyes lingered on Geraldine’s lips as she spoke, the words curling like blood from a cut, held together by sheer will.

Her heart pounded, a raw ache splitting her chest, and she stepped closer, now so near she could feel the faint heat of Geraldine’s breath, the lavender scent of her habit heady. “I just keep wondering,” she murmured, each word spilled with the ease of currency spent on sin, “what made someone like you choose this life?”

Geraldine didn’t answer, her cigarette glowing like a dying star, her silence a gash left open— festering, wet, and wordless. She stood her ground, her eyes fixated on Frankie’s, undefeated, even as the space between them vanished.

Frankie pressed closer, her voice a low rasp, her body now a breath away, the air between them a pulse about to burst. “Like… you don’t fit here, Sister . You’re not a nut-case like Sister Patricia. You’re not cruel. And you’re not… miserably lost, like Hayley with her Bible verses and her sunshine smile. You’re real.”

She paused, her breath catching, the words spilling like bile before she could stop them. “And beautiful,” Frankie added, her voice a confession in reverse, raw and jagged. “I mean— beautiful, beautiful.”

“What are you talking about?” Geraldine questioned, mildly skeptical and annoyed, yet her body didn’t retreat, her eyes holding Frankie’s with a fierce intensity, not fearing the blade against the flesh. 

Frankie rode the high like a storm—Anthony’s bravado pulsing in her system, her swagger dialed up and patience dialed off. She was drenched in a kind of defiant confidence, loud and unruly, the kind that didn’t ask for permission and sure as hell didn’t wait for approval.

But underneath it, she simmered. Furious. Not just at Geraldine’s past words, but at the twisted elegance with which she weaponized them. Cruel. Cold. And never a single damn apology in sight.

Just silence. Just showing up like her presence was some sacred offering. As if being near Frankie erased the damage.

It stung—the arrogance of it. That calculated absence of remorse.

And Frankie, teeth clenched behind the grin, knew exactly how much she’d swallowed to stay soft. She was done with softness. Sick of Geraldine’s guarded answers, her arm’s-length distance when Frankie perfectly knew what she wanted.

She stepped closer, their bodies now so close her hoodie brushed Geraldine’s habit, the contact electric. “And it hit me then—maybe you’re not hiding from anything. Maybe you’re hiding in here. Because here… you’re safe.”

Geraldine’s eyes wavered, a shadow of confusion, then fear, crossing her face, but she didn’t step back, her body rooted, a statue carved from meat and will.

“This is no penitence to you, baby,” Frankie continued, her voice a whisper, her lips inches from Geraldine’s ear, “No purgatory, no hell… ‘Cause you’re already in heaven. Surrounded by women and no one questions it.”

Geraldine’s head turned fastidiously, her eyes meeting Frankie’s—bright and dismayed.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” she said, quiet and flat, her voice a controlled slash, but her body stayed, unmoving, as if daring Frankie to push further.

Frankie blinked, then smiled sourly, her heart was a blood fountain, all arteries dripping with vital liquids. She may as well bleed out, right there.

“I’ve been told worse,” she refuted lightly, her eyes held a desperate ache, a plea for Geraldine to see her.

To see how bad she was hurting. 

The air thickened, hot despite the breeze, heavy as this greedy exchange. Frankie let the silence sit, then spoke again, her voice dipping into pure darkness.

“Come on, Sister. How long’s it been?”

Geraldine’s expression didn’t change, but her body did—her posture stiffened, her hand curling tighter around the cigarette, her knuckles white as bone. She didn’t step back, her stare latched on Frankie’s, a challenge and a shield.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she warned, wrapped in sorrow.

Frankie’s voice dropped even lower, the grin gone now, just a softness around the mouth, something bruised behind the formerly rebellious eyes. “I bet God’s love isn’t enough,” she whispered, her body so close now she could feel the faint tremor in Geraldine’s frame, the air between them a pulse about to rupture.

Geraldine turned away, inhaling hard, staring into the trees like they’d save her, her cigarette trembling in her hand.

Frankie watched her quietly, no smirk now, just the ache, a raw, gaping hole that refused to close. “Don’t worry,” she added, softer still, her voice a whisper against Geraldine’s cheek, her lips so near they could’ve brushed skin. “I’m not gonna tell anyone you’re a person.”

Geraldine laughed once, just a breath, bitter as bile. “You think this is funny?” she asked, her voice cracking, her eyes still fixed on the trees, but her body stayed, rooted, as if she couldn’t bear to break the moment.

“No,” Frankie admitted, her voice raw, a confession spilling like the blood that could save her, or the venom that should kill her. “I think it’s tragic.”

Geraldine tossed the cigarette down and ground it out with the toe of her boot, her jaw clenched like she was biting back a scream, her body still, unyielding, even as Frankie stood close enough to feel her heat.

“You need to get inside right now,” she said tightly.

She stayed frozen, eyes glued to the curve of Geraldine’s body like a predator watching prey. Her chest throbbed—not with love, but with what’s sickly and spilled. That heart of hers wasn’t beating—it was sloshing. A soaking, violated thing grinding against her ribs, leaking every time Geraldine took a step further away.

“You can always give me a strike,” she murmured, daringly, her face leaning closer, her breath grazing the edge of Geraldine’s veil.

“I should,” Geraldine said trembling, but she didn’t turn, didn’t retreat.

“But you’ve already struck me, tho,” Frankie confessed, dangerously close now, the words trembling in their delivery, her lips nearly grazing Geraldine’s ear. It wasn’t a whisper. It was a scar speaking, dressed in stubbornness, in trembling desire, in the ache between being too much and never, ever enough, a cry bandaged in willfulness. “‘Cause if you saw the sparkles I feel when I’m around you—another pause, another breath swallowed back, her final attempt to push down the thunderstorm rising in her throat.— then you’d understand why I love fire.”

Geraldine gasped, thin. Fragile. The sound of someone gulping a scream. Just long enough for her face to betray everything. That sadness wasn’t soft; it was deforming. And her features buckled under the weight of Frankie’s words, like bruises blooming beneath the skin with every syllable.

And the silence didn’t erupt. It imploded. No comfort, no mercy, nothing but the thud of emptiness that echoed like a body dropped from grace. It wrapped around Frankie like cold wire, tight enough to steal breath but not tight enough to kill her quickly. Her heart sat cracked and bleeding at the center of it, the sacrifice offered on the altar of honesty. She had spoken the truth, and now it choked the air between them.

The quiet was thick—funereal, relentless. Not even the night dared interrupt it.

Each second stretched and curdled, and she looked gutted, like something hollowed her from the inside. Then she turned. Mechanical. Detached.

Her limbs moved with that eerie stiffness of someone walking out of a hospital fire—burned but upright. She didn’t look back. Not once. Just left the barn and let the silence putrefy everything and anything left behind her.

The door creaked shut, the sound a gut-punch, a wound torn wider.

Frankie stood alone, her heart quivering like a vein sliced open, bleeding longing and loss.

The barn’s shadows closed in, the air heavy with the stench of decay and lavender, a cruel reminder of Geraldine’s absence. Her chest hurt, as if her lungs had been filled with water, her brain left exposed to the swamp’s relentless pulse.

Geraldine was gone, taking the warmth, the possibility, the pulse of something real, leaving Frankie to drown in the dark, her longing for a festering sore that wouldn’t heal. 

Any time soon. 

Chapter Text

Three days passed.

Three whole, brutal days. No Geraldine in the barn. No sign of her in the library, no glimpse during Mass, not even a ghost of her during the late-night hallway shifts Frankie used to time like clockwork.

She was gone. Or hiding. Totally avoiding her.

Frankie couldn’t stop replaying their last conversation—each line like a hot pin under her skin. The way Geraldine had turned so still. The venom in her voice when she’d called her an asshole . The silence afterward. It wasn’t just that Frankie had pushed too far.

It was that she’d enjoyed it. The power of it. Watching that impossibly composed face crack. Witnessing the way ‘Ms. Moral Highness’ became human. 

Now she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror without feeling sick.

She sat alone during arts and crafts that morning, barely pretending to decorate her paper plate with dried beans and glitter.

Her thoughts spun, heat gathering behind her eyes. Her fingers shook, glue sticky between her knuckles, heart thudding with a guilt she couldn’t scrub off.

Abrubtly, the forever symphathetically Anthony, dropped into the chair across from her like he’d fallen out of heaven and rolled straight through hell.

He glanced at her mess of supplies, then at her face, then grinned.

“Did the beans offend you personally, or…?”

Frankie didn’t answer. Just smirked faintly and flicked a stray piece of glitter toward him.

He leaned back with a theatrical sigh, stretching long limbs like a rockstar on parole.

“I’m bored,” he said. “And nobody wants to play strip Uno.”

Frankie snorted.

“That’s because you lose on purpose.”

“Obviously,” he smiled lopsidedly. “Gotta give the people what they want.”

There was a pause. The quiet hum of glue guns and polite madness around them.

Frankie looked down at her hands and back up at him.

“You ever feel like you fucked something up so bad, there’s no coming back from it?”

Anthony’s smile faded—not completely, but enough to show he was listening for real now.

“What’d you do?” he asked, voice low.

Frankie hesitated, then shrugged. “I said some shit. To someone I… shouldn’t have.”

Anthony raised an eyebrow. “Ah. So that’s what this little cloud of guilt hovering over you is about.”

She rolled her eyes, but the burn in her throat returned. “I think I ruined it. Whatever it was… I don’t even know.”

Anthony watched her carefully now. His voice dropped.

“You’re talking about The Stallion?”

“What?”

“The Stallion, Nurse Ray”. 

Frankie looked up, startled. Where the fuck did that rumour come from? 

“You’re not that subtle, sweetheart ,” he said, tapping his temple as if he had cracked the code. “I’ve seen how you look at him. But I can’t blame you , we all do. ”

Frankie opened her mouth, just to promptly close it. Maybe his confusion was a positive thing. It was better for Anthony to believe she was into a nurse, instead of a nun.

He leaned in, voice even quieter now, serious in a way that didn’t suit him but hit too close anyway.

“You want advice?”

She nodded, barely.

“Have you ever stopped to think how fucked up it is?” he asked, tone flat. “Messing with people like them?”

Frankie blinked.

Anthony gestured lazily around the room.

“Sure, we’re the ones locked up. Meds, self-harm, trauma bingo, whatever. But they—” he pointed up vaguely to the space above them, the upper floors where the staff slept, “—they chose to be here. Voluntarily. Who does that? Who stays in a place full of fucked-up people unless something’s just as fucked-up in them?”

His words hit like glass. Frankie looked down again.

“That nurse of yours, man… the nuns?” he continued. “They’re not just repressed. They’re not holy, abnegated, sweet people. They’re lonely. They’re so fucking lost, dude . That’s the kind of misery that eats you from the inside out. Like fucking mold in the corners of a ceiling. And the worst part?”

He leaned back, eyes dark.

“We give them a purpose. A reason to wake up every day. We make them feel needed. Which is the most dangerous thing in the world for people like them to have.”

Frankie didn’t answer. Anthony tilted his head.

“And let me guess. You just wanted a quickie and now he’s into you”.

None of what he said aligned with Frankie’s reality, not really. Still, his thoughts had a rhythm that pulled her in, made her question her own feelings—made her wonder if this was how he’d felt about Hayley. Maybe it had just been a fling to him, and now Hayley was wrapped up in something far deeper.

And maybe that’s what Frankie was circling too. Because after just a month in this place, falling for Anthony had proven effortless. Had she not been so consumed by Geraldine, she might have ended up in Hayley’s shoes. Or at the very least, tangled in Anthony’s sheets by now.

“But you just wanted the attention, didn't you?.”

Frankie swallowed hard, breath catching.

“I get it,” he said, softer now, dragging the loose strands of hair behind his ear with a kind of worn-out grace. “Trust me, I do. I get horny all the time, it’s happened to me before. I’ll fuck a nurse here and there, no big deal, no biggie,” he mumbled.

Frankie watched him, unsure whether to scoff or lean in closer.

There was something disarming about the way he said it—casual, matter-of-fact, but not without a tinge of sorrow stitched between the words.

“Look where we are, for so many hours,” he went on. “All of us locked up, it’s exhausting. No. Matter of fact. It’s unnatural that we’re not all fucking. We should be taking turns to fuck each other. What else can you do? How many UNO matches or crayon drawings can you do before you get bored, and curious…?”

He laughed then—a breathy, tired sound that barely reached his eyes.

Frankie felt something shift inside her, like a drawer half opened that she wasn’t ready to look into. His voice cut through the static that usually filled her head, and what unsettled her most was how much it made sense. She hated that it made sense.

Maybe not morally, maybe not entirely in her own world—but the logic of it slid in quietly, found a seat.

She fidgeted with the sleeve of her hoodie, chewing at the inside of her cheek, gaze fixed somewhere just past his shoulder. Was he always this brutally honest? Or was he just tired enough to say everything without caring how it landed?

Her body felt warm, not turned on exactly, but sparked—like she’d just been nudged awake from some kind of daze.

Frankie had no idea how to respond.

He ran a hand through his hair again, slower this time, the weight of exhaustion pressing down like waterlogged fabric. His voice was loose now, slipping out in half-laughs and half-sighs.

“And I’d pay to see what makes Hayley crack,” he said, mouth tugging into a crooked grin. “Oh man, how much does it take for these people to break their own morals for a second in heaven…”

Her breath sat tightly in her chest as if held there by an invisible grip. He was dancing on the edge of something dark, something disturbingly honest, and part of her—against all good judgment—wanted to follow.

His grin faltered slightly, turned thoughtful, shadowed.

“But you know the real tragedy?”

He paused. The room seemed to press in around them, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead like distant voices gossiping through static, and looked her dead in the eye.

“It’s not falling for a nun. It’s falling for someone like us . Someone who knows they’ll ruin you. And who’ll still do it.”

Frankie flinched like he’d struck a nerve exposed raw—like her body knew the truth before her brain would admit it.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was heavier than that. A silence that settled deep in her chest and stayed there, like something had been named and that name couldn’t be taken back.

And worse—he was right.

She felt her thoughts fray at the edges, unraveling in slow spirals. Her pulse thudded against her skin, like her body was trying to warn her of something she’d already done.

Was she a monster?   Was all this infatuation with Geraldine just some fever dream born from desperation and the walls closing in?

What if it wasn’t love. Not even attraction . What if it was just rebellion?

Against her family. Against everything she’d been taught. Against the Church. Against the suffocating sanctity of the Radkes.
What if Geraldine was a symbol—a button to push, a boundary to trespass? A beautiful one, yes, and that made it all the more dangerous.

Frankie pressed her palms into her lap, fingers curling until the knuckles ached. The guilt crawled over her skin like static.

She’d been chasing Geraldine, hadn’t she? With those lingering glances. The way she showed up uninvited. The boldness masked as sincerity. She’d thought it honest. She’d wanted it to be honest. But maybe she was just losing grip.

Maybe she was just horny and unwell and bored out of her damn mind.

Maybe it wasn’t desire—it was destruction. A need to dismantle something gentle. To infect purity with her chaos and call it intimacy.

Poor Geraldine.

Frankie had made her uncomfortable. She knew it. Had seen the way the girl shrank back, her eyes wide and cautious. And still, Frankie had stepped forward. Smiled. Said things meant to sting and seduce all at once.

A sick weight settled in her gut.

And yet… she’d kissed her inside her head a thousand times. Imagined the way she’d tremble, the way she’d give in. It was never violent. It was tender. But now she had to ask herself—was that tenderness real? Or was it just what the fire in her brain pretended to feel like, just before it burned through another boundary.

Geraldine made her forget she was in a mental hospital. Made her forget she was an arsonist. That she’d begged the heat to take her, to cleanse her.

And Geraldine had looked at her like she wasn't a danger. Like she had edges but could be held gently.

That was the worst part. Geraldine had believed in her decency—and Frankie had punished her for it.

She missed the heat. She missed the red glow. She missed the moment just before she struck the match. 

Whenever Geraldine was around, Frankie felt like a lovesick nerd trying to shoot her shot with the prom queen—awkward, obvious, and painfully transparent.

She hated that. Hated how small it made her feel. How transparent. She’d been the kind of kid who mocked people like that, hadn’t she?

So what was she doing now, orbiting Geraldine like some fevered satellite?

She had to make sure it wasn’t just the lack of sex driving her insane. Because this craving, this sudden reopening of physical desire—it was new. 

Because after all the drugs, the anti-psychotics, all the addictions, the N.A meetings, and now the Prozac: sex had been shelved for years , like a part of her body had simply gone quiet.

How cruel for it to wake up now, like a monster under the bed—and want her .

A celibate girl.

Fucking twisted.

Frankie clenched her jaw, the thought acid-bitter in her throat. Her body, having betrayed her so many times already, now wanted the one person whose whole identity was built on restraint. Purity. Sacred silence. 

“I need air,” she whispered, already rising.

Anthony gave her a lazy salute.

“Don’t breathe too deep. It’s cursed out there.”

Frankie didn’t laugh.

She walked quickly—almost ran—through the halls.

The library was empty. Dusty and warm, filled with stale light. The books waited in their rows, the shelves like mausoleums. No Geraldine.

She tried the barn. Her heart clanged in her chest like a dropped tool. But it was cold, empty, silent. Only the sharp scent of hay and ash lingered, as if someone had been there recently, but left in a hurry.

She stood in the doorway, moonlight ghosting over her shoes, and whispered, like it might summon her.

But no one answered. And the silence pressed closer, tighter, like the walls had teeth.

Because she knew she had ruined everything.

Frankie didn’t sleep that night, hoping she’d lurk in.

Another day went by.  

The ache in her chest had grown too loud, too clawed and feral to be soothed by pills or soft hymns leaking through the walls. Guilt twisted inside her like a storm trapped in a jar—lashing against her ribs, rattling through her bones.

She waited until the ward went quiet. Until the lights dimmed and the nurses retreated behind their glass windows.

Then she slipped out—barefoot, cigarette tucked behind her ear—and padded through the damp grass, heart thudding like a secret.

The barn welcomed her like a wound. Familiar. Damp. Hollow. The scent of hay and old wood hung thick in the air, and the moon was just bright enough to paint everything in silver rot.

She lit the cigarette with the barn’s candle and took a long drag, the ember blooming in the dark. Her eyes closed. Her body exhaled.

Next, soft—almost to herself—Frankie began to sing.

“I hurt myself today…To see if I still feel…I focus on the pain… The only thing that’s real…”

Her voice wasn’t strong, but it was raw. Tired. Hollowed out. It quivered in the rafters like a bird with a broken neck. And she kept singing, barely above a whisper, barely holding it together.

“I wear this crown of thorns…Upon my liar’s chair…Full of broken thoughts…I cannot repair…”

“I didn’t take you for a country fan,” a voice said, low and dry.

Frankie startled—nearly dropped the cigarette.

Sister Geraldine stood in the doorway, half-swallowed by shadow. Her habit clung to her like fog, and her eyes caught the moonlight in that strange, shimmering way—unholy and divine all at once.

She hadn’t seen her in four full days, and each hour had felt like a whipping delivered straight to the muscle. Frankie had tried pacing it out, like if she could circle the ward enough times, she might find the version of herself worth forgiving. But nothing stuck. The guilt absorbed like sweat—sour, cloying, undeniable.

Frankie blinked, heart leaping straight into her throat.

“I—” she started, but words crumbled.

Geraldine stepped closer, arms crossed tightly, jaw clenched like she hadn’t meant to speak but couldn’t help it.

“You shouldn’t be out here.”

Frankie looked down, ash flicking off her cigarette like snowfall.

“I know.”

Geraldine was petty in the kind of way that made Frankie feel stupid. Like every emotion was dialed to eleven and her body was just a vessel for ache.

Four days without seeing her had frayed something animal inside her. She wanted to scream, confess, crawl into Geraldine’s lap and ask if she was still good. If she was still clean . If she could be remade.

But all she did was stare. All she did was wait.

And Geraldine… kept looking. Eyes like holy water. Not mercy exactly, but something close. Something that didn’t recoil.

A pause. Thick silence. She felt like she was crawling across glass just to speak. Scraped raw from unsaid words, and her mouth tasted metallic, as if the apology itself had ripped something loose inside her.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie said finally, and the words tasted like blood. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said the other night. About you. About… all of it.”

Geraldine didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. But she didn’t walk away either.

Her silence didn’t feel cruel—it felt surgical. Clean and unreadable, like always. Like she was holding the space open just wide enough for Frankie to choke on her own remorse.

So Frankie adhered to it.

She pushed on, voice barely above the crickets clawing at the quiet.

“I was trying to provoke you. Or maybe I was trying to get close to you. I don’t know. But it was shitty. You didn’t deserve that.”

Another pause. Geraldine’s expression didn’t soften, but something behind her eyes shifted. A faint trembling, like a mirror about to crack.

This distance, this withdrawal from her , it felt like abstinence. Like some god laughing from above at her need. The way she kept checking for signs—eye contact, breath shifts, anything to suggest Geraldine wasn’t repulsed by her.

Anything that didn’t say monster.

“And maybe you were right,” Frankie added earnestly. “Maybe I don’t get it. What it means to carry something like this. To choose a life like this.”

The words tasted like rust on her tongue. Like biting into a corroded coin and pretending it was communion.

Geraldine exhaled—slow, thoughtful. Like letting out a poison she hadn’t even known she was holding. Frankie looked up. Their eyes met in the gloom.

“But you were right about one thing,” Geraldine uttered, voice barely audible. “I am hiding. In plain sight.”

Frankie’s chest stung with recognition. She stepped forward, slow, like approaching a wounded animal, tentative, wary, severely afraid.

“And you’re good at it,” she whispered sincerely. “I swear to God, you’re good at it”.

It was too late to wonder if she was her weakness. All her doubts meant nothing. Frankie reached up slowly, hand trembling. Not to touch—but to prove she would , if allowed. And Geraldine just stood there, breakable as a stained glass in a storm, a single shift away from shattering.

The moment was palpitating.

Not with lust, not with love—but with desperation . With Frankie’s need to be good and cruel at the same time. To be forgiven and ruined. To taste salvation just long enough to spit it out.

“But it’s pointless to hide it from me,” She said it like a confession chewed through broken teeth—quiet, ill, brutally genuine.

Geraldine didn’t speak. Her arms stayed crossed like a barricade hastily rebuilt from bones and shame, but her eyes betrayed the battlefield. Wet now. Faintly so, yet no tears fell—too proud, too contained—and the tremor beneath her gaze carried the culpability of saintliness darkening.

She stared at Frankie with a kind of broken fury—confusion interweaved with something heavier, something that had lived in her intestines long before this moment. It was the kind of look reserved for wordless things: tragic, despairing, and inexplicably unvoiced.

Like seeing a stray dog that’s bitten too many hands to be trusted, yet still returns to feed from yours, not out of love, but out of some twisted, desperate recognition.

And she looked heavy with questions she wouldn't express.

Why is it pointless? What exactly do you see? How dare you say it like you do?

Frankie saw all of it. She was not good at peace, she was cursedly fluent in ruin.

“Because the same animals know each other by scent, Gee ” She didn’t say it with sadism. She said it while collapsing. Unable to continue ignoring the obvious attempts to conceal the suffering truths between them. With the kind of reverence reserved for fire that had already chosen its prey.

Geraldine looked like she’d been skinned hollow by that sentence. Her mouth opened slightly, a breath slipping through. But nothing came. No rebuttal. No denial.

And Frankie, drawn forward like a moth to something far crueler than flame, gave up.

Drawn to Geraldine like rot is drawn to sweetness, like a blade to a clean wrist. 

Her fingers skimmed Geraldine’s cheek—barely a touch, a ghost of skin against skin, trembling with a prejudice that knew no one but her. Then, on the tips of her toes, Frankie leaned up, her breath catching, and pressed her lips to Geraldine’s face.

It wasn’t bold. It wasn’t lustful. It wasn’t rebelion. It was pure rendition.

A fragile, fleeting offering.

A kiss that carried the seriousness of a goodbye, of a heart that feared it would never taste this closeness again.

With a shuddering exhale, Frankie let her mouth drift lower, grazing Geraldine’s jaw. The touch was delicate, a faint suction, like picking the thorns from a rose.

Each heartbeat pulsed in her lips, each shallow breath a plea. She moved as if tracing a rosary bead—slow, cautiously, terrified of breaking the moment.

Because Frankie didn’t want to steal nothing pious from Geraldine—not her peace, not her faith, not whatever thread of sanctity still fastened around her. She didn’t want to stain her goodness.
Hell, she never wanted to taint her. But the idea of Geraldine standing here now, in this room, after everything, was unbearable to reason with.

There couldn’t be another explanation. Not after the way she’d looked at her. Not after the things Frankie had said—the things she could never unsay. Geraldine wouldn’t be here unless... unless it was about her. Unless some part of her had come seeking Frankie in return.

And Frankie’s heart roared at the thought, like something half-dead jolting with a sudden reanimating breath. Incapable of keeping her mind private, a soft moan escaped her.

A battered sound, raw and barely audible, like sorrow spilling from a dying hurting creature. Her hands hovered near Geraldine’s waist, fingers twitching, yearning to anchor herself but afraid of crossing an invisible line.

So far, it had only been her toeing the edge. Just her , the reckless one, the inappropriate girl with a crush on the nun.

Saint Geraldine—sweet, careful Geraldine—had merely allowed her to exist in proximity to affection. Had let her speak love like it wasn’t a curse. Had offered silence as a mercy, not an invitation. No line had truly been crossed, not yet.

Frankie could be incinerated in the depth of the abyss for what she had done. Geraldine remained clean. Still immaculate.

She could still go back to her church untainted. Could still whisper her prayers without them curdling. Could still meet the eyes of her Sisters without the shame Frankie had buried in their distance.

Because Frankie was exactly that. Inappropriate. Unwell. A woman wired for sabotage who kept showing up like her longing was noble. Like her want wasn’t just another form of destruction.

And if she wanted— really wanted—Geraldine could have her moved. Tell the doctors she was a problem. Say she felt unsafe. Say Frankie was one of those patients, the ones who don't understand boundaries, the ones who mistake attention for intimacy.

And they’d believe her.

Geraldine could flick the switch. One note. One request. Frankie would be gone. A new wing. A new bed. Out of sight.

And maybe that was mercy too.

But until then, Frankie stood at the edge—bleeding privately, loving messily—hoping that Geraldine hadn’t just tolerated her presence, but noticed it. That maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t looked away because some tiny, defiant part of her wanted to see Frankie wreck herself in devotion.

When she looked up finally, she was met with a sight that shattered her.

Geraldine’s misty-eyed stare, godforsaken , like emeralds drowned in the most obscure depths of the ocean—swamped with something unbearably depressing, solemnly cold and dreary. Her lips trembling, her breath uneven. 

And then, with a sharp, broken gasp, Geraldine’s restraint snapped. Her hand shot up, seizing Frankie’s jaw with trembling fingers, firm yet unsteady, and pulled her in.

The kiss was a wound bursting open.

It was not gentle. It was not cautious.

It was surrender, sore and grieving.

A collision of lips that lingered of ash and clemency.

Geraldine’s mouth claimed Frankie’s with a ferocity that spoke of years spent starving, of prayers unanswered, of a heart that had forgotten how to want until this moment .

Her tongue swept in, urgent, searching, tangling with Frankie’s in a slick, desperate crash. A low, guttural moan vibrated from Geraldine’s throat, a sound that carried the weight of every suppressed desire, every night spent kneeling in penance for a sin she hadn’t yet committed.

Frankie’s knees buckled, her body melting into the heat of it. Her cigarette fell to the hay, forgotten, a faint hiss as it hit the dry straw.

She clutched at Geraldine’s waist, fingers digging into the coarse fabric of the habit, grasping for something solid to keep her from unraveling. A whimper slipped from her lips, needy and broken , as their tongues curled together, uncoordinated and fervent, each stroke a plea for absolution, each moan a confession of ruin.

Geraldine kissed like she was burning, like the fire in her soul had nowhere else to go.

There was no rhythm, no grace. Her lips missed and fumbled, her tongue unsure and wet, moving with a frantic, mournful greed. She didn’t know how to kiss—not really. It was obvious. Like no one had ever taught her where mouths were meant to meet or how softness could guide the way.

And Frankie felt it. Every graceless angle.

Every clumsy, desperate touch. She heaved, panted—a sound that split between crave and heartbreak.

For a moment, she wondered—how long had it been since she had been kissed? Really kissed. Kissed like she mattered. The thought passed through her like cold water, sudden and cruel. Had it been years?

It felt obscene and holy. Like she'd been unknowingly saving every untouched corner of herself—for Frankie. Not for God. Not for Heaven. But for the girl who spoke in fire.

She was surrendering what the Church had spent years hammering into shape. Her vows. Her purity. Her composture. All of it—cracked open by want.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like a reward. It was supposed to burn. Instead, it enlivened her.

She felt baptized in sweat and longing, in the affliction of giving in—not to temptation, but to truth. And the truth was that God never made her feel like this. God never reached into her chest and made her heart stumble.

Frankie did.

And Frankie, Frankie answered with a sob-like groan, her hips tilting forward, her core brushing against Geraldine’s frame, chasing the rigor that nailed her insides.

Her hands fumbled, clawing at the impenetrable folds of the habit, searching for skin, for warmth, for anything that wasn’t this agonizing distance.

But the cloth was a barrier, a cruel reminder of the vows that stood between them.

It mocked her , unyielding, keeping Geraldine just out of reach.

When they finally separated, gasping for oxygen, their foreheads pressed together, breath mingling in the cold air. Geraldine’s fingers igniting on Frankie’s jaw, trembling, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. 

Frankie’s chest heaved, her lips swollen, her heart heavy with the knowledge that this moment—sacred, sinful, fleeting— could never be enough.

All the time spent searching for embers, just to find them in the wettest place.

“I’m so sorry,” Frankie murmured, her voice cracking with a hurt that felt like betrayal. But this hunger was ruthless, a beast that devoured shame.

Her hands found Geraldine’s waist, fingers digging into the soft flesh covered by her habit, guiding her with calculated slowness until her back pressed against the rough wooden wall.

The act felt wickedly manipulative, a dance of control over Geraldine’s trembling frame, her brokenness laid bare. The air was thick with the scent of hay and sweat, the faint creak of the barn’s timbers underscoring their shallow breaths.

Frankie’s lips grazed Geraldine’s neck, her tongue tracing a languid, deliberate path along the pulse that fluttered there.

Each lick was a venomous sin, dripping with a longing so raw it made God seem evil for deeming it forbidden. Geraldine’s breath hitched, a soft whimper escaping her lips—a sound that was both surrender and resistance, a fragile note in the quiet.

Her hands hovered in the air, fingers splayed as if caught in a divine interrogation, torn between pushing away and pulling closer. Her eyes, wide and glistening, betrayed an internal war: the desperate yearning to give in, clashing with the terror of crossing an uncrossable line.

But It had already happened. It was irrevocable now.

The damning moment had passed the second she stepped into that barn, like a lamb threading itself into the wolf’s mouth. There was no rescuing it. No rewinding. She’d broken her vows the instant her hands reached for the doorknob with Frankie on her mind.

Because it wasn’t an apology she’d come searching for. It was the girl who saw her clearly. The girl who spoke like knives and looked at her like she wasn’t who she was.

And God wouldn’t help her—not when Geraldine wanted that gaze. She craved it the way sick people crave fever, like if she just let it burn long enough, she’d finally purge what's foul from her soul.

She couldn’t lie inside her own head anymore. She’d tried. She’d built whole cathedrals of denial, lit candles to shame, recited prayer after prayer to the hollow ceiling above her cot. But the luxury of being seen —truly seen—was too exquisite. It was a gift disguised as damnation.

Had she ever been cherished before? Had anyone ever looked at her like they couldn’t bear the distance between them?

She felt desired in a way that made her stomach curdle.

Not because it was wrong—but because it was dreamlike.

Frankie wanted her the way people want the truth after too many lies—unfiltered, unbearable. And Geraldine, clothed in virtue, stitched into restraint, was starving for it.

Yes, she was sinning. Yes, she was breaking every rule. Yes, she was becoming the thing she’d sworn to never be.

But the truth was—she wanted to die most days anyway. The reason behind why she chose this life. To disappear. 

Quietly. Internally. A death by erosion, not spectacle. Death by erasure. Maybe this was just another way to bleed. To be undone in color instead of grayscale.

She couldn’t resist this one good thing, possibly the first and last. Not even when it came wearing sharp teeth and shaky hands.

And that, she thought, was the worst part—how even excommunication began to look like mercy when you were lonely enough.

Frankie’s fingers slid lower, gripping Geraldine’s hips with a possessive compulsion, her fingers brushing the coarse fabric of the habit.

She tugged subtly at the hem, testing, teasing, the motion almost imperceptible but heavy with intent. Geraldine’s body tensed, her breath catching in a sharp gasp, but she didn’t stop her—not yet.

Emboldened, Frankie pressed closer, straddling Geraldine’s trembling form, pinning her wrists against the splintered wood of the wall.

She drove her hips forward, desperate and trembling, the raw denim of her jeans biting into the soft woven fabric of the habit—an ugly, exquisite clash. The friction was brutal, unforgiving, delicious. It tore through her like penance and pleasure in the same breath, like the guilt was a second skin peeling off with every drag.

It felt like she was violating something sacred. It felt like kneeling at an altar only to spit wine across it.

She wanted it to hurt. She wanted it to heal. She wanted it to mean everything and nothing at once.

Because if it meant nothing, then they could always do it again.

Each motion scraped against her better instincts, as if she were begging the fabric to scream and melt. As if her own ruin could echo loud enough to absolve her.

It wasn’t lust—it was desecration disguised as need. And still, her body betrayed her with thirst, clinging to the moment like it could stitch her soul back together.

The barn seemed to hum with their shared sin, the air vibrating with the low, guttural moan Frankie let slip as she pressed harder, her body seeking more, always more.

Geraldine’s lips parted, a shuddery exhale mingling with Frankie’s heavier breaths, the sound a fragile symphony of want and restraint.

For a fleeting moment, she yielded, her hips shifting ever so slightly to meet Frankie’s rhythm, a silent confession of her own desperate craving.

It was a surrender that burned hotter than Frankie could have dreamed, stoking the fire in her veins. But as Frankie’s fingers dared to curl under the hem of the habit, inching it upward to reveal the pale skin of Geraldine’s knee, her hands snapped down like a bear trap.

Her grip was iron, painful, her nails digging into Frankie’s wrists with a force that spoke of both fear and penalty.

“Stop,” Geraldine whispered, her voice a broken plea, drunk with the weight of her resolve. Her eyes, now wet with shed tears, locked onto Frankie’s, a storm of longing and guilt swirling within them. “I can’t—”

“I know,” Frankie breathed serious, her voice barely a sound at all, raw with the agony of restraint. She stilled, her body pressed against Geraldine’s, the heat between them a torment they could neither escape nor fully embrace.

They stood in the barn’s silence, hearts loud, the world closing in around them like nightfall.

Chapter Text

Her routine was punishing. And she welcomed it like penance.

She had signed up for this life—offered herself, body and blood, to the altar of service. And for a time, it had even felt noble.

The night shifts were quieter, lonelier, yes—but less abrasive than the chaos of daytime, when patients were sharp-edged with complaints and raw nerves. Even the evening hours were worse, when bodies ached and tempers frayed and the smallest requests felt like trials.

But the night? The night belonged to her. She moved through darkened halls like the spirit of last christmas, she paced around with the ease of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing.

She administered meds, performed check-ins, kept watch for bleeding wrists or empty eyes, and always walked softly, reverently, so as not to wake the sleeping.

After 1 a.m., they all slept. All except her.

There were no other nuns on the night shift. She was alone. Alone in her uniform, in her habit, in her quiet duality as both nun and nurse. 

The collar and the certification. She had earned them both.

Seven years ago, the Congregation had championed her enrollment into college.

Not reluctantly, not dutifully—but with pride. They spoke of her with pride, their favorite exemplar of obedience and restraint, a living testament to the virtues of self-denial and devotion. Her scholarships had the scent of sanctity, not generosity. She had earned them, they said—by her sacrifice, by her silence.

Especially silence.

She had kept Father Billy’s secret. Never spoke a word of what she’d seen. What she’d heard. What she knew.

That silence had calcified inside her, dense and immovable, easier to carry than the chaos of truth.

After all, it had only happened a handful of times—momentary lapses, forgivable in a man as loved, as magnetic as he was. The parish needed him. His smile, his sermons, the way he looked like forgiveness incarnate.

It would have been selfish to ruin that. And Geraldine could never afford selfishness.

In fact, she could never afford anything. Her poverty vow was absolute—more binding than law, more severe than hunger.

Every paycheck, every stipend, every "thank you" wrapped in currency, had flowed directly to the parish like blood returning to the heart. Not even hers. Not really. Not anymore.

‘What a way to dress up exploitation,’ Frankie would’ve said.

Frankie, whose voice had begun to colonize Geraldine’s thoughts with alarming consistency. Frankie, with her unfinished sentences and graceless sincerity. Her words sifted through Geraldine’s mind like sun-warmed sand—impossible to grasp, impossible to escape, yet soothing in their heat.

She owed everything to the Church. That much was true.

They had educated her, guided her, ordained her dreams into something palatable.

And most importantly, they saved Mikey. 

So she was theirs. Their vessel. Their investment. Their working force.

But investments expected returns.

She scrubbed floors. Bathed the dying. Handled fluids others refused to smell. Cleaned up what others refused to look at. She had once gone nearly a full year in silence—not because she’d taken a vow, but because it felt more righteous to disappear into herself.

And she did it gladly.

She accepted it. It came easy. That was her outline on the world’s surface: low-volume, high-function, imperceivable.

Others had gone to college, too—nuns imported from other states, distance dioceses, bound by the same order. But she returned alone, the only one intact. She alone kept the vows.

The rest found vocabulary, found unlicensed joy, found exit routes stamped with breath. They tore off their habits like heatstroke clothes, fled and never came back.

But Geraldine stayed.

Even when the parish whispered about how the others had left. Even when she was trotted out at meetings and conferences as the one who didn’t break, who stayed pure, who was still sellable as a beacon of obedience. They displayed her at diocesan councils like a relic—proof that some still comply, still kneel, still hold. They called her incorruptible. Marketable, in the way ascetics sometimes are.

But she wasn’t sellable. Not really.

Not like Father Geoff with his syrupy laugh and handshake theology. Not like Father Billy with his winks and charm.

No. Geraldine was too unusual, too still.

Her presence unsettled people. She didn’t glow, she loomed. There was something in her that repelled more than it welcomed. She knew that.

Beauty never settled on her the way it did on others. She wasn’t beautiful. Not in the way the world recognizes beauty.

And it wasn’t even about being pretty or not—it was the whole picture.

Her hair was too thin and it greased out after half a day without showering, her eyes too large and pale, with that haunted stare that made children nervous. Her body towered awkwardly, not with grace but with the clumsy terror of a scarecrow come to life. Broad shoulders. Bent spine. Legs too spindly for her torso. A waist that disappeared into a boxy shape.

She looked like something sewn together in haste. Like a cautionary tale.

Besides, it wasn’t like beauty ever mattered to her, she grew up without even registering the idea. There were more important things like coloring books, Archie’s comics, visiting her fabulous grandma, fake syringes and Band-Aids in doctor games with her baby brother, and listening to the radio.

She had never, not once, felt beautiful.

Not even on the night of junior prom, when her mother curled her hair and painted her lips soft pink meant to resemble springtime.

Not even in that dress that puffed around her like a sugar cloud.

Because her date never came. And it was Mikey—her sweet, foolish, younger brother, Mikey—who took her instead.

She should’ve known. Should’ve seen it unraveling before it even began.

The invitation hadn’t made sense—because that guy had never ever looked at her, not even in the casual way people glance past each other. There had been no flirting, no words exchanged beyond what was necessary.

Still, she had hoped. Or maybe she hadn’t hoped so much as suspended herself in belief. Maybe this time, she thought. Maybe this was her small, unspoken arrival.

It wasn’t.

It had been a joke. Of course it was. A game played loudly behind cupped hands. An invitation meant to humiliate her only, like a paper cut that doesn’t sting until morning.

She wasn’t bullied exactly. No lockers slammed, no insults barked to her face.

Just shoulder checks in crowded hallways. Just laughter that bent when she walked past. Just her name mutated into something strange in bathrooms full of pretty girls fogging mirrors with aerosol foundation, giving her sideways glances curled in ribbons.

She remembered only one time—one time—someone smiled at her through the glass. A girl with mascara spears and peppermint lip gloss. Geraldine had smiled back, cautiously. Later, she learned it wasn’t a gesture at all. The girl needed help with her English paper.

That night she cried sitting on her porch sinking into her balloon dress. Silently. Because even after two hours, she hoped that maybe he would appear, cheeks flushed, shame wrapping his voice and would try to explain. Maybe he’d say something absurd but forgiving: "I was too embarrassed to take you to prom... but I’ll take you somewhere dark, somewhere quiet—we’ll eat, I’ll make it up to you." 

But no one came.

Except Mikey.

He saw her there—hair perfectly curled, lips pinked into effort—and didn’t ask questions. He didn’t demand explanations, didn’t suggest revenge or try to guess what she’d done to scare the boy away. He didn’t even ask the boy’s name.

He just cared for her.

He cared enough to salvage what was left of her night. So he grabbed their father’s old suit from the closet, wrinkled shoulders and shoes half a size too big, and wore it like armor. And he took her. Proudly. Not as a pity date, not as a brother fulfilling some familial duty—but as someone who understood, deeply, what it meant to be forgotten.

He didn't flinch. Didn’t hesitate. Just smiled, offered his arm, and let the world say whatever it wanted.

But three years of high school jokes and jeering followed him: Mikey the freak. Mikey who took his sister Frankenstein to prom.

Even after she graduated, the mockery clung to him like a disease.

And Mikey never held it against her. Not once.

It wasn’t some divine signal that led her to become a nun. It was everything. The loss of a family member. The absence of friends. The fact that her grades were never that good to begin with. The lack of money. The job she lost at Dairy Queen when they hired someone younger—prettier.

It was the daydreams, too.

The ones where her face ended up on the back of a milk carton. Until she realized: there wouldn’t even be a photo to use. And worse—no one would be searching.

No one would miss her ever. 

Except maybe Mikey, who had started closing in on himself, drifting deeper into his friend groups.

She already felt guilty enough for ruining his reputation. If she disappeared the same way, people might forget they were ever related. He’d be free. He’d have a great life.

So one day, she stepped out of the house and walked. Walked, and walked.

Walked until someone found her. And luckily, it was Sister Gabrielle. 

Time passed. Most connections evaporated.

And then, news arrived: Mikey was spiraling, he had been spiraling for years actually, but could she even know? she’d been isolated for so long. Their parents had cut him off. He’d lost his job at Barnes & Noble. So she helped.

She had just graduated nursing school. Had been tiptoeing toward the edge of leaving the Church herself.

But the Congregation was so kind. Shockingly kind. Accommodating in ways that felt almost rewarding. Rewarding for not leaving. For not spilling what she knew.

They arranged everything—Mikey’s treatment, a quiet transfer to Saint Agnes, a whole new life stitched for her in the South. Far from Jersey. Far from the city. Far from the stain that trailed after him.

So she paid the debt the only way she understood.

Head down. Mouth shut. Following every order and, never ever, questioning the church.

Told herself this was peace. That this was her vocation, her calling. That this cold, rigid routine was holiness, not grief folded into ritual. Not ownership. 

She believed it. Because she believed in the people who saved her brother.

Until she met her.

She hadn’t even noticed Frankie the first few times, other than the fact that she was also from Jersey. Just another patient. Another troubled soul with scars and sharp eyes. She didn’t see her—until she did.

And it wasn’t cinematic. No thunderclap, no hearts colliding mid-air. She didn’t fall stupidly in love with her on sight.

There was no dramatic arc. Only their daily collisions. Only the way Frankie leaned in close. Only the way her eyes scanned for Geraldine, always scanning — so directly it made her giggle.

Because why was she staring so much? Geraldine didn’t have a circus glued to her face. Or maybe she did. Maybe she was just so absurd-looking Frankie couldn’t resist.

But no— it wasn’t laughter. It was all sweetness. It was a gaze like warm caramel. Like being studied by a newborn, eyes wide with undiluted affection and the kind of awe that hadn’t yet learned embarrassment.

And Geraldine, who’d trained herself to vanish, who’d perfected the art of restraint, found herself enjoying it. For the first time, she liked being seen. Liked being considered real.

This was her undoing.

Because you can only hide for so long before the mask decides it’s hungry. Before it starts chewing holes in you just to breathe.

And Frankie—dear, Frankie. Quick-tongued, flame-bright, ruinous. She said things that cut her open like surgery. 

She called her beautiful. Really beautiful. 

Geraldine laughed aloud sometimes now. Laughed into the dark halls of Saint Agnes like a madwoman.

A nun, falling into madness over a 24-year-old arsonist who flirted like she was born for it. A girl from money or from some powerful family. Geraldine knew Frankie was somehow connected to the owners—The Radke family. Which only made Frankie seem more surreal, more untouchable. Knew she could get away with nearly anything.

Because who sets a car ablaze and winds up institutionalized across state lines? And she knew their son, she knew Ronnie who had spent time here too, back when Mikey was still receiving treatment. And he was a piece of shit. He was the worst.

None of it added up. Either Frankie was rolling in cash too, or she had leverage on the Radkes. However it was, she had some kind of influence over those people. 

And Geraldine? What did she have? A room. A bible. A body she never learned to love.

Fucking nothing. 

She was 36 years old. Too old to start again. Too frightened to leave. Too realistic to imagine she could be wanted—not by the world, and especially not by someone like Frankie.

Someone so sharp-edged and alive, whose gaze didn’t tolerate fantasy. Someone who wouldn’t glance twice at her in the real world. In daylight. In jeans. Among normal people.

And yet.

Every time Geraldine stared out the window and saw the barn—its chipped paint and crooked spine—her knees softened into static. Her breath cinched into her throat like a belt pulled too tight.
And every night she smoked just one more cigarette than she should, as if the smoke could summon Frankie’s presence again. As if nicotine could barter with absence.

She’d been avoiding the library, too. The sacred sites where sin took root. She cleaned floors during her free hours until her knuckles turned raw. Read scripture in her room. No more vampire novels.

Stayed on her wing. Refused to wander upstairs. Because she knew Frankie would feel it. Sense her.

Because animals of the same species know each other by smell.

And Geraldine—tragically, irreversibly—had discovered she was no longer alone in her species.

And she didn’t know if that made her damned or free. Or if, heartbreakingly, there was even a difference.

Perhaps to be damned was freedom. Perhaps freedom meant to be damned.

That moment in the barn continued to torture her every minute of her day, of her night, it would not grant her peace. Sometimes reminiscing it brought her joy, the joy of knowing she had been kissed by someone she liked so much. Other times it felt like a sick joke, other times the guilt and disgust toward herself made her sick to the stomach and she had to collect herself.

She had kissed a patient. Because although Frankie kissed her cheek and jaw, she couldn’t restrain herself and kissed her on the mouth.

With tongue.

The way the air had stood still that night—not with heat, but with something heavier, with this cold and choking, drowning of the aftermath of her own want.
She didn’t think straight.

She just felt: the blush rising to her face, the hammering of her pulse, the brutal ache of desire colliding with guilt like tectonic plates beneath her ribs.

Frankie told her she was good at hiding. But there was no use in hiding from her, because she could know her by scent.

That she could haunt her, and chase after her like the hungry wolf she was.

The barn had gone quiet—but not dead. It breathed with them. It pulsed like the inside of a chapel mid-confession. The horses didn't move. Not even Grace. As if the whole structure had bent itself around them, keeping them safe. Even her own tears streamed in absolute silence.

And then to her surprise—Frankie kissed her again.

She thought she wouldn’t dare, not after she had told her to stop, not after telling her she couldn’t.

But there was no rush this time. Not like the first, holy-criminal kiss that had burst out of her like a flame desperate for oxygen.

This one was slow. Measured.

Frankie had leaned forward and pressed her mouth against hers, dragged her bottom lip between her own and sucked it with such aching gentleness, as if she were drinking the last drop of something vital. As if she could somehow steal a piece of her to keep.

Then she bit down. Softly. Not enough to hurt. Enough to remind her that she was real. That they were real.

And she inhaled sharply. Her breath caught against Frankie’s lips like a prayer interrupted.

Frankie smiled—barely. A ghost of triumph. Or tragedy.

“You got the ring now,” she whispered, stroking her cheeks, drying the tears off, voice smudged with heat and grief. “You’ve always had it”. 

A beat passed.

Geraldine’s lashes fluttered. Her throat moved as she swallowed. Her lips—slightly swollen—parted, trembling. She felt… undone.

Frankie stepped back.
One last look. One last sweep of her eyes down the flushed slope of Geraldine’s face, the trembling hands, the pink-wounded mouth.

She turned.
And vanished into the dark.

No goodbye. No breath wasted. Her heart thundered so loud it nearly drowned out her own footsteps. She didn’t look back.

But the guilt she left behind hunted Geraldine like a shadow that wouldn’t detach.

And Geraldine stood alone in that barn, cupping her hands, biting her bottom lip so hard to suffocate the crying sounds.

What had she done?

It wasn’t only that she had betrayed every vow. It was also her entanglement with a patient. The violation wasn't abstract—it was tactile, specific, morally, ethically, medically wrong.

And worst of all, she had enjoyed it. That was the unbearable part. Frankie’s touch still echoed, humming beneath her scapular. Geraldine had felt flushed, flammable. As if her blood had finally found its purpose.

Every place Frankie had rested a hand now felt haunted—an aftertaste sweet enough to hurt her.

By the time she reached the facility, she felt hollowed out.

She passed the chapel hall like a phantom, invisible but heavy. The saints on the stained glass watched her go, eyes made of colored judgment.

A nurse had asked if she was alright, squinting at her with concern. “You look even paler than normal,” she’d said.

Geraldine mumbled something about needing air. It became her excuse to disappear from rotation, to reroute her tasks away from Frankie’s room. She relocated to the far eastern wing, the deepest fold of the third floor where the walls whispered mostly to themselves.

And no one noticed.

No one questioned it. Why would they? She had tenure, respect, the long robe of trust trailing behind her. She was older. She was a nun. She had trained the nurses, signed the rotas, led the night shift with impeccable precision. Her suggestion felt like gospel. They nodded and obeyed.

She repeated the process for two more nights. And she would’ve kept going if her soul didn’t start ringing like a cracked bell.

Because something had shifted.

Her invisibility—once cultivated like a spiritual discipline—now felt less like virtue and more like a sentence. Maybe it was Heaven punishing her, withdrawing her name from memory, ensuring she could sin without drawing suspicion. Or maybe Hell had gifted her anonymity so she could indulge longer without consequence.

She hated herself for it. Hated the soft breath of longing that still bloomed when Frankie passed too near. But she couldn't shake the feeling that maybe—just maybe—this was her one permitted joy. Like God, exhausted with her austerity, had slipped her a single forbidden indulgence before the curtain fell.

Because sometimes, as she stood alone in that silent corridor, the air felt weighted. Thick with premonition. As if her end was gently circling—some horror quietly knitting itself in the folds ahead.

And still, she thought of Frankie. And still, she smoked too much. And still, she prayed to be punished properly, instead of drifting in this half-lit purgatory of sweetness and shame.

After their last kiss, Frankie climbed the stairs two at a time and went straight to the showers, needing to scald the night from her skin. It was past shower hours, but she did it anyway. And she wasn’t allowed alone, but Ray—who was actually ending his shift and changed into regular attire, saw her and called a nurse. 

The second the water hit her, she broke. At first it was silent: a grief so raw it stole the sound from her lungs. Her knees hit the cold tile with a crack, her body folding inward like paper soaked through. Her fingers clawed at her scalp. Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

Then it did.

It was loud. Ugly. Animalistic. It ripped out of her in gasps and heaves, a sob so uncontainable it could’ve belonged to a dying thing. Something inside her had split. Not just cracked—shattered.

Raymond’s footsteps squeaked on the tile.

“Frankie?” he called, gentle as a lullaby.

She couldn’t answer. Her throat was full of tears.

“I—I’m not looking,” he said quickly. “I promise. I just—I’ll have to come in, sweetheart, if you don’t answer. I have to check, someone has to—”

She knew the rules. She was under their watch. Even in the shower. Especially in the shower.

She felt it. The smallness. The surveillance. The fact that she was still a patient. A case number. A risk.

She had been dissociating for so long it barely felt like she had a body.

But now she did. She wanted it. She wanted to be a real girl with real problems, not a diagnosis. Not a liability. Not a threat.

She wanted the stupid things. The human things.

She wanted to get a crappy job and complain about it. To take Geraldine to the movies and buy her popcorn, to learn if she liked it salty or sweet. To laugh about laundry, argue over dinner, touch her softly beneath the lamplight.

She wanted to dye her awful, now ridiculously half bleached hair, black and live a boring life. She wanted to hold Geraldine’s hand in a grocery store aisle and kiss her forehead while waiting in line.

Instead, she was curled on the floor, naked and sobbing, steam curling around her like incense at a funeral.

Ray’s shadow hovered at the curtain.

“Frankie, kiddo, do you want me to call someone? Should I get someone else? Please let me know you’re okay.”

His voice was gentle. Too gentle. She hated it.

She could picture him on the other side—his ginger curls probably ballooning from the heat, his lips wide and cartoonish and always too soft for his face. The kind of mouth that looked like it had been drawn by someone who never met a real man.

He was kind. Too kind.

It twisted inside her, clawing at her throat like a scream that couldn’t climb out. Now all she could think about was Anthony—and how she almost wished the rumor about her and Ray had been true. At least then there’d be logic to it. At least then it would’ve been easier.

If it had been a nurse, not a nun… Well, that kind of scandal cycles through hospitals like air conditioning. The patient wouldn't stay forever, and everyone would eventually forget.

If it had been Ray, it would’ve made sense. Social sense. Clean-cut and digestible. A man and a woman. No one would question that pairing. No one would call it unnatural.

And maybe that’s why it hurt worse. Because with Geraldine, it wasn't just unexpected. It was unpermitted. Sacred in its wrongness.

“I’m fine,” she croaked. “Just—please, Ray. I need a minute to myself. Please.”

A long pause.

“Okay,” he said finally, like he was talking to a wounded animal. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”

She stayed there for what felt like hours. By the time she stepped out, her face was red and swollen and splotched like meat left in the sun. She looked like hell. Not even punk hell—just sad. Like a drowned thing that never quite dried.

Ray didn’t stare. But his eyes flickered with concern. And she couldn’t stop crying.

It was grotesque. The crying wracked her whole body. She couldn’t breathe through it. Her ribs ached. Her nose wouldn’t stop running. She couldn’t even speak.

And he had no reasons to be there anymore, his shift had indeed ended. But he couldn’t stand seeing her like that. 

He offered her a Valium.

She nodded.

He dried her hair gently, hands soft as cotton. The towel around her shoulders felt too much like being held. Ray helped her get changed, tucked her to bed like a father. 

She cried until she couldn’t anymore. Until her pillow was soaked and her voice rasped and her thoughts felt like stained glass cracking in the sun.

Because she had fallen in love.

With a nun.

With a woman possibly ten years older. Who kissed her back like it meant the end of the world. Who worked the night shift and read vampire novels and smelled like wax and old paper and altar smoke.

And she wanted her. She wanted her in this bed. In every bed.

She wanted her to sip coffee and forget to do the laundry. She wanted to marry her. To grow something inside her body just so she could press a hand against her belly and smile.

And it was impossible.

And maybe—maybe—Geraldine was fine.

Maybe she wasn’t haunted like Frankie was.

Maybe she’d never talk to her again. Maybe she’d disappear from the library and request a new assignment and pretend it never happened. Maybe she already was.

Maybe all Frankie had now was the barn and the memory of lips that trembled like leaves before a storm.

She curled into herself, tighter and tighter, the sheet over her head like a burial shroud.

Sister Hayley came in, eyes frantic. Ray didn’t leave. He sat with her for hours, holding space like a prayer.

Eventually, the sedation took hold and Ray left.

But even as sleep came, her mind echoed with a vow she hadn’t made, but now had to keep:

She would go back to the barn. She would wait. Until she was blessed with her grace again. 

The following days felt like walking through ash.

Not fire. That would have been too glorious. Too bright.

This was the aftermath, the worst part—smoke without flame, the kind that stains everything it touches. The kind that lingers in your lungs long after you’ve left the room.

Frankie stopped going to the library. She stopped wandering at night, stopped checking the halls for the flicker of candlelight from Geraldine’s wing.

She told herself it was to give her space. But the truth was uglier. She couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her and not being seen back.

She thought about leaving a note inside The Two Towers. Maybe between pages 223 and 224, where Frodo wakes and there is light again. Maybe Frodo would carry the message.
But what would she even write? “Sorry what I did”, “I’m so sorry for wanting you like this.”

“Run away with me”.
It all sounded stupid. And worse—small. The kind of sorry that wouldn’t sewn up what had been torn.

So she stayed in her room. The world became dim, food lost taste, her body became incidental. The appetite died first. Then the humor. Then the rest.

Even Anthony noticed.

He started showing up again, guitar in hand like some half-stoned bard from a bad indie film.
“What the fuck happened, girl?” he asked, strumming the most dramatic minor chord he could. “Whose balls or tits do I have to kick?”

Frankie didn’t answer. She barely smiled.

“Please tell me it’s not Sister Hayley,” he begged. That earned a choked little laugh. “Thank God it’s not her.”

Anthony, delighted by this breakthrough, launched into a bit about how Frankie’s breakdown was perfect for his reputation.

“Now I can flirt with Hayley and look like a mature, sensitive guy. I just do this”—he mimed a solemn sigh—“‘Yeah, it’s been rough, she’s been through something deep, you know…’ and boom. Instant nun sympathy.”

Frankie almost thanked him. For staying. For making it less bleak.

But then came the knock.

Sister Gabrielle.

She stood at the doorway like an omen in beige polyester. Her presence was always sterile and quiet—like the ticking of a clock in a hospital room.

“We may need to contact your family,” she said, no softness in her tone. “If the crying persists.”

Frankie blinked. “What?”

“We’d also like to schedule additional therapy.”

And something in Frankie snapped. Not violently. More like glass under pressure.

“I’m so sorry, Sister,” she whispered. “Please, don’t. I’m just struggling a bit.”

“Please, Sister, be compassionate,” came Anthony’s hoarse, helium-laced voice, all cigarette rasp and squirrel-on-speed charm. His tone made Sister Gabrielle visibly recoil, but—miraculously—she relented.

They were in her room, and he just turned to hug her. He was spooning her and touching her head like a mother comforting her daughter. 

By the third day she skipped lunch, the nurses stopped tiptoeing around her. She was making everyone’s job harder. Meds on an empty stomach were a liability, and she knew it.

At night, her crying arrived like a ritual— consistent and sharp. She remembered her first nights here, back when the building pulsed with noise: people shouting through fever, Anthony humming gospel fragments. Now the halls were still. Her sobs were the only movement left. Her grief, echoing in place.

She howled like a wolf claiming her pack. 

The nurses came. She ignored them. Again. Again. Again. Like they were mannequins rearranging themselves in the corner of her vision.

By the third dusk, she arrived.

A specter cloaked in sanctity, Geraldine stepped into the room like a wound reopening, painful and inevitable.

The nurses had pleaded with her to intervene, to mend what they could not, their voices frayed with desperation. “Sister, please do something,” they’d begged, their eyes hollow, as if Frankie’s meltdown was a contagion they feared catching.

So she did.

When Geraldine entered, it was mythic, a visitation from some cruel deity. Her presence tore through the sterile gloom like the first jagged slit of sunlight piercing a frozen, ash-choked sky. She was glowy, mild, a single grain of sugar dissolving on a tongue scorched by salt. Wonderful, yet terrifyingly pure, her purity a blade that cut deeper than any wrongful, fucked up thing Frankie could imagine.

“Frankie…” Geraldine’s voice was a murmur, a prayer whispered over a grave, as she gestured to the nurses to leave. The door clicked shut behind them, a dull thud that echoed like a coffin lid sealing.

The night shift nurses, vacant-eyed zombies, shuffled away, relieved to shed the burden of Frankie’s anguish. They wouldn’t gossip, not like the day or evening crews. They were too deadened by the dark to care.

Frankie sat on the bed, an automaton jerking to life, her body trembling as she tried to gather the shards of herself. Her face was a wreckage—cheeks streaked with tears, eyes red-rimmed and raw, lips quivering with the weight of unspoken sins. “Ge—Sister,” she corrected, her voice a fractured whisper, as if the walls might betray her. But no one here would care. The night was a void, swallowing all judgment. “How have you been?” Frankie asked, her words fragile, a futile attempt at normalcy in a room that reeked of their shared ruin.

Geraldine’s face twisted, a frown and a smile warring impossibly across her features, her lips trembling as if caught between grief and grace. “I’ve been better,” she said softly, her voice a blade wrapped in velvet. She stepped closer, the hem of her habit brushing the floor with a faint, mournful rustle, and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress creaked under her weight, a low groan that mirrored the ache in Frankie’s chest. “You need to eat, Frankie.”

She didn’t ask why Frankie was crying, didn’t probe the open injuries of her tears. She knew. She knew it was because of her—because of that stolen kiss in the barn, a moment that had burned them both and left Geraldine a ghost, vanishing into the shadows of her own guilt.

So this is what happens if I go missing: Geraldine thought, the realization, a splinter driven into her heart. Frankie’s devastation was her doing, a mirror of her own fractured soul.

Frankie swallowed, the sound thick and pained, like choking down glass. “There’s an apple in my bag over there,” she muttered, tilting her chin toward the corner of the room, where a worn canvas satchel slumped against the wall.

Geraldine rose, her movements deliberate, as if each step was a penance.

She knelt beside the bag, her fingers brushing the rough fabric as she unzipped it. Inside, a small hoard of contraband—apples, celery, carrots—tumbled into view, their earthy scents a stark contrast to the room’s sterile chill.

“This is contraband food, Frankie,” she whispered, a faint smile forming at her lips, though her eyes remained heavy with sorrow. “Luckily, you’re going to eat the evidence.”

“It’s for the horses,” Frankie said, her voice flat but laced with defiance, as if daring Geraldine to challenge her. “For Grace.”

“Now it’s for you,” Geraldine replied, returning to the bed. She sat closer this time, the space between them shrinking to a dangerous sliver.

She held the apple, its red skin gleaming faintly under the lamp light, and rubbed it against the coarse fabric of her habit, polishing it with a meticulousness that felt ritualistic.

“Here, eat.”

Frankie’s eyes, bloodshot and burning, locked onto Geraldine’s.

Instead of claiming the apple, her trembling hand found Geraldine’s wrist, fingers brushing over it like they feared rejection. She held on, gently but desperately, as if the touch alone might anchor her to something she was already losing.

She slipped from the bed as if surrendering to gravity itself, her knees folding onto the floor that punished her skin with a frigid hug. The silence between them swelled—thick with what shall remain unspoken.

Then, tilting forward, her breath ghosted over Geraldine’s knuckles. She didn’t meet Geraldine’s eyes.

Instead, with an attachment bordering on heartbreak, she pressed her lips to the apple still cradled in that unmoving hand, and took a bite—slow, conscious, as though tasting rapture.

The crisp snap of the fruit breaking echoed in the silence, a sound both violent and intimate. Juice dripped from her lips, mingling with the tears that had carved rivers down her face, the sweetness a cruel contrast to the salt of her excruciation.

Geraldine never stopped looking at her, her gaze a storm of sorrow and want, her breath catching in her throat.

Frankie chewed sluggishly, almost soundlessly, each movement cautious, as if savoring not just the fruit but Geraldine herself.

Her lips glistened, wet with juice and tears, and she leaned closer, so painfully close that Geraldine could feel the heat of her breath, the challenge blazing in her daring, defiant eyes.

Frankie wanted her—wanted to drink the juice from her lips, to pull her down onto the bed and strip away the layers of cloth and creed that kept them apart. She wanted to tear the veil from Geraldine’s head, to unravel her sanctity and claim every inch of her trembling body.

She wanted no barriers, no God, no guilt—just Geraldine, bare and hers, pressed so close that nothing could come between them.

“There, there,” Geraldine whispered, her voice frayed at the edges, urging Frankie to eat.

But Frankie didn’t move. She didn’t look up. Her head hung low, her shoulders curled inward like petals closing to shield the bruised center. Submissive. Defeated. Destroyed.

It hollowed Geraldine out, watching her like that—knowing, with bone-deep certainty, that she was the one who had broken her. She hated it. Hated seeing her on her knees, cracked open in a pose that reeked of surrender. It made her want to scream, claw her own skin off, undo every word she’d ever said.

So she sank down too.

Not in front of Frankie. Beside her.

On the cold floor, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. No hierarchy. Just closeness.

Equals, if such a thing could exist between them.

Geraldine risked a glance and swore to God—Frankie’s face held a kind of sadness that could silence heaven. Eyes wet but refusing to cry. Lips parted but unwilling to speak. Every bit of her was a painting of what bloodguiltiness must look like when it turns human.

With one trembling hand, Geraldine reached. She cupped Frankie’s fingers—cool, reluctant, trembling beneath the weight of a thousand silent apologies. And slowly, gently, she brought the apple between them again.

But Frankie recoiled, barely a movement—just a shift, a lean forward into Geraldine, her forehead almost touching hers. That small refusal wasn’t rejection. It was something else. Geraldine understood it then. Frankie didn’t want to be fed. She didn’t want to be coaxed.

She wanted to share.

To share the guilt, the sadness, the love, the venom, the horror, the apple. 

So with extreme precaution, and without breaking eye contact, she guided the apple to her own lips, pressing them to the jagged edge where Frankie’s bite had torn the flesh.

And she bit down too, her movements measured, foresightful and intolerably lustful for a nun.

A transgression wrapped in tenderness. Their lips touched only through the thin, sweet veil of the apple’s flesh, a boundary too fragile to ever keep them apart, yet all that kept them from falling.

Juice seeped into Geraldine’s mouth, warm and tart, a contrast to the bitterness blooming behind her teeth. It mingled with the salt of unshed tears, a taste too sacred for words. She didn’t blink. Couldn’t. And in that small motion, she felt the weight of everything they could never be.

Frankie watched her, barely breathing. She didn’t smile, didn’t cry. But her gaze softened—just a fraction. Her head tilted imperceptibly toward Geraldine. It was almost nothing. Almost.

But Geraldine saw it.

A glimmer of approval veiled in devastation. A subtle, painful pleasure that flickered in Frankie’s eyes like the last warm pulse before a body becomes a corpse.

The room seemed to hold its breath, the only noises were the soft, wet sounds of their chewing, and the ragged cadence of their breaths intertwining.

Frankie made Geraldine feed her another bite, and she searched for the exact spot with Geraldine’s lips had laid. She wouldn’t eat from elsewhere.

They took turns. That was the only way she’d eat. The only way she’d stop crying.   

Geraldine’s bite was slow, her mouth lingering on the apple as if to memorize the taste of her.

Frankie’s hand tightened on her wrist, her knuckles whitening, her body trembling with the effort of restraint. The air grew heavier, suffocating, as if the walls themselves were closing in to witness their ruin.

Geraldine’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, her chest rising and falling with a shuddering breath. When she opened them, they were wet, glistening with an ordeal so profound it seemed to infect the whole room.

She pulled the apple away, her lips stained with its juice, and set it on her legs, her hand still cradling Frankie’s.

“We can’t do this,” she mourned, her voice a broken hymn, each syllable dripping with the weight of her vow and her longing. “I can’t give you what you want.”

Frankie’s face crumpled, a sob catching in her throat, but she didn’t let go. Her knees pressed harder into the floor, her body leaning forward as if to close the impossible distance between them.

“I know,” she choked out, her voice raw, shredded by the truth. “But you can still give me whatever you want.”

The words didn’t just hang—they carved themselves into the silence, a wound raw and glistening, destined never to close. Not in this lifetime.

Moonlight poured through the window, casting stark, unforgiving shadows across their faces. The pale light made ghosts of them, outlining the devastation like bruises that had learned to glow.

“And will you eat?” Geraldine asked, her voice barely a breath. “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

Frankie gave a small nod. “Every meal.”

“You promise?” Geraldine pressed, she wanted to be sure, since she wasn’t going to be around.

Another nod, fragile. “I swear.”

Geraldine reached out, almost hesitating. Her fingers disappeared into Frankie’s wild mane. And Frankie leaned in with the elegance of a small animal, her head following Geraldine’s touch like she was chasing warmth. A cat seeking affection after the storm.

Her hand slipped down, tracing the silver ribbons of tears still glistening on Frankie’s skin, fingers traveling to the curve of her jaw. Geraldine kept caressing her, as if each stroke might soften the edges of everything that hurt.

Tenderly.

Her palms cupped Frankie’s cheeks like they’d been waiting their whole life to learn their shape. Thumbs moved in slow, tender circles, brushing warmth into the corners of tension where grief had settled like dust. Her fingers wandered gently, tracing the curve of Frankie’s jaw, brushing the loose strands of hair tucked near the ear, grazing the delicate shell of it. She combed through Frankie’s hair as though each strand held something sacred.

Their bodies were close now—closer than sorrow could allow. Frankie could feel the steady rise and fall of Geraldine’s chest, the fragile effort of her breathing. It was uneven, like the air itself had weight. Frankie realized then how tightly she’d been locking her bite, her lip wounded by her sheer force, her shoulders clenched in defense. She’d armored herself against sweetness. Against this.

But Geraldine was here, and her lips—those beautifully furrowed, quietly exhausted lips—were orbiting toward Frankie’s forehead.

The kiss came like a breaking wave. Frankie didn’t close her eyes at first. She wanted to feel it all.

The pressure, the softness, the worn grooves in Geraldine’s mouth, each dent deep stories they hadn't spoken. She swore she could feel the ridges, the years, the ache, crushed against her skin like a seal.

The kiss lingered, full of everything neither could ever say. Frankie finally let go of her mauled lip.

Let go of the guilt, the tension, the sorrow. She relaxed—into the kiss, into the gentle circuit of Geraldine’s thumbs still gliding over her cheeks.

She let herself be loved like that.

Geraldine felt the faint twitch of Frankie’s head beneath her lips—a subtle, instinctive search for closeness, for contact, for any lingering trace of the apple’s juice. Frankie didn’t care that the kiss met her forehead; she wanted to absorb something of Geraldine—taste her, feel her, breathe her, even if it meant drawing moisture through her skin, like plants through roots.

Geraldine understood immediately. She deepened the kiss—not in a way that broke its stillness, but in a way that gave it texture. Her lips softened and sealed slightly, applying the gentlest suction. It was the most she could give, but it was everything.

Then she pulled Frankie against her and wrapped her arms around her in full. Frankie gave in instantly, folding like paper into the shape Geraldine made for her, drawing her close until her chin rested atop Frankie’s crown.

Frankie’s head found its place just beneath Geraldine’s collarbone, her ear settling above the steady rhythm of her heart. It wasn’t loud. It was barely there.

Faint, like her footsteps on the halls, half-forgotten and nearly missed unless you were listening for nothing else. And Frankie was.

She closed her eyes. The thud of Geraldine’s heartbeat filled her skull, quiet but insistent, like something walking toward her from far away and never arriving. A rhythm that had always existed, unnoticed—until now.

The embrace was firm, claiming—possessively gentle, as if she could hold her together just by touching her enough.

Geraldine’s breath was warming Frankie’s scalp in slow, even drafts.

Then, Frankie reached down.

Her fingers brushed the curve of Geraldine’s lap until they found the apple—its surface dulled from sitting out, like it had absorbed the weight of their silence. It was slightly brownish now, not just from the room but from everything it had witnessed. She lifted it. Brought it to her mouth.

And she ate.

She didn’t stop. Her teeth pierced through each bite with quiet resolve, chewing until all that remained was juice and pulp and memory. She ate until the skin and flesh were gone, until there was nothing left. 

Not even the heart.

Chapter Text

The cafeteria smelled of overboiled oats and disinfectant, a clashing scent that lingered in the corners and clung to polyester uniforms. Pale linoleum stretched beneath the metal-legged tables, their surfaces wiped clean but never truly clean. A flickering bulb above cast a low buzz into the room like a nervous tic no one could turn off.

Anthony was starting to seriously worry for her. During breakfast, she ate normally.

“You okay?” he asked, softer than usual.

His voice wasn’t its usual jittery crackle, the helium-squirrel speed that made nurses roll their eyes and older patients laugh. No, today it was low—masculine, even. Like something had settled in his chest and weighted his tone.

Frankie nodded.

“Better.”

“Okay,” he said. ”at least you’re eating now, if you don’t eat for a while they tube you”.

She exhaled, staring at the ceiling. The light bulb buzzed faintly. It reminded her of the barn—the way things hummed before .

“Thanks for taking care of me” she told him and grabbed his hand tenderly.

Anthony’s fingers were boney and rough from all the guitar playing. Similar to her own, but Anthony’s hands were so indistinctively masculine—everything about him was. His wrists, his jawline, even the angle of his kneecaps. Yet he moved so loosely, like his body could never really settle.

Across the room, the other patients stirred through the breakfast haze. Older women clung to their trays, eyes sharp behind drooping lids. They drifted like ghosts, always orbiting Anthony. Their attention came in slow spirals—one shuffled closer, asking for extra jam; another bent to whisper a joke only Anthony could hear. 

It wasn’t just a charm. It was gravity. Bodies fell at his feet like it was natural, inevitable. Some watched him like he could heal something holy inside them. On most days, he looked like he might.

But not today.

Today, he looked human. Tired in the corners of his mouth. Messy hair that didn’t crown him—just hung, slightly damp. His beauty hadn’t gone anywhere, but it had softened, blurred. Like the shine had been intentionally turned down.

“You’d do the same for me”. He mumbled.

Frankie tried to imagine a moment when he might need her—when he’d come apart the way she had. But it felt impossible.

Wild, even , how much things had changed.

When she first met him, he was all skinny bones and soft edges, a fragile Kurt Cobain type who looked like he’d apologize to a plant for stepping too close. Within weeks, she realized he was more like the popular kid everyone gravitated toward—the golden boy with that strange magnetic pull. And now, his presence had settled into something else entirely: the quiet strength of an older brother she couldn’t fully read, couldn’t fully reach.

“I just… got in my head,” she said at last, her voice so low it sounded scraped. “I think I’m in love.”

Anthony paused. His mouth twitched. “Oh. So it was that .”

“I know it’s fast,” she added quickly.

He raised his brows, more relieved now.

“Not judging, babe. But like... how intense can it really get in… how long has it been, thirty , forty days? This ain’t a TLC show.”

“You’re being unfair.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” he replied, uncharacteristically serious. “This place makes things bigger than they are. You should know that by now.”

“I do,” she said. “Thanks.”

“No, you don’t.” Anthony refuted. “You’re like a kindergardener.”

“What do you mean?”

“How long do you plan to stay here?” He asked. 

“Dude, it’s not like I have a choice” she explained “this is court mandated treatment.”

“How long?” he insisted.

“A year.”

“That’s nothing.” he muttered, slightly bitter. “This is not real life, Frankie.” He warned her, his brushy brows and golden mane of hair made him look like that whitewashed image of Jesus that the church wanted you to believe so badly. He blended in with the imagery and figurines lining the walls. Maybe that’s why the nuns liked him, he was magnetic like that too. “Unless you want to.”  

She wanted to say more. Anthony sat back, eyes wide.

“How did you end up in a place like this when you sound like the sanest person on here?”

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t argue. “After so many fuckups, I guess you learn a few things.”

“Hayley doesn’t know what she’s missing.” Frankie said. And it sounded like a joke but she meant it.

“ Better ,” he replied. “I hope she never does.”

The barn loomed in Frankie’s mind, its splintered walls and hay-strewn floor sewn into her mind with a cruel clarity that clawed at her sanity.

The traces of their stolen moments—Geraldine’s trembling breath against her neck, the fleeting press of her body against the rough wood—ignited a fire in Frankie’s veins, a heat that consumed her, leaving her raw and aching. The scent of damp earth and Geraldine’s faint lavender lingered in her senses, haunting her every waking moment.

She was desperate to touch her, to feel the weight of Geraldine’s skin under her fingers, to drown in the forbidden warmth of her body. The need was a living thing, writhing inside her, demanding release.

At night, in the sterile confines of her room, Frankie’s body betrayed her.

She’d lie on the thin mattress, the springs creaking beneath her as she shifted, her hips grinding against the coarse sheets, seeking something—anything—to quell the ache.

Her hands roamed her own body, fingers brushing her breasts, teasing the hardened peaks as she closed her eyes and tried to summon Geraldine’s touch. She imagined Geraldine’s hands—soft, hesitant, trembling with the same forbidden want—cupping her, tracing the curves of her chest with a desire that bordered on worship.

But the fantasy was a pale shadow, a cavernous echo that left her gasping, unsatisfied, her skin burning with the absence of the real thing.

Nothing could come close to the electric heat of Geraldine’s nearness, the memory of her breath hitching in the barn, her lips parting just inches from Frankie’s.

The deprivation was maddening , a gnawing hunger that drove her to the edge of reason.

In her weakest moments, she’d even considered Anthony—his rough hands, his careless grin—a fleeting, desperate thought to sate the fire in her core. But the idea repulsed her as quickly as it came.

Not because he wasn’t attractive, but because he wasn’t her.

No one was.

Her body craved only one touch, one scent, one voice whispering her name in the dark.

In her dreams, Frankie was bolder, reckless .

She’d slip beneath Geraldine’s heavy habit, her fingers trembling as they peeled away the layers of coarse fabric, revealing the soft, pale skin beneath.

She imagined leaving Geraldine in nothing but her white underwear—simple, chaste, yet obscenely intimate in Frankie’s fevered mind.

The thought of that thin barrier, clinging to Geraldine’s curves, sent a shiver through her, her breath catching as she pictured the fabric dampening under her touch.

She fantasized about pouring communion wine over Geraldine’s body, the purple liquid spilling across her skin, pooling in the valley of her throat, tracing rivers down her chest, her stomach, her thighs.

Frankie would follow those rivers with her lips, tasting the tart sweetness mingled with the salt of Geraldine’s skin, her tongue chasing every drop until Geraldine was slick, trembling, undone beneath her.

The images consumed her, vivid and unrelenting.

Night after night, Frankie found herself lost in them, her body arching off the bed, her fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her underwear.

She’d touch herself, slow at first, then frantic, her breath ragged, her hips grinding against her own hand as she chased the spirit of Geraldine’s touch. Her fingers moved inside her, slick with her own need, but it was never enough.

She wanted Geraldine’s hands, Geraldine’s mouth, Geraldine’s body pressed against hers, skin to skin, nothing in between.

The room filled with the soft, wet sounds of her desperation, her muffled gasps swallowed by the darkness, her body trembling with the effort to stay quiet. She’d bite her lip until it bled, imagining Geraldine walking through the door during the nightly check-ins, her habit swaying, her eyes dark with the same hunger Frankie felt.

In those moments, Frankie would whisper Geraldine’s name into the pillow, a prayer, a plea, her voice breaking as she imagined Geraldine complying—stepping into the room, closing the door, and giving in.

She pictured Geraldine’s hands on her, hesitant at first, then possessive, pulling her close, their bodies tangling in the narrow bed. She imagined the weight of Geraldine’s body pressing her into the mattress, the soft scrape of her habit against Frankie’s bare skin, the heat of her breath against her neck.

The fantasy was so vivid it hurt, each detail a blade in her chest—the way Geraldine’s fingers might tremble as they traced her thighs, the way her lips might part in a silent moan, the way her body might yield, slick and warm, under Frankie’s touch.

But the door never opened.

The room remained empty, the air heavy with the silence of her longing. Frankie would collapse back onto the bed, her body spent but unfulfilled, her chest heaving with sobs she couldn’t release.

The barn’s memory taunted her, a reminder of what she’d tasted and lost. Geraldine’s absence was a wound, raw and bleeding, and Frankie’s desire was a poison she drank willingly, night after night, knowing it would never be enough.

Her fingers lingered on her skin, tracing the places she wished Geraldine would touch, and the ache in her heart grew heavier, a desperate, erotic grief that threatened to swallow her whole.

She knew she couldn’t cave in. She knew she had to lit that fire again. She had to go back there.

The barn exhaled into the dying light of sunset, its old bones glowing in blood-orange and violence purple. The beams stretched like weary limbs across the ceiling, their edges soaked in dusk. Shadows bled down the rafters in shapes that twitched like spider legs, crawling over hay-strewn floorboards with a quiet malice.

Each step Frankie took sent a dry crackle beneath her boots—hay splintering like nerves on edge, brittle as her resolve. The horses stirred in their stalls, their breaths deep and knowing, as if they’d seen centuries of confession pass through these walls. Their eyes, wide and solemn, blinked in slow rhythms, as though they were waiting for something they’d already witnessed a thousand times.

It was only the second night since the kiss—that reckless, holy , ruinous kiss—but to Frankie it felt like something tectonic had shifted in her soul. Every moment since had been spent dragging her body through the aftershock.

She still felt it: Geraldine’s mouth, soft and bruising, her hands clutching Frankie like she was the last girl on earth.

It hadn’t been lust—it was need , stripped raw.

She stood in the center stall, her fingers combing methodically through Grace’s mane. The rhythmic motion was almost devotional, like she was saying her own kind of prayer—one that didn’t need a church or forgiveness.

Just skin. Just warmth. Just Geraldine.

The barn’s lanterns flickered above her, casting uneven halos that wavered like ghost-light. The silence had weight. The horses moved around her with the reverence of sentinels.

She never lit the lanterns when she was here, but now she did. As if it was a light signal, as if she could attract Geraldine.

Because maybe she was hanging around, maybe she was out there thinking about her too and was hesitant. 

Then—footsteps.

Soft, deliberate. Like the sound of a rosary ticking through someone’s hands.

Frankie’s breath caught mid-inhale.

She turned—and there she was.

Sister Geraldine stood in the barn’s entrance, framed by the last hemorrhage of sunlight. Her silhouette was taller than memory, sharper too, the habit draping her figure like smoke. She looked like something God had sculpted and then forgotten about—something too sacred to stay human.

Her sage-green eyes shimmered in the light, catching the gold and twisting it into something more painful. She looked at Frankie like she was unsure if she’d come to stop a fire or start another one.

“I figured you’d be at the library,” Geraldine said, her voice a breath—barely formed, barely there.

Frankie swallowed, fingers tightening around Grace’s mane.

“That’s your spot,” she murmured. “This is mine .”

The unspoken hung heavy between them. That kiss. That night.

A type of contact neither of them could stop pressing on.

Geraldine stepped closer, slow and careful, as if afraid her boots might set something off. The waning light kissed her cheekbones, hollowed and elegant, and Frankie caught it—that exhausted look behind her eyes. Sleepless. Haunted .

“You can just ask,” Geraldine said, stopping just shy of the stall. “For time with the horses, I mean… It’s part of the program. You could be approved. You could ride.”

Frankie blinked. “Ride?”

Geraldine nodded, posture rigid, hands folded tight behind her back like she needed to hold herself together with physical force. “If you want.”

The words weren’t just permission. They were an offering. A peace treaty veiled in routine. A way to let Frankie close again without either of them naming why.

Frankie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I never rode a horse.”

“ Never ?” Geraldine asked. And suddenly the conversation felt too painful for Frankie to carry on. As if Geraldine was trying to stitch on an open stabbing wound, but Frankie would take the blade any day over any antiseptic drug.

Frankie kept staring at her, through Grace’s ears.

Feeling defeated, ashamed and incredibly stupid. Because Geraldine was looking at her gracefully, and although she seemed haunted, she was also behaving professionally. Talking about therapy, the library. Her life in a mental institution. She kept contextualizing where they were. And although it may sound like Frankie was overthinking, she wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t.

Because maybe she didn’t know nuns. But she knew denial . And she knew women . 

Their silence stretched—dense, trembling.

“I didn’t think I’d see you,” she finally said. Her voice cracked like old wood under pressure. “I thought you’d be… avoiding me.”

Geraldine flinched, almost imperceptibly. Her jaw tightened. She glanced down at the straw-covered floor before her eyes lifted again, glowing wet in the barn’s gloom.

“That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is this?” Frankie asked boldly yet calmly. She stepped forward, prudent, each step unspooling tension like thread. “You’re here. You knew I could be here.”

Geraldine’s mouth opened, but only air escaped. Her rosary glinted at her hip, catching the flicker of the lantern like a spider’s eye.

“I’m checking on the horses,” she said, but it came out rehearsed. Thin. False. “And… making sure you’re safe.”

Frankie tilted her head, bitter and aching. “Safe?” Her voice trembled. “When have I not been safe here?”

Geraldine’s mask slipped.

“A week ago,” she snapped, sharper than she meant to. It sounded like she was scolding somebody, though it wasn’t clear who of the two was. “I know how deeply it has affected you.”

Frankie looked away, suddenly shamefaced. “I’m sorry.”

“ No ,” Geraldine whispered, voice hoarse. “This is my fault. I am very sorry. I failed you.”

“What are you sorry about? I’m sleeping and eating normally.”

Her voice cracked. She looked down, and when she looked up again, her eyes were like a fire drowning underwater, if it was even possible. 

“I’m supposed to be your caretaker. Not to take advantage of you.”

The barn exhaled around them like a dying beast, its rafters groaning in the wind, soaked in the last breath of twilight. Hues of ash-rose and bruised purple painted the world, seeping into the grain of the wood, dripping down like old blood. Frankie stepped closer— too close. Close enough to taste the tension that danced between them. The heat, once soft, now blistered between their bodies like a fever, like something contagious.

They shared the same breath.

“You didn’t take advantage of me,” Frankie said, her voice cracking open like a chest cavity—furious, gutted with heartbreak. “ I kissed you, Gee.”

“And I kissed you back,” Geraldine breathed. Her words were smoke curling from a confession booth. “That’s the problem.”

“I don’t see how—”

“It’s medical abuse,” she cut in. “You could get me arrested.”

“But I wouldn’t do that.” Frankie fought back, exasperated. “How is this even abuse?”

Frankie couldn’t comprehend how she was the victim in this situation. 

“There’s a power imbalance, Frankie. You’re a patient .”

Frankie’s voice dropped to a razor-thin whisper. “So? You think knowing what meds I take makes you know me?”

“No.” Geraldine’s hands trembled at her sides. “But it changes the rules.”

“It doesn’t change what happened.”

“Then explain what happened.”

“I kissed a girl I like,” Frankie said, and her voice was all broken-glass softness, almost childlike in its brutal honesty, “and she kissed me back. Because she likes me too.”

They stood under the flickering lanterns—under Grace , the oldest mare in the barn, her breath clouding the cold between them like incense. The air was holy, or it used to be. Now it reeked of longing and ash.

Geraldine’s hands twitched again. Her shoulders stiffened. Because if that were the whole story, if it were that simple—then she was the fool. Then Frankie was right.

But it wasn’t simple.

Geraldine was a nun. A licensed nurse. And Frankie was a patient under her care, tethered to this place by medication and trauma and fire. She had no business being kissed, being wanted. And yet—

“But that’s not what happened.” Geraldine said, her voice heavy with sorrow, each word a stone sinking into her chest. “A patient was in a vulnerable emotional state and had misconduct with me, and instead of reporting the incident and taking her back to the facility, I took advantage of her to sexually abuse her.” Her hands trembled at her sides, fingers curling into fists, the knuckles whitening as if to hold back the truth.

Frankie’s eyes widened, raw and red, her face a map of distress.

“Sexually abuse me?! “ Are you insane? We barely even kissed. ”

“ A kiss is sexual misconduct.” Geraldine murmured, her gaze dropping to the floor, her habit brushing the hay with a faint, mournful rustle. Her chest tightened, the wooden cross around her neck feeling heavier, pressing against her skin like a brand.

“Then I’ll gladly let you perform another sexual misconduct on me, please .” Frankie begged, her voice a desperate plea masked as defiance. She leaned closer, her knees almost pressing against her, her hands twitching as if to reach out, to bridge the unbearable distance between them.

“Frances, stop already,” Geraldine snapped, the name wielded like a whip across her own back. “I’m not a girl you like. I’m your caretaker, I’m Sister Geraldine . To you.”

“You know you’re more than that.” Frankie countered, her tone low, fierce as she stepped closer. Her fingers brushed the air, hesitating, yearning to touch but not daring to cross that final line.

“Frankie, this is medical abuse.” She murmured, her throat tightening, her eyes sparkling. Her hands hovered in front of her, as if to push Frankie away or pull her closer—she couldn’t tell which.

“Abuse me, then.” Frankie challenged her daringly, her breath warm and uneven as it ghosted across Geraldine’s face. “And I’ll abuse you too.” She stepped closer, her body heat radiating, her fingers brushing the edge of Geraldine’s sleeve, the touch so light it burned. “I’ll turn into a fucking nightmare, if that’s what you want”.

“See?” Geraldine’s voice broke, a fragile sound swallowed by the room’s oppressive silence. “You’re so brainwashed into thinking this is normal, and it’s not.” Her shoulders slumped, her body curling inward as if to shield herself from the weight of her own longing.

“And you’re so brainwashed into demonizing and invalidating what I feel for you, what you feel for me… ” Frankie shot back, her chest nearly brushing Geraldine’s, her breathing ragged. “You keep babying me and convincing yourself that you’re some sort of monster for liking me back, when in reality, I’m the most dangerous person in this room.”

Geraldine didn’t say anything, only took a small step back, her heel catching on the hem of her habit, her breath hitching as she steadied herself against the wall. Her fingers dug into her palms, the pain grounding her, keeping her from crumbling.

“They didn’t lock me up here because I’m crazy…” Frankie admitted. She huffed, a humorless sound, her eyes darting to the ceiling as if searching for absolution. “What do you think my diagnosis is?” she asked bitterly, sarcastically.

“Pyromaniac. OCD. Post-traumatic stress disorder resulting in violent outbreaks and substance abuse,” Geraldine recited, her voice soft, mechanical, each word a self-inflicted cut. She pressed her hand to her chest, the cross digging into her palm, a punishment she welcomed.

“And also the fact that I hid the evidence when their little Ronnie killed my roommate,” Frankie said, her voice breaking, a sob clawing its way out, her hands raking through her hair, tugging hard enough to hurt. “Not only did he almost kill me too, made me lose at least two years of my life—not just to recover from the accident he caused, but to quit college so I could work to pay the fucking hospital bills". She took a pause. "He got me addicted to oxycontin, and prostituted me for money he could’ve lent me in the first place. But he’s still out there, you know?” Her voice cracked, her body shaking, her nails digging into her scalp.

Geraldine’s throat tightened, her swallow audible in the quiet. Her hands fell to her sides, limp, her eyes fixed on Frankie’s trembling form, the weight of her words sinking into her bones.

“If you think I’m crazy for setting his car on fire after knowing that that piece of shit still had his license,” Frankie continued, her voice rising, raw with fury and grief, “and not only that, but was swimming in money. And not only that, but was also responsible for the death of my friend—then sure, call me crazy. He can buy another car, you know? But I don’t think she can buy another life. Neither can I.” Her hands dropped, her body slumping, her eyes locked on Geraldine’s, pleading for understanding.

Frankie flinched, not from shame, but from the sight of her—Geraldine’s face, etched with heartbreak, her habit a shroud that couldn’t hide the guilt seeping from her trembling lips, the fear stitched into every line of her body. Frankie’s hands twitched, wanting to reach out, to touch the pain and make it hers too.

“I didn’t know any of that,” Geraldine said, her voice barely above a whisper, pensive, regretful. She pressed her back harder against the wall, her fingers brushing the cross, the wood warm from her constant touch.

“Of course you didn’t,” Frankie replied, her voice softer now, hollow. Her movements slow, her feet dragging across the floor. “I found out last year. And I told his parents.” She lapsed, her lips twisting into a bitter smile, her eyes glistening. “You know what they did? They fucking apologized, on behalf of their lost little gross boy.” A sad laughter escaped her, sour and jagged, her hands clenching into fists. “Oh, and they gave me hush money, as if I hadn’t already lost fucking everything—my friend, my relationships, my fucking scholarship, even my wrist mobility.” She held up her left hand, the scars faint but visible, her fingers trembling. “I can’t play guitar like I used to, you know? I still need physical therapy, oh and I lost my band too.”

Frankie’s gaze burned into Geraldine’s, her eyes blazing with a fire that threatened to consume them both. “So don’t you dare lecture me about misconduct,” she said, her voice a raw wound, each word a self-inflicted scar.

She stepped closer, her hand reaching out, brushing the wooden cross hanging from Geraldine’s neck, her fingers lingering on the warm wood. “I might be a little fucked up in the head, but I still know the difference between being abused…” Her voice softened, her thumb grazing the edge of the cross, “…and a kiss.”

Geraldine’s breath caught, her hand shooting up to grasp Frankie’s, holding it in the air, pressing it against her chest where the cross hung, where her heart pounded beneath. Her touch was firm, desperate, her fingers trembling as they curled around Frankie’s.

“That still changes nothing, Frankie,” she mourned, her voice a quiet dirge, her eyes wet with tears she refused to let fall. “You’re still a patient. If you explained that to anyone in here,” she continued, her voice shrinking, her throat closing around the words, “not only would I lose my job and my nursing license, but I’d go to jail if the institution decides to sue me. I’d be removed from the Church too.” Her hand tightened around Frankie’s, her nails digging into her skin, a silent plea for her to understand.

“No one will sue you, Gee,” Frankie said, her voice soft, almost hopeful, her fingers squeezing back. “You’ll leave the Church, and you’ll be free.” She leaned closer, her breath warm against Geraldine’s cheek, her body trembling with the effort of restraint.

“And we’ll ride to the sunset?” Geraldine mocked, sarcastic, bitter, as she pulled her hand away, the cross swinging against her chest. “Please…” Her shoulders slumped, her body curling inward, as if to shield herself from the pain of wanting.

“I’d rather have you riding something else,” Frankie teased, a desperate attempt to lighten the crushing weight between them. But the words fell heavy, landing like blows, and Geraldine’s face crumpled, her lips trembling and huffed. Almost as if Frankie’s proposals came off enlaced with pain. She was the closest thing to heaven, and the farthest from salvation.

“Like a horse?” Geraldine questioned, very aware of the double meaning. 

Frankie nodded, as she tucked a loose strand of Geraldine’s hair— not her veil—behind her ear. A touch so human, so mundane, it hurt. Geraldine’s eyes fell shut, her jaw tightening like she was bracing for crucifixion.

“We don’t need to explain this to anyone ,” Frankie whispered. Her voice barely held together, her fingertips brushed the line of Geraldine’s face. “ Gee… please.”

Their foreheads nearly touched, a shared prayer in a godless room. Frankie could feel the trembling of Geraldine’s chest, the way her lips parted, not to speak but to breathe her in, to exist closer.

Their noses brushed, a ghost of a kiss hovering between them, unclaimed , unbearable. The air was thick with the scent of dust and the faint sweetness of Geraldine’s skin.

“You can’t keep saying things like that,” Geraldine murmured, her voice cracking, brittle with grief. A tear slipped down her cheek, catching the light, and she didn’t wipe it away. “Don’t be cruel.” 

And still—they didn’t kiss. They just hovered.

They breathed each other in. Their chests rose and fell in tandem, as if praying to the same God, but asking for opposite things.

“How could I be cruel?” Frankie replied grinning, sadly, her hand tracing down to her neck, the small spots that remained unclothed, down to her collarbones. “When I am so good to you. And to you , only.” 

“You know I can’t.”

The Bible screamed in her skull.

Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit… Do not let her capture you with her eyelashes…

“You say that,” Frankie whispered, “but you keep showing up in places where you know you’d find me.”

Her hand shot up, grasping Frankie’s wrist, holding it still, her grip tight enough to bruise. Her eyes opened, wet and shattered, meeting Frankie’s with a sorrow that cut deeper than any blade.

“No, Hayley asked me to talk to you,” she said stiffly. “She’s worried about you after these past days. She thought… maybe I’d help.”

And just like that, it wasn’t about sin or salvation—it was about being seen. Frankie looked at her like she held both God and poison in her hands. And Geraldine—she couldn’t bear it.

Frankie gave a smile that broke as it formed, carved from something deeper than grief. “Then tell her she was right. You do help .”

Geraldine huffed incredulously. A muffled sound, painful and muted, as she pulled her hand away, clutching the cross once more.

“You help me too,” she whispered, her voice so soft it barely reached Frankie, her eyes fixed on the floor, ashamed of the truth. Her body swayed, as if they’d been dancing a slow, tragic waltz, their movements a silent confession of what they could never have.

“We can be friends,” Frankie murmured, her voice breaking, her hands trembling as she reached out, her fingers brushing Geraldine’s sleeve, a fleeting touch that burned. “I’ll be out in a year… and I’ll take you out, somewhere nice.” She rose onto her tiptoes, her body leaning forward, her breath warm against Geraldine’s cheek. “To a fancy restaurant, and I’ll pay… with the hush money.” A tragic laugh escaped her, brittle and hollow, her eyes glistening with tears.

Geraldine’s face was a portrait of brokenness, her eyes wet, her lips trembling, her habit framing her like a mourner’s veil. She looked like a saint on the verge of collapse, her hands clutching the cross so tightly her knuckles bled white.

“I don’t know if I can be your friend…,” she mumbled, her voice a whisper of despair, her body stepping back, the space between them widening like a chasm.

Frankie felt it then—the raw, aching loss, the space widening like a mouth between them.

Frankie understood, suddenly, what babies must feel when they’re taken from the breast. From the heat of a body they trust. She understood yearning now, the bone-deep sting of wanting something so close, yet forever out of reach. The room was silent, save for the faint buzz of the fluorescent light and the ragged sound of their breaths, a requiem for what they could never be.

“I’ll speak to the therapist,” Geraldine said, her voice tight, barely tethered to emotion. “About the horses. I’ll make sure it’s approved.”

Frankie wanted to reach for her again. Just say her name— Gee —like it would stitch them back together. But the words turned to ash in her throat.

Geraldine turned before she could fall apart again.

She moved fast for someone so dignified, so still. Like a wind-up doll suddenly given life. And then she was gone.

But not before dragging Frankie’s heart behind her like a body bag.

The barn doors sighed shut, sealing the grief in with the dust and hay and the hollow-eyed horses. They stared at Frankie like witnesses—like saints carved into stained glass, watching their priest fall from grace.

What trailed behind was silence.

Silence soaked in heartsickness.

She only saw her during mass now.

And even then, not always.

Sometimes Geraldine sat at the very back, her face neutral, gaze pinned to the altar like she was willing herself into sainthood. Other times, she didn’t show at all—only Sister Hayley and the postulants gathered in their usual pews. On those days, Frankie felt the absence like a chill under the skin. Like a shadow that followed her back to her room, clinging to her bones.

She had been granted permission to start equine therapy.

Grace—the horse with eyes like old rainwater—recognized her immediately. Nudged her softly like a friend from a past life. But even Grace was ruined now. Because every flick of her tail, every exhale from those velvet nostrils, every stomp of her hooves in the grass—it all smelled of Geraldine.

So Frankie came to a decision, sitting on her cot with knees tucked to her chest and nails bitten to the quick:

She had two options.

Continue sinking, starving, weeping into her pillow until the Valium numbed the ache.

Or change. Grow the fuck up . Become someone. Someone better.

Someone Geraldine might look at without flinching. Someone her mother wouldn’t have to lie about at family dinners.

When her session with Doctor May began, she already had the words lined up—like soldiers. Not truths, but pieces of a believable story that wouldn’t get her sent back to the padded wing.

Doctor May wore her usual outfit: loose beige slacks and a powder blue sweater. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that made her look too young to be this calm. She folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head, the way she always did when she was about to peel someone open gently.

“So… what’s been going on?”

The words were said softly, but they landed like stones.

Frankie could hear the weight in them.

Because everyone had heard. The crying. The screaming. The wet pillow.

It was now part of her chart. A permanent echo.

“I had a bit of a crisis,” Frankie said, her voice dipped in rehearsed calm.

Doctor May nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

Frankie stared at the corner of the room. Where the bookshelf leaned slightly to the left. Where the rubber plant’s leaves drooped in a way that made it look mournful.

“I think I’ve felt very lonely.”

That part wasn’t a lie.

“And I want a friend,” she added. “Someone… steady.”

Doctor May didn’t blink. “You can have friends here, Frankie. I’ve heard you and Mister Green are quite fond of one another.”

Frankie almost smiled. Anthony. Her accidental guardian angel.

“I know. Yeah. The thing is…” she paused, slowly, carefully, “I believe this person thinks we can’t be friends.”

“Why is that?”

And here it was. The pivot. The constructed truth.

The fiction that was safer than the real thing.

Frankie crossed her legs and sighed. “Do you know Ray? The nurse?”

“Of course,” May replied, warm but still clinical. “He’s very well-liked.”

“I want to be his friend. I enjoy our conversations, and he’s… really kind to me . But I’ve heard—from someone—that we can’t be friends. Because there’s a power imbalance.”

Doctor May didn’t rush. She adjusted her posture, leaning forward a little, her voice calm.

“Well, technically there is a power imbalance. Nurses are caregivers; they’re in positions of responsibility over patients. That doesn’t mean you can’t engage in friendly conversation, or be on good terms. But it’s important that those relationships stay appropriate. Clear boundaries help both parties feel safe.”

Frankie nodded. Her fingers were laced tightly in her lap.

“That’s like saying you can’t be friends with your mom,” she said. “Sure, she’s your mom—but she’s also someone you love, and maybe even like, sometimes.”

Doctor May smiled gently. “That’s a fair point. But even that relationship—parent to child—is shaped by care and control. A mother still has power, even if she’s kind. The same is true for nurses and patients.”

“I just…” Frankie hesitated. “I don’t want anyone thinking poorly of him. I don’t want to mess up his job.”

Doctor May blinked once. Then:

“Why would anyone think poorly of him for being your friend?”

Frankie didn’t answer right away.

May watched her. “Unless you don’t want just a friendship.”

Frankie’s heart clenched. Her breath hitched just slightly—but she managed a smile.

“You’re right,” she agreed softly. “If it’s just a friendship… then it’s okay.”

But inside her head, the lie unraveled and coiled back again.

Because it wasn’t Ray she thought about when she looked at the barn.

It wasn’t Ray she dreamt of when the chapel bells rang and her stomach knotted.

It wasn’t Ray’s hands that had ghosted over her back like prayer.

It was Geraldine. Always her .

And it didn’t matter how many horses she brushed, or how many sermons she listened to, or how many Valiums they slipped under her tongue.

She wasn’t okay. Not even close.

Geraldine woke at 3 p.m. that Saturday, just as she always did.

Her body had become a clock—wound tightly, governed by shadows. Her Friday shift ran from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and when she returned, the world was soft with early light, her bones heavy with penance. The others, the sisters, the nurses—they were long gone from the house by the time she stirred.

The bed was still warm, the sheets clean from her own hand.

She stepped into the shower and turned the knob until the water ran nearly boiling. She liked it that way: punishing, scalding, as if it could scrub her of thought.

The heat reddened her skin, drew steam onto the mirror until she vanished from it. She liked that too.

She missed morning mass. But everyone knew not to expect her. She often made it to the afternoon one.

The house was silent. All the nuns were out.

She remembered then—today was the children’s outing. Sister Hayley and Sister Patricia were escorting a handful of the shelter kids to the fairgrounds, their final summer hurrah. Sister Gabrielle would’ve gone, if her knee weren’t singing with pain. She probably sulked in her armchair, cross-stitching something grumpy.

Geraldine made her tea slowly—earl grey with one sugar. The mug warmed her hands, gave her something to hold.

She spent an hour with old Mother Prudence, changing her sheets, brushing her wispy white hair, rubbing lavender cream into her brittle hands. The old nun spoke little, but hummed hymns under her breath as Geraldine worked.

This, Geraldine thought, was a good life. Quiet. Useful.

She’d chosen service. She had to believe that meant something.

She swept and mopped the chapel next. A sacred, familiar rhythm. Her habit stuck damply to her thighs in the Louisiana heat, her veil clinging slightly at the nape.

Father Geoff passed through and greeted her with his usual kindness.

He was the gentlest priest she’d ever known—young, but somehow timeless. He smiled like someone who’d seen heaven and didn’t need to talk about it.

He stepped into the confessional. She didn’t expect to see Frankie.

She moved so quietly through the chapel, she might have passed unseen—if Geraldine hadn’t looked up in that exact moment.

Frankie moved like moonlight. Soft-footed. Haunted. Her eyes cast downward, her face unreadable.

She slipped into the confessional and closed the door behind her.

Geraldine’s heart surged. It was wicked, how badly she wanted to know what she’d say.

She went back to wiping the pews, but her ears strained.

“I’m afraid I offended them,” Frankie’s voice murmured through the wood. “Normally, I’d just apologize. But I think… confessing might make them happy too.”

Geoff’s response was warm, lilting, as if he were brushing crumbs from her conscience.

They were talking about Sister Hayley and Patricia. About how Frankie had been “ taking the piss on them. ”

He assigned her three Hail Marys per offense, and told her to apologize in person.

Later, Geraldine saw Frankie kneeling in the pews, hands clasped. Praying.

She looked better.

Geraldine followed her outside. She didn’t mean to—but she did.

And she expected Frankie to head to the barn. To go back to the scene of their sins.

Instead, she slipped past the horses and settled beneath the great weeping willow, the one by the south pasture. A book rested in her lap.

“Frankie?” Geraldine called gently, stepping under the low-draped branches.

Frankie turned, eyes bright, voice cheerful in a way that felt brand new. “Oh, hi, Sister. Just about to read.”

Geraldine saw the title in her lap.

The Two Towers.

“You’re really getting into it then?” she asked, moving closer. She paused to smooth her skirts before sitting down beside her—carefully, at a modest distance, though every part of her ached to be nearer.

Frankie was dressed in a white tank top so thin it was nearly translucent, a plaid flannel shirt worn open over it. The heat had made her skin glow, and sweat curled loose strands of her hair against her neck. Geraldine kept her gaze fixed politely on her face, not letting her eyes wander down.

Frankie held out a cigarette. “Want one?”

Geraldine hesitated—then, quietly, took it.

Above them, the willow wept its long branches. The sun slanted low in the sky, bleeding gold. The air smelled of cut grass, horse sweat, and late summer rot.

Frankie grinned, a lopsided thing that made Geraldine’s chest ache. “You told me to earn my favorite. Gotta say, Sister, I’m not sure I get why you’re so obsessed with a giant spider.” Her tone was teasing, but there was a warmth in it, a spark that felt like an invitation.

Geraldine laughed, a small, sad sound that caught in her throat. “I’m not obsessed! I just like her. She’s a complicated character actually. She’s her own creature, not answering to anyone—not even Sauron, really.” She paused, her fingers twisting the edge of her habit, a little embarrassed for letting her nerdy side take over. “I don’t know. I guess I like that she’s… untamed .”

Frankie tilted her head, studying Geraldine with an intensity that made the nun’s cheeks flush despite the heat.

“Untamed, huh? That’s one way to put it. But let’s be real—she’s a monster . The only strong female in this whole damn book, and Tolkien makes her a creepy, man-eating spider. Kinda sexist, don’t you think?” She tapped the book’s cover, her voice carrying a mix of defiance and disappointment. “I mean, the whole thing’s sexist. All the heroes are men, running around with swords and big speeches. The women? Either dainty elf ladies or, what, a shieldmaiden who’s barely in it? And then Shelob, our spider girl, the only badass with real power, is a literal nightmare. Tolkien’s got issues.”

Geraldine’s lips parted, a protest forming, but it died as she considered Frankie’s words. She leaned back against the tree, the rough bark grounding her as her thoughts spun.

“You’re not wrong,” she said finally, her voice low, tinged with a sadness she couldn’t quite hide. “I’ve always loved the books, but… yeah, I see it. Tolkien’s world is beautiful, but it’s not kind to women, is it? Shelob’s strength, it’s twisted into something grotesque. Like the world can’t handle a woman who’s powerful without making her a villain.”

Frankie’s eyes lit up, surprised and delighted by Geraldine’s agreement.

“Exactly! It’s like he couldn’t imagine a woman being strong without being, I dunno, a fucking monster ? And it pisses me off, ‘cause I wanted to like this book. I wanted to know why you love it so much.” She paused, her gaze softening as it lingered on Geraldine. “—why do people like it so much? I wish Shelob appeared more tho, like… I wish I knew more about her”.

Geraldine’s breath hitched. Frankie’s words felt too close, too personal, like she was peeling back layers Geraldine had spent years guarding.

“Maybe the character was too sad for the story,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “She’s someone who’s alone. Who’s feared because she’s strong. Who doesn’t fit into the world’s idea of what she should be.” Her eyes flicked to Frankie’s, and for a moment, the air between them felt charged, heavy with unspoken truths.

Frankie’s smile faded, replaced by something softer, sadder. Because it was obvious they were talking about more than just a spider. She stubbed out the unlit cigarette on the ground, her movements slow, calculated. “Do you ever feel like that? Like you don’t fit, but you’re too stubborn to change?”

Geraldine’s heart thudded painfully.

She wanted to say yes, to confess that every day she felt like she was fighting to fit into a life that didn’t quite hold her. That Frankie, with her wild spirit and sharp tongue, made her question everything—her vows, her purpose, the walls she’d built around her heart. But she couldn’t. She was a nun, bound by promises she’d made to God, to the Church, to a life of service. And Frankie was a patient, someone she was meant to help, not whatever this was.

“Sometimes,” she said instead, her voice trembling. “But I’ve made my choices. This life—it’s what I’m called to do.” The words felt hollow, like a script she’d rehearsed too many times.

Frankie nodded, but her eyes were searching, as if she could see through the lie. She wondered if it would be possible to call her. Since this life, called Geraldine. What if she called her in a way that made Geraldine follow. But she didn’t say that.

Not when they were finally friends again.

“Yeah, well, making choices doesn't always mean you’re happy… Look at Shelob—she chose her web, her cave, her power. But she’s still alone. Still… stuck .” She glanced down at the book, her fingers tracing the title. “I’ll keep reading, though. ‘Cause I wanna know how it ends”.

“Oh, you’ll love it” Geraldine said smiling, excited. “I wish I could read it for the first time”.

“It makes me feel closer to you.” Frankie mumbled, helpless. She had tried to conceal it during this whole conversation. “Sorry. I just… if I can’t have you like that, then at least I want to be your friend”. 

Geraldine’s throat tightened, and she looked away, out toward the pasture where the willow’s branches swayed in the sluggish breeze. She wanted to reach out, to touch Frankie’s hand, to tell her that every conversation they had made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t in years.

But she couldn’t. The weight of her habit, her vows, the chapel she’d just cleaned—it all pressed down on her, a reminder of the line she couldn’t cross.

“Is that too much to ask?” Frankie added. 

“We can be friends, Frankie,” she said finally, her voice soft and aching. “I like chatting with you… it’s good to hear your thoughts. You make me see things differently.” She smiled, but it was a fragile thing, tinged with longing she couldn’t let herself name. “Even if it’s just about a spider.”

Frankie laughed, a quiet, bittersweet sound. Because she knew it wasn’t about the spider.

“You look like you’re glowing,” Frankie said offhandedly.

Geraldine blinked. “It’s the heat.”

Frankie smirked. “Or maybe divine light.”

Geraldine rolled her eyes. But she smiled.

Frankie wanted to tell her that she looked bewildered in the most beautiful way here out in nature. That the muted soft green of her eyes blended with the pasture and made her look like a flower. But she couldn’t.

“I just realized I forgot my reading glasses” Frankie admitted, she leaned back, her shoulder brushing ever so slightly against Geraldine’s, and for a moment, neither of them moved away. “Do you mind reading for me?”

Geraldine smiled on her side. She knew. This was the loophole Frankie was digging. And she’d suffered enough. Both of them had.

They sat there under the willow, the book between them, the weight of their unspoken feelings heavier than the Louisiana heat.

Geraldine knew she should stand and walk back to the chapel, and should put distance between them. But for just a moment, she let herself stay, let herself feel the warmth of Frankie’s presence.

She opened the book between them and began to read aloud.

Frankie listened for a few lines, then, gently, laid her head against the curve of Geraldine’s neck—right in the soft hollow where her jaw met her shoulder.

It wasn’t calculated. It was instinctual. Like a moth settling in a warm corner.

Geraldine’s voice faltered for a second—then steadied. She kept reading.

But her breath hitched every time Frankie shifted, every time her nose brushed that delicate slope of skin.

And Frankie just… stared.

Not at the page. Not really.

She watched Geraldine’s lips as they moved, the way her voice softened on certain vowels, how she smiled slightly when she read dialogue, like she was imagining herself there.

Her voice rose and fell like wind against the leaves—she was animated, smiling even, and for the first time in weeks she sounded… light . Like something fragile had shifted, just enough to let the sun in.

It wasn’t even two pages before Frankie started inching closer—first her arm looped around Geraldine’s waist. Then her hand, splayed across her side, fingertips slipping under the hem of the habit where the fabric was thin from so many washes.

Frankie lay beside her, the grass cool against her skin, and let her eyes close for just a heartbeat.

She imagined they were in bed, the kind with a sag in the middle from too many Sunday mornings, and the pasture around them was the quilt they’d kicked down to their feet. The willow arched overhead like a wooden headboard, and if she didn’t think too hard, this might have been just another weekend. Just another “good morning” whispered against a collarbone.

Her heart tightened.

Frankie realized that if she looked up, her lips would involuntarily brush Geraldine’s chin.

What would it mean to kiss her now? Would it end the peace of this moment? Would it shatter whatever truce they’d silently made with the world around them? Geraldine was happy. Frankie didn’t want to take that away.

But then Geraldine laughed—high and soft and real. The sound made Frankie’s breath hitch. Her voice had sweetness folded into it, like poetry read from inside a smile.

And maybe because that sound made Frankie suffer, or because she was so close she could feel the rhythm of Geraldine’s breath, she tilted her head and pressed her lips, barely, against Geraldine’s chin.

She waited.

Geraldine stilled. Didn’t pull away. Just met Frankie’s eyes—quiet, expectant. Her throat moved in a swallow that felt deliberate, and Frankie looked down, watching the pulse flutter just beneath her skin.

The breath between them became shaky. Uneven. And Frankie took it—cautiously,—as permission.

Her lips traced the line of Geraldine’s jaw. Once. Then again. And again.

Not a real kiss at all—just a press of lips. Like an impatient butterfly testing every petal of a flower, in search of one that would bloom just for her.

She kissed the curve of her cheekbone, then the dark half-moons beneath her eyes.

She kissed the corner of her right eye, where one of the many freckles lived, like it was a code only Frankie had deciphered.

She kissed her forehead—slow, lazy, flowering lovingness—as if trying to map the terrain of restraint itself.

Each kiss was special.

Her mouth was soft but insistent. She wouldn’t use her teeth, her tongue. Only to water her lips and make a little stickier, while still dancing on the line.

She wasn’t crossing it, but she wasn’t definitely on it. And Geraldine… by miracle hadn’t stopped her. 

Frankie hovered in the delicate space between want and restraint, her desire tangled in the minefield of Geraldine’s boundaries. She wanted to be careful, to be kind. To love her without knocking over the fragile walls Geraldine had built just to keep breathing.

She knew Geraldine wanted this too—wanted her just as desperately—but wouldn’t let herself cross the threshold. Not until it was safe. Not until it was allowed.

Frankie wanted to whisper that she loved her. That Geraldine was the only person she could imagine waking up beside, the only one worth watching every sunrise for. That if they were ever allowed to give in—to let this aching, boiling want settle into something real—maybe they could slide back into reading Tolkien and laughing at Frodo’s barely-veiled queerness. Like before.

So she stayed soft . Delicate. Like blowing on a dandelion and hoping the seeds wouldn’t scatter too fast.

Her heart was racing, as if time were about to hold its breath and lock this moment in a jar.

As she kissed the commissure of her lips—tentatively,—she felt it: Geraldine’s smile .

And that brought her more peace than a thousand Valium pills.

It was more peaceful than running a marathon and then showering. Than having a hearty meal and then going to bed. She felt so happy now. And no one was around. Just the two of them.

Even the cicadas seemed complicit in their little fun.

Her hands wandered greedily now with the approval of her laughter, roaming up from her waist and Frankie loved wandering around in it, because the habit left everything to the imagination, shapes and sizes. So she had to discover it by tact. And it was already pointless, because she loved everything she was touching. Everything felt so precious and delicate.

Like the heart of a firefly. 

Her hands traced over her ribs, up toward her chest like beetles crawling toward a sunny day. Her lips moved down to her neck and she dared to use a little tongue. Just a little kitten lick that would be cleaned off with the suction of her lips. And she was ready to get on top of her, she was about to cup her—fingertips grazing that slope of forbidden flesh—when Geraldine moved.

Gently, but firmly, she caught Frankie’s wrist.

Not a slap. Not a scold. Just… a pause.

Then, with almost heartbreaking tenderness, she brought Frankie’s fingers to her lips and kissed them. One by one.

A kiss not of passion, but gratitude . 

And then she placed them down, folding them neatly into Frankie’s own lap like petals closed against the dark.

Time was up. 

Frankie bit down on her bottom lip, hard.

She squeezed her thighs together just to feel something, some echo of friction, some pressure to distract from the hunger gnawing at her bones.

Geraldine looked at her—not angry. Not cold.

Her eyes were full of piety. Longing.

Mercy.

She smiled, sad and sweet, and raised her eyebrows slightly in a gesture that said, without words: enough.

They both stared at each other for a moment.

Frankie was reminded of the time she was in rehab. Now it became more evident to her that Geraldine was a nurse. Because this is how you cure addiction. By reducing the dosage.

And then—she turned back to the book.

Lifted the page delicately.

And continued reading.

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil,” she read aloud, her voice barely above a whisper now. " But in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”

Frankie closed her eyes.

Geraldine’s voice melted into her.

It wasn’t just reading—it was music. It curled through her bloodstream like something alive. Like a gentle wasp that knew just where to sting.

Every word felt like a balm, like a cool cloth over a fever.

And Frankie thought—this is what it would be like if someone read to a ghost. Like Geraldine was trying to soothe something dead in her. Like she believed that, even after everything, Frankie could be good again.

Chapter Text

The 5 p.m. mass had left Geraldine exhausted, the hymns still echoing like accusations in her skull.

She’d knelt in the pew, her rosary beads cutting into her palms, praying for strength, for forgiveness, but all she could see was Frankie’s face, her eager eyes, her reckless words—“if you saw half the sparkles I feel when you’re near, you’d understand why I crave fire.”

Oh Frankie, dear sweet Frankie.

They’d agreed on meeting after the mass. Because it was Sunday, usually nuns had the day off. And they agreed to meet in the barn. Just to talk. Just to smoke a cigarette.

Maybe a couple.

Frankie stood behind Grace, feeding her apples and carrots. Thinking about what the late dawns had to offer to her. Which was everything. It was everything.

Geraldine was everything. Every happy thought she had. She was her favorite minute of the day. Her favorite sight. 

And Frankie had brought stuff with her. Just some apples and strawberries, and she really wished she had a thermos to bring coffee. But she had none. Just a small bottle of Diet Coke. She preferred canned, but they didn’t allow cans in the vending machines.

Frankie heard sounds so she hid beneath the hay, and waited. She waited for a long time.

Until she saw a little twinkle.

It was the light of Geraldine’s cigarette. Suddenly it felt like a fire sign.

The sound of footsteps made Frankie duck, burrowing into the hay like a beetle beneath a stone, her breath held tight.

Geraldine’s cigarette flickered in the gloom, a tiny flare of defiance, like a signal fire in hostile terrain. Frankie’s heart gave a startled leap at the sight—until she registered the movement in the shadows.

Sister Gabrielle emerged, her silhouette long and spectral, her voice slicing through the hush like a well-honed blade.

Frankie held herself taut, every nerve wire-tight, straining to catch Gabrielle’s words. The Sister chatted breezily about her nephew Pete—his chaotic youth, the glimmers of redemption in his music career, the way he spoke of sunlit churches in Chicago or L.A., of impulsive getaways and the promise of escape. It was rambling, almost whimsical, and utterly unlike the gruff, sour image Sister Hayley had painted—or the caricature Anthony and Kim mocked with sharp tongues and smirking glances.

What stunned Frankie most was Gabrielle’s tone: warm and breathy, tinged with laughter, almost flirtatious. She sounded young, almost girlish, cocooned in the comfort of Geraldine’s quiet presence. And Geraldine—she was no longer the chain-smoking sweetheart Frankie had seen through cracks in the facade. She was a sanctuary, the calm center of Gabrielle’s emotional orbit. A confidante cloaked in soft-spoken grace.

Frankie felt it then, a quiet ache blooming in her chest. Jealousy—uninvited, splinter-sharp.

Because she realized she didn’t know her as much as she wanted to. Which only added one more thing about her to crave.

Frankie heard laughter—Sister Gabrielle’s, bright and unexpected, echoing through with the warmth of sunlight piercing stained glass. It startled her.

She paused, half-hidden behind the hay, heart thudding.

What had Geraldine said to make the notoriously reserved nun laugh like that?

The exchange drifted toward something more personal. Gabrielle, voice steady but softened by curiosity, asked, “How’s Mikey doing? Still in touch?”

Frankie leaned closer, listening intently. Mikey ? Another detail tucked away in a world Geraldine never shared with her.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Geraldine replied, her voice low, reassuring, tinged with affection. “He said he’ll come by for Thanksgiving. He wants to help out in the shelters with us again—then we’ll have dinner. Just the two of us.”

“That’s lovely. Is he still clean?” Sister Gabrielle asked.

Geraldine hesitated—just for a heartbeat—but her answer held firm. “Yeah... far as I know. He is.”

Frankie felt a subtle tremor inside her. The conversation was so easy, so intimate. These threads of Geraldine’s life, woven with care and vulnerability, weren’t just hidden from Frankie—they had never been offered. And it stung.

Frankie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Geraldine had an addict in the family—or a relative of some form. Well... former addict. But that phrase gnawed at her. Former. It felt slippery, optimistic.

Because once an addict, aren’t you always one? At least that’s what people said.

The semantics tangled in her head, but she shoved them aside. Now wasn’t the time to debate recovery terminology. She was too busy straining to catch every word they exchanged, too absorbed in this quiet unraveling of truths Geraldine had never shared.

“That’s wonderful.” Gabrielle declared.

Sister Gabrielle leaned against the wood archway, her posture more relaxed than usual, cigarette smoke curling lazily in the dim light.

“You know,” she said, voice softened with reminiscence, “I still remember the day I found you—sitting behind the church, curled up like a stray cat with that busted backpack and dirt smudged on your cheek.”

Geraldine gave a light chuckle. “Aw, come on, Gaby. You’re getting soft on me.”

Gabrielle shrugged, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. “Don’t test me, girl. I still have the stamina to outrun you if I really wanted to.” She flicked ash to the ground. “But seriously… it’s strange. Time messes with you. You’re so grown now. God, it makes me feel ancient.”

Geraldine laughed again, the sound genuine and warm. “You're not ancient. Just… seasoned.”

Gabrielle narrowed her eyes playfully. “Watch it. I could still put you on trash duty for two weeks.”

They stood in easy silence for a moment, and then Gabrielle tilted her head thoughtfully. “I always knew you’d come back after college, you know. Even when all the other girls packed up their crop tops and false modesty—off to their little doomed romances and political protest raves…” Her voice dropped into a smirking drawl. “All those sluts—”

“Sister!” Geraldine interrupted, laughing as she lightly swatted Gabrielle’s shoulder.

“What?” Gabrielle blinked innocently, tone undeterred. “They left the congregation, every last one of them. But you—you were the only one who came back. I was so proud of you.” Her gaze softened. “You’d endured so much, and all while being so young.”

Geraldine lowered her eyes, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not that hard… I have a great support system.”

Gabrielle nodded, then paused. Her expression shifted, something more serious almost grim, blooming beneath it.

“Yes, exactly.” Her voice had changed—slower, heavier. “And that’s why you stayed steady.”

She stepped closer. “There’s a reason why you don’t bite the apple, Geraldine.”

Geraldine felt her breath catch. The words hung in the air like incense—charged and symbolic.

Gabrielle’s voice dropped again, almost to a whisper. “It’s addicting.”

Geraldine swallowed harshly, suddenly nervous, caught in the turmoil.

“Shut the door while you’re here.” Sister Gabrielle ordered.

Geraldine proceeded to enter the barn and closed the door behind her. And before ever getting close to Frankie she checked through the windows, she continued to give Frankie stern looks indicating she should remain hidden.

She had to make sure Gabrielle or anyone else was nearby. No peeking eyes.

Frankie remained down. On her knees. Looking at her as she pretended to feed the few baby chickens.

”Psst”. Frankie couldn’t help herself, she couldn’t handle the waiting. And once Geraldine stared at her, she mimicked with her mouth:

Can. I. get. out. 

Geraldine, seriously peaceful as always, only began to bend down. And she sat so gracefully under Grace, the horse.

Frankie crawled towards her and hugged her. Hugged her tightly yet mercifully so as to not cross any forbidden line. Ignoring nature’s call to undress her and please her and make her make sounds so lewd she’d know for sure she’s a human and not an angel.

“What the fuck was that?” Frankie whispered. “Is she suspicious?”

Geraldine nodded.

“I bet she thinks I get high here.” Geraldine murmured. “It would make more sense.”

Her eyes were crystallized yet dark as she spoke. 

“Well… it’s not entirely untrue,” Frankie murmured, her voice barely louder than the breeze curling through the open window. “I get high whenever I see you.”

Geraldine blinked, then burst out in a breathy, disbelieving laugh—short, sharp, like she hadn’t expected the confession to land so close to her chest. “How is that even possible?” she asked, incredulous, as if the statement itself defied the laws of chemistry.

“I don’t know…” Frankie mumbled, her eyes tracing the contours of Geraldine’s face in the dimming light. It was the kind of face you’d find in Clinique commercials—clean, luminous, unmarred. Skin like spring water, translucent and poised. Even now, as the day folded into dusk, she glowed. And maybe that was the trouble.

Frankie wished she looked less perfect. Just a wisp of hair out of place for her to tuck back behind Geraldine’s ear—any excuse to touch her. Something to make her more human, more reachable.

Their knees brushed, the contact sending tiny electric flares up Frankie’s spine. Tentatively, cautiously, she reached for Geraldine’s hand—starting with just the tip of her ring finger, her skin warm and humming—and then, slowly, achingly slowly, let their fingers intertwine.

“It just… happens,” Frankie said, breath caught somewhere between awe and ache.

They were quiet. Still. Gazes locked as the last of the golden sky faded into a velvet wash of blue-black. The vivid purples, burnt oranges, and yolky yellows had all melted away, leaving behind only the hush of nightfall.

Frankie placed a cigarette between her lips. Geraldine struck a match and brought the flame close, and for a heartbeat, the light bathed her face in a glow so bright and beautiful it felt surreal—like she wasn’t real at all.

And then it hit Frankie, deeper and sharper than before. The truth she’d heard in N.A. meetings, repeated like scripture: Once an addict, always an addict. The words had always sounded grim, but now they felt tender. Inevitable. Eternal.

She’d be missing this forever. Missing her.

Because Geraldine wasn’t just a person—she was a high . A fix . And Frankie would chase that feeling for the rest of her life. But not in the way other drugs made her stupid, there was something so absurdly soothing and calming, and grounding about Geraldine’s presence. About the relationship they’ve built.

And yet she knew very little about her.

She didn’t know who Mikey was for starters, she didn’t know how long she’d been a nun for, she didn’t know if she preferred her popcorn sweet or salty, and she didn’t even know if she liked going to the theater.

“Who’s Mikey?” Frankie dared to question.

“He’s my brother.” Geraldine shared. “He’s the reason why I’m here.”

“How so?” Frankie asked, her fingers now brushing her knuckles tenderly.

“He’s an addict… Well–he was an addict, and I was about to resign from church because I needed money to put him in rehab.” She admitted. “But Sister Gabrielle really intervened, Father Billy who’s also an important man intervened, they all made accommodations for me to come here and work here so Mikey could get treatment.”

“Oh.” She mumbled. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Of course you didn’t.” Geraldine added on. And it suddenly felt like a parallel of one of their previous conversations, only that now, Geraldine was the one sharing.

“Do you miss him?” Frankie asked her.

There was a big silence between them, a sad type of noiseless pause. And Geraldine thought very carefully of her following words. 

“I miss being young with him.” She whispered, almost soundlessly. “I really miss that.”

Frankie felt the ache in her chest expand like a crack on a block of ice. She didn’t think of herself as young, she didn’t think of herself as beautiful or likeable. 

“He used to be my best friend,” Geraldine confessed, her voice flickering like a candle in a breeze. “But I don’t think I can miss him now. I don’t know him that much anymore.”

Frankie shifted closer, heart heavy yet full. She reached for Geraldine’s hand and kissed each knuckle slowly—like a rosary, praying at the beads. Her lips lingered, one by one, never breaking eye contact, not even for a blink. And though her own heart was bursting with things unsaid, she chose silence. Listening felt more sacred.

Geraldine's gaze drifted to the middle distance as she continued. “We grew closer during rehab. We got to reconnect. Made our amends, you know?” Her fingers twitched slightly, like the words cost something to say. “But we don’t really speak anymore. Only during holidays. Birthdays, sometimes.”

“That sucks,” Frankie blurted, instinctively—then cringed. It felt clumsy, hollow, like offering a band-aid for a bullet wound.

Geraldine smiled faintly. “He lives in Tennessee now too, so… it’s not like he can just swing by every weekend.” She glanced down at their hands, then gently wound her fingers into Frankie’s, locking them together like ivy around stone.

“I can’t believe I’m jealous of Sister Gabrielle,” Frankie admitted with a soft laugh that tried not to sting. Geraldine snorted. “She seems to know everything about you.”

“Oh, please,” Geraldine replied, rolling her eyes—but then she paused, studying Frankie’s expression. There was no teasing sparkle, no joke. Just sincere, aching wonder. And Geraldine realized: Frankie wasn’t playing around.

Frankie would never make fun of her.

“What do you wanna know?” Geraldine asked, her voice stripped of irony, open.

“Everything,” Frankie whispered, hand sliding to Geraldine’s waist as she moved in, breath warm between them.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Rural Jersey.”

“What’s your favorite movie?”

“Night of the Living Dead.”

“Do you like your popcorn salty or sweet?”

“Sweet. Wait—no, I don’t know. Both?” Her laugh was light now, genuine, soft and fluttering. “I think the sweet ones are better. Why is this even relevant?”

“Because tonight,” Frankie said, barely above a whisper, “when I fall asleep, I want to dream about us going to the movies together. And I want it to be accurate.”

Geraldine smiled—no teeth, just that quiet upward curve that held entire novels. Then, with no hesitation, she leaned in and placed a kiss on Frankie’s cheek, feather-light but burning like a brand.

She had earned that kiss.

Frankie’s body responded instinctively, spine relaxing, limbs melting, yet her hands gripped tighter around Geraldine’s waist as if she feared she’d disappear. The contact was electric and slow, like warm wax poured over skin—comforting, sensual, and then stripped away, painfully sweet.

“Was I your first kiss?” Frankie asked, watching her, watching every flicker of emotion as it danced across her face. She witnessed how the little red lightings began to form, as they clouded.

She nodded, sadly ashamed. “Was it that bad?”

Frankie huffed out a breath, half laughter, half disbelief. “Hell no,” she said. “But I could teach you some stuff.”

And before Geraldine could ever refuse or even respond, Frankie reached into her satchel and pulled out an apple, slightly bruised, deep red with golden specks.

“Here.” She placed it gently into Geraldine’s hands. “Kiss it.”

“What?, how?” Geraldine’s brow furrowed, laughing uncertain, as if Frankie were proposing a spell instead of a gesture.

Frankie was aware it was a weird request, she knew it sounded like something out of a fairytale mixed with some indie lesbian film fetish. But she wasn’t going to kiss Geraldine without permission—without ritual.

She wouldn’t be the one to haunt her, to leave fingerprints on vows she'd made long before Frankie had ever appeared. The apple was a middle ground to Frankie. 

She just hoped Geraldine would understand.

Yet Frankie, wrapped in the moment’s strange intimacy, failed to fully recognize what the apple signified. To her, it was simply a peculiar request. But to Geraldine—it was sacred.

To Geraldine, that apple was a symbol: choice, temptation, initiation. A token of consent offered delicately in place of a kiss she dared not steal. It echoed through time and story, Eve and Eden, knowledge and longing.

Frankie took the fruit in her hands, turning it slowly, eyes trained on Geraldine as if gauging her every breath. Then, without ceremony, she bit into it—not too deep, just enough to soften its perfect curve. A deliberate act of imperfection. “Like this,” she murmured, voice caught between demonstration and prayer.

She lifted the apple to her lips, and then—kissed.

It was nothing like a performance. Frankie pressed her mouth softly to the broken skin of the fruit, letting it linger as though tasting more than apple. Her lips moved slowly, rhythmically. She began to suck, not greedily but with measured intent—lips parting, drawing sweetness out of flesh and air alike. There was reverence in the way she moved, almost like she was summoning something, as if the fruit were enchanted and might reveal Geraldine’s heart with each pass of her breath.

Geraldine couldn’t look away.

The gesture hung heavy in the air—seductive, strange, and oddly holy. Her chest tightened. Not from fear or discomfort, but from the sudden realization that something in her was being invited to awaken.

That the apple wasn’t just a fruit anymore. It was a ritual, and Frankie was giving her the map.

“Wanna try?” Frankie asked, voice low and mischievous, her thumb grazing the apple’s slick skin.

Geraldine hesitated, her breath caught somewhere between resistance and surrender.

There’s a reason you don’t bite the apple, she thought of Sister Gabrielle’s words—an echo of caution, of old teachings and carved promises. But that voice was barely a whisper now, drowned beneath the thrum rising in her chest.

Frankie’s lips shimmered with sweetness and pulp, the aftermath of her devotional act still glistening. Her grin stretched wide—wolfish, toothy, intoxicating. Geraldine noticed the sharpness of her canine teeth, cute and disarming, hinting at mischief. They were like a pup’s—eager, earnest. While hers, reflected faintly in the glass behind Frankie’s shoulder, were sleeker, feline. A hunter watching the hunt.

It was dangerous. Not just the gesture, but the way Frankie carried it—bold, playful, kindly. Like she was telling Geraldine that even forbidden, mundane things could be kissed. Could be known. Could be loved.

It’s addicting. 

“Sure,” Geraldine whispered—less agreement, more invocation.

She reached out and took the apple with both hands, as if expecting it to tremble. Her fingers curled around it tightly, knuckles whitening. Then, mimicking Frankie, she pressed her lips to the soft, bitten flesh. But it wasn’t precise, it wasn’t restrained. Geraldine kissed eagerly.

Her lips parted, tongue tasting where Frankie had already tasted. She hummed softly between each kiss—a broken, needy sound, like she couldn’t help it. Her breath stuttered on the pulpy surface, hot and fast. Her kisses were not instructional, not ritualistic like Frankie’s—they were pure hunger . Each one was more urgent than the last.

Frankie watched, stunned into silence.

The apple was no longer a symbol. Geraldine had transformed it. Her desperation wasn’t embarrassing—it was electric.

It was a girl unraveling, tasting temptation and realizing she’d always been starving.

Geraldine pulled back slightly, lips flushed, eyes glazed over with heat and something fragile, a thread of spit trailed in the air, and she didn’t speak, she couldn’t. Her mouth remained half open, breaths coming in sharp swells.

The apple was still in her hand.

And now, it felt like it belonged to neither of them.

“Do you feel it?” Frankie whispered, voice thick with urgency. “Down there…?”

Geraldine barely nodded, a movement so slight it could’ve been mistaken for the settling of breath. But Frankie felt the answer like static traveling through skin.

“I feel it all over my body,” she confessed. “Every time I see you.” Her hand lingered on the fabric above Geraldine’s waist—guarded, hesitant—but desire was a flood, and restraint was paper-thin. She slipped her fingers gently above the cotton, palm cradling the warmth of her hip. Clothes still divided them, but the touch was real. Charged. Barely enough. “It kills me.”

“Frankie…” Geraldine’s voice came out strained, fragile, like she was caught between scolding and surrender.

“You’re a nurse too, Gee,” Frankie pressed on, voice cracking with emotion. “You know how the human body works… You should know how to make me feel better.”

“I’m a nurse,” Geraldine replied, almost defensively, “not a harlot.”

Frankie nearly laughed—not mockingly, but with startled disbelief. A harlot? The word rolled around her head like something from a Victorian novel. So knowing pleasure, wanting connection, made someone impure?

Of course. She was a nun. 

With a tenderness that betrayed her hunger, Frankie leaned in and touched her lips to the curve of Geraldine’s neck—kissing softly, yet painfully lustful. Her mouth trailed down to her clavicle, barely grazing the bone with warmth, then climbed to the edge of Geraldine’s chin, stopping just shy of her mouth. Close enough to taste her breath. Close enough to feel the tremble.

“I know nurses used to take care of hysterical women like me,” she said, lips teasing over skin.

“That was in the forties, Frankie,” Geraldine murmured, nearly breathless. “And you’re not hysterical… Besides, that term is just medical misogyny.”

“But I can’t sleep, I cry, I lose taste.” Frankie begged, her voice threadbare with longing. “I lie awake every night and it burns.”

“I thought you were on Prozac,” Geraldine said, her tone suddenly clipped, clinical—as though clutching professionalism might save her.

“It doesn’t work, I swear.” Frankie exhaled a shaky laugh, desperate and raw. “Come by my room tonight. I’ll show you how hysterical I get.”

Then silence stretched between them—a long, ripe pause heavy with promise and dread. It hummed like a fever beneath the skin.

“What do we do with this?” Geraldine asked, eyes landing on the apple.

They could throw it away. Offer it to Grace like an innocent snack. But the fruit had morphed into something else—a vessel of restraint and lustfulness, of mouths and want. It shimmered with spit and memory, kissed into meaning.

Frankie took it from her gently, her thumb brushing across the bite Geraldine had left behind. Then, slowly, she sank her teeth into the same spot—where saliva and sweetness mingled like intimacy and guilt.

“Take it with you,” she ordered softly.

She moved closer—so close her breath feathered against Geraldine’s ear. But instead of kissing, she whispered into it like slipping secrets inside flesh.

“Take it to the shower with you.”

Then she tugged Geraldine’s ear lightly between her lips, just enough to make her shiver, make her clench her thighs, make her hold her breath.

“Make me kiss you… down there.”

Geraldine didn’t answer, she was absolutely speechless. But her body did. Frankie could feel it in the tension. In the throb.

She clutched Geraldine’s waist—this time a bit rough, unable to keep herself gentle—and then, like a storm cutting short, she turned, snatched her satchel, and left. If she didn’t flee now, she’d strip the night down to skin and ruin.

She was the one who needed the cold shower.

After Frankie slipped away, the silence didn’t rush back in—it unraveled slowly, thick and syrupy. Geraldine remained seated beneath the statue of Grace, her spine stiff but her body humming. Her breasts tingled with residual electricity, every inch of her skin pulsing with a sensation she hadn’t felt since watching that indecent scene in a David Lynch film, years ago. That same cocktail of discomfort and thrill, of something forbidden awakening just below the surface.

The apple lay heavy beside her, a relic from an unsanctioned ritual. Her thoughts spiraled.

She could hand it to Grace—feed the symbol to the divine and cast away every charged implication. She could heed Sister Gabrielle’s warning, bury the slip deep in her conscience and let time dust it over into forgetfulness.

But her fingers had a mind of their own.

Ignoring the echoing tug of better judgment, she reached for the apple and tucked it gently into the folds of her habit, nesting it against her side like a secret pressed to skin.

She glanced at her watch: 10:14 p.m.

Her shift didn’t start until 11. A full forty-six minutes to surrender to the quiet. Enough time to gather herself—or unravel completely.

She rose quickly, almost too quickly, and began to run. Not a sprint, but not casual either. Her shoes padded the stone floor with soft thumps as she made her way toward the Nun’s house adjacent to the chapel. Every step felt louder than it should’ve—like her heartbeat had migrated to her soles.

Up the stairs. Down the corridor. Past the flickering votive lights and rows of sleeping souls. She reached her room and turned the knob slowly, careful not to wake Mother Prudence, whose breath wheezed rhythmically

She stood still for a moment, letting the hush settle around her shoulders. The apple was still warm in her pocket, as if it remembered Frankie’s mouth. Her fingers brushed against it again.

She crossed the room in a few quiet steps, opened the bathroom door, and disappeared inside—alone now, with pulsing skin, temptation tucked against her hip, and a ritual to finish.

Geraldine’s hands trembled as she shed her habit, the coarse fabric peeling away from her skin as if it burned with the embers of her sin. Each layer—veil, tunic, belt—fell to the floor with a soft, accusing thud, pooling around her feet like a judgment she couldn’t escape.

Her body, bare now, felt exposed, vulnerable, the air cool against her flushed skin. She clutched the apple, its red skin slick with Frankie’s spit and her own, handling it with a reverence reserved for sacred relics.

She parted the shower curtain, the plastic rings scraping against the rod with a sharp, grating sound that echoed in the small bathroom. Turning the knob, she let the water roar to life, the spray hissing as it hit the tiles, steam rising in thick clouds. The water was near boiling, scalding, a punishment she welcomed to mask the act she was about to commit. It pounded against her back, stinging her skin, the heat a feeble attempt to cleanse the desire that coiled in her core, tight and unyielding.

Frankie’s words haunted her, a whispered command that burrowed into her soul: “Take it to the shower with you, make me kiss you down there.”

The memory of Frankie’s voice—low, daring, dripping with want—sent a shiver through her, her breath catching as she bit her lip, the pain sharp enough to ground her, to keep her from dissolving into her own guilt.

She was terrified of what she felt compelled to do, her heart pounding with the weight of her vows, the Bible’s warnings screaming in her skull: Flee from temptation… Do not be led astray… But her body betrayed her, trembling with a need she couldn’t name, could never ever confess.

Geraldine lifted the apple to her lips, her movements slow, deliberate, as if performing a forbidden rite.

She kissed it softly—tentatively, designedly, like Frankie had instructed her—but with the desperate tenderness of Frankie’s kiss.

The memory of her lips warm and reckless against her skin. Her breath hitched, a soft whimper escaping as she pressed the apple harder against her mouth, tasting the faint sweetness of Frankie’s spit, the tartness of the fruit mingling with her own. The leftover nicotine.

Her teeth grazed the skin, not biting, just feeling, her lips trembling as she fought the urge to sob.

She trailed the apple down her neck, her hand shaking, careful to shield it from the shower’s spray. She wanted to preserve Frankie’s essence, the slick trace of her mouth, as if losing it would sever their connection.

The apple’s cool surface grazed her collarbone, then lower, brushing the curve of her breast, the sensation sending a jolt through her.

Her nipple hardened under the touch, her breath catching in a ragged gasp, her free hand gripping the shower rod for balance. She bit her lip harder, the metallic taste of blood mixing with the apple’s sweetness, her eyes squeezing shut to block out the sin she was committing. But she couldn’t stop, couldn’t silence the heat pooling between her thighs, the ache that pulsed with every thought of Frankie.

Her hand moved lower, the apple tracing a slow, torturous path down her stomach, her skin prickling under the scalding water. She hesitated, her breath shallow, her heart a frantic drumbeat against her ribs. The apple hovered above her pubic bone, her fingers trembling as she guided it closer, her body tensing with both dread and anticipation.

She didn’t dare look down, she couldn’t bear to witness her own descent.

Instead, she felt it—the apple’s smooth, wet surface brushing against the coarse hair of her bush, the contact sending a shockwave through her. A low moan escaped her lips, soft and broken, swallowed by the hiss of the shower. Her knees buckled slightly, her free hand pressing against the tiled wall, fingers splaying to steady herself.

Geraldine ground her hips forward, shamefully at first, the apple pressing harder against her, its firmness a cruel mimicry of Frankie’s touch.

She moved slowly, her body swaying, the fruit sliding against her, slick with her own arousal and the lingering traces of their shared bite.

Each movement was a countdown, a sin, a closer step to hell.

Her hips rocked with a rhythm that felt both foreign and instinctive. Her moans grew louder, desperate, mingling with the water’s roar, each sound a plea for forgiveness she knew wouldn’t come. Her eyes remained shut, her face a mask of guilt and yearning, tears mixing with the water streaming down her cheeks. She couldn’t look at the apple, couldn’t acknowledge the act, but she felt it—every collision, every press, the way it teased her swollen, aching flesh.

Her fingers tightened around the apple, her knuckles whitening, her other hand clawing at the tiles, nails scraping as she ground harder, faster, chasing the release that taunted her. Frankie’s face flashed in her mind—her daring eyes, her swollen lips, the way she’d leaned close in the barn, her breath hot and defiant.

Geraldine’s moans turned to sobs, her body trembling with the weight of her desire and the crushing guilt that followed. She imagined Frankie’s hands guiding the apple, Frankie’s mouth on her, Frankie’s body pressed against hers in this scalding, suffocating space.

The fantasy was too much, too vivid, her hips bucking as a wave of pleasure crashed through her, her knees nearly giving out as she gasped, her voice breaking into a muffled cry.

She sank to the shower floor, the apple slipping from her hand, rolling across the tiles, still glistening with their combined essence.

The water pounded her back, relentless, but it couldn’t wash away the shame that clung to her skin, the sin that burned in her chest.

Her hands covered her face, her sobs silent now, swallowed by the steam and the weight of her betrayal.

She’d defiled the apple, defiled herself, defiled the vows she’d sworn to uphold. Frankie’s absence was a wound, raw and bleeding, and this act—desperate, forbidden, incomplete—was a confirmation of how deeply she’d fallen.

Geraldine curled into herself, the water scalding her skin, her body still trembling with the aftershocks.

The apple lay abandoned, a silent witness to her ruin, and she couldn’t bring herself to touch it again. Her lips parted, a whispered prayer escaping, but it wasn’t to God—it was to Frankie, a name she could never speak aloud again without tasting flesh.

The scalding water was still dripping from her shoulders, tracing burning paths down her spine. She couldn’t believe herself—couldn’t fathom the depths to which she’d sunk, her fingers stained with the memory of Frankie’s spit, her body aching with a hunger that felt both delicious and excruciating.

The sensation was a paradox, a sweet agony that pulsed in her core, raw and unrelenting.

She didn’t know how to soothe it, didn’t know how to live with this pain that clawed at her soul, demanding release she couldn’t grant.

It was new, this torment , so fucking new it terrified her, as if her body had awakened to a language she’d been forbidden to speak.

She stood frozen, the damp towel clutched against her chest, its coarse fibers scraping her sensitive skin, a faint reminder of the habit she’d shed like a second skin. Her mind churned, caught in a spiral of guilt and desire.

What if the answer was surrender? What if she slipped into Frankie’s room tonight, under the cover of darkness, and gave in completely? The thought sent a shiver through her, her breath catching as she imagined Frankie’s hands on her, peeling away her vows, her lips claiming what Geraldine had denied them both.

She pictured the narrow bed, the creak of the springs, the heat of Frankie’s body pressed against hers, no barriers, no God to judge them. Her fingers twitched, longing to trace the curve of Frankie’s jaw, to feel the pulse of her neck, to drown in the warmth of her skin.

But then came the doubt, the crushing weight of her faith.

Was God watching her now, His gaze piercing through the steam, seeing the apple, the sin, the betrayal? Or was He absent, a silent void that left her to wrestle with this torment alone? Her knees weakened, the cold tiles biting into her bare feet, grounding her in the reality of her transgression.

The wooden cross she’d worn for years felt like a phantom around her neck, its absence a wound that throbbed with every heartbeat. She was lost in her own ramblings, her thoughts a tangled litany of lust and repentance, when a frantic pounding shattered the silence.

“Geraldine! Are you here?!” Sister Patricia’s voice, shrill and panicked, sliced through the fog of her mind, each knocking a hammer against her skull. “We need you! It’s an emergency!” The urgency in her tone was raw, jagged, pulling Geraldine from her reverie like a hook through her chest.

Her heart lurched, her hands fumbling as she hid the apple, its slick surface slipping against her fingers. She shoved it beneath the crumpled heap of her habit, draped over the toilet lid, the coarse fabric swallowing it like a secret she couldn’t bear to confess.

There was no time to dress, no time to reclaim the sanctity of her uniform. She grabbed the towel, wrapping it tightly around her body, the damp fabric clinging to her curves, chilling her overheated skin. Her hair, wet and loose, stuck to her neck, a reminder of her vulnerability, her nakedness before God and herself.

“What’s going on?” Geraldine called, her voice hoarse, trembling as she stepped out of the bathroom, the door creaking on its hinges. The air outside was cooler, sharp against her flushed skin, the fluorescent lights harsh and unforgiving.

Sister Patricia stood before her, her face a mask of devastation—cheeks flushed crimson, eyes swollen and glistening with tears that streamed unchecked. Her habit was disheveled, the veil askew, as if she’d run through the night to reach her.

“Sister Hayley hanged herself on a tree,” Patricia choked out, her voice breaking, a sob clawing its way from her throat. “We need someone to get her down.” Her hands wrung together, knuckles white, her body shaking as she gasped for air. “Before the patients see her.”

Geraldine’s breath stopped, her chest tightening as if the air had been sucked from the room. The towel slipped slightly, her fingers clutching it tighter, the coarse fabric digging into her palms.

Hayley’s face flashed in her mind—her bright smile, her gentle hands, now lifeless, swaying from a branch in the dark.

The weight of it crushed her, mingling with the guilt still burning in her veins, the apple’s presence a silent accusation hidden just beyond the door. Her knees buckled, but she caught herself against the wall, the cold plaster grounding her, anchoring her to this new horror.

Patricia’s sobs filled the space, raw and ragged, the sound echoing off the sterile walls. Geraldine’s own eyes stung, tears threatening to spill, but she swallowed them, her throat tight with the effort.

Her body still hummed with the memory of her sin, the apple’s touch, Frankie’s imagined kisses, and now this—Hayley’s death, a brutal reminder of the world beyond her own torment.

She wanted to collapse, to let the grief and guilt consume her, but Patricia’s desperate gaze held her upright, demanding action, demanding strength she wasn’t sure she had.

“I’m coming,” Geraldine whispered, her voice barely audible, fractured by the weight of everything—her desire, her shame, and now this unbearable loss. She stepped forward, the towel clinging to her trembling body, her bare feet cold against the floor.

She was the tallest, the strongest, “the nonchalant nun”, of course she had to be the one to get her down.

“I’m coming.”

Chapter Text

Geraldine’s hair clung to her nape in damp tendrils, the ritual of her habit abandoned like an unlocked chapel door. She tugged into faded grey sweats and the only navy hoodie she owned, as if armor salvaged for a siege she never chose. With one last glance at her lone pair of sneakers, she stepped into the chill that tasted like ashes on her tongue.

She could scarcely believe Sister Patricia’s words, as if truth itself had snapped under pressure. Hayley had undone her tether to life —No, that was too poetic.

Hayley had hung herself.

Sweet Sister Hayley, still trembling on the cusp of twenty-one.

The news lodged in Geraldine’s chest like a church bell shattered against stone, each ding echoing, there’s a whole world outside your own.

She fled in ragged bursts, limbs pulsing with raw panic. August bled out into a blemished dawn, no longer a crown of summer’s zenith but the first pale leaf of autumn’s decay.

Every footfall sounded like walking towards the end.

Maybe because she was. And maybe because she didn’t know exactly how she’d found her, but she knew she was the one to bring her down.

A veil of fog swallowed fields whole, thick as spilled milk over black earth.

Shapes stirred in the grey haze, but only one silhouette held its traces against the mist: Hayley’s body, swaying from the willow, like a marionette jerked by a cruel puppeteer. The willow’s weeping branches brushed her cheeks like ghostly fingers.

She began sobbing loudly. It was such a horrid thing to witness.

Days ago, Geraldine had stood beneath that same arch of green next to Frankie, mouths meeting in a vow of laughter and tender promise. Now its limbs dripped judgment, each droplet a silent indictment.

And the cicadas had gone quiet. And it hurt to know that they were complicit not only in her crimes. But in Hayley’s too. 

Hope lay severed at Hayley’s throat, and the willow had become a gallows crowned in mournful foliage. Geraldine pressed her palm to the rough bark, feeling the tremor of a warning scrawled in sap—an omen she could no longer outrun.

But this wasn’t about her. This was about Hayley.

And she had to get her down.

The pasture held its breath around her, as if the world itself had paused to mourn. In that suspended silence, Geraldine understood: some debts to grief can never be absolved.

She could sense the flashlights and other male staff running with the stairs way behind her. But she couldn’t stand a single second of watching her hanging from that tree. All alone.

The way she swayed in the air made her stomach churn in this most horrible, goriest fashion. It was a delicate movement, almost as if the tree still simulated she was alive.

She couldn’t keep herself together, although she had to. She knew the patients could never EVER find out about this. And even though they were relatively far away from the facility. They could still hear her screamings if she dared to do it.

They could still witness the willow tree and the swinging body if they searched for it from the window.

Geraldine felt the world narrow to a single iron thread of purpose, drawn tight through her ribs: reach her, free her, whatever it costs.

All the days that had taught her to bow, to pray, to keep her voice quiet, had only sharpened this one command into a blade. She moved without vestment, without ceremony—only the animal insistence of love remained, pacing inside her like a caged wolf.

She set her foot into the tree’s old scars, those weathered hollows where storms had once laid their teeth, and began to climb.

She did not dare look at the figure swaying in the fog’s wet mouth; she fixed her gaze on bark, on lichen, on the small, ordinary facts of the world that hadn’t yet fallen to ruin. When her sneaker slipped and the sky lurched, she caught herself—and her palm found a colder thing than winter.

Fingers, frost-pale and still .

The touch broke her open. A sound came up out of her that wasn’t a word, just a torn-rope, scared moan, and she pressed their hands together like stitching skin to stone, desperate for liveliness where none remained.

Even in this iced, forsaken state, Hayley gave her grip, as if some rubber stamp of kindness still lived in the bones.

Geraldine couldn’t believe the treachery of the scene—the fog, the willow, the swinging hush—how it wore the shape of a miracle gone wrong.

Snot salted her lip, tears burned her throat; grief and cold made a single weather and it lived inside her now.

She hauled herself higher, to the low bough that cradled the cruelty, and edged along it with the clumsy grace of a sinner approaching an altar. She took Hayley’s hand again—because flesh remembers flesh, even when the world has turned its face away—and gathered what strength she had hoarded from a lifetime of being told she was too much.

Freak. Monster. Frankenstein. Hunchback. The old stones people had thrown at her now became her saving steps; she walked on them.

No men from the staff had come, no sirens had cut the fog to clean geometry. No one to measure, to manage, to call it by its procedural name. The burden fell to her because she was there, because love is the only authority that answers without asking for credentials.

She rose into her height like a cathedral standing back up from ruin.

Arms burning, lungs injured with cold, she lifted—not to reverse the irreversible, but to loosen the world’s cruel cinch by a fraction, to say with her muscles what her mouth could not: I will not let you hang alone in this silence. 

The knot of fate was stubborn, but even stubborn things know when they’ve been seen; it slackened, grudging as an old door.

And Hayley’s face was the color of uncut milk-glass, austere and tender at once, as if fashioned for some chapel window no artisan had the heart to finish. A dusting of violet ringed her eyes, this poor, innocent, violated petal of a night that refused to close.

Her lips were marbled frost. Geraldine could not do mathematics with this—no tally of right actions could solve it—so she chose the only arithmetic she trusted: subtracting distance.

She gathered Hayley against her, holding that terrible hush like a child who had cried herself empty. Cold seeped into her chest the way ink seeps through paper fibers, slow and unstoppable; still she tried to warm her, to trade heat like lunchbox fruits, like cards, foolish and naive.

The willow bent low, whispering its old weeping to them both, and Geraldine pressed her cheek to Hayley’s hair as if to memorize its final temperature.

Around them, the pasture listened. The fog felt like a congregation too stunned to sing. Geraldine breathed through the ache, through the failure, through the vow that had just rewritten her blood: if there is any warmth left in me, it belongs to you.

Somewhere a bird twisted out a single note and then thought better of it.

The rope lay slack now—a serpent that had forgotten its bite—and the tree stood there like a witness who could not swear to mercy, only to the facts.

Geraldine kissed Hayley’s cold temple, a benediction for a world that had missed its chance, and held on as if holding could teach time to grieve more gently.

Up there, tangled in the limbs of the willow like a fever dream, Geraldine imagined the final seconds of Hayley’s breath.

The bayou stretched out below like a velvet wound—lush, wet, and indifferent.

Maybe Hayley had stared into that swampy sprawl and seen not beauty, but the shape of escape. Maybe freedom had looked like a blade glinting in the sun. Maybe it had terrified her into stillness.

Geraldine’s eyes dropped to the electric fence, humming like a threat.

It had always been there, but she’d never really noticed it—not in all her years working here, and especially not when Frankie was beside her.

Back then, the world blurred around Frankie’s face, and nothing else mattered. She had been the only landscape worth looking at.

“Sister!” a voice cracked through the mist—male, sharp, followed by Patricia’s softer echo. “You got her!” The ground below was a mess of faces: some crying, some numb, some with hands trained to handle corpses like paperwork.

Geraldine should’ve been one of them. Assumption College had drilled her in protocol, in detachment. But this wasn’t a drill. This was Hayley.

This was her friend.

“That’s amazing, now let her go, we’ll catch her,” someone said, like Hayley was a sack of flour, not a girl . 

Geraldine’s grip tightened. Hayley wasn’t a thing to drop. She was a pulse that had gone quiet.

She was the youngest. The brightest. The one people wanted to look at. How had Geraldine missed this? How had she not seen it?

“Sister, you have to let her go, okay? You did an amazing job.” The voices blurred, melted into static. Geraldine looked down and realized how high she’d climbed.

The tree had swallowed her whole. She was dizzy with altitude and desolation.

“Okay,” she whispered.

They brought the stairs. She let Hayley go. Her fingers brushed Geraldine’s arms on the way down—slow, reluctant, like even in death she wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Geraldine stayed on the branch, crying into the dark.

“Geraldine!” Her name echoed like a hymn sung off-key. Then a bony wrist touched her ankle. Patricia had climbed up the ladder, face streaked with tears.

“Come down. We have to say goodbye to her,” she said, voice trembling. “You were so brave, we all must thank you. Thank you.”

It was strange—this tragedy binding them together like a rosary pulled too tight. Geraldine never imagined comfort would come from Patricia. But here they were, hand in hand, descending from the tree like survivors of a storm.

“I can’t believe—” Geraldine choked on her own sobs.

Patricia wrapped her in a hug. It was warm, but wrong.

“Well… it’s a very sinful situation,” Patricia murmured. “Sister Hayley was a sinner, clearly till the end.”

“What?” Geraldine blinked, stunned.

“Well… this was the best outcome, I believe,” Patricia said, not cruelly, but with the calm of someone who’d already decided what mercy looked like.

Geraldine felt even sicker.

“Sorry, what?!”

“This is a secret, Sister Geraldine,” Patricia whispered, “but because of your bravery, I must confess. Sister Hayley came to me two weeks ago. She was pregnant.”

Oh.

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her it was a violation. A stain on her vows. A wound to the church, to God, to Mary, to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how long we’ll need to pray to wash off the stench of her filth.”

Geraldine dropped her arms. The hug dissolved. She was freezing again—but she’d rather carry the chill of Hayley’s corpse than the warmth of Patricia’s righteousness.

“And now worse, the poor thing hung herself. She’ll never get to heaven,” Patricia sobbed, as if heaven was the real victim.

Not Hayley.

Their Sister. Their Sister who had committed suicide.

Geraldine stared at her, hollowed out.

“I think she’ll get to heaven just fine,” she murmured.

“Oh, Geraldine, you’re so gracious . I understand Mother Prudence now,” Patricia said, rubbing her hand. “You’re truly remarkable, Sister. Now, come on. We have to pray for her. Maybe we’re still on time to save her soul.”

Geraldine didn’t move. She stood there, haunted, holding the ghost of a girl who deserved better than prayers spoken through clenched teeth.

During the long, aching minutes of the walk back to the church, Geraldine wished for the first time Hayley’s face was the one printed on the missing posters. Not hers.

She wished it was Hayley’s smile—soft, crooked, full of mischief—staring back from the faded paper taped to telephone poles and bulletin boards.

She wished it was Hayley’s name whispered in candlelit vigils, not hers.

That it was Hayley who had vanished into the world, still breathing, still capable of being found.

Because Hayley deserved to be looked for.

She deserved to be searched for in the woods, in the corners of gas stations, in the eyes of strangers passing by. She deserved the hope of returning.

Not this. Not this wicked rope. Not this hanging tree. Not the silence that followed.

Geraldine found out years later that her teenage nightmares had come true, and her face had been on those posters once—back when she’d run, when she’d disappeared. Before the church found her, without ever searching. 

But Hayley wouldn’t be found.

And that was the cruelest part.

That the world would never get the chance to miss her properly. That her absence would be buried in whispers and shame, not in longing . That no one would print her face in color and ask, “Have you seen this girl?” Because they had.

They’d seen her. She’d seen her. And she missed it .

Geraldine walked slower, dragging her feet through the gravel like penance.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear every poster of herself down and replace it with Hayley’s face. She wanted the world to ache for her the way she did.

But it wouldn’t. It never did.

And so she walked, with Hayley’s ghost stitched into her chest, wishing the world had looked harder. Wishing someone had seen her before it was too late.

Wishing someone had saved her.

The church was a shovelled husk, its stained-glass saints staring down with judgemental, unblinking eyes, their colors dulled by the gray dawn seeping through. Geraldine stood among the mourners, her hoodie clinging to her skin, heavy with the damp of her wet hair, each strand a cold lash against her scalp, mingling with the silent tears that carved paths down her face.

The air was thick with the scent of wax and death, yet something even darker lingered—a secrecy that festered like mold in the pews.

Hayley’s body lay in a metal clinical bed, not a casket, her face serene, too serene, as if death had smoothed away the vibrancy that once made her the loveliest girl Geraldine had ever known.

The men in black uniforms, their badges glinting like false halos, weren’t police. They were something else—shadows in human form, their presence an interruption of the sacred space.

Father Geoff’s voice trembled as he spoke to the cardinal’s assistant, his words barely audible over the low hum of whispered prayers. 

“Well… in this situation, we must remain together,” he said, his tone straining to hold the congregation’s fragile unity. But then, quieter, to the assistant, “I… I can’t do this. This is wrong.”

The assistant’s reply was a hiss, sharp as a serpent’s tongue. “This is procedure, Father. She had no family.”

“Still… she deserves a proper…” Geoff’s voice cracked, swallowed by the weight of the assistant’s authority.

Geraldine’s eyes, raw and burning, traced the movement of their lips, piecing together the conspiracy unfolding in the flickering candlelight.

They weren’t going to announce Hayley’s death.

Not to the patients, not to the community, not to anyone who might have loved her. Hayley, who laughed like a bell ringing in spring, who carried stories of Nashville bars and Baton Rouge summers, who had friends , a life , a pulse— how could they say she had no family?

The claim was a lie, bitter as gall, and it churned in Geraldine’s gut, a righteous anger that felt like a fist clenched around her rosary. Since when did Hayley have no one? Since when did the church, her church, decide that?

The cardinal’s assistant stepped to the pulpit, her face a mask of solemnity, and took the microphone.

“Father Geoff has organized a prayer vigil until we dispose of the body,” she announced, her voice smooth, practiced, like a mannequin reading from a script.

Mr. Brian Schechter, the facility director, followed, his tone clipped and final. “Tonight, personnel will work as normal. Tomorrow, the day shift staff will have the day off, and we’ll hold a memorial here while the patients sleep. Sister Geraldine, you’re relieved of duty for the rest of the week. Nuns, you as well. Grieve as long as needed.”

The congregation joined hands, a chain of clasped fingers meant to symbolize unity, but to Geraldine, it felt like a shackle.

Her guts moved, her bones ached with a sickness deeper than sorrow. She couldn’t stand it—the hypocrisy , the erasure , the way Hayley’s death was being swept away like dust under a rug.

Why does nobody care? She didn’t just ‘die’. She killed herself.

She let go of the hands on either side, her fingers trembling, and slipped out of the church, her steps silent as a penitent’s prayer. Outside, the air was sharp, biting, the moonlight poured over the barn like a divine signal. 

She stood alone, her breath clouding in the cold, her tears freezing on her cheeks like penance left unanswered.

Hayley deserved more than a secret vigil, more than a body “disposed of” like refuse. Geraldine’s anger was a thorn in her side, a reminder of her own failures—her vows, her duty, her weakness for Frankie, who was waiting for her now, probably tumbling around her bed, her presence a spark in the dark.

But even that spark couldn’t burn away the weight of this moment, the betrayal of Hayley’s memory by the very church Geraldine had sworn to serve.

She sank to her knees in the dew-soaked grass, her hands clutching the rosary at her chest, its beads cold as the grave.

The barn loomed ahead like a mausoleum carved from shadow, its silhouette shining like a lighthouse into the pitch black night. Geraldine’s sneakers dragged through the moist grass, each step a silent scream.

The sky was the color of the oldest oceans, and the air tasted like rust and regret.

She thought of Frankie.

And suddenly, it felt like Frankie was the only soul left in the world who could hold her without asking questions.

The only one whose touch wouldn’t feel like paperwork. Frankie, with her mischievous smile and her voice like velvet soaked in whiskey.

Geraldine wanted her now—not just wanted, but needed, like oxygen in a locked room. She wanted Frankie’s arms around her, wanted to bury her face in the curve of her neck and forget the church, forget the rope, forget the way Hayley’s body had swung like a broken pendulum.

She didn’t want prayers. She didn’t want mercy. She wanted Frankie.

Because Frankie wouldn’t treat Hayley’s death like a line item in a ledger. Frankie wouldn’t say “sin” like it was a diagnosis. Frankie would’ve screamed. Would’ve fought. Would’ve burned the whole chapel down just to keep Hayley’s name from being buried in shame.

Geraldine’s throat burned with unsaid things.

This grief was a storm with no eye, just endless spinning. And in that storm, Frankie was the only lighthouse she could imagine. The only one who wouldn’t flinch at the truth.

She kept walking toward the barn, toward the memory of Frankie, toward the ghost of a comfort that might never come. The church was behind her now, and it felt like a wound she didn’t want sutured.

She knew Frankie wouldn’t be in the barn, she’d probably be in her room, cozy under the covers.

And she had suffered enough.

She’d rather go to work or face the emptiness of that barn than the hollow prayers reverberating inside the chapel.

She walked towards the facility like she belonged there. Because she did. She barely nodded at the orderlies, her “hi” a grunt as she climbed the stairs two at a time, her heart pounding with a need to see Frankie, to anchor herself in something real.

The staff hadn’t been told she was off duty—grief leave, Schechter had called it, as if grief could be scheduled.

This wing was hers to check, her domain, her excuse. She slipped into Frankie’s room, shutting the door with a soft click that felt like a sin sealed shut.

“Check,” she muttered, her voice rough, flicking on her flashlight. The beam cut through the dark, landing on Frankie’s face. Frankie squinted, her eyes glinting like a cat’s, but a smile broke through, soft and dangerous.

“Let me check you out,” Frankie rasped, her voice all gravel and flirt, a spark in the gloom. “Wow, you look beautiful without the Jesus outfit.”

Geraldine realized what she meant. Right . No habit tonight—just a plain sweater and sweatpains, her hair loose and wet, framing her face like a penitent’s cloak.

It was the first time Frankie had seen her like this, stripped of the nun’s armor, raw and human. Frankie lifted the covers, an invitation as reckless as natural, and Geraldine, stripped from every shred of sense, turned off the flashlight and slid between the sheets. The warmth of the bed was a shock, a forbidden grace against her chilled skin.

It was the clash of temperatures that shattered her—like standing beneath a waterfall’s relentless weight.

Just moments ago, she had touched death, felt its silence cling to her skin like frost. And now, she was being beckoned into a sanctuary of warmth, of breath, of palpitating life.

This heat—this unbearable, exquisite heat—was love. It was delicate, so raw it stung. It couldn’t be wrong. It couldn’t be anything but holy.

Loving can’t be wrong. 

Frankie sat up, barely clothed, her body a furnace of life.

Thin cotton clung to her, whispering of summer and sweat and the pulse of something ancient. Geraldine could feel it radiating—this ardor , this proof of existence.

She wanted to fold herself into Frankie’s arms, burrow into the rhythm of her heart, memorize its cadence like a hymn. Because Frankie had always known. She had always been right.

It was so simple. Love makes everything simple.

And no one was watching. No one was there to interrupt the immaculate quietness of this moment.

Just the residue of death behind them, and the unbearable beauty of life ahead.

Frankie’s gaze sharpened, catching the wrongness immediately, something had happened—Geraldine’s face, pale as bone, her cheeks flushed, her eyes red-rimmed and glassy, her hair dripping like a widow’s weeds.

“What’s going on?” Frankie asked, her voice low, urgent, as she grabbed Geraldine’s hands. They were ice, trembling like relics touched by the profane. “Jesus, you’re freezing.”

“Tell me about this date we’ll have next year,” Geraldine whispered, her voice a threadbare. “With the hush money. You said you’d dream about it. I wanna dream about it too.”

Frankie blew warm breath into Geraldine’s hands, rubbing her arms, trying to chase away the winter.

“Oh, you remember that,” she said, a flush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

Geraldine nodded, slow and certain, her lips brushing the knuckle of Frankie’s middle finger—a kiss so gentle as a breath.

Beneath the covers, wrapped in the secrecy of Frankie’s bed, she felt the shift inside her. Something had unlatched. The old guilt, the shame that had adhered to her like a second skin, was dissolving.

She was no longer terrified to cave in.

Because this warmth wasn’t a sin. It was salvation. Frankie’s body beside her, alive and open, was not a temptation to resist, but a cosmic gift from the universe. And she was old enough to keep weaving soft illusions, like quilts stitched from old hopes. Old enough to let kindness pass her by—not out of bitterness, but because she’d learned to cradle longing gently, like a bird too wild to cage. She understood that even unclaimed miracles leave warmth behind.

Geraldine could feel the music of her heart, steady and real, and she wanted to crawl herself inside that beat. To swim in the rivers of her blood and watch the vastness of the world inside the world.

It was over. Whatever hold the church had on her. It was over tonight.

There would be no damnation. Not here. Not anymore.

Only the frail absolution of skin against skin, and the quiet knowledge that love—this love—was hers to keep.

Frankie’s mind twisted—something was off , jaggedly wrong. Geraldine’s eyes were storm-lit, violet and red, tears leaking silently, carving tracks down her face like stigmata.

Was she running? Leaving the church, the hospital, this life?

The thought sliced through her—clean, merciless, like ice pressed to burning meat. But then came the deeper terror, the one without shapes or name. Frankie’s ideas reeled, spinning in tight, nauseating circles, a carousel of dread that refused to stop.

She had never seen Geraldine like this—wrecked, undone, human. Not the Sister who spoke in calm absolutes, who folded her hands like the wings of a butterfly. Not the sweet woman living in endless guilt and concealed desire. This was someone else. Someone who had been hurt.

“It’ll be 2004, so we’ll watch The Two Towers ,” Frankie said, her voice soft but insistent, trying to anchor Geraldine to something solid, something hopeful. Her hands twitched in her lap, longing to reach out, to soothe the pain etched into Geraldine’s anxious body.

“That came out last year,” Geraldine murmured, her words slow, heavy, as if dredged from a well of sorrow. Her voice was a dirge, each syllable coated in molasses, thick with a despair that seemed to seep into the air, making it harder for Frankie to breathe.

“Oh man, I missed it,” Frankie said, forcing a grin that felt like a lie on her lips. She leaned closer, her shoulder brushing Geraldine’s, the warmth of her body a stark contrast to the coldness of her hoodie. “We’ll watch the third one, then.” Her voice cracked, betraying the effort to keep things light, to pull Geraldine from the abyss she seemed to be drowning in.

“That’s this year. December.” Geraldine’s words were barely audible, her lips wobbling, too soft, too raw, as if they’d been worn down by hours of silent weeping. Her tears fell faster now, silent streams tracing paths down her pale cheeks, pooling at the corner of her mouth. Frankie’s heart clenched—she had to make her stop.

“Better then,” Frankie said, her voice fracturing under the weight of her own desperation. “We’ll have our date earlier.” She wanted to see Geraldine smile, even just a flicker, to chase away the shadows that clung to her like a shroud. Her fingers itched to touch, to comfort, but she held back, her hands gripping the edge of the mattress, the coarse sheet rough against her palms.

“I can organize an outing,” Geraldine offered, her voice shaking, her tears falling faster, each one a martyr’s sacrifice to a God Frankie couldn’t understand. “But you have to be good…” Her hands clutched the sheets, her knuckles whitening, as if holding herself together by sheer will.

“I’m so good to you,” Frankie said, her tone teasing, a desperate attempt to flirt, to coax a smile from Geraldine’s lips. She leaned closer, her breath warm against Geraldine’s cheek, her fingers daring to brush a damp strand of hair from Geraldine’s face. The strand was thin, short, and she looked like the saddest fairy from the tale. “Gee, baby, what’s going on?” she pressed, her thumb grazing Geraldine’s cheek, wiping away a tear only for another to take its place. “I’ll do anything you ask, just stop talking like that.” Her voice wavered, her chest tightening with fear.

Geraldine’s face crumpled, her eyes squeezing shut, a defeated saint staring into an abyss only she could see. Her shoulders shook, her breath hitching in soft, silent sobs that tore at Frankie’s heart.

“You’re scaring me,” Frankie admitted, leaning closer, her forehead nearly touching Geraldine’s, their breaths mingling in the narrow space between them. The air was heavy with the scent of Geraldine’s flower soap and the faint salt of her tears. “You talk like you’re gonna disappear. Like you’ll go missing. ” Her hand lingered on Geraldine’s cheek, her fingers tremulous, the warmth of her skin a lifeline Frankie clung to.

“I won’t,” Geraldine whispered, her voice a broken vow, barely audible over the faint hum of the fluorescent light outside.

Her eyes opened, and Frankie was struck by their color—a deep, rich green, like a bayou underwater, a faded forest swamp shimmering with secrets. But they were clouded, drowned in angst, and Frankie’s heart sank, convinced this was her fault.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the apple—their shared bite, the juice on Geraldine’s lips, the command she’d whispered: Take it to the shower with you, make me kiss you down there.

The memory unraveled inside her like a wire pulled taut, humming with old tension.

She imagined Geraldine in the shower, consumed by desire and shame, the apple pressed against her skin, her hands fearful as she followed Frankie’s words.

Had she been caught? Had Sister Gabrielle’s condemning words—those whispered warnings about sin and temptation—burrowed into Geraldine’s mind, curling her guilt into this unbearable torment? Frankie’s intestines yanked inside, the thought of Geraldine’s shame a weight she’d placed there herself.

Frankie leaned forward, her lips brushing Geraldine’s forehead, a tender, fleeting kiss that barely grazed her scalp.

Geraldine’s baby hairs, soft and fine, framed her hairline like a crown of thorns, prickling against Frankie’s lips. She held Geraldine’s face gently, her thumbs caressing her damp cheeks, the skin warm and slick with tears.

“I love you,” Frankie whispered, her voice raw, vibrating with a truth she couldn’t hold back. Geraldine was silent, but Frankie had learned to read her silences, the unspoken words that lingered in the spaces between her breaths. Yet this sadness was new, a depth of despair Frankie had never seen, a darkness that frightened her. “It’s a year from now, remember?” Frankie said, her voice soft, pleading. “We’ll be saying all sorts of things by then.”

She wanted to believe it, and wanted to secure them both to a future where this pain didn’t exist, where they could be free.

Geraldine nodded, a small, broken movement, her eyes squeezing shut again.

Because behind those closed lids, she only saw Hayley’s body swinging from the tree, the rope creaking in the night air, her lifeless form a shadow that haunted every corner of her mind.

She wanted to speak, to tell Frankie the truth, but the words caught in her throat, thick and cold, like swallowing a snowball that burned as it went down.

Her lips parted, forming the shape of a confession— I love you too —but no sound came. She mouthed it, silent, her tears falling faster, trained to cry without being noticed, a skill honed by years of repression. Her sobs were muffled, swallowed by the discipline of her faith, but they shook her body, her shoulders trembling under Frankie’s touch.

Frankie pulled her closer, wrapping her arms around Geraldine’s shaking frame, her hands rubbing slow circles across her back, trying to warm the chill that seemed to seep from her core. The coarse fabric of Geraldine’s hoodie scratched against Frankie’s skin.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Frankie murmured, her voice soft, soothing, her tongue flicking against her teeth—not in anger, but in sheer incomprehension. She didn’t understand this grief, didn’t know why Geraldine was crying like this, her sobs so deep they seemed to come from a place beyond words. The closer Frankie held her, the harder Geraldine wept, her face buried in Frankie’s shoulder, her tears soaking through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Frankie’s heart ached, convinced this was her doing—the apple, the shower, the forbidden desire she’d planted in Geraldine’s mind.

She thought of Anthony’s words, his bitter warning about love, about Hayley, about how making these nurses, these nuns, love them was the real tragedy.

‘Wishing that she’ll never miss him’, he’d said, and for the first time, Frankie understood. If her love was causing Geraldine this much pain, this soul-deep sorrow, then maybe distance was the kinder choice.

But how could she abandon her now, in this cold, desolate night, when Geraldine clung to her like a lifeline? How could she walk away when every sob, every tremble, felt like a plea to stay?

Geraldine’s hands gripped Frankie’s shirt, her fingers digging into it, her face pressed deeper into the crook of Frankie’s neck. Her sobs were muffled, but they jolted against Frankie’s skin, a silent scream that threatened to unwind them both. The room felt smaller, the air thick with the scent of tears and Geraldine’s soap, the faint creak of the bed a constant reminder of their precarious closeness. Frankie’s hand crept into Geraldine’s hair like a trespasser in a sacred ruin. Her fingers combed through the sweat-slick bristle with the reverence of someone trying to stitch a soul back into skin. It wasn’t attentiveness—it was a kind of feral devotion, the kind that claws at the edge of collapse and calls it love.

And they were too close, too exposed.

Any moment now, a zombie nurse might appear, drawn by the sound of Geraldine’s sobs, and catch them in this forbidden embrace. Frankie’s eyes darted to the nightstand, her hand stretching toward the drawer where she kept her contraband—unswallowed pills hidden in a crumpled tissue. Her fingers closed around a small, white Valium, the tablet cool against her palm.

She hesitated, her gaze returning to Geraldine, whose face was still buried against her, her shoulders shaking with this loud misery. Frankie wanted to fix this, to ease the pain she believed she’d caused, and the pill felt like an exit, a way to dull what she couldn’t understand.

“Gee, please,” Frankie whispered, her voice breaking, her lips brushing Geraldine’s temple, the warmth of her skin a fleeting comfort. “Tell me what’s wrong.” But Geraldine only fastened her grip, her sobs growing quieter but no less devastating, her body a fragile thing that Frankie held together, even as her own heart fractured under the weight of this doomed love.

“Baby… listen…” She began kissing her really slowly. Softly on the forehead. Shushing her between kisses. Shh. kiss, shh… kiss. “You have to calm down…”

She also picked her water bottle.

“Here, take this, babe.” She handed her the pill. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Geraldine didn’t question it. She simply took the pill and swallowed it, she didn’t even notice she needed water until Frankie gave it to her.

Frankie kept trying to soothe her. She couldn’t believe herself.

She couldn’t recognize herself anymore. Not after this. Not after coaxing this sinless nun into her bed, tracing sacred skin with forbidden fingers, whispering commands that turned an apple into a vessel of vileness. And now—now she’d pressed a Valium into her palm. A chemical hush for what she wouldn’t be told.

Her heart shouldn’t be just broken—it should be impaled, mutilated. A mess of tissue and regret, pulsing only to remind her of the wreckage she’d made of this once spotless woman.

Geraldine, sweet and fragile Geraldine, still came closer. Still chose her. Still let her in.

Frankie’s breath caught. If Geraldine was here, in her bed, in her arms, then something had cracked open inside her. Something irreversible. Maybe the God who once watched her with eyes of fire had turned away. Had abandoned them both. And in that absence, Frankie made a silent oath.

She would be the one to watch over her now. To keep her safe. To hold her through the fallout.

“It’s okay…” Frankie didn’t even know what was supposed to be okay. Maybe nothing was okay.

She pulled away for a moment, her bare feet cold against the linoleum as she crossed the room to her closet. The door creaked, a low groan that echoed the ache in her chest, and she retrieved a worn towel, its fibers rough and faded like a wilted poppy left too long in the sun.

“You’ll get sick. We need to dry your hair,” she said, her voice gentle but firm, as she returned to the bed. She draped the towel around Geraldine’s damp hair, her fingers careful, reverent, as she rubbed the strands, the faint scent of lavender and tears rising with each motion.

Geraldine nodded.

Geraldine’s hair was short, delicate, clinging to her scalp like the fine legs of a spider weaving a fragile web. Not just any spider—Shelob. Her favorite. The monstrous, misunderstood queen of the dark. And suddenly, Frankie wondered:

Is this how Shelob felt, night after night, after the hobbits and elves fled her cave with trembling hearts and tales spun from fear? Did she sit in the silence, wrapped in shadows, listening to the world twist her name into a curse?

Is this why she relates to her?

If so, then Tolkien’s magic was a lie. Because in this world, beauty didn’t shield you. Magnetism didn’t save you. And Geraldine—this woman who could have been a myth herself—was curled in on herself, crying in Frankie’s bed, as if the gods had turned their backs and left her to rot in the dark.

No creature so radiant should be made to weep like this.

 She tucked Geraldine’s head beneath her chin, her lips brushing the crown, the baby hairs prickled her like the soft spines of a dandelion gone to seed.

Geraldine’s body melted into hers, absorbing Frankie’s warmth, her quievering easing as she nestled against the safety of Frankie’s chest. 

“Gee… I need to know,” Frankie uttered, her voice low, draped with a fear she couldn’t quite place. “Did someone hurt you?” Her hands tightened around Geraldine’s shoulders, her thumbs brushing the cotton-texture of her clothes. She searched Geraldine’s face, her heart pounding, unable to believe her fully when she shook her head, a slow, hesitant denial that felt like an incomplete truth.

“Gee, we can always run away,” Frankie proposed, her voice bright with a desperate hope, her eyes wide and gleaming like a firefly’s fleeting glow in the dark. “I promise I won’t get violent toward any of these people, if it’s what you’re afraid of…”

Frankie drifted to that afternoon under the willow tree, its branches swaying like mourners at a funeral, the electric fence beyond glinting with the sweet promise of freedom. She could still see it—the rusted wire, the faint buzz of electricity, the outside world that called them.

“We can jump that fence,” she plotted, her voice rising, heartening yet frantic. “ We can go missing .” Her fingers brushed Geraldine’s cheek, tracing the watery curve, her touch as tender as a petal falling from a dying rose.

Geraldine looked up, leaving the lukewarm refuge of Frankie’s heartstrings, her eyes meeting Frankie’s wide, earnest gaze.

Frankie’s face was a canvas of love and concern, her eyes shining with a devotion that cast her as the white knight, the prince, Aragorn ready to slay a dragon for her. Geraldine’s heart ached, a bruised blossom wilting under the weight of a vicious world where power was won through lies and betrayal. How could she see evil in this sweetness, this heroism that bloomed in Frankie’s touch, her voice, her unwavering presence? In a world of thorns and venom, Frankie was a rare orchid, vibrant and fragile, offering a beauty Geraldine had never known.

Because she never had that before.

“How much time do you have left here?” Geraldine asked, her voice a whisper, raw and heavy, as if each word were a stone she carried in her chest.

“Ten months,” Frankie replied, her voice steady but soft, her hand resting on Geraldine’s arm, the warmth of her touch a lifeline in the dark.

The hospital’s hum pressed in, gritty and unrelenting, a reminder of Hayley’s death—a body swinging from a tree, erased from the world like a forgotten prayer. But here, in this stolen moment, Frankie held tight, her arms a fragile barrier against the sorrow threatening to swallow them. The bed was their sanctuary, the future—ten months away—a flickering candle, its flame trembling in the draft of their uncertain fate.

Ten months were a heartbeat compared to a lifetime, a mere flutter of a moth’s wings against the vast, unyielding night.

“I don’t wanna suffer anymore,” Geraldine said, her voice splintering mid-syllable—a raw, aching sound. Her eyes glistened, wet with her previous waterfall of tears, and  heart shattered knowing Frankie thought this sorrow was her fault—the apple, the shower, the forbidden acts she believed had broken her.

But Geraldine’s grief was deeper, rooted in Hayley’s lifeless form, the rope’s creak, the weight of a secret she couldn’t share. She wanted to confess, to let the truth spill out, but her throat closed around the words, her lips trembling with the effort to stay silent.

Frankie’s hands moved to Geraldine’s face, her thumbs brushing her cheeks, wiping away the tears that fell like dew from a mourning flower. 

“I’ll make sure you don’t,” she mumbled, her voice a soft hymn, her lips grazing Geraldine’s forehead, the warmth of her breath a fleeting comfort. She pulled Geraldine even closer, her arms wrapping tighter, her body a shield against the cold, cruel world outside. Geraldine’s sobs had quieted, but her body still wobbled, her fingers clutching Frankie’s shirt like a drowning woman clinging to driftwood.

“Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, when you were very sad and Hayley sent me to check on you?” she asked, her fingers tracing invisible patterns on the blanket between them. “Because she thought I might help?”

Frankie nodded, her gaze fixed on Geraldine’s hands. “Of course,” she said. “She was right.”

Geraldine smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I think she knew,” she whispered.

“About us?”

“I’m not sure about that,” Geraldine babbled, her voice barely audible. She looked away, as if the truth might be hiding in the shadows of the room. “But I don’t think she just wanted to help you.”

There was a long silence. The kind that stretches between two people who’ve seen each other at their most fragile. Frankie reached out, kissing her temple again.

“Well, either way she was right, wasn’t she?” Frankie added quietly. “I’ll thank her tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Frankie hadn’t expected her first night with Geraldine to feel like this—like being stitched into someone else’s wound. A fragmented, agonized moment, suspended in the kind of silence that tastes like blood and old prayers.

Geraldine’s eyes closed like the lid of a coffin, and Frankie spent the night studying her face as if it were a map to some long-lost ruin. Her fingers traced the contours in ghostly touches, like bees landing on bruised fruit.

Her head rested above Geraldine’s chest, where each breath bloomed into heat more powerful than the covers suffocating them.

Frankie couldn’t sleep. Not because of the fear of nurses or staff barging in, but because her mind was a nest of hornets—buzzing with questions, stinging with doubt.

Why wasn’t Geraldine in her habit? What made her crawl into Frankie’s room with this air of unfinished business? Why wasn’t she working? And why had she cried like that—like her soul was trying to vomit itself out?

Frankie refused to sleep like a child refusing medicine. Geraldine was too close, too sacred in her brokenness, and Frankie wanted to be awake for every second of it. But eventually, drowsiness crept in like mold, and she surrendered.

She woke up to a very shushed voice.

“Hey Frankie… does anyone know she’s here?,” Nurse Ray spoke very quietly. 

Frankie opened her eyes to find Geraldine still curled around her, arms locked like vines, head nestled above her chest like a forgotten relic. Peaceful. Too peaceful.

Frankie shook her head in denial.

“We need to wake her up.” Ray said, urgency threading through his voice like barbed wire. “I understand what happened and that you’re friends, but she’ll get in trouble for this.”

Frankie nodded, but her mind was a fogged-up mirror. What had happened? What did he mean?

“I’ll watch the door,” Ray offered, “Sneak her out, quietly. Now. Everybody is having breakfast.”

She was grateful—so achingly grateful that it was him and not someone else. Ray felt like a friend sometimes, like a cracked window in a locked room.

He left, shutting the door behind him like sealing a secret.

“Babe…”, Frankie purred, kissing her temple. “Baby, wake up.”

She touched her cheek again. It was dry now. No more relentless hurricane of tears. No more saltwater baptism. Just the quiet aftermath—like the ocean after a shipwreck.

“Gee, they’re gonna come in, any minute,” Frankie whispered, voice thin as a string pulled too tight. There was insistence, yes—but it was the kind that felt like dragging a dead limb.

Part of her didn’t care anymore. She was worn down to the marrow by these rules, these rituals of silence. It hadn’t felt this suffocating since her first girlfriend in Catholic school, when love had to be folded into origami and hidden in textbooks. But even then, it was secrecy.

This was something else. This was repression that felt like being embalmed alive.

Geraldine woke up like a corpse reanimated too soon. Her body was a museum of bruises—each muscle aching with the memory of movement, each joint a rusted hinge. She felt like she’d been hit by a train made of glass and guilt. Sleep had been a numbing agent, thick and sweet like cough syrup, and for a moment she forgot the night before.

But it came back in jagged flashes: sprinting through the pasture with wet hair slapping her face like punishment, finding Hayley’s body swinging like a broken chandelier from the willow tree, dragging her down with hands that felt like claws, scaling the three stories of this ancient building like a feral animal, and sobbing until her throat tasted like pennies.

Right. All of that had happened.

It was also the pill she took that made her fall asleep.

The mattress had been a slab of concrete wrapped in regret—worse than the donated one she slept on at the convent, which at least had the decency to feel holy in its discomfort.

But waking up to Frankie was like being spoon-fed morphine. Her presence was medicinal, like a lullaby hummed through a cracked speaker.

Geraldine nodded, tightening her grip around Frankie’s waist, her smile flickering like a dying lightbulb.

Her head throbbed like a drum filled with a thousand wasps. Her body trembled like a cord stretched too far.

Suddenly, Saint Agnes felt like a spa retreat, and the convent—her supposed sanctuary—felt like the real asylum. The roles had reversed. The masks had slipped.

“Thanks for letting me crash here,” she murmured, her voice a crumpled napkin.

“Any time,” Frankie replied, smiling softly, laughing without sound at the fact that Geraldine hadn’t moved an inch.

She was still latched on like a barnacle, and it felt like they weren’t in a facility at all. It felt like college. Like skipping class to stay in bed. Only sweeter. Because everything was sweeter to Frankie if it involved Geraldine.

She didn’t want to kick her out. In fact, she felt like she was staying at the most expensive hotel in the world, and Geraldine was the luxury amenity. She wanted to call Sister Hayley like room service and order coffee and pancakes in bed.

“You need to sneak out. It’s breakfast time,” she whispered.

“Jesus, is it that late?” Geraldine gasped, checking her watch. “Shit.”

She lunged out of bed, her body still a haunted house of a million different types of cramps.

It was astonishing that no one had seen them. Surely someone had—some nurse must have peeked in to check on Frankie, to make sure she brushed her teeth, to make sure she was in line to eat her cereal. It felt impossible. Suspicious.

But Geraldine knew the staff was thin today. The tragedy had hollowed out the building like termites. Still, it felt like a glitch in the system. Had they been found out, she would’ve been woken up earlier. By someone official. Someone cold.

It felt like a miracle. Or a mistake.

She had to move. Had to shove her feet into her slip-on sneakers and vanish before the spell broke. Before the world remembered its rules.

“You know?” Frankie mumbled, her voice syrupy with sleep. “Your ass looks great in those sweatpants.” She yawned like a cat stretching in the sun—lazy, unbothered, utterly unaware of the apocalypse outside their bubble.

Geraldine breathed out a silent laugh, the kind that felt like exhaling a Christmas spirit.

She wanted to stay here, in this pocket of warmth sewn together by soft fabric and even softer words. In this alternate universe where the day’s headline was her ass in sweatpants, not the body hanging from a tree.

Where she was not a nun, and Frankie wasn’t her patient. Where Hayley was still alive, still laughing, still calling her “Sweet Sister Geraldine” like they were family.

She leaned in, cupped Frankie’s face like it was a diamond, and kissed her cheek—deeply, reverently, like pressing her lips to a page of scripture she no longer believed in.

“Thanks, baby .”

She had never called anyone “baby” before. Not since Mikey, when he was still small enough to fit in her lap, when the word meant protection and not longing. But Frankie made it sound like a spell. Frankie made everything seem less like a maze and more like a hallway with a door at the end.

Yet the door was locked. And she had the key. She just hadn’t dared to use it.

She replayed their last conversation like a broken record in her head.

Ten months.

That’s how long Frankie would be here. Ten months. A number that suddenly felt like a countdown, like the ticking of a bomb disguised as a calendar.

For the first time, she thought about leaving. Not just the room. Not just the convent. But the entire architecture of her life.

She imagined herself running through the pasture—not toward a body, but toward something open, something vast and terrifying. She imagined not spending another minute in this place that smelled like antiseptic and regret.

Her heart wanted to turn this into a love story. Her brain wanted to write it as a novel. But this wasn’t about Frankie anymore. And it wasn’t about Hayley.

It was about her.

It was about the way silence had calcified inside her, like plaque on a soul. About the way she had swallowed her wants like pills—small, bitter, and prescribed by someone else.

It was about the way she had punished herself for wanting anything at all.

But now she wanted.

She wanted to wear sweatpants without it being a rebellion. She wanted her job to end when her shift did, not spill into her dreams. She wanted to read books that weren’t approved by anyone. She wanted love that didn’t need to be hidden in footnotes. She wanted to stop punishing people for loving. And to do that, she had to stop punishing herself.

She had ten months to leave the church.

Ten months to dismantle the scaffolding of her life and build something crooked but hers. Ten months to stop being a side character in her own story. Ten months to become someone who didn’t whisper thanks into the dark, but shouted her name into the light.

And maybe, just maybe, she’d still be wearing those sweatpants when she did.

Frankie lingered at the edge of the doorframe like a bookmark in a chapter she wasn’t ready to finish. She watched Geraldine leave, biting her lip with a smile that felt like a bruise trying to look like blush.

Her body ached for coffee and a cigarette—not out of habit, but the way one craves anesthesia after surgery. It felt like they’d spent the night making love, not unraveling grief. As if comfort had been glued into their skin, thread by thread, until it resembled intimacy.

She needed to thank Ray. She needed to ask what he meant by “I know what happened.” And she knew she’d have to play her cards like a magician—palms clean, sleeves empty—because Ray believed she knew.

Which meant something had happened. Something real. Something sharp.

She found her last pack of cigarettes, the box soft and bent like it had been through a war. She smiled, thinking of one of their first encounters. Two months ago. It felt like a different planet.

Like she’d been reborn into a body that remembered pain but not its origin.

Anthony had warned her: things get intense here. He hadn’t said it like a threat. More like a prophecy.

She descended to the cafeteria floor, and the absence hit her like a vacuum. No nuns. No familiar faces. Just Ray, and a handful of strangers who looked like they’d been drawn in pencil and forgotten to be colored in. She didn’t know anyone here. The air felt borrowed.

She got her tea and a biscuit and asked for permission to take it outside.

“Ray, can you have a cigarette break with me?” she asked, voice low, like she was afraid the walls might answer.

He smiled, visibly relieved.

“Sure,” he said, walking her to the door. “I’m actually thankful you’re asking me that.”

The day was foggy, misty, like the sky had forgotten how to be blue. It felt like summer had packed its bags and left without saying goodbye.

“I didn’t get to thank you for this morning,” she mumbled, her words barely surviving the air.

“It’s the least we can do for her after last night,” Ray replied. “Were you there when it happened?”

Frankie’s mind spun like a coin on its edge. She had to choose the right face.

“No,” she said, convincingly. “But I heard everything. I was close by.”

“That was fucked—sorry, messed up,” he exhaled. “I can’t believe it, honestly.”

Frankie felt a chill crawl down her spine like a spider made of ice.

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Yesterday was my day off,” Ray said. “We had today off too, to grieve. But I had to come in. Had to check on you guys. Especially Anthony. And you.”

Grieve. So someone had died.

Frankie’s mind began to scan the facility like a sonar, pinging every name she knew. Every face she’d memorized. Every voice she’d catalogued.

Who was missing?

Ray’s words echoed: “You can’t share this with the patients. It’s very sensitive information.”

“I’m glad they’re handling it like that,” Ray said, his voice like a zipper half-closed—trying to contain something that refused to stay hidden. “I just can’t begin to imagine the consequences if people here found out.”

“Totally, I agree…” Frankie breathed out, her words like steam from a cracked kettle. She was still performing—still pretending she understood the script. “Are they gonna have a funeral?”

“That’s certainly classified,” he murmured, like he was chewing glass. “But they’re planning a memorial here. During nap time, probably.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to go?”

“No way,” he said, blunt as a hammer. “Not a chance. You’re still a patient here.”

Frankie nodded, but her thoughts were unraveling like yarn in a fire. She thought of Geraldine, tear-soaked and trembling, curling into her like a child trying to climb back into the womb. Asking her to describe their imaginary date to the cinema, as if the details could lace her back together.

It was so clear now—this wasn’t about the pseudo-erotic moment in the barn, the apple, the breathless closeness.

Someone had died.

And Geraldine needed a distraction. She hadn’t come for lust. She came for anesthesia.

“She came to comfort me,” Frankie lied, her voice dipped in honey and guilt. “I was having a meltdown over it.”

Ray nodded, buying it. “Yeah, I figured. I know it’s a lot, Frankie, but we really need you to keep this between the personnel. You can talk to Doctor May whenever you need. Just… Please don’t tell the rest of the patients.”

“I won’t,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Not even Anthony.”

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice hollowed out like a tree struck by lightning. She wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to anymore. She was lying to everyone—Ray, pretending she knew; Anthony, pretending she didn’t; Geraldine, pretending she wouldn’t know just to hold her again. Because now she knew Geraldine was grieving. And grief made people reach for warmth, even if it was borrowed.

“Don’t worry, Ray.”

But she did worry. What was she supposed to do now?

After breakfast, they were herded into indoor activities like cattle with painted smiles. Board games. Television. Extra pills. It was obvious—they were being sedated. Dumbed down. Their minds softened like bread left in milk. Nap time was extended, like the facility itself was trying to forget.

Frankie didn’t take the pills. She let them dissolve in her palm like secrets. Anthony noticed. He was more neurotic than usual, pacing like a moth trapped in a lampshade. He’d been like that for weeks—fractured, twitchy, like his thoughts were chewing on themselves.

Frankie’s head was a kaleidoscope of static. She stayed in her room during nap time, staring out the window like it was a portal. She stared at the barn, the chapel, the nun’s house. She stared until her eyes felt like they were bleeding. She stared and wished she could be there. With Geraldine. To comfort her. To hold her. To lie again if it meant keeping her close.

Outside, the fog clung to the buildings like regret. Inside, Frankie felt like a monster haunting her own body.

It began to rain after an hour of cloud gazing, so even the sky was mourning. The drops hit the window like tiny fists, relentless and rhythmic. Frankie looked down when she saw the car coming, and her stomach twisted like a wet rag.

No.

This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not now.

No. No. No.

She bolted from her room. The hallway was eerily empty—no nurses, no orderlies. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant sound of someone crying in another wing. Frankie figured they were busy with the more “problematic” patients. She ran down the stairs, her socks slipping on the linoleum, her breath catching in her throat.

She needed to see it. To prove to herself that her eyes hadn’t betrayed her.

The security guard caught her at the entrance, his grip firm but not cruel. “You can’t go out today,” he said, voice low, like he was trying not to wake something sleeping nearby.

“Please,” she begged. “Just a minute. Just escort me. I need to see something.”

He shook his head, unmoved. “Orders.”

But everything faded to black and her nightmares became reality when she heard the most despicable sound.

“Let me handle this situation, Worm.” A polite, charming voice violated her ears. “Let her go.”

Frankie turned slowly, like her body already knew what her mind refused to accept. Aware of her fate. Like a cow walking towards the slaughterhouse. She couldn’t possibly conceive this was happening to her.

“Hi, Frankie.”

“Ronnie.”

There he was. Ronnie. Dressed in black, surrounded by his family like a pack of wolves in mourning attire. He looked normal. Harmless. Like a man who might sell you insurance or teach Sunday school.

He almost looked like a normal guy.

Her blood boiled. Her skin felt too tight. She wanted to scream, to claw at his face, to rip that stupid leather jacket off and set it on fire. He looked like a caricature of himself—greasy hair, smug smile, eyes that had seen too much and felt too little.

“So… How have you been doing?” he asked, as if they were old friends catching up over coffee. He offered her a cigarette, like it was a peace treaty.

“Fuck you,” she said, pulling one from her own pack. Her hands shook. She had no lighter.

“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “It wasn’t in my plans to come over either. But after yesterday, it felt like my responsibility. I own this place, after all.”

Frankie wanted to vomit. To paint the pavement with everything inside her. His words were acid. His presence was a violation. And yet, here he was—walking freely, talking casually, as if he hadn’t shattered lives.

She stared at him, cigarette limp between her fingers, and wondered how many people had to die before someone like Ronnie stopped smiling.

“Frankie, I’m really sorry about everything,” Ronnie said, reaching for her hand like it was a doorknob to a room he had no right to enter.

She recoiled instantly, as if his skin carried a contagion that could rot her from the inside out. Because the last person who had touched her was Geraldine—and she’d rather amputate her own hand than let Ronnie’s filth graze anything that had been blessed by her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Frankie barked, her voice slicing through the mist like a rusted blade. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong?” he repeated, blinking like a malfunctioning doll. Still calm. Still composed. Like he hadn’t left a trail of broken bodies behind him.

“Do you really think we’re friends or some shit?” she snapped. “Are you insane? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Frankie, you burned my car down,” he stated, as if that were the real crime. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at you.”

She stared at him, her face a mask of disbelief. Her blood felt carbonated, fizzing with rage.

“You killed Brody!” she screamed. Her voice startled a flock of birds into the air, their wings cutting the sky open like knives. The sound reminded her where she was—this place of sedation and silence, where misery was rationed like medication.

“Are you mixing your antipsychotics with acid or something?” he asked, his tone shifting into that oily, condescending drawl she remembered too well. “What the fuck are you talking about? Brody’s not dead.”

“No, she’s just paralyzed from the waist down,” Frankie spat. “She just went to jail and is serving your time.”

“I got her an amazing settlement,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “She’s getting treatment. She could even get surgery soon.” 

“You’re a fucking monster,” Frankie said, her voice trembling like a guitar string about to snap. “You made us believe she was the one driving…”

“Frankie, we’ve been through this already,” he said, like a parent tired of explaining bedtime rules. “I’m at peace with Brody. I’m paying for her treatment. She’ll have a very comfortable life once she gets out of jail.”

“How much time does she have left, huh?” Frankie demanded, her voice cracking. Her stomach felt infested—like a thousand cockroaches were crawling up her throat, nesting behind her tongue.

“Eight years,” he admitted.

“Fucking asshole.”

“But I told you, I’ve got a great team. We can get her out before,” he added. “Especially thanks to her condition—”

“Thanks to her condition?!” Frankie’s voice was a grenade with the pin pulled. She clenched her fists, resisting the urge to rip his stupid gelled hair out by the roots. “You got her paralyzed from the waist down, you absolute dumbfuck! You ruined her life!”

“I thought she wasn’t going to wake up, Frankie,” he said, his voice suddenly hollow. “Neither you.”

“It was either her or me, wasn’t it?” she said, bitterly. “One of us had to pay for the shit you break.”

“Allow me to remind you that you lied on that trial too.”

“Because you lied to me, asshole!” she shouted, shoving him in the chest. Her tears were coiling in the corners of her eyes like venom waiting to strike.

And suddenly it was December again. The streets were icy. They were drinking in the car. Brody was in the backseat, her lips on Frankie’s neck, her laughter like wind chimes in a storm. Ronnie was driving like a goddamn maniac, his sportscar racing through the night like a scalpel.

Frankie could still hear the crash. Could still taste the blood in her mouth. Could still see Brody’s body folded like a cardboard doll in the middle of the wreckage.

And Ronnie—Ronnie walked away with barely a scratch.

Suddenly, it was her life again. Not just the memory, but the full-body possession of it. The nights of endless guilt that clung to her ribs like wet sheets. The days spent in Ronnie’s lawyer’s office, where the air reeked of cologne and corruption, begging her—pleading with her—to say Brody had been driving. “She’s not going to wake up anyway,” they said, their voices honeyed with false comfort.

And Frankie, half-dead herself, nodded.

Because loss makes you pliable. Because she was mourning the possible death of her best friend and the looming incarceration of the only other person who knew what had happened. Because she was scared. Because she was stupid. Because she wanted someone to tell her what to do.

But deep down, in the marrow of her bones, she knew Brody hadn’t been driving. She remembered the way Brody’s head had rested on her shoulder, the way her breath had fogged up the window. Frankie had let Ronnie and his team twist her certainty into doubt, and doubt into a lie.

She declared it in court. She said Brody was behind the wheel.

And then Brody woke up. Three months later. With a diagnosis that read like a death sentence and evidence that had been planted like weeds in a garden. She was paralyzed from the waist down. She was sent to jail the moment she was discharged from the hospital. No time to grieve. No time to scream. No time to ask why.

She never spoke to Frankie again.

She had to accept Ronnie’s hush money. His “help.” His dirty lifeline that came with strings tied around her throat. And Frankie? Frankie drowned herself in alcohol and pills, mixing benzos with whiskey like she was trying to brew her own oblivion. She paid for her own rehab, her own schooling, her own housing. She lost her job while she was sick. She lost her sense of self.

She couldn’t behave like a person anymore.

And Ronnie kept showing up. Like a stain that wouldn’t wash out. Offering “simple solutions.” “Film a little movie,” he’d say. “Come to this party.” “Be the company of my business partners.”

And she’d always end up drugged, half-conscious, waking up next to men old enough to be her father. Never sober enough to consent. Never strong enough to fight back.

That was how she paid her hospital bills. That was how she survived.

She hadn’t known he was rich. Not really. He said his parents had cut him off. Another lie. He was swimming in money, floating on a mattress stuffed with stolen futures.

And when she found out the truth—when she saw the documents, the real crash report, the timeline, the manipulation—when she realized Brody had been framed and she had been used like a pawn in Ronnie’s game of self-preservation—something inside her snapped.

He wouldn’t even lend her money to pay her bills. Bills she had because of him. Because he had crashed the car. Because he had driven like a goddamn lunatic. Because he had ruined everything.

And then she saw him. In a new convertible. Bigger. Shinier. Red like blood.

She couldn’t let him get away with it.

She went to his parents. She told them everything. That she was ready to go to the police. That she had evidence hidden in places they’d never find. That trying to make her disappear would only make things worse. She told them about Ronnie’s illicit business ventures, the parties, the drugs, the exploitation.

And that—oddly enough—was what broke them.

Not the crash. Not Brody. Not Frankie’s ruined life.

It was the reputation. The family name. The legacy.

And the judge? The judge had always hated the Radkes. Had never quite bought the story. Had always squinted at Ronnie like he was a roach in a suit.

So it was only a matter of days.

Days until sweet Ronnie would be behind bars.

Days until the Radke name would be dragged through the mud.

Days until Frankie could finally breathe again—even if her lungs were still full of ash.

And they had no choice but to agree. They had promised. Money, silence, distance. They’d looked her in the eye with the hollow sincerity of people who’d never known the consequence and said, “You’ll never have to see Ronnie again.” They even apologized—apologies that sounded like rehearsed lines from a play they’d performed too many times.

So this? This was a breach. A rupture in the fragile dam that held back her rage.

“Listen, I know you don’t want me around,” Ronnie mumbled, like a child trying to sound grown. “But I’m a changed man. I want to make things right. That includes you. That includes taking care of the family business.”

He was such an asshole. Frankie couldn’t fathom how he still didn’t understand the magnitude of his wrongness. It was like watching a man try to mop up blood with a silk handkerchief—useless, performative, insulting.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this,” he added, “but I got locked up here twice. I want to give back to this place.”

Give back? What could he possibly offer that wasn’t poison? His presence was a contamination. His voice was a virus. His good intentions were just new costumes for the same old predator.

“I want to go to the funeral,” Frankie muttered. Her voice was low, but sharp. “Do that for me, if you’re such a changed man.”

“Were you close with her?”

So it was a girl.

“Yes,” Frankie lied. She didn’t know who the victim was. She didn’t really care. She just wanted to be out. She wanted to be near Geraldine and comfort her. She wanted to breathe air that hadn’t been recycled through trauma.

“Listen, Frankie,” he said, trying to sound mature, trying to wear authority like a suit that didn’t fit. “You’re a patient now. And although you got here because of the court… I don’t think it’d be good for your mental health.”

Now he was cosplaying as a psychologist. Frankie wanted to collapse from laughter, wanted to scream until her lungs turned inside out. The audacity was so thick she could choke on it.

“Then I’ve got nothing to talk about with you,” she barked. “You’re fucking useless as always.”

“And you’re a golddigger.”

“You need to have gold in order for me to dig, you dipshit.” Her eyes were firestorms. Her voice was a dagger to the brain. “I don’t ever want to see you around.”

“I’m gonna be around anyways,” he said, flicking his cigarette like he was in a noir film, the ashes falling like the last remnants of his soul. “It’s not up to you.”

“You may own this place,” she hissed, stepping closer, “but I know the people who run it. And they’re all way crazier than me.”

She turned and walked inside before he could respond. The door slammed behind her like a coffin lid.

Frankie sat on the edge of her bed, the mattress sagging like it had given up. The silence in her room was thick—like fog made of cotton and secrets. No guitar strumming from the hallway. No nurses calling out meds. Just the hum of the overhead light, flickering like it was trying to whisper something.

Anthony was by the window, his silhouette sharp against the pale gray sky. He hadn’t moved in minutes. His eyes were locked on the courtyard like he expected it to bleed.

“They’re not here,” he muttered, voice brittle. “None of the regulars. No Sisters. No Evelyn. No one.”

Frankie didn’t respond. Her mouth felt sewn shut.

“Ray was here this morning.”

Anthony turned slowly, his face twitching with something between paranoia and prophecy. “Something happened.”

She kept quiet. Too quiet.

He stepped closer, his movements jerky, like a marionette with tangled strings. “Do you know anything?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. Too clean.

Anthony stared at her like he was trying to read her bones.

“I was there for you, Frankie,” he said, voice cracking. “When you were a fucking mess. Us—the crazy people—we stick up for each other.”

Frankie’s throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.

“Maybe someone died,” she whispered, guilt blooming in her chest like mold.

Anthony didn’t speak. He just swallowed. Loud. Like the truth had gotten stuck halfway down.

Then the door creaked open.

A nurse stepped in—one Frankie didn’t recognize. Her uniform was crisp, her smile too rehearsed. She looked like she’d been printed from a brochure.

“Frankie, time to return to your room,” she said, voice syrupy and sterile.

Anthony didn’t move. He just stared at the nurse like she was a glitch in the system.

Frankie nodded and followed her out, her feet dragging like they were made of lead.

Back in her room, the silence was even heavier. It felt like the whole facility had gone to sleep. Like the walls were holding their breath. Like everyone knew what was going on—but no one was allowed to say it.

Frankie waited. She waited past the steam-curled silence of shower hour, past the clatter and scrape of dinner trays. She waited like a half-peeled orange left on a windowsill—softening, souring, hoping the fruit flies wouldn’t come before Geraldine did.

She imagined Geraldine, sweet and worn thin like a bar of soap in a communal sink. Probably wrung out from the memorial, still clutching the mystery of the unnamed dead like a damp rag.

Frankie stared at the door, her eyes dry as old toast. Until the miracle arrived—not with trumpets, but with the hush of a library book returned late.

“Check,” Geraldine whispered, her voice like the last spoonful of honey scraped from the jar. She was back in her habit, that fabric fortress. A flicker of a smile tugged at her lips—tender, plum-like, as if they'd been steeped in tears until they forgot how to be lips.

Frankie stood from the bed, joints creaking like floorboards in a house no one visits anymore. “Are you feeling better?”

Geraldine nodded. Her eyes were rimmed, not with makeup, but with the kind of red that comes from rubbing grief into your sockets like salt. Her lips looked soft and swollen, like overripe figs left too long in the sun.

Frankie moved to shut the door, the click of the latch sounding like a pirate treasure being closed.

“Are you working today?”

Geraldine shook her head, slow as a leaf falling in syrup. “I was wondering if I could spend the night here, again.”

“Please.” Frankie took her hand—cool and damp, like a stone pulled from a river—and led her to the bed. Geraldine peeled off her shoes with the urgency of someone escaping a costume. Then came the layers: veil, headband, guimpe, tunic. Each piece dropped like shed skin, until she stood in a plain white dress—eerily identical to the institutional pajamas, like she’d been mistaken for a patient by the laundry staff.

Frankie could hear her breath thicken, like milk about to curdle. Geraldine’s fingers found the hem of her dress, ready to lift it like a curtain on a stage neither of them had rehearsed for.

Frankie had dreamed of this moment for two months—dreams sticky and sweet, like jam left open overnight. But now, it felt wrong. Almost as biting into the sweetest, most appetizing peach, just to find a worm living inside of it.

“Don’t,” Frankie murmured. “We’ll have time to undress each other. Just not tonight.”

Geraldine’s eyes widened—not startled, not afraid. Just open, like a window in a room that hadn’t been aired in years.

Frankie couldn’t believe her own restraint. Her body screamed for skin, for warmth, for the soft collision of comfort and desire. But Geraldine was grieving, and Frankie wouldn’t turn her bed into a refuge if it meant turning Geraldine into a ghost of herself.

She didn’t want her naked because she was broken. She wanted her naked because she was whole.

Geraldine’s hair was short, uneven in places, like it had been cut with kitchen scissors by someone who didn’t believe in symmetry. Probably Sister Gabrielle—whose hands smelled like celery and antiseptic.

Geraldine slipped into Frankie’s bed with the weight of a half-eaten apology. Rejection clung to her skin—not loud, not dramatic, just the quiet ache of a door that didn’t swing open the way she’d hoped.

She’d misread the moment, tried to peel herself down to the bone, expecting Frankie to respond with the hunger of a dog locked out too long. But she didn’t even know how women touched each other when the lights were off and the world was quiet.

Everything was white.

Her dress, Frankie’s tank top, the shorts, the sheets—an avalanche of sterile cotton. It felt less like purity and more like being jailed behind linen.

She didn’t want to think about Hayley’s death, or the way tragedy had turned her insides into a compost heap. She didn’t want to imagine the conversation with the cardinal, the one where she’d say she was done with the church, done with the ritual, done with the scaffolding that had held her up for years.

So she kissed Frankie’s forehead.

A kiss that started out clean, ceremonial, the kind they used to trade like folded napkins. Innocent, pious. But then her chest brushed Frankie’s, fabric whispering against fabric, and something cracked open.

She kissed her temple, then the corner of her eye, the cheek, the jaw—mapping her face with the precision of someone tracing a route out of a burning building.

Each kiss grew heavier, wetter, as if she were trying to drink her in through her skin. Frankie’s hands found her hips, fingers grazing the edge of her dress, skimming the side of her thighs with the restraint of someone trying not to eat the last piece of meat in a starving house.

Geraldine’s thighs were covered in fine hair, the kind that catches light and secrets. Frankie bit her lip hard enough to taste iron, her fingers exploring with the reverence of someone handling a broken heirloom.

The right strap of Frankie’s top kept slipping down, a slow descent that felt anything but accidental. Her touch was feathered, calculated, as if she were coaxing gravity to do the work of desire.

Because Frankie had told her she wouldn’t undress her. But she wasn’t making things easy for Frankie. For the first time it was her who was unable to control her impulses.

Geraldine had become the storm this time—the one who couldn’t hold back, who couldn’t stay folded.

She stared into Frankie’s eyes, wild and bright, hazel with flecks of something feral. Then she opened her mouth and let her tongue fall out—not seductive, not rehearsed. Just raw, a gesture that felt closer to hunger than lust.

Geraldine leaned in, her breath catching in the hollow between them. Her lips hovered, uncertain, trembling with the weight of thirty-six untouched years.

She kissed Frankie—not with precision, but with the clumsiness of someone trying to read braille with their mouth. It was soft at first, a brush of warmth, the kind of contact that feels more like a question than an answer.

Her lips parted, unsure of what came next. She pressed again, firmer this time, her mouth moving with the rhythm of someone learning to whistle—awkward, tentative, full of hope. Frankie responded with a quiet sigh, her body tilting forward, her hand still resting on Geraldine’s thigh, fingers curling slightly into the fabric.

Geraldine’s tongue slipped out, not in confidence but in curiosity. It grazed Frankie’s lower lip, then retreated, then returned, like a marshmallow testing the edge of a flame. She tasted skin, the faint salt of sweat, the ghost of toothpaste. Her mouth opened wider, and the kiss deepened—not in technique, but in absolute weakness.

It was messy, unpracticed, the kind of kiss that leaves behind dampness and confusion and a pulse that won’t settle.

Frankie’s hand moved higher, brushing the curve of Geraldine’s hip, her thumb tracing the seam of her underwear without crossing it.

Geraldine moaned—quiet, involuntary, the sound of a door creaking open in a place she hadn’t entered in decades.

She kissed Frankie again, harder now, her lips suctioning with more intent, her tongue moving in slow, uncertain circles. Her body pressed closer, the white dress bunching around her waist, the sheets rustling beneath them like dry leaves. Frankie’s strap had fallen completely, exposing her shoulder, and Geraldine kissed it too—wet, lingering, as if trying to memorize the taste of skin.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t cinematic. It was artless, exploratory, the kind of kiss that feels like digging through a drawer you haven’t opened in years—finding old receipts, forgotten keys, and something that might still matter.

“I swear it feels amazing,” Frankie murmured, her voice barely more than breath, the kind that fogs up glass but never quite warms a room. “And I want to make love to you right now, but it wouldn’t be right.”

Geraldine’s tongue curled around Frankie’s ear, slow and condensed, a serpent made of sugar and nerves.

“Is it because I’m a virgin?” she asked, the word falling from her mouth like a marble dropped in a cathedral—echoing, misplaced, oddly sacred.

The sound of it made Frankie’s stomach twist.

Erotic, yes—but also dangerous, like a match struck too close to dry leaves. Geraldine straddled her hips, and Frankie could feel the heat radiating from her, the kind that makes you salivate without knowing why. She imagined Geraldine above her, dripping with want, her body slick with the kind of need that turns skin into a fever dream. She wanted their cores to collide, wanted to see the face Geraldine would make when pleasure finally found her. Wanted to hear the sounds she didn’t know she could make.

But she had to be strong. Had to remember the walls around them, the silence of the halls, the weight of grief still hanging in the air.

“It’s because someone died, Gee.”

“Oh,” Geraldine mumbled, her voice folding in on itself. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks, and she slid off Frankie’s hips, curling beside her like a wilted petal.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The heat between them cooled, not extinguished, just tucked away like a candle under a bowl.

“Do you know who it is?” Geraldine questioned, her voice barely audible.

“No,” Frankie replied, turning away, her hand cradling her own face as if trying to hold herself together. “Would you tell me?”

“You’ll find out, eventually,” Geraldine said, and a single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracing the curve of her nose like a raindrop on glass. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

Frankie had a thousand things she wanted to say, but every one of them felt stupid, like trying to patch a leak with tissue paper.

“Thanks for protecting me,” she whispered.

“Likewise,” Geraldine replied, her voice soft and steady.

Because if Frankie hadn’t stopped her, she’d be naked now, fumbling through whatever it was women did when they laid together. She didn’t know the choreography, didn’t know the rules. But for the first time in her life, she felt safe. Not just from others, but from herself.

“How does it feel?” Geraldine asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Sex.”

Frankie smiled, lips closed, eyes warm. She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Geraldine’s ear, the gesture tender, almost maternal.

“It feels great.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Well, it depends.” Frankie answered. “It depends on the sex, the partner…”

“They always say the first time hurts,” Geraldine murmured, her brow furrowed with the weight of secondhand warnings.

“That’s when there’s men involved,” Frankie explained. “They always have to stick something somewhere. But a woman’s pleasure doesn’t live in a place that has to be pierced.”

Geraldine blinked, her eyes wide, her ignorance laid bare without shame.

“How is it between women if you’re not putting anything inside?”

“It’s like kissing with your whole body,” Frankie said, her voice low and reverent. “We have lips down there too, don’t we?”

Geraldine’s eyes widened, not with fear, but with wonder. The kind of wonder reserved for discovering a fruit you’ve never tasted.

“It probably feels great.”

“Yeah,” Frankie whispered, her voice barely there. “And it never hurts.”

The morning light crept in like a nosy neighbor, brushing against the sheets and the curve of Geraldine’s back.

She was already dressed—back in her habit again—but this time she’d come prepared. Her wristwatch ticked softly, a reminder that she knew exactly when to leave without being seen. No more slipping out like a ghost. She was learning the choreography of discretion.

Frankie stirred beside her, eyes still heavy with sleep, hair a tangle of dreams. Geraldine watched her for a moment, remembering the night before—the way Frankie had spoken to her, not just with tenderness, but with conviction. Words that had cracked open something inside her, something she hadn’t known was sealed shut.

Frankie had looked at her with the kind of seriousness usually reserved for confessions. “I don’t want to take your virginity,” she said.

“But I want to give it to you”

“I don’t want you to think you need me to love yourself.” She’d gone on, her voice like warm oil poured over a wound. “Your body is yours. It’s designed to house you, to nurture you, to please you. It’s not a gift to be given away—and heaven lives inside you.”

Geraldine had never considered any of that. Her body had always felt borrowed, monitored, judged. She’d asked, “Were you always this gentle?”

Frankie had laughed, a dry, amused sound. “Actually… I grew up pretty healthy. Surprisingly, I never had Catholic guilt. The Bible doesn’t mention lesbian sex as a sin.”

Geraldine’s eyes had broaden, scandalized. “No way. They do.”

Frankie had reached into her nightstand and pulled out her Bible—dog-eared, scribbled on, highlighted like a student’s notebook. “If you read it literally, you'll notice they never mention lesbianism. Not even once,” she said, flipping through the pages with practiced ease. “It’s almost like God’s really an ally. Or a loophole.”

Now, in the morning hush, Geraldine stood by the door, her hand on the knob. Frankie sat up, her tank top slipping off one shoulder again, the strap dangling like a secret.

They kissed—sweet, slow, the kind of kiss that tastes like memory. Geraldine lingered, her lips soft, her breath warm.

“I want you to touch yourself,” Frankie whispered, her voice a thread of silk. “Gently. Think about what you’d like me to do… and I’ll do it.”

Geraldine nodded, her eyes big and dreamy, her heart thudding like an insect trapped in a lampshade. She opened the door and stepped out, the hallway swallowing her whole.

But she carried Frankie’s words with her, tucked somewhere deep, like a seed waiting for spring.

Just as Geraldine stepped into the hallway, the air split with a scream—raw, animal, unfiltered. It came from the room next door. Frankie bolted upright, her heart slamming against her ribs.

Anthony.

His voice tore through the corridor, ragged and raw, scraped from the pit of something ancient and bottomless. “Let me go, motherfuckers!” he howled, thrashing against the orderlies who tried to restrain him. His fists flew, his legs kicked, his body a storm of downheartedness and fury, limbs flailing like broken clock hands.

Frankie and Geraldine froze in the doorway, the morning’s tenderness shattered by the violence of dreariness.

Then Anthony saw her—Geraldine, standing in the hallway, her habit still clinging to her like a second skin.

“Sister!” he screamed, eyes wide, bloodshot, soaked in desperation. “It was my baby, wasn’t it?!”

The nurses tried to calm him, but he was inconsolable, his voice rising to a pitch that made the walls feel thinner.

“She was my baby!” he sobbed, collapsing into their arms as they sedated him, dragging him toward isolation. “She was my baby…”

Frankie's chest tightened, her breath caught in her throat. The words echoed in her ears, but it wasn’t until she saw the look in Anthony’s eyes—wild, broken, pleading—that it clicked.

The name rang through her like a bell struck too hard. Her knees weakened, her hand gripped the doorframe. Geraldine turned to her, eyes wide, lips parted.

Hayley.

The dead girl. The one they’d all whispered about. The one whose absence had hung over the facility like a fog.

It was Hayley.

Chapter Text

I want you to touch yourself, gently. 

She kept side-glancing at her night table from the mirror as she brushed her teeth, like it might twitch or whisper. The lamp there was crooked, its shade tilted like a broken halo. A half-drunk glass of water sat beside it, gathering dust motes like tiny phantoms.

And it scared her. It scared her more than the dark, more than the silence, more than the memory of Hayley’s last breath, which still hung in the air like a forgotten hymn.

They had transferred her to another room, the highest floor, where the ceilings sloped like shoulders hunched in prayer. After Hayley’s death, Patricia had begged not to be left alone in her room. So Patricia took Geraldine’s old space on the first floor with Mother Prudence, and Geraldine was given the dead girl’s room. A trade sealed in whispers and guilt.

Now she was alone in the room that smelled faintly of lavender and bleach, where the wallpaper peeled like the old skin of an overripe tangerine and the air felt thick with unfinished sentences.

She had a private bathroom now. A luxury. Isolation. A porcelain sink that looked like it had never been touched by calamity, and a mirror that refused to fog no matter how hot the water ran. It felt sour to be glad about it. Because the cost of how she had gotten it was written in the silence between her and Patricia, in the way they avoided eye contact like it might trigger an avalanche.

Her window was wide and clean, and made her feel like a princess waiting for Romeo—if Romeo were a woman and the princess had dirt under her fingernails.

It held a perfect view of the barn, which loomed like a cathedral built for beasts. A place where shadows gathered like parishioners. If she squinted, she could see the willow tree swaying his leaves like a threadbare wig, and the electrified fence that hummed like a sleeping dragon.

She only heard big birds now. Predatory ones. The kind that circled without blinking. Hawks, maybe. Or vultures. Their cries were sharp, like bones snapping. The winds had grown louder too, as if autumn had arrived with a mouth full of teeth. Everything looked misty, like the world had been dipped in humidity and this was their punishment.

Her moving process had been easier than she predicted. No resistance. No misplaced socks or broken picture frames. Just a quiet transition, like slipping into someone else’s skin. And it felt like a twisted omen. Like the house had been waiting for her. Like the room had already memorized her name.

She dreamt of dust. Of it crawling up her legs like insects. Of it whispering secrets in a language only the dead understood. She dreamt of Hayley’s voice coming from the night table, soft and wet, like moss growing on a tombstone. She dreamt of monsters with human hands, folding laundry and stirring soup, pretending to be mothers.

And in the morning, she brushed her teeth again. Side-glancing. Waiting. Wondering if the mirror would blink first.

She had nothing to move. Nothing that clinked or clattered. Nothing that would leave a shadow behind. Just two habits—the one she was currently wearing, stiff with starch and memory, and the spare folded neatly like a shroud. Her toothbrush, worn down to a crescent moon of bristles. A tube of paste that had been squeezed so many times it looked like a snake that had been stepped on. Her everyday sneakers, their soles smooth as river stones, and her old pair of boots, cracked at the ankles like dried earth.

Three pairs of sweatpants, each with a different kind of sadness adhered into the seams. Four hoodies, faded and pilled, smelling faintly of incense and rain. Two bras, one with a broken clasp she fixed with a safety pin. Nine panties, ten pairs of socks—some mismatched, some threadbare. A wool scarf that had once been white but now looked like it had survived a fire. Gloves with holes in the fingertips. A towel stiff from too many washes. A one-piece swimsuit she hadn’t worn in years, its elastic tired and sighing. A cardigan with buttons shaped like tiny moons. And her winter jacket, heavy as guilt.

That was it.

Her little statue of the Virgin Mary, chipped at the base, with a faint crack running down her face like a tear she couldn’t shed. And her book.

Not just any book. Frankie’s Bible.

It was a battered thing, swollen with marginalia and secrets. The leather cover had been painted over with nail polish—black, then red, then scraped off in places like peeling bark. Stickers of moths and saints clung to it like barnacles.
The spine was reinforced with duct tape, and the pages were tattooed with ink, highlighter, and lipstick kisses. Frankie had written in every crevice, every margin, like she was trying to rewrite the divine with her own trembling hand. 

She kept reading the passages Frankie had underlined, the ones she’d annotated with looping cursive and jagged arrows. It didn’t feel like scripture anymore. It felt like a diary written in code. Like small love letters folded into the folds of theology.

If love blooms in the shade of a forbidden tree, how can you tell which fruit is poison, and which is sweet?

Oh, Frankie.

She flipped to Leviticus, remembering the argument with Hayley, the way Frankie had stepped in like a storm dressed in denim and defiance. There it was—Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Nature made the peacock and hyenas, the seahorse father, and the orchid that mimics a bee. If creation is wild and diverse, why must love be restricted?

The words shimmered like heat on asphalt. She couldn’t get enough of them. Every page she turned felt like peeling back layers of Frankie’s soul. There were doodles of monsters with halos, fragile things like cracked teacups and broken wings. There were pressed flowers, brittle and brown, tucked between Psalms. A receipt from a gas station. A feather. A lock of hair.

And then, tucked between the pages of Revelation and regret, she found a Saint Agnes postcard. The edges were curled, and the ink had bled from water damage. On the back, in Frankie’s unmistakable hand, it said:

I hope heaven has a library. And I hope they let me shelve the banned books.

I met a woman who feels pain whenever she loves me. Not because I hurt her.
She loves me so hard it scrapes her ribs. And when she kisses it’s like she’s apologizing, so when I hold her I do it tightly, since I’m trying to convince God she deserves peace.

The ink had bled slightly, as if the words themselves had wept. The postcard was soft at the edges, like something that had been held too often, too tightly. She read it again, mouthing the words like a prayer she didn’t believe in but couldn’t stop reciting.

Pain is the only language we both speak fluently. I claim I hate whatever created us, but I still marvel at how twisted your vessels are.

This week had been a storm of ordeal, shock, anger, lust. A cyclone of emotion that left her dizzy and hollow. But one constant remained. Frankie.

Frankie, who wrote in margins and kissed like she was bleeding. Frankie, who made her feel like a cathedral and a crime scene all at once.

Geraldine held her quill—an old thing, its nib bent like a crooked tooth—and wrote something inside the Bible. In a place where she knew Frankie would find it. Between the pages of Ezekiel and exhaustion. She wrote a confession. A spell. A wound.

She kept staring at the Virgin Mary figurine on her nightstand. She had painted her lips red, as if trying to make her look alive. Geraldine felt more complex than ever. Like a puzzle made of broken glass. She had to be gentle with herself. She had to kiss Frankie without feeling this enormous, overflowing guilt that poured out of her like smoke from a burning chapel.

She wanted to be stripped naked—not for lust, but for truth. She wanted to stand in front of the mirror and stare at herself until she recognized the woman behind her eyes. She wanted to stop feeling this eternal sadness, this ache that nested in her bones like a parasite.

“Geraldine!” someone called from downstairs. “Come down, Sister. We have a meeting about the new management.”

Of course. The Radke’s son, Ronnie, was taking over. A man with hands too clean and eyes too sharp. They had to discuss how to proceed after Hayley’s death, as if this woefulness could be scheduled, as if mourning could be managed like inventory.

She looked at the Bible one last time before leaving the room. Frankie’s notes glowed like embers. And somewhere between the verses and the vandalism, Geraldine felt something holy stir inside her.

They had been receiving counseling from Father Geoff, and Geraldine thought that was sick as fuck. Not in the edgy, ironic way—sick like a wound that won’t close. Hayley had been closest to him. She used to sit beside him during mass, her fingers curled around the edge of the pew like she was holding on for dear life. And now the poor man had to listen to people talk about her as if they’d known her better than he had. As if grief were a contest. As if comfort could be handed out like communion wafers.

He had to nod, and murmur, and offer platitudes while his own heart probably rotted quietly in his chest. Geraldine imagined his prayers now were jagged things, full of teeth. She wondered if he ever screamed into his pillow. Or if he just sat in silence, letting the ache ferment.

They offered “real” therapy too—Doctor May and Doctor Nicks, with their polished offices and their laminated degrees. But among her peers, that kind of help was lowkey frowned upon. Like admitting you needed it was a betrayal of faith. Like letting science touch your soul was sacrilege.

Geraldine feared she couldn’t speak to any of them without letting a little bit of herself slip. A sliver of truth. A shard of the monster she kept caged behind her bones.

And that terrified her. Because for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to end up dead in a ditch. She didn’t want her body bloated from lake water, her skin split open like a rotten fruit. She didn’t want to be raped by the stillness, eaten from the inside by worms, her mouth stuffed with weeds, her lungs a nursery for tadpoles.

She wanted to live. Not just survive. Not just endure.

“Yes, I’m coming,” she said, her voice flat as dust. She left her new room and descended the stairs, each step creaking like a confession.

Surprisingly, the nuns had arranged the living room with care. It looked like a scene from a forgotten painting—domestic, eerie, too perfect. The teapot hummed like a lullaby, and the table was dressed in offerings: biscuits, crackers, pastries lined up like soldiers. The owners had come to feast, and the nuns had made sure the battlefield was polite.

Geraldine’s eyes snagged on the last leaf of bread she and Hayley had baked together. It sat beside the homemade blueberry jam, glistening like a scar. She could almost hear Hayley’s laugh, the way she used to hum while kneading dough, her fingers dusted with flour like holy ash.

The bread hadn’t molded yet. It was still soft. Still warm, maybe. And that felt wrong. Like time had paused just long enough to mock her.

She stood there, the scent of sugar and grief thick in the air, and wondered how long she could pretend to be whole.

“First and foremost, we’d like to offer our most sincere condolences,” Mr. Radke said, his voice smooth and practiced, like he’d rehearsed it in the car. “This was a terrible loss, and Sister Hayley was indeed one of a kind.”

Geraldine sat stiffly, her hands folded in her lap like a child at confession. She kept waiting for the air to shift—for someone to mention the pregnancy. The whispers had already begun, curling through the halls like smoke. Possibly with a patient’s child. Possibly not. But no one said it.

No one dared. Instead, they talked about shifts and schedules, about how Ronnie would be present in the facility from now on, to “help everybody.” As if his presence were a balm. As if his shadow didn’t carry a stench.

He spoke with the confidence of someone who’d never been truly gutted. He had a “new vision” for the place. Renovation. Improvement. Less arts and crafts—less “idle hands”—and more job insertion programs. Because, he said, people had to work. They had to understand that they needed to go back to society eventually. Like himself.

Geraldine blinked slowly, trying not to roll her eyes. Ronnie spoke about his time here like it was a pilgrimage. His own personal hell. But necessary. Character-building . He said it had shaped him into a better man, and Geraldine nearly choked on her tea.

This was a retreat home for sick people. For some, it was a temporary stop—a place to recalibrate before returning to the world. But for others, it was home. And to disregard that truth entirely was not just careless. It was tone-deaf.

Geraldine had worked here for ten years. She knew the names, the habits, the quiet victories. She knew that some people thrived under the steady care of nurses, in a place where the days were structured and the nights were safe. Not everyone responded to life the same way. Not everyone could be patched up and sent back out like a repaired appliance.

Some people needed more. More time. More patience. More softness. Some people needed what this place offered—sanctuary, routine, dignity. And to pretend otherwise was to erase the very people they claimed to serve.

She was astonished to hear someone so fucking full of himself. His words were polished, but they dripped with self-congratulation.

Still, he was better than the last time she’d seen him—years ago, when Mikey was here. Back then, Ronnie had been a brat with a wallet and a God complex. Flirting with nurses like it was a sport. Talking about money like it could solve anything. Trying to bribe staff with promises and pills.

He’d smuggled drugs into the facility, thrown parties in the laundry room, turned the quiet corners into dens of relapse. He’d been partially responsible for Mikey’s reluctance to get better. Not entirely—Mikey had made his own choices. But Ronnie had lit the match. Geraldine remembered the way he used to laugh, high and hollow, like a hyena in a suit.

Ronnie stood at the front of the room, hands clasped like a pastor about to deliver a sermon. His smile was soft, almost tender, but Geraldine could see the pride behind it—gleaming like a trophy he hadn’t earned.

“I know this week has been difficult,” he began, voice smooth as silk. “Sister Hayley was… so beloved . There’s no denying that. But we must be careful with how we handle this, especially with the patients. They’re vulnerable. Fragile. We’ll simply say that Hayley no longer works here. That she’s moved on.”

Moved on. Geraldine felt her stomach twist.

“It would be irresponsible,” Ronnie continued, “to share the truth. We know how deeply some of them connected with her. We can’t risk triggering distress. Or worse—copycat behavior.”

Geraldine nodded, reluctantly. She hated it, but he wasn’t wrong. She’d seen what fatality could do in this place. After all, this wasn’t the first neck she’d untangled, but it was the first one from the willow tree behind the chapel. 

Ronnie pressed on, his tone shifting into something more upbeat. “Now, I want to talk about the future. About healing. About growth. This facility has the potential to be more than a retreat—it can be a launchpad. We’ll be introducing new programs focused on reintegration. As I said, less arts and crafts, more job training. Real-world skills. Purpose.”

He paused, letting the word hang in the air like incense.

“People need to understand that they’re not broken. They’re just… misaligned . And with the right mindset, they can get back on track . That’s what good psychology is about. Not pills. Not diagnoses. But empowerment.”

Geraldine blinked. Empowerment? He made it sound like a TED Talk. There was no mention of therapy. No mention of medication. Just vague promises wrapped in motivational jargon.

“We’ll be working with some new partners,” Ronnie added, “to help fund these changes. It’s a win-win. Better outcomes, better sustainability. We’re building something that lasts.”

Of course. The money. It always came back to the money.

He turned to the nuns and some of the day shift nurses, his smile widening. “You’re all back on duty next week. Take the rest of this week to grieve, to rest. If anyone needs counseling, please speak to the doctors. We’re here for you.”

Geraldine could feel the room shift—some nods, some blank stares. Ronnie was trying to be charming. She could tell by the way he smiled after every sentence, like he was waiting for applause. How could he smile in times like this?

Because he was proud. So proud of whatever the fuck he was saying.

She looked down at her hands, phantoming their stains faintly with flour from the bread she and Hayley had baked. And she wondered how long it would take for the scent of her friend to fade from the halls.

Geraldine stepped out into the dusk, the air thick with the scent of damp hay and the kind of silence that only follows a storm of words. She walked to the barn, her fingers already fishing for the crumpled pack of cigarettes in her coat pocket. The barn door creaked open like a throat clearing itself, and she stepped inside expecting the usual shuffle of hooves, the warm breath of horses fogging the air.

But it was empty.

No snorts. No stomping. No gentle clatter of feed buckets. Just the echo of her own boots on the concrete floor and the faint smell of manure and old leather.

She smiled, a crooked thing. Frankie was probably out riding them for horse therapy. That girl could calm a stallion with a whisper. She had a way of making broken things feel less jagged. Geraldine leaned against the wooden beam, lit her cigarette, and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl upward like her soul was trying to escape.

She thought about everything. About the meeting. About Ronnie’s smile, so proud and practiced, like he’d just solved a bloodbath with a PowerPoint. About the way he spoke of psychology like it was a motivational radio show, all mindset and hustle, no medicine, no nuance. Geraldine had seen too many patients spiral from that kind of thinking. You can’t coach someone out of schizophrenia. You can’t manifest your way through trauma.

The healthcare system was a machine with rusted gears. It chewed people up and spat them out with labels and prescriptions, and if you didn’t fit the mold, you were either ignored or institutionalized. And religion—God help her—was no better. It wrapped suffering in scripture and called it holy. It told people to pray away their pain, to confess their madness like it was sin. But health should transcend those things. It should be sacred on its own. Untethered. Unconditional.

And public. Accessible.

She took another drag, the smoke burning her throat just enough to remind her she was still alive.

And then she thought of Anthony.

The first to shout. The first to break. “That was my baby, wasn’t it?” he’d screamed, his voice cracking like glass. They’d dragged him to solitary confinement, his wrists bruised from the struggle. He was probably getting electro-shocked right now, strapped to a bed, his mouth gagged with cotton and protocol. Geraldine hated it. Hated how things had turned out.

She made sure to remember to pay him a visit.

She hoped he didn’t know Hayley was dead. She hoped he believed she’d just left the church. Or the job. Or the country. Anything but the truth. Because the truth would rot him from the inside.

She flicked ash onto the barn floor, watching it settle like snow. The horses would be back soon. Frankie would ride in, her hair tangled with wind, her cheeks flushed with purpose. And for a moment, Geraldine allowed herself to believe that healing was possible. That maybe, in the quiet spaces between therapy and theology, there was room for something real.

She finished her cigarette and crushed it under her boot. The barn was still empty. But it didn’t feel hollow.

It felt like waiting.

“Can I help feed the horses?” Frankie’s voice floated in like smoke under a door—soft, sly, and already halfway into the barn before anyone had invited it.

Doctor May nodded, his expression warm and familiar, like a man slipping into an old coat. They spoke with the ease of people who had shared too many cups of bitter coffee and too many secrets that never made it into the patient files.

But when his eyes landed on Geraldine, something shifted. His face softened, like wax melting under a candle’s breath. Compassion bloomed there, fragile and unspoken.

“Oh, Sister,” he said, his voice thick with something that might have been admiration or pity. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. How have you been?” He pulled her into a hug—tight, fatherly, like he was trying to hold together the seams of something unraveling.

Everyone knew, of course. It had spread like mold through the staff lounge and the chapel pews: Geraldine had been the one to untangle Hayley’s neck from the tree, her hands steady while her soul screamed.

“I’ve been good,” she lied, her voice barely above a whisper. She forced a smile that felt like stretching a mask over broken glass. “I know I’m technically off duty, but I’d be more than glad to keep Frankie company while she feeds the horses.”

Frankie smirked—sharp and crooked, like a paper cut across a prayer book. Devilish. Geraldine didn’t meet her gaze. If she did, she’d laugh, and it wouldn’t be the kind of laughter that healed.

“Of course,” Doctor May said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you girls alone. I’ve got therapy sessions with the others.”

“Oh, totally fine,” Frankie chirped, her tone too bright, like a child playing dress-up in someone else’s grief. “We’re just gonna feed Grace and the pigs.”

“Well, it’s all settled,” he concluded, already halfway out the door. “Thank you, Sister. And you’re welcome to come by and chat anytime.”

“Thanks. I will,” Geraldine replied, though she knew she wouldn’t. Not unless the silence in her chest grew too loud to ignore.

Frankie watched her with that same fascination she always had—like Geraldine was a rare insect pinned under glass. There was something almost possessive in the way she observed her, as if every word Geraldine spoke to someone else was a betrayal. A performance. A lie.

To Frankie, Geraldine’s kindness to others felt rehearsed, like an anthem sung without belief. It was too smooth, too polished, like a porcelain doll’s smile—beautiful, but hollow. She believed Geraldine saved her real self for the shadows, for the quiet moments when the world wasn’t watching. For whenever they were together. 

And maybe she was right.

Outside, the wind howled like a choir of ghosts, and the barn creaked in response, its bones aching with memory.

Geraldine stepped forward, her boots crunching on straw like brittle bones. Somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied—a sound like mourning trapped in a throat.

The air smelled of hay and old sorrow. And as Frankie reached for the feed bucket, Geraldine wondered if the horses could sense death. If they remembered Hayley’s absence the way she did—not as a fact, but as a haunting.

The barn settled into a hush, the kind that felt sutured together by breath and tension. Dust floated in the shafts of light like tiny butterflies, and the horses, somewhere deeper in the stalls, shuffled faintly—hooves tapping out a rhythm that echoed like a heartbeat beneath floorboards.

Geraldine and Frankie stood still, the space between them thick with what’s meant to be wordless. Their eyes flickered—over shoulders, toward windows, down the corridor where Doctor May had disappeared. The silence stretched, taut as piano wire. Too long. Just long enough to feel dangerous.

Frankie’s gaze darted to the glass panes, checking for shadows. Geraldine’s fingers twitched at her side, as if they knew what was coming before she did.

Then Frankie moved.

She closed the distance in a rush, arms wrapping around Geraldine with a force that felt like a storm trying to fold itself into a hug. Her face buried into Geraldine’s neck, breathing her in like she was trying to bathe in the scent of her lavender soap. Her fingers clutched the fabric of Geraldine’s coat, knuckles white, like she was holding onto the last rung of a ladder dangling over something bottomless.

Geraldine didn’t move. Not at first. Her body was a tower of restraint, every muscle a pew holding back prayer.

Then Frankie pulled back just enough to see her face. Her hand rose, trembling slightly, and cupped Geraldine’s jaw—thumb grazing the edge of her cheek like she was tracing the outline of a cloud. Her eyes searched Geraldine’s, frantic and soft, like someone reading a letter they weren’t supposed to find.

She tilted her head, lips parting—but stopped.

The air between them pulsed. Frankie’s breath hitched. Her mouth hovered, uncertain, like a fly circling a flame it wasn’t sure it wanted to touch. Her hesitation was loud, louder than any confession.

Geraldine’s eyes didn’t blink. She didn’t lean in. But she didn’t pull away either.

The wind picked up, rattling the barn doors like bones in a tin can.

Frankie didn’t kiss her. But the silence between them had already done it.

“Hi…” she dared to say, barely above a whisper.

Geraldine chuckled, low and warm, like gravel rolling in her throat. “Are you always this happy to see me?”

Frankie nodded, her laugh muffled against Geraldine’s coat as she leaned in, her arms still loosely wrapped around her. It was a laugh that sounded like it had been stolen from a better day.

“You look so pretty,” Frankie murmured, her voice thick with something that wasn’t quite flirtation, wasn’t quite worship—but something in between.

Geraldine snorted. She looked the same as always—hair pulled back under her habit, her side bangs peaking, face pale from sleepless nights, her coat smelling faintly of tobacco and communion wafers.

“Sure thing,” she said sarcastically. “You need a jacket, Frankie. It’s cold outside.”

Frankie was dressed like rebellion—Ramones shirt, cargo pants, no layers, no logic. Her skin was goosebumped, her fingers slightly reddish. Autumn had arrived with claws, and Frankie had shown up like she wanted to be bitten.

“Maybe you can heat me up a little,” she teased, her voice curling around the words like smoke.

Geraldine rolled her eyes but rubbed Frankie’s arms and back anyway, her hands moving with a kind of reluctant tenderness. The kind that says I shouldn’t, but I will.  

Their eyes met—too long, too deep. Geraldine could feel the pull, the gravity of it. Frankie’s hand was still on her jaw, thumb grazing the edge of her cheek. Her lips parted, hesitant, trembling with the weight of a thousand unsaid things.

And then—

The barn door creaked open with a groan like a dying animal, and Ronnie stepped in, his silhouette framed by the fading light.

“Well, well,” he said, eyebrows raised, voice laced with that brand of sarcasm that wanted to be charming but landed somewhere between smug and suspicious. “Didn’t know we were hosting family reunions in here.”

Geraldine stepped back instinctively, her hand falling from Frankie’s shoulder like a curtain dropping after a scene. Frankie blinked, her face flushing with something that wasn’t quite fear but wasn’t far from it.

“She was cold,” Geraldine said quickly, her voice steady, rehearsed. “I was just warming her up.”

Ronnie smirked, walking further in, his boots crunching on straw.

“Right. Of course. You’re like the mom nun, right? I admire you honestly,” he shared. “It must be really hard to cater to the loonies.”

Geraldine didn’t respond. She just stared at him, her expression unreadable, carved from stone.

What a fucking jerk.

Ronnie shrugged, still smiling. “Relax. I’m just messing around. I was looking for Frankie anyway. We should have a private talk.”

Frankie nodded, her voice small. “Okay.”

Geraldine could read the room like a gardener reads soil—she knew what had been planted, what was rotting beneath, and what kind of greenery was about to sprout. The air between Ronnie and Frankie was thick with old familiarity, the kind that grows just like bad weed: fast, stubborn, and always in the wrong places. She could see it in the way Frankie’s shoulders stiffened, in the way Ronnie’s smile curled like copper wire—bright, but ready to cut.

She knew Ronnie. Knew the way his charm was just a mask stretched over something feral. She’d seen him slither through corridors like smoke, slipping into conversations he didn’t belong in, leaving behind the scent of manipulation and cologne.

She wouldn’t leave Frankie alone with him. Not now. Not ever.

“Oh, you should schedule with Doctor May,” she said, the words tumbling out faster than her willpower could catch them. “In case mediation is required.”

Ronnie’s eyebrows lifted, his expression blooming with surprise like a flower that had no business growing in winter. “I think I remember you,” he said, flicking his fingers like he was trying to summon a memory from the dust. “You’re Mikey’s sister, aren’t you?” His voice was too bright, too rehearsed—like a salesman trying to sell forgiveness. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s fine,” Geraldine mumbled, her voice low, like she was speaking through a mouthful of clogged hair. “He lives in Tennessee now. He’s getting married soon.”

“Wow! That’s impressive,” Ronnie said, his grin widening like a crack in plaster. “He’s a perfect example of great results. We should use him as our publicity model. Is he still good looking?”

Geraldine blinked, stunned by the detour. The conversation had veered off the road and into a ditch full of rusty nails. 

“Yes,” she said, the word tasting like rust.

“Well… Sister,” Ronnie continued, his tone shifting into something more formal, more calculated. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to have a private conversation with Frankie.”

“And I’m telling you,” Geraldine replied, her voice sharpening like a blade dragged across stone, “that you have to schedule with Doctor May.”

Ronnie’s smile faltered, the burnished shine dulling. “Sorry, since when do I need permission to talk to the patients?”

Geraldine didn’t blink. “Since you have a reputation of misconduct with patients who are either addicts or women. And since, according to Frances’s lawsuit, she has a restraining order against you.”

The words landed like thunder, shaking the barn’s quiet bones. Ronnie’s face twisted, his jaw tightening like a bear trap. Geraldine could almost hear the grinding of his teeth, like gears in a machine built to suppress rage.

She couldn’t believe her own voice. Couldn’t believe how fast and fiercely she’d defended Frankie. But she knew what Ronnie was capable of. She’d seen the aftermath of his charm—all the wilted flowers he’d leave behind.

He huffed, sourly, the sound of spoiled milk curdling in the throat. The barn seemed to lean in, listening.

Geraldine stood her ground, her body a fortress built from years of watching people like Ronnie turn kindness into currency. She wouldn’t let him buy his way into Frankie’s trust. Not while she was still breathing.

“You’ve got a real talent for keeping people close… too close,” Ronnie drawled, his voice slick with something oily, like rainwater sliding over rusted metal. His eyes flicked between Geraldine and Frankie, narrowing just enough to suggest suspicion, but not enough to confirm it. “If memory serves me right, Mikey once mentioned you were on the run or something.” 

Geraldine felt her throat tighten, her breath catching like a beetle in a jar. Frankie’s face twitched—barely—but Geraldine saw it. That twitch was a warning flare. Frankie looked like she was restraining herself from lunging at Ronnie’s throat and chewing through his jugular like a mad dog chewing on cabbage patches.

Ronnie’s grin widened, teeth whitened like brand new piano keys. “Didn’t you have to suck dick to eat?” he said, the words slithering out like a snake shedding its skin. “Well, I guess whores understand each other.”

Frankie’s skin erupted in goosebumps, not from cold, but from disgust so visceral it felt like insects crawling beneath her flesh. Her fists clenched, knuckles losing color like frostbite.

“Maybe one day the three of us can have a party,” Ronnie murmured, voice dipped in mock-seduction, like a drunk trying to sing opera. It was low, syrupy, and rotten. A sound that made you feel smaller, claustrophobic. “You know… share stories. Swap flavors.”

“I’d rather shock myself with the electric fence,” Frankie barked.

Ronnie stepped closer, boots grinding straw into dust. Geraldine’s hand twitched, ready to slap him so hard his teeth would rattle like dice in a cup. But before she could move, he reached out and grabbed Frankie by the hair—rough, fast, like yanking a flower from dry soil.

He pulled her in, his breath hot and sour against her ear. “Of course you’d find a way to stay a pig,” he hissed. “Fucking in a barn like animals. Always in the mud.”

Then he licked her ear—slow, deliberate, like a predator tasting its prey. Frankie recoiled, her body jerking back as if electrocuted. She shoved him, but he barely moved, just laughed—a sound like gravel in a blender.

Geraldine’s blood boiled. Her fists itched. But she knew—any sudden move, any retaliation, would only pour gasoline on the fire. Ronnie fed on chaos. He drank fear like wine.

“Stay away from me, you fucking creep!” Frankie shouted, her voice cracking like a whip.

Ronnie chuckled, the sound hollow and cruel. His smirk settled on Geraldine now, eyes gleaming with the darkness of danger.

 “You know, Sister,” he said, voice dipped in venom, “if you ever defy my authority again—especially in front of company—I’ll have you kicked out so fast your halo’ll still be spinning when you hit the dirt.”

He leaned in, his breath thick with arrogance. “You’d go back to play with the real pigs out there. Are we good?”

Geraldine nodded, jaw clenched so tight it felt like her teeth might shatter.

“I’ll let Doctor May know you’re requesting a session,” she said, her tone final—like a coffin lid slamming shut.

Ronnie paused, then smiled again. Too wide. Too polished. His fakeness stretched over his ugly rotting face. “Sure. Whatever makes everyone comfortable.”

He turned to leave, boots crunching on straw, his shadow trailing long behind him like a stain. “Good talk, Sister,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Tell Mikey I said congrats.”

And then he was gone.

The barn didn’t breathe again until Ronnie’s shadow had fully dissolved into the dusk. And when it did, it exhaled hard—like lungs that had been underwater too long. Like the hush after a gunshot.

Geraldine stood still, her hands trembling just enough to make her feel like a stranger in her own body. The straw beneath her boots felt like worms shifting, like the earth itself was recoiling from what had just happened.

Ronnie’s words echoed in her skull, sharp and wet:

Fucking in a barn like animals.

She felt it like a pierced organ cascading gore beneath her ribs, ready to drown her from the inside. Not because it was true. But because it had gotten close to it. And it was him, out of all the people.

They had been careless, thoughtless. 

She looked at Frankie, who was standing with her arms crossed, jaw clenched, eyes burning like twin furnaces. But there wasn't any shame in her face. It was defiance. It was the kind of rage that could turn bone to powder. It was pure fire.

Geraldine opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Just breathe. Just guilt.

The pigs began to squeal—louder than usual. Their cries rose like sirens, like something ancient and wrong. The horses moved, now in their stalls, restless, their hooves clattering impatiently. The barn was alive with noise, a chorus of beasts, and it felt like they were all screaming in solidarity.

Geraldine’s throat tightened. She wanted to say something. But the words wouldn’t come. Because maybe Ronnie was right in the ugliest way possible. Maybe this was the reason they had found each other in this place.

Maybe they were just animals.

Frankie sat down on a bale of hay, her hands shaking, her eyes glassy. “Don’t let him get you,” she declared. “He’s just pissed because you didn’t give him what he wanted.”

Geraldine sat beside her, the hay prickling her thighs through her habit. She stared at the barn wall, at the peeling paint, at the rusted nails that held it all together. She felt like one of those nails—old, bent, barely holding.

“I’m sorry I snapped like that, it was stupid.” she whispered.

Frankie didn’t respond. She just leaned her head against Geraldine’s shoulder, and together they listened to the pigs scream, to the horses stomp, to the wind rattle the barn like a dying breath.

“You were actually very composed,” Frankie blurted. “And thank you for standing up for me,”

At that moment, Geraldine didn’t know if she was a woman, a sinner, a saint, or just another creature waiting to be fed.

“I lied to you.”

The words fell from Geraldine’s mouth like broken teeth, soft but knife-like, and Frankie turned toward her with a quiet startle. Not angry. Just surprised—like someone finding a familiar door unlocked for the first time.

“About what?” she whispered, her voice barely brushing the air, but her eyes already searching Geraldine’s face for the shape of the truth.

“I’m not really a virgin,” Geraldine confessed, and her gaze dropped like a stone into her lap. Her eyes fogged with liquid guilt, not tears exactly, but something heavier—like rain trapped behind stained glass.

“That’s okay,” Frankie said quickly, instinctively, like she was trying to catch Geraldine before she fell too far.

She didn’t care.

Virginity was a myth carved by men into the bodies of women—a concept as brittle as dried flowers. What did it even mean? To be taken? To be claimed? According to the Bible and some locker room folklore, lesbian sex didn’t even count. It was invisible. It was unspeakable. It was erased.

But Geraldine shook her head, her voice low and trembling, like a candle flickering in a room full of wind. “No, it’s not,” she said. “Let me show you.”

She wanted to show Frankie she had been right all along. That they were animals from the same species. That she wasn’t some pristine angel, who deserved the sweetness Frankie granted her so spontaneously.

She wanted to prove Frankie how correct she had been back then. 

Because this was the reason why she could know her by smell.

She stood, her movements stiffly uncoordinated, and walked to a corner of the barn where the light barely reached. The shadows there were thick, like poisoned still water. She lowered her underwear beneath her habit, her hands moving like she was performing a ritual she hated.

“You told me I should touch myself,” she said, her voice cracking like ice underfoot, “and then you’d do whatever I asked.”

Frankie frowned, her heart sinking into her stomach. Geraldine’s voice was shaky in a way that made her want to scream. It wasn’t just sadness—it was this confusing devastation dressed in obedience.

“Yeah,” Frankie said, following her into the dark.

Geraldine reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a small plastic Virgin Mary figurine. It was about fifteen centimeters tall, its surface scratched and dulled, the paint chipped around the eyes like it had been crying for decades.

“I can’t be a virgin if I’ve touched myself before,” Geraldine said, her voice hollow. “This is what I use.”

Frankie’s breath caught. The statue looked hard, unforgiving. It wasn’t made for softness. It wasn’t made for skin. And Geraldine held it like it was both a weapon and an honor—like it had tortured her and saved her in equal measure. Her face crumpled, her eyes shut tight, as if she could disappear into shame.

Frankie took the statue gently, as if it might shatter from the weight of its own history.

“Have you ever had an orgasm with this?” she asked, her voice somewhat audible.

Geraldine shook her head. “I stop myself when I enjoy it too much.”

Frankie felt something rupture inside her. A quiet scream. A suffering that couldn't possibly be labeled. She wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t dare to spring. They were stuck somewhere deep, tangled in the roots of her rage.

“What do you do after that?” she asked.

“I punish myself.” Geraldine mumbled. “Like this…”

She reached for the Virgin, but Frankie pulled it away.

“No,” her voice suddenly firm, igniting through the dark like a flame. She tucked the statue into her back pocket, where it felt like a sin pressed against her spine. “You’re not gonna hurt yourself ever again.”

“You told me you’d do what I wanted,” Geraldine whispered, the sound so fine it could’ve been mistaken for a breeze or a sob. “And this is the only thing I know.”

Frankie didn’t know how to refuse her. Geraldine’s voice had come like a plea whispered through a cracked confessional—hardly noticeable, but heavy with need. So Frankie knelt. Slowly. Reverently. Like she was approaching an altar built not of marble, but of broken bones and soft, bleeding truths.

The barn around them was silent except for the distant shuffle of hooves and the occasional grunt of pigs—creatures that lived in filth but never felt shame. The air was thick with hay dust and the scent of old wood, and somewhere above them, a moth beat itself senseless against a hanging bulb.

Geraldine’s skirt rose inch by inch, and with each movement, The shadows stooped in, as if the rafters themselves bent to listen. Frankie’s hands trembled—not from lust, but from the weight of what she feared she might find.

Geraldine’s breathing grew shallow, uneven, like someone trying to outrun a memory that had thorns. Her chest rose and fell in jagged rhythms, and her fingers clutched the hem of her habit like it was the last thing tethering her to the earth.

And then Frankie saw her.

Beneath the soft veil of long, slightly wavy hair—hair that looked like it had been spun from candlelight—her core was tainted. Not just touched, not just tender.

But ravaged.

Purple hematomas bloomed like poisoned flowers, her labia swollen, weary, pulsing with the leftovers of pain. Frankie bit her lip so hard she tasted metal, and still it wasn’t enough to keep the scream inside her throat from rising.

She wanted to ask if it hurt. But of course it did. It must. It had to.

Geraldine stood before her like a shot deer—fragile, trembling, eyes wide with the kind of innocence that had been stolen and then needled back together with guilt. But Frankie didn’t feel like the hunter anymore. 

She felt like a creature who’d clawed its way into the shape of a woman, only to fall in love with the very thing it was supposed to devour. Not a predator. But something more fractured. Part protector, part destroyer. She wanted to cradle Geraldine in her arms and never let go. And she wanted to bite the world for what it had done to her.

“Please,” Geraldine begged, her voice a thread unraveling in the dark. “Punish me.” 

Frankie reached out, her fingers grazing the skin of Geraldine’s thighs. The fine hair there was soft as peach fuzz, but it wasn’t just softness—it was sacredness . Like the down on a fledgling bird. Like something that had never been meant to be touched by hands that didn’t know how to honor before them.

She caressed her legs slowly, patiently, as if each inch of skin held a secret she wasn’t yet worthy of knowing. Her touch was featherlight, like she was trying to soothe a creature that had been hunted for too long.

And in that moment, Geraldine wasn’t just a girl—she was a garden left untended, vines splitting brick, blossoms forcing themselves through rot. She was the sweetness of fruit gone soft in the sun, the sting of honey fermenting into something stronger. Every breath she took felt like decay learning how to live again.

Frankie sensed both feast and famine, as if love could taste like a spoiled plum and still be worth biting into.

Frankie pulled her panties up gently, the fabric whispering against skin that had known too much violence. Her lips hovered for a moment before touching down, as if the air itself might bruise Geraldine further. Her mouth met the fabric with mercy, not hunger.

Her kiss was a whisper against the swollen pain. And Geraldine trembled.

Her legs shook beneath Frankie’s hands, not violently, but like a tree in the wind that didn’t know whether to bow or break. Frankie could feel the tremor travel up through her palms, into her wrists, into her chest. It was a vibration of vulnerability, of a body trying to hold itself together while being touched in a way that didn’t hurt.

Then she heard it.

A sob. Small. Muffled. Like a bird dying in the throat. Geraldine’s breath hitched, and the sound escaped her lips like a secret she hadn’t meant to share. Frankie froze—not out of fear, but out of awe.

Because that sound was sacred.

Frankie closed her eyes, pressing her forehead gently against Geraldine’s thigh. She felt like a sinner kneeling before a perforated saint. Her heart beat like hooves in a stampede, wild and terrified. She didn’t know how to hold this moment. She didn’t know how to be soft enough.

Geraldine’s fingers found Frankie’s hair, stroking it slowly, like she was petting a beast she was sure wouldn’t bite. And Frankie—Frankie felt like a stray dog who’d wandered into a chapel and been mistaken for a miracle.

She wanted to say something.

Anything.

But words felt too aggresive, too clumsy. So she stayed there, mouth against cloth, breath against bruises, listening to Geraldine cry in the quietest way a person could cry.

Because Geraldine wasn’t a deer anymore. She was something else entirely—something that had outlived the hunt and kept on walking, flesh turned into forest floor, eyes heavy with the knowledge of every trap that had ever snapped shut around her.

She wasn’t prey, not anymore.

She was the swamp itself, the still water that swallowed hoofprints, the reeds that hissed in secret tongues, the rot that dressed itself in lilies so the world would mistake her ruin for grace. She carried survival like a stench, like perfume, like an inheritance she never asked for but couldn’t wash off.

And Frankie wasn’t just a wolf. The hunger had burned out of her and left nothing but calmness. She was the beast that learned how to bite only when commanded, how to circle instead of devour, and how to guard what she might once have torn open. Her jaw still ached with the memory of ripping throats, but now she had outgrown the blind fever of wanting. The wolf had made herself a sentinel—savage only in defense, kneeling only to rise again, all ribcage and tendon, heart beating like a war-drum muffled in mud. She was the violence made watchful, the hunger that had curdled into loyalty, the bloodlust that now sang only for her chosen victim.

She didn’t press harder. She didn’t go further. She knew that even closeness could sting.

She could hear Grace exhaling sharply. The hogs made loud, ugly noises. The wind howled tragically. But inside that corner of darkness, two girls stayed still. And the world, for a moment, forgot how to be cruel.

“Why can’t you do it?” Geraldine asked, her fingers threading through Frankie’s hair, guiding her to look up.

Frankie met her eyes. The Virgin in Geraldine’s mind had already drawn blood, but Frankie would not. She would not let the walls watch her become just another butcher of something holy.

Because even though they were animals, they had outlasted the carnage.

“This is a barn,” she said, her voice thick with earnestness, “not a slaughterhouse.”

Chapter Text

The last time he saw Hayley, the air between them was thick with all the wrong words. They had talked, but it wasn’t conversation—it was interrogation disguised as concern. He questioned everything she said, dissecting her words like petals from a bruised flower, yet still murmured that everything would be okay.

That was his paradox: the scalpel and the salve in one breath.

He knew her better than anyone else in that place. Their history was etched into the bark of the old willow tree where they always met, like a secret carved into time.

That day, he brought her a song—one he’d written just for her. His voice, low and trembling, wrapped around the melody like smoke curling from a candle just snuffed out.

Their ritual was familiar, almost routinary.

He’d flirt until her defenses melted like sugar on a lemon. Then came the closeness, the heat, the tangled limbs and whispered confessions. It was always the same dance—until the laundry room.

That time, she asked him to take off his pants. And something inside him shattered—not from surprise, but recognition.

He knew the truth, buried deep beneath charm and cheekbones: he was an addict. Not just to substances, but to chaos. To the thrill of destruction. To sex.

He was a lover, yes—but not the kind that poets write about. He could fall in love with a shadow if it lingered long enough. And Hayley? She was a nun. A woman cloaked in vows and devotion to somebody else. But he had pursued her with the hunger of a man chasing absolution through sin.

He told himself he cared for her. Maybe he did.

But the pursuit had always been laced with intention. And somewhere along the way, love had bloomed—wild and uninvited, ivy cracking through stone.

The staff watched him with wary eyes.

He had already left a trail: a nurse fired, another reassigned. He was trouble wrapped in a smile. Handsome, yes. But more than that—he was fucking magnetic.

The kind of man who made gravity feel optional. Birds would sing for him if he asked. Doors opened. Rules bent. People bent.

That was his curse. His superpower. And he loathed it.

He hated how easily he could turn people into marionettes, strings pulled by charm and need.

He hated being seen—not truly seen, but ogled, desired, envied. He hated that his intelligence was eclipsed by his allure, that professors wanted dates more than debates, that his friends’ girlfriends whispered his name like a spell.

He hated being the exception to every rule. The loophole in every system.

And now, he was in the laundry room. With a nun. Their mouths pressed together like a prayer gone rogue. It was madness. Divine and profane.

She would rather deny God than deny him.

The last time he saw her, they collided with the willow tree like two ghosts trying to haunt the same memory. She looked at him with the solemnity of a courtroom verdict and said it was official—she was pregnant. The words hung in the air like wet laundry, heavy and unavoidable.

He had the gall to ask if the child was his, as if the truth were a coin she might flip.

Of course it was.

And maybe that was her tragedy: not just the embryo blooming inside her like a secret garden she never meant to plant, but the avalanche of betrayal it carried.

She had broken her vows, turned sanctity into scandal, and danced with a patient in the shadows of her own conscience. The truth would leak out eventually, like ink from a cracked pen. And when it did, she’d have to face the origin of the rupture.

She’d have to face Father Geoff.

That was the nucleus of this whole fever dream. Because he—Anthony—had seen it early on: the way her eyes lingered on Geoff like a cough in her throat.

She was in love with him. With the priest. With the only man on earth that would reject her.

So Anthony did what he did best— he plotted.

He spoke to Geoff with the precision of a chess master, each word a pawn, each glance a bishop. Within a month, he had the whole thing mapped out like constellations only he could read.

He knew what to say, how she’d react, and it terrified him. The way reality bent to his predictions, like time itself, was taking cues from his imagination.

But her dreams—those fragile soap bubbles—would never float far.

She’d never leave the church, never marry Geoff, never raise four children in a house with a garden and a swing set. Because she was still a nun. Still tethered to a life of silence and sacrifice. And the child she carried wasn’t Geoff’s. It was Anthony’s.

She couldn’t even entertain the idea of abortion. The word itself felt like a blade she couldn’t hold. Anthony had suggested it, and they fought—words flung like knives, slicing through the illusion of control.

“If you want to keep the baby,” he said, “then we have to build something. I’ll get out of here. I’ll find a job. We’ll rent a place. We’ll make a life.”

But Hayley was drowning in denial, like a cathedral slowly sinking into the sea. Anthony kept trying to be her lifeboat, whispering promises like lullabies to a storm.

“We’ll move to my grandma’s house in Pennsylvania,” he said, cradling her face like it was made of porcelain and regret. “We’ll start fresh. We’ll get married.”

And then she said it. The words that cracked the illusion like thunder splitting a stained-glass window.

“I don’t wanna marry you.”

Because her heart was a compass that pointed only to Geoff. And now she was a paradox: a nun in love with a priest, pregnant with a patient, and tangled in a web she had spun herself.

She felt guilt like a second skin—tight, suffocating, impossible to shed.

She had used Anthony, siphoned his affection like fuel for her own emotional escape. And he, the fox, had been outsmarted, because he was in love with her.

That much was clear.

He kept offering to leave the facility, even though his soul still limped from the wounds that brought him there.

They stood beneath the old willow tree, its branches drooping like tired arms, swaying gently in the wind as if trying to shield them from the truth.

The tree had witnessed their rituals, their confessions, their undoing.

It was the only thing that hadn’t judged them.

Just beyond it, the electric fence hummed like a quiet warning—a shimmering line between the Retreat and the rest of the world. A barrier of voltage and consequence, separating their fragile bubble from the chaos outside. It buzzed like a conscience.

Behind them, the chapel loomed—its steeple piercing the sky like a needle through silk. The stained glass windows glowed faintly in the late afternoon light, casting fractured halos on the ground.

But they both knew they’d never walk down its aisle together. That altar wasn’t built for them. It was a monument to vows they’d already broken.

Anthony was close to finishing his stay at the Retreat. The paperwork was nearly done, the final evaluations scheduled. But she knew—deep in the marrow of her guilt—that he wasn’t ready. He still needed the nurses, the structure, the sterile rhythm of a place that didn’t bend to his will. Because that was the problem.

The things he wanted.

He wanted attention like oxygen. Validation like blood. Sex like sleeping. Confidence like sunlight. Power like prayer.

And she had given him all of it. The exact things she was trained not to offer. She had fed the fire she was meant to extinguish.

Now, she was muffling her sobs against his chest, her face buried in the crook of his neck like a secret she couldn’t bear to speak aloud. His arms wrapped around her, but his thoughts were elsewhere—spiraling through the realization that his charm, his magnetism, his ability to bend people like light through glass—could never give him what he needed. Only what he wanted. And what he wanted was never enough .

“Why?” he mumbled, voice barely audible over the wind. “Do you still love him?”

He stroked her shoulder, gently, like he was trying to soothe a wound he couldn’t see. She didn’t answer with words. Her crying grew louder, rawer, as if each sob was a syllable in a language only grief could understand.

“I always thought,” he said, voice cracking, “if I ever found someone strong enough to stomach me, then everything would be alright.”

He regretted it the moment it left his mouth. The vulnerability felt like a splinter lodged in his throat.

“I really like you, Anthony,” she murmured, her voice trembling like a candle flame in wind. “But I don’t think I love you.”

“I know,” he said, laughing softly. Bitterly. Sadly. Fondly. The kind of laugh that sounded like it had been aged in sorrow. “But I do.”

And the willow tree swayed above them, the electric fence buzzed beside them, and the chapel stood behind them—silent, untouched, and waiting for a wedding that would never come.

The last thing he told her was: “We’re going to figure it out, somehow. Just trust me and don’t tell anybody.”

It had sounded like a promise, but it was really a plea. A cracked whisper in the dark, like a bee asking not to be crushed. And she had nodded, eyes glassy, mouth stitched shut with fear and something older than guilt.

Then she stopped showing up.

At first, he thought maybe she was sick. Or maybe she’d been reassigned. But by the second day, the silence felt different.

It wasn’t absence—it was disappearance . Like someone had scrubbed her name off the walls and vacuumed the air where she used to breathe.

On the third day, the halls felt thinner. The Retreat had a way of shrinking when something went wrong. The nurses moved like shadows, and the nuns—usually a slow tide of habits and murmured prayers—were nowhere to be seen.

Even the chapel doors were locked, as if God himself had taken a sick day.

Frankie, always too casual, too cruel in her softness, said it like she was tossing a pebble into a well: “Maybe somebody died.”

It wasn’t the words. It was the way she said them. Like she was trying not to choke on the truth. Like she’d swallowed something sharp and was pretending it was candy.

And suddenly, he remembered Sister Sarah.

How she’d died last year—quietly, politely, at 76. No drama. Just a missing chair at breakfast and a closed door. The staff had thinned then, too. The air had felt like it was holding its breath.

So he started asking questions. Not loudly. Just enough to stir the dust. And in five minutes, he had a nurse—one of the newer ones, the kind who still blinked too much—blurting everything out like she’d been waiting for someone to ask.

Hayley was dead.

His legs didn’t buckle. That would’ve been too cinematic. Instead, he felt like someone had replaced his bones with wet cardboard. He stood there, soggy and stunned, like a crackerhouse left out in the rain.

She had hanged herself.

Not in the chapel. Not in her room. She had hanged herself in the willow tree. Their willow tree.

The one that had listened to their secrets. The one that had watched them kiss. The one that had bent its branches low, like it wanted to be part of their story.

Now it was part of her ending.

It wasn’t about the pregnancy.

He didn’t care about the hypothetical child, the maybe-baby that had never had a heartbeat. It was the message. The choice. The deliberate cruelty of it.

She had chosen the tree. She had chosen silence. She had chosen not to trust him.

She’d rather hang herself than have his child. She’d rather become a ghost than let him save her.

And as they dragged him to the isolation room, his arms flailing like broken antennae, he saw Geraldine. Leaving Frankie’s room.

Her eyes red, her nose raw, her face the kind of pale that only comes from seeing something you wish you could unsee.

That was the confirmation. Not the nurse. Not the rumors.

Geraldine’s face was the fucking obituary.

Hayley was dead.

And the Retreat kept humming. The electric fence still buzzed. The chapel still stood. The willow tree still swayed, cradling its secret like a starving cat curling around a cold engine block at night.

He would never forgive her.

And he would never stop loving her. And he would never stop wondering what she saw in that final moment—whether it was his face, or just the ugly insects crawling across the bark, whispering that it was time.

He didn’t care about Frankie’s little affair with a nun—he’d known for weeks. He’d seen them once beneath the willow tree, their silhouettes stitched together like fruit flies drowning in a chocolate fountain.

The same tree where Hayley had once whispered to him like she was trying not to wake the world. The same tree that now held her final breath.

It wasn’t the affair. It wasn’t even the betrayal—that Frankie had probably known and hadn’t told him, had dangled the truth in front of him like a broken ornament with her cryptic “maybe someone died.

 It was the confirmation. The irreversible fact. Hayley was dead.

And he didn’t know what to do with that.

The knowledge sat in his chest like a rusted nail, not piercing, just lodged—immovable and quietly poisonous.

He wanted to scream, but the scream wouldn’t come. It was stuck somewhere behind his ribs, pacing like a starving cat in a locked room.

She had been fine. Just days ago, she had been fine .

Not glowing, not joyful, but intact .

She wasn’t the kind of person who wore sadness like a coat.

She was confused, yes. In love with a priest, yes. She had slept with him—Anthony—like someone trying to erase a name carved into their skin. She was terrified of the pregnancy, of carrying the child of a man who wasn’t just mentally ill, but institutionalized. A man she was supposed to care for, not collapse into.

Yes .

But he had believed— foolishly , maybe—that the pregnancy had given her something. A way out.

A reason to leave the Retreat and its sterile rituals. A chance to live honestly, even if it meant living messily. He had hoped she’d learn to love him eventually.

Because love wasn’t a lightning strike—it was a slow construction, like building a house out of matchsticks and prayers. If she could love God, with all his fury and silence, surely she could learn to love him.

But now she was gone. And the possibility had been buried with her.

She lay dead, and he wasn’t allowed to mourn her. Not properly. Not publicly. He wasn’t allowed to visit her body, to see the shape she left behind.

He wasn’t allowed to say her name out loud in case it cracked the walls. Her death had been folded into silence, like a letter never sent.

He had no one to call. No one to tell.

His grief was a locked drawer in a room no one entered. The only person around was a doctor in solitary confinement, a man who looked at Anthony like he was a smudge on a mirror.

He couldn’t charm him. He couldn’t talk to him. He couldn’t even hate him properly.

Then, after two days of silence so thick it felt like fog in his lungs, Sister Geraldine appeared.

She didn’t say much. She didn’t need to. Her face was a map of sorrow—eyes swollen, nose red, mouth trembling like a string pulled too tight. She cried in front of him. Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just enough to make the air feel less heavier.

Everyone behaved as if nothing had happened. As if a woman hadn’t died. As if her absence hadn’t left a crater in the middle of the Retreat. And Anthony couldn’t stop thinking that this was sociopathic behavior—this collective denial, this eerie calm. It was like watching people sip tea in a burning house.

Geraldine was the only one who didn’t pretend.

She hugged him—not out of obligation, but with the kind of tenderness reserved for broken things. She didn’t offer platitudes. She didn’t lie and say it would be okay. She told him the truth: that it was going to be hard , that grief was a long hallway with no lights, and that she’d walk it with him as much as she could. She promised to visit. Promised to help him get back into his room, back into some semblance of routine, even if routine now felt like a cruel joke.

When he asked if Frankie knew, Geraldine shook her head. She said Frankie knew someone had died, but not who. Not how . But after his screaming—after the guttural, animal sounds he’d made—she probably suspected.

The walls weren’t thick enough to hide that kind of pain.

“I’m so sorry, Anthony,” Geraldine whispered, her breath warm against his temple as she held him like a child who’d just woken from a nightmare.

And for the first time in what felt like centuries, he didn’t want to speak. Words felt useless.

They couldn’t resurrect Hayley. They couldn’t rewind time.

Geraldine, ever the quiet advocate, suggested to the doctor that Anthony be allowed visitors. She argued that isolation was corroding him from the inside out.

Eventually, the doctor relented, and Frankie came.

But her presence didn’t soothe him. If anything, it stirred the storm.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had killed the nun.

That his games—his obsessive, spiraling chase—had led her to that final, tragic moment. He saw himself as the architect of her demise, even if the blueprints were invisible.

Frankie tried. She really did. She spoke gently, tried to reason with him, tried to pull him back from the edge. But the more they talked, the more erratic he became. His thoughts were jagged glass, and every word cut deeper.

It was clear to her now: solitary therapy wasn’t helping. It was harming. It was turning him into a ghost with a pulse.

“I bet my ass it was that cunt Patricia,” he spat, venom curling around every syllable. “They used to be roomies, right? Now your girl’s got their room. Fucked up, huh? You’re gonna fuck your nun in my dead ex’s bed.”

Frankie didn’t respond. Her silence was a shield, but it wasn’t strong enough to block the impact.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he snapped. “Do you think I don’t hear you?”

The white walls of the room seemed to darken with every word, as if his rage was staining the air.

“I hear you every night,” he continued, voice low and trembling. “At first I thought you were just jerking off. But then I started listening closer. You were sneaking someone in.”

“I’m sorry,” Frankie blurted, the words tumbling out like stones.

“Why for?” Anthony asked, suddenly calm, almost tender. “It’s not your fault my affair didn’t end well…”

Frankie swallowed hard, her throat tightening like a zipper caught on skin. She couldn’t tell if Anthony was being sincere or cruel—his voice had that flavor again, like spoiled honey: sweet on the surface, but sour underneath, the kind that coats your tongue and makes you question your taste.

“I told you,” Anthony sighed, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, watching tiny spiders crawl across the plaster. “They’re no crazier than us.”

Frankie hesitated, then leaned in like they were back in the cafeteria, gossiping over lukewarm coffee and half-eaten pills.

“We haven’t had sex yet,” she confessed, her voice light, almost playful—like she was tossing him a distraction, a shiny object to chase.

“Yeah? Why not?” he asked, smirking, the corner of his mouth twitching like a dying insect.

Maybe it worked. Maybe the air loosened a little.

“I can’t tell you exactly,” Frankie blurted, cheeks flushed with something between shame and defiance.

“You’ve got an STD?” he teased, eyebrows raised. Her silence was a pause too long, so he doubled down. “No way… She has an STD?! Damn! Sister Geraldine, you naughty girl.”

Frankie laughed, a brittle sound like glass tapping against glass.

For a moment, it felt like everything was back to normal—whatever “normal” meant in a place where people hung themselves in sacred trees.

“She has trauma,” Frankie admitted, her voice softening. “And that’s all I’m gonna say regarding that matter.”

Anthony nodded, then tilted his head like a curious crow.

“I talked to your girl,” he said, “and apparently she now sleeps alone in Hayley’s room.”

“So?”

“Hayley’s room is in the tower,” he explained, eyes gleaming with mischief. “That’s like a sex dungeon in the sky.”

“Wouldn’t it be a sex attic?”

“Yeah, probably,” he laughed, the sound sharp and sudden, like a match striking in the dark. He grabbed a pillow and tapped her with it. “Don’t get too smart, or I’m gonna rat you.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, still smiling, the kind of smile that tasted like old candy—sweet, but a little dusty.

“My point is,” he continued, “maybe you could show up with a boombox and climb the tower. Get some nun coochie.”

Now it was her turn to hit him with the pillow, harder this time.

“It could be romantic,” he whispered, eyes distant again. “The nuns don’t go to the tower. The stairs are all fucked up and the nuns are old. It was only Patricia and Hayley there, but apparently Patricia made her switch.”

“She didn’t tell me that,” Frankie said. “We don’t talk about what happened.”

Anthony’s face darkened. “Did you know she had to get her down?”

Frankie shook her head. The words hit her like a wet rag to the face. Geraldine hadn’t told her. But it made sense now—why she’d shown up to her room crying, two nights in a row, eyes swollen like overripe fruit.

“She had—Jesus, Frankie, can you smuggle me cigarettes next time I’m losing my fucking mind?”

Frankie didn’t hesitate. She reached into her back pocket and handed him a full pack with a lighter, like she was offering him a piece of herself.

“Fuck, yeah baby,” he moaned as he lit up and took a drag, the smoke curling around his face like a veil. “Sorry… She had to untangle her neck from the rope and everything.”

The image hung in the air, heavy and grotesque. Frankie felt her stomach turn. Even fire had lost its allure to her lately. All she’d been thinking about was Geraldine. Geraldine, naked. Geraldine, crying. Geraldine, trying to erase the shape of Hayley’s body from her memory.

And then the idea of Hayley’s cold body hanging—limp, blue, silent. It was the perfect temperature to cool down her fire. A freezer for lust. A tomb for desire.

Fucked up.

“Thanks for coming, Frankie,” Anthony said, and this time it was real. No sarcasm. No smirk. Just gratitude, raw and unwrapped.

Since nobody else had visited him. Not Kim. Not Sarah. Not Colin. Not even the nurses he used to flirt with.

He paused, then added with a crooked grin, “I know you’re not cumming anywhere lately…”

She laughed hard, pushed him playfully, then kissed his forehead like she was sealing a letter she’d never send.

“First thing we do when we get out,” she said, “we’re gonna egg a church.”

“Sure.”

He knew he’d get out before her. Knew he’d call his buddy Brendan, crash on his couch, maybe fly back to Pennsylvania and pretend to start over. But right now, all he could think about was the willow tree.

That fucking willow tree.

He wanted to burn it to the ground. Watch it crackle and scream. Watch its branches curl like fingers in pain.

He wanted to erase it from the earth, like it had never held her, like it had never mattered.

Geraldine stood outside Dr. May’s office for nearly ten minutes before knocking. The hallway smelled like antibacterial gel and dust at the same time—like secrets sealed in manila folders. Her palms were damp, her habit felt too tight around the neck, and her heart was doing that thing again—fluttering like a moth trapped in a lampshade.

He had told her she could come anytime. That his door was open. But open doors didn’t mean safe ones.

She knocked. Softly. Like she didn’t want the door to hear her.

Dr. May looked up from his desk, glasses perched low on his nose, a pen frozen mid-sentence. “Sister Geraldine,” he said gently. “Come in.”

She stepped inside, her hands folded like she was praying to disappear. She didn’t sit until he gestured. Even then, she perched on the edge of the chair like it might bite her.

“I… I’m sorry to bother you,” she began, voice barely audible. “I just… I don’t know who else to talk to.”

Dr. May nodded, patient as ever. “You’re not bothering me. What’s going on?”

She hesitated. Her fingers gripped the hem of her sleeve.

“I can’t go to a gynecologist,” she said. “Not after what happened to Sister Hayley. I just… I can’t trust anyone. But you’re a doctor. And I thought maybe… maybe you could prescribe something. Or just… look.”

Dr. May’s expression didn’t change, but his posture softened. “Are you in pain?”

She nodded. Then, after a long pause, she whispered, “I’ve been hurting myself.”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t interrupt. He waited.

“I used a hard object,” she said, eyes fixed on the floor. “I hit myself. I don’t know why. I just… I needed to feel something. Or maybe stop feeling everything.”

“Where?” he asked, voice low, clinical but kind.

She swallowed.

“In the labia.”

Dr. May nodded slowly.

“Would you be comfortable showing me? I’ll examine you professionally. No judgment.”

She nodded again, and he stepped out briefly to give her privacy to undress. When he returned, he examined her with the quiet precision of someone who had seen too many kinds of pain.

Afterward, she dressed quickly, her hands trembling.

“There’s no sign of infection,” he said. “The bruising is localized. I’ll prescribe an anti-inflammatory. But Geraldine… I need to ask you something.”

She looked up, eyes wide.

“Why do you do that?”

She hesitated, like a dam breaking.

Dr. May leaned back, his face unreadable. “Have you done this before?”

“Not like this,” she said. “I’ve always scratched myself a little too hard. But I think I overdone it this time.”

“When do you do it?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The silence was thick, sour-sweet, like meat and fruits in a locked pantry.

“I’m going to prescribe something mild,” he said. “An SSRI. It won’t fix everything, but it might help stabilize your mood. I also want you to come back. Regularly. We’ll talk. We’ll figure this out.”

Geraldine had never trusted doctors. Not really. Not with her body. Not with her silence. She had spent most of her adult life avoiding mirrors and medical forms, convinced that her body was a vessel for service, not sensation.

If she hadn’t walked into Dr. May’s office that day, she would’ve hit her forties with a bruised vagina and no one to notice. No one to ask. No one to care.

She would’ve aged into invisibility. A woman with no lovers, no kisses, no reciprocation. Her skin would’ve grown thin from lack of touch. Her heart would’ve calcified from lack of risk. She would’ve died with her mouth closed and her legs untouched.

Until Frankie.

Frankie had arrived like a glitch in the system. A rupture in the rhythm.

Geraldine hadn’t expected her. Hadn’t planned for her. But now she was everywhere. In her thoughts. In her prayers. In every good feeling.

She was plotting now. Quietly. Carefully.

How to leave the church. How to re-enter society without combusting.

She was considering crashing at Mikey’s—her brother’s place. He had a spare room and a fridge full of expired yogurt. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was real. It was outside.

Every night, Geraldine went a little mad. She’d lie in bed, legs parted, imagining Frankie’s head approaching like a predator in heat.

Salivating. Hungry. As if she couldn’t help to have a fucking pavlovian response to her.

Because that’s how Frankie looked at her—like she was the most beautiful thing on earth. Like she was a fruit that had never been bitten. Like she was a secret worth keeping.

Geraldine didn’t know those things could happen to her. She didn’t know she could be wanted. Not like that. Not with that kind of hunger. Frankie felt surreal sometimes—like a dream that had wandered into daylight and refused to leave.

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks like they were trying not to be noticed.

“Geraldine,” Dr. May said softly, “thanks for trusting me.”

She nodded again, but this time something inside her shifted. Not healed. Not yet. But cracked open just enough to let the light in. Just enough to let Frankie in.

Dr. May handed her the pills. She took them immediately, like they were a secret she couldn’t afford to lose. She didn’t ask him if she could have sex. Of course not. She was a nun. She wasn’t meant to be having sex—especially not lesbian sex. Especially not with her patient.

And she was grateful he didn’t ask. Grateful he assumed this was about Hayley. About grief. About trauma. Not about desire. Not about the way her body had started to speak in tongues every time Frankie walked into the room.

But it was undeniable. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to see it.

The bruises were shaped like longing. The silence was soaked in shame. The pain was a language she had taught herself, one hit at a time.

She walked out of the office with the pills in her pocket and a plan forming in her mind. She would leave. She would find Frankie. She would kiss her. She would let herself be kissed.

And maybe, just maybe, she would finally stop punishing herself for wanting to be loved.

Geraldine followed all his instructions, as she always did.

She was the kind of woman who folded her laundry with military precision, who never missed a prayer bell, who knew the exact temperature to steep chamomile tea. Her life had been a quiet choreography of obedience—until Hayley died.

With Hayley gone, the schedule had shifted like tectonic plates.

Geraldine, without hesitation, offered to take her day shifts. It was the least she could do. She had spent years in the night—those long, humming hours where the world felt like it was holding its breath. The night shifts had been her sanctuary, her punishment, her hiding place. But now, she was stepping into daylight.

It was going to be hard. She knew that.

Her sleep schedule was a mess, her body still tuned to the rhythm of midnight rounds and whispered prayers.

But ever since those two nights in Frankie’s room, the transition didn’t feel so impossible. All the crying had left her drowsy, like grief itself was a sedative. Her body, exhausted from mourning, welcomed the change.

Her new room was in the tower. The topmost corner of Saint Agnes, where the walls sloped inward and the windows were tall and narrow like cathedral eyes. It was isolated. Private. Quiet.

She felt like the unprettiest princess in a forgotten fairy tale—locked away not by a curse, but by circumstance.

The view was something else. From her window, she could see the southern Louisiana countryside stretching out like a faded quilt.

The fields were patchy with rust-colored grass, the trees beginning to blush with early autumn. August here was a strange season—still hot, still sticky, but with a whisper of change in the air. The sky was a soft, bruised blue, and the clouds moved like slow thoughts. Cicadas sang like broken radios. The wind carried the scent of damp earth and honeysuckle.

She could also stare at the barn.

She stood by the window now, removing her habit with deliberate care. Each layer peeled away like a secret. Beneath it, she wore a white long-sleeve camisole—thin, soft, the kind issued to patients. It clung to her gently, making her feel less like a nun and more like a woman. The breeze touched her hair, lifting strands like curious fingers. She closed her eyes and let it happen.

Her and Frankie had barely any alone time these days.

The Retreat was a hive of movement, and grief had made everyone busy. But whenever they passed each other in the halls, Frankie would smuggle her a note—folded tight, slipped into her palm like contraband. Geraldine partook in the game too. She didn’t write back. She handed her an apple.

It was a bold gesture, but it felt right.

The apple was red and imperfect, with a small bruise near the stem. It was a symbol, maybe. Of temptation. Of nourishment. Of something sweet and sour and real.

Now, in her tower room, Geraldine sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the apple on her desk.

The sun was setting, casting long golden fingers across the floor. She felt like she was in a painting—one of those lonely women in white, staring out windows, waiting for something to change.

She didn’t know what would happen next. She didn’t know how to leave the church, how to re-enter the world, how to love Frankie without unraveling. But she knew this: she was no longer just following rules. She was writing new ones.

And tonight, she would sleep in the tower. Not as a nun. Not as a nurse.

But as a woman with wind in her hair and an apple on her desk.

Or so she thought.

Because at 11:03 p.m., just as the wind had begun to settle into its nightly hush and the toads had grown tired of their own song, Geraldine heard it—a knock. Not on her door. On her window.

She froze.

Her heart, which had been quietly thudding like a distant drum, suddenly leapt into her throat and began to play a solo. She turned slowly, half expecting a bird, a branch, a ghost. But what she saw made her breath catch like a snag in silk.

Frankie.

Outside her balcony window.

Geraldine blinked, once, twice, as if her eyes were trying to reboot. She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe what was in front of her. How did she climb the tower? How was this real?

Frankie looked like a new version of Romeo—if Romeo had been raised on punk rock and southern humidity. Her cheeks were flushed, glowing with the effort of the climb and the thrill of rebellion. Her hair was short, half black and the other half dyed a pale, sun-bleached blonde and buzzed close to the scalp like a dare. She wore cargo shorts that hung low on her hips, and red Converse sneakers that looked like they’d been through a hundred stories. In her hands, she held a basket—woven, mysterious, brimming with unknown things. It looked like something stolen from a fairy tale and repurposed for mischief.

Geraldine had left the window open.

Not because she expected anyone. But because she liked the breeze. Because she liked the way the night air curled around her ankles like a cat. And after years of sleeping with old Mother Prudence, she surely appreciated being able to air the room without worrying about getting somebody else sick.

She had never imagined someone would climb up. She had never imagined someone would choose her.

And she was so glad to be wrong.

She rushed to the window, her camisole fluttering slightly in the wind, her hair loose and wild from sleep. As she helped Frankie climb in, her fingers brushed against hers—warm, calloused, electric. That’s when she saw it: a rusty, makeshift fire ladder bolted to the side of the building.

It had always been there, hidden in plain sight, like a secret waiting for the right person to use it.

Geraldine’s voice came out in broken whispers, her smile impossible to contain. “Why—wait, how?”

Frankie just smiled. That smile. Bright, charming, intoxicating. The kind that made you forget your name. Her larger canines peeked out, giving her the look of a wolf who’d learned how to flirt.

She leaned in and kissed Geraldine’s cheek—soft, deliberate, like a signature.

“Check,” she whispered.

Chapter Text

Geraldine’s knees nearly buckled. She felt like a chess pawn that had just been taken. Like a rule had just been rewritten.

The room was pitch-black, lit only by the night’s glow, shadows clung to the corners like the grip of a mother who never stopped rocking her empty cradle, and the air was heavy with the scent of moss, magnolia, and the thrill of uncertainty.

Outside, the southern Louisiana night pressed against the old glass in the arched window, thick with August warmth and the hum of every insect on this planet, as if the earth itself were murmuring prayers in a language only the dead—or the very alive— could understand.

This was Hayley’s room once. The girl who had vanished into silence, leaving behind a rosary tangled in the bedsheets and no final notes.

And Geraldine hadn’t asked for the room, but now, more than ever, she was thankful she had gotten it.

Geraldine stood by the window, her pyjama dress catching the moonlight like a veil of pixie dust. She hadn't believed in magic in so long, not since she was a child and weirdly obsessed with Houdini.

And then Frankie showed up.

She had climbed the tower like a myth reborn, her silhouette framed against the night sky, backpack slung over one shoulder like a pilgrim’s offering.

She had escaped the locked ward with nothing but a flashlight, probably a stolen key, and the kind of reckless hope that only the mad or the truly in love possessed.

And she was both.  

“I had to see you,” she said, voice low, respectful. “I couldn’t sleep knowing you were up here alone.”

Geraldine’s fingers trembled at her sides.

She should have sent her back. Escort her back. Should have remembered the risk of having her here. But alternatively, she reached out and touched Frankie’s wrist, just lightly, as if testing the reality of her presence.

The stars blinked above the fields like old gods winking at a secret they’d sworn never ever told.

Below them, the trees swayed with slow, conspiratorial grace, their branches whispering like parishioners in the back pews. Maybe they were gossiping. Maybe they knew too.

Perhaps they had another ally.

And inside the tower room, the air was steeped in a kind of sacred blue—moonlight poured through the window like spilled ink from a celestial pen, staining everything with its quiet melancholy.

The walls, once a dull gray, now shimmered with the hue of longing. It was the kind of blue that made you ache without knowing why. The kind of blue that made silence feel like a piano.

Geraldine stood barefoot on the cool wooden floor, her camisole fluttering like a ghost trying to remember how to dance.

The wind tugged at her gently, coaxing her toward the small balcony as if the night itself wanted to cradle her.

She had never felt like this before—wanted, not for her healing hands or her prayers, but for the soft, unspoken hope she carried in her chest.

Looked for, not as a service, but as a woman.

She had spent her life folding herself into corners, spine bent just enough to disappear into duty. But then came Frankie—Frankie, whose gaze was a spotlight, narrowing down until it floodlit only her. Frankie, who saw her not as a nun or a nurse, but as a flame flickering behind stained glass.

Geraldine’s tower room, once a place of exile and whispered tragedy, now felt like a stage set for a play no one had dared to write.

And Frankie—Frankie was the scene-stealer, the rogue actress who’d climbed the walls of Saint Agnes like ivy chasing sunlight.

She struggled to get inside, breathless, her backpack slung over one shoulder like a talisman. Her hair was slightly damp with sweat and rebellion, her eyes wide with the kind of hunger that had nothing to do with food.

Frankie had spent months dreaming of Geraldine’s face bathed in firelight—imagining her illuminated by candles and heat, by the flicker of forbidden arson. But now, seeing her soaked in this moonlight, Frankie realized fire had nothing on this.

Geraldine looked like she’d been carved from the night itself—her skin kissed silver, her eyes reflecting constellations. She was the moon’s favorite secret.

Geraldine glanced at the backpack, her voice barely above a whisper. “What’s in there?”

Frankie beamed, stepping further into the room, her presence like a comet crashing through quiet.

“I thought we should have a romantic dinner. Since you don’t have to work tomorrow morning.”

Geraldine had already eaten, but the moment Frankie spoke, her appetite bloomed like a flower that had been waiting for spring. And hunger wasn’t always about food.

“What did you bring?”

Frankie dropped the bag with a thud that echoed like a heartbeat.

“Apples. Sneakers. Crackers. Cheese strings.”

It was a makeshift charcuterie board assembled with the reckless devotion of someone who’d never been taught how to be fancy, but was trying anyway. Geraldine smiled, still wordless.

They sat on the floor, the moonlight their candlelight, the blue room their cathedral. Saint Agnes was no longer a place of penance, but a sanctuary for two souls who had found each other in the quiet.

“Do you want me to get something to drink?”

Frankie’s blush deepened, and she ducked her head, her fingers fidgeting with the backpack’s zipper.

“Actually…” she murmured, almost sheepish, “I brought wine.” She reached inside and pulled out an eggplant-colored bottle, its label recognizable even in the darkness.

Geraldine’s laughter bubbled up again, brighter this time, as she took it from Frankie’s hands.

“Oh, God,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “did you steal the communion wine?”

Frankie grinned, a flash of teeth that was both rebellious and endearing.

“Borrowed,” she corrected, her voice warm with mock indignation. “I’ll return it… eventually.”

Geraldine shook her head, her smile softening as she set the bottle on the floor.

“I can’t drink much tho,” she admitted, her tone shifting, quieter now, more vulnerable. “I took Zoloft this morning. And… Dr. May gave me something else—an anti-inflammatory.” She hesitated, her fingers brushing the edge of her camisole, where the bruises hid, tender and secret. “For the… bruising. He says it’ll help.”

Frankie’s gaze softened, concern flickering in her eyes, but she didn’t press.

Instead, she reached out, her fingers grazing Geraldine’s wrist, a touch as light as a spider’s thread.

“I’m proud of you,” she said, her voice low, earnest. “For talking to him. For taking care of yourself.”

Geraldine’s breath caught, her heart stuttering under the weight of Frankie’s words. She looked away, her cheeks warming, but Frankie’s touch lingered, grounding her.

“Just… mix it with juice, okay?” Geraldine said, her voice barely above a whisper. “One cup. That’s all I can handle.”

Frankie nodded, her eyes never leaving Geraldine’s face.

“I’ve got you,” she said, and the promise in her voice felt like a vow, sacred and unbreakable.

As Frankie poured a small measure of wine into a tin cup, mixing it with a splash of cranberry juice she had gotten from the vending machine, Geraldine sank to the floor, her back against the wall, in the nook between the wardrobe and the nightstand. Frankie joined her, the backpack uniting them, and the air grew thick with the scent of fruit and wine. The hum of insects and crickets as a background sound. 

Frankie picked up an apple slice, its flesh glistening in the fading light, and held it to Geraldine’s lips.

“Open,” she murmured, her voice soft but commanding, her eyes dark with intent. Geraldine parted her lips, her breath hitching as Frankie fed her, the fruit’s sweetness bursting on her tongue.

Frankie’s fingers lingered, brushing Geraldine’s lower lip, and then, slowly, she brought her own fingers to her mouth, licking the juice from them with a languid, yet almost impatient motion. Her eyes never left Geraldine’s, and the air between them crackled, a spark waiting to ignite.

Geraldine’s chest tightened, her pulse racing as she watched Frankie’s tongue trace her fingertips, the gesture slow, intimate, a silent confession of desire.

“You’re so bad,” Geraldine whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of awe and longing.

Frankie’s lips curved into a smile, soft and dangerous.

“Me?” she said, her voice a low purr. “How could I?”

She reached for a cheese stick next, peeling it into delicate strands and feeding them to Geraldine one by one, her fingers grazing Geraldine’s lips with each offering. Geraldine’s breath grew shallow, her body leaning closer, drawn to Frankie like a hummingbird to a carnivorous plant.

The act of being fed felt like warzone about to start, each touch calculated chess move.

“By the way, Doctor May changed my meds,” Frankie admitted suddenly, her voice quieter now, tinged with vulnerability. She paused, her fingers still holding a cracker, her eyes dropping to the floor. “I just can’t take Prozac… It makes me too drowsy. Like it’s pulling me under instead of lifting me up.”

And that was her way of saying: I’m afraid it’ll drive me suicidal. 

Geraldine’s heart ached, her hand reaching out to rest on Frankie’s knee, a tentative touch. 

“So you’re off meds now?,” she questioned, clearly concerned but maintaining her sweet voice. “Frankie…”

“No, I’m not. We’re reducing the dosage slowly,” she explained. “It’s been like three days, and I feel amazing. I’m on Lexapro now.”

For a moment, they simply looked at each other, the weight of their shared brokenness hanging between them like a thread of cobweb that had caught both of their hearts as a next meal.

Frankie cursed the truth that had slipped from her lips—an unwelcome specter in their fragile, enchanted realm.
She leaned in, her breath a whisper of warmth brushing Geraldine’s porcelain skin, desperate to resurrect the shimmer of wonder and banish the creeping melancholy that threatened their dreamlike dalliance.

Improvisation was her only salvation.

After fleeing the cloistered torment of Saint Agnes, scaling ivy-choked stone to reach this sanctuary, and conjuring a banquet fit for queens–or at least she had endeavored– she found herself unraveling the spell with talk of prescriptions and sterile offices.

As if being on Lexapro was a fucking flex. Stupid Frankie.

Geraldine sat like a vision—her camisole a ghostly shroud, her eyes pale as faded fallen leaves, melting seamlessly into the delicate contours of her face. Wisps of ash-burnished hair curled like smoke around her cheeks, doll-like in their symmetry. Her nose, a sylph’s, and brows thick as twilight shadows, framed her gaze with haunting grace. Her lashes, impossibly long, fluttered like a baby raven trying to soar—and Frankie, entranced, found language slipping from her grasp, replaced only by the ache of longing.

“I just wanna be good for you only,” she mumbled, her voice truthfully raw. “Get us out of here, find a job...”

The words hung in the air, heavy with longing, and Geraldine felt her resolve crumble. Frankie reached for the tin cup of wine and juice, taking a slow sip, her lips stained a faint crimson.

She swerved closer, her mouth suspended just above Geraldine’s.

She had to do something to change the mood. Something fun. This was the reason why she was here. To lift her up.

She let a single drop of wine clung to her lower lip, trembling, reflecting the night’s glow like a ruby.

Her breath hitched, her body frozen, her eyes locked on that glistening drop. Frankie tilted her head, letting the wine drip sluggishly onto Geraldine’s chin, a warm, teasing trail that traced the curve of her jaw.

“Catch it,” Frankie whispered, her voice a velvet command yet prankish. She watched Geraldine with a gaze that stitched affection into cruelty. She was so fucking endearing. Those cartoonish eyes dilated with a cocktail of dread, devotion, and the promising soreness to be devoured by approval.

Geraldine’s lips parted, her tongue darting out to chase the droplet, licking it from her own skin before leaning forward, her mouth finding Frankie’s chin, then her lips, in a slow, sensual glide.

Her tongue traced the seam of Frankie’s mouth, tasting the sweet-tart wine, the faint salt of her skin, and a low, trembling moan escaped her, a sound that carried the weight of every night she’d spent punishing herself, every prayer she’d whispered in vain. Frankie answered with a soft groan, her hands finding Geraldine’s face, holding her gently.

The kiss deepened, their tongues overlapping each other in heat and this ruthless agonizing need. The wine’s sweetness mingled with the sanguinary shared hunger. Geraldine’s hands slid to Frankie’s waist, her fingers digging into the soft fabric of her shirt, pulling her closer, as if she could merge their bodies into one.

The world outside faded—the cicadas, the stars, the whispering trees—until there was only this moment, this fire, this flood.

Frankie’s eyes were sealed—tight as a tomb—but she felt the tremble of distant stars grazing her skin, each one a pulse of ancient longing. Humanity was a vessel of latent sorcery, and only in rare, fractured moments did the barrier thin enough to hear its summons. This was one. Time had curdled in the junctions that tied the walls to the ceiling, and the particles around them seemed to flicker out of existence, leaving only the breath Geraldine exhaled—sweet, sacrificial, and singular. Frankie drank it.

Because her kisses would be her lifeline forever.

When they finally parted, breathless, their foreheads pressed together, Geraldine’s eyes were wet, her heart a tangled quagmire of joy and sorrow. 

“You can’t drink much,” Frankie whispered, her voice thick with love, with playfulness. “Only a few drips.”

Geraldine smiled, soft and somewhat grateful.

“You’re crazy,” she said, her voice a vow, a flame that no waterfall could extinguish.

The scattered remnants of the picnic—apple slices, cracker crumbs, a half-eaten Snickers—lay like offerings on the floor, forgotten in the heat of their closeness. Geraldine and Frankie sat entwined, their foreheads still pressed together, breaths intermixing in the charged space between them.

Geraldine’s cheeks were flushed, a soft rose blooming beneath her skin, her sage-green eyes wide and glassy with a mix of desire and nerves.

Nothing could dull the foreshock in her chest, the weight of what was unfolding.

This wasn’t just a stolen moment anymore—this was real, serious, a threshold she’d never crossed. Her fingers brushed the rosary beads at her chest, a reflex, but they felt like a chain now, binding her to a life she was sure she couldn’t return to.

She knew, with a solemn instinct nested deep in her marrow, what was about to unfold.
And though Frankie had been nothing but gentle and gallant—an emblem of quiet valor—her heart now pulsed with the certainty that it was time to yield.
To reciprocate the grace she’d been given, not with riches, but with the only possession untouched by time or theft. For she had never owned anything. Not a keepsake, not a corner of the world. Only herself. And now, she offered that—unadorned, unguarded—as her final act of acceptance.

This was it. This is how the end begins. 

Frankie’s gaze was steady, burning, her hazel eyes tracing Geraldine’s face with a reverence that bordered on adoration.

She sensed the shift, the nervous energy radiating from her, and her own heart festered with the weight of it—Geraldine’s inexperience, the bruises hidden beneath her camisole, marks of self-inflicted penance that Frankie couldn’t bear to worsen. She wanted to touch her, to consume her, but she would move slowly, carefully.

Frankie reached for the tin cup of wine and juice, her movements planned, her lips curling into a soft, teasing smile.

“You’ll only drink like this,” she murmured, her voice low, silky with promise, “so you don’t get drunk.”

She tilted the cup, letting a slow trickle of crimson wine spill onto her own neck, the liquid catching the twilight’s glow as it trailed down her collarbone, pooling briefly before dripping onto the curve of her breasts, staining the thin fabric of her tank top.

Geraldine’s breath hitched, her eyes widening as she watched the wine trace its path, her flush deepening to a scarlet that rivaled the dying sun. Her heart pounded, a mix of yearning and fear, the sight of Frankie’s skin glistening with wine both a temptation and a depravity. 

“Frankie…” she whispered, her voice trembling, caught between awe and panic, as if the act of wanting her was the welcome to a new world.

The beginning of the end. 

Frankie’s smile softened, her eyes never leaving Geraldine’s.

“Oops,” she said, her tone playful but laced with intent, as she set the cup aside. “Guess I made a mess.” Her fingers grasped the hem of her tank top, and with a careful motion, she peeled it off, revealing the expanse of her skin.

She had even more tattoos there.

She had birds in her lower belly and a whole chest piece that said: ‘I am a graveyard’.

Geraldine had noticed it before and thought it ended in the words. She couldn’t quite pay attention to the tattoo because she was shocked by the sight of her breasts.

Nobody had ever shared their nakedness with her. Not willingly. Not in this context.

The wine glistened on her chest, a sacrilegious offering, and she tossed the tank top to the floor, her movements unhurried, inviting Geraldine’s gaze.

Geraldine’s lips unclosed, a soft gasp escaping her, her hands twitching as if unsure where to rest. The view of Frankie’s bare skin, the wine tracing paths she wanted to follow, sent a shiver through her.

She knew what she was supposed to do. But it still felt like trespassing.

“You’re all inked,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion, and the cluelessness of not savvying what to say. 

The weight of her isolation, her low self-esteem, the vows that now seemed so fucking stupid, the bruises on her body, the years spent torturing herself—they all pressed against her, but Frankie’s presence was a flame, lighting through the fog of her guilt.

Frankie repositioned, her movements fluid, feline, as she rose to her knees and straddled Geraldine’s legs, settling gently atop her.

The warmth of her thighs against Geraldine’s sent a jolt through them both, and Geraldine’s hands instinctively reached out, hovering uncertainly before resting lightly on Frankie’s hips.
Frankie leaned in, skimming her cheeks with her breathing before cupping Geraldine’s face with a discipline that belied the fire in her eyes.

“You’re not the only one who enjoys a little pain,” Frankie whispered, her voice raw, aching with devotion. 

Their lips met in a kiss that was both: beginning and end, forethoughtful at first, then enhancing into something lustful, inconsolable.

Frankie’s tongue swept into Geraldine’s mouth, teasing, exploring, coaxing a soft moan from her that vibrated through them both. Geraldine’s hands tightened on Frankie’s hips, her fingers digging into the fabric of her cargo shorts, as if anchoring herself against the tide of desire threatening to coast her away.

Frankie’s whine was low, guttural, a sound that hauled the heaviness of every fire she’d ever set, every spark she’d buried until this moment.

And if this was the finish line, then it had all been worth it. It was all fucking worth it.

When they parted, panting, Frankie’s eyes were dark, molten, her lips swollen and sparkly.

She tilted her head, letting another slow trickle of wine drip from the cup onto her neck, the crimson liquid trailing down her chest, pooling in the hollow between her breasts. 

“Come on, taste me,” she whispered, her voice a command wrapped in yearning, guiding Geraldine’s mouth with a gentle hand at the back of her neck. “This is the blood of Christ, after all.”

Geraldine hesitated, her breath shallow, her eyes flickering with a mix of indebtedness and fear.

This was her first time doing this, a leap into the unknown, and the fear of it—made her tremble. She wanted to satisfy her, not to turn this into ‘sex 101’. 

But Frankie’s stare was solid, a lighthouse in the storm, so she leaned forward, her lips brushing Frankie’s neck, tentative at first, then bolder.

Her tongue traced the path of the wine, savoring the sweet-tart bite of it mingled with the saltiness of Frankie’s skin. A soft moan escaped her, a sound that defiled the silence and sanctified the sin, as if she were drinking from a chalice she’d stolen from an altar.

Frankie’s breath fastened, her hands threading through Geraldine’s hair, piloting her with timorousness, encouraging her to linger.

“That’s it,” she murmured, her voice dense with desire, “just like that.” Geraldine’s lips moved lower, following the wine’s trail, kissing the curve of Frankie’s collarbone, then lower, to the swell of her breast.

Her tongue flicked out, hypercautious, lapping at the wine that glistened there.

The act was slow, sensual, a ritual of yearning and surrender, and Geraldine’s cheeks burned with a flush that spoke of both excitement and shame.

Frankie’s fingers tightened in Geraldine’s hair, a soft groan escaping her as she arched into the touch, her body trembling with restraint.

She was careful, so careful, not to press too hard, not to touch Geraldine where she was wounded or in a way that might feel like persuasion.
Because all her fire, all her longing, would mean nothing if Geraldine wasn’t ready. And she understood that readiness might never come. She had made peace with that possibility.

But she also knew the pulse of Geraldine’s desire, felt it thrumming beneath the surface. And she refused to turn her into something holy—untouchable, distant—when this was a woman who wanted her.

So she had to try, she had to show her how good she could be to her. She poured her coveted touch with delicacy, steering Geraldine’s mouth with a tenderness she didn’t know she harbored. Hoping everything she fostered inside could be sensed wordlessly.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Frankie said, her voice breaking the silence, as she watched Geraldine submit to this moment. “When you are bad for me.”

Geraldine’s eyes lifted, wet and shining, her lips still glistening with wine and desire.

“I want to be bad to you only,” she whispered, echoing her earlier words, but this time they were braided with a fierce, trembling zest.

Frankie’s heart stuttered, and she leaned down, capturing Geraldine’s lips in another kiss, this one softer, a promise sealed in the taste of holy blood.

Her hands slid down Geraldine’s arms, watchful to avoid the places she knew were tender, instead tracing the curve of her shoulders, the warmth of her waist. She swayed Geraldine’s hands to her own chest, letting her feel the heat of her skin, the safe beat of her heart, a rhythm that matched the toad’s song outside.

Geraldine’s fingers pit-a-patted as they explored Frankie’s skin. She started hesitantly then grew braver.

She traced the freckles on Frankie’s shoulders, the curve of her ribs, touching her until it wasn’t a question. Frankie’s breath became ragged, her body arching into Geraldine’s hands, but she held back, letting Geraldine set the pace, letting her explore this new terrain with the wonder and fear of a first time.

And her hands were big, bony yet so delicate, her nails were pinkish and shiny and womanly.
She had such pretty almond shaped nails. 

Yet Frankie’s gaze dropped to the camisole clinging to Geraldine’s body, the thin fabric teasing the outline of her form, and to the grandma-style panties, modest yet somehow erotic in their simplicity, a stark contrast to the firestorm blazing between them.

“Can I undress you?” Frankie asked, her voice rough, cracking with the massiveness of her want.

Geraldine nodded a little too fast, a little too afraid. 

Her hands moved to the hem of Geraldine’s clothes, her fingers brushing the soft skin of her waist, eliciting a shiver from Geraldine that made Frankie’s heart stutter.

Frankie knew it would be scary to her. So she made sure to take a whole minute, while still not making a big deal out of it. 

She lifted it, peeling it away to reveal Geraldine’s body for the first time.
The fabric fell to the floor, a discarded layer, and Frankie’s breath caught, her mind spiraling into a delicious madness.

Geraldine’s body was a poem written in soft curves and delicate angles, an inverted triangle shape that seemed crafted by a divine hand.

Her shoulders were broad, her arms strong from years of labor and prayers, yet her skin was impossibly soft, like silk woven from clouds.

Her breasts, small to normal-sized, pointed downward, their gentle slopes catching the twilight’s glow, the nipples hardening under Frankie’s gaze. Her waist dipped slightly, giving way to pretty hips that flared just enough to hint at curves, her legs  long and unmuscular.

Every inch of her was beautiful, a sacred canvas marred only by the faint, tender bruises hidden lower, a secret Frankie vowed to honor by avoiding.
Frankie felt like she was losing her sanity, her hands itching to touch, to worship, to burn.

She could hear the gears in her brain working with the exact same euphoria that caused her to commit arson.

“You’re… God, you’re so beautiful,” Frankie breathed, her voice drunk with awe, her eyes tracing every line of Geraldine’s form as if saving it to memory.

She reached for the tin cup of wine and juice, her movements deliberate, her lips curling into a wicked, reverent smile.

“My turn,” she murmured, “Unlike you, I can drink a little more.”

Eagerly, surely, she poured another trickle onto Geraldine’s neck, watching as it slid down her throat, over her collarbone, and onto the sweet mounds of her breasts, glistening like a blasphemous anointing.

Geraldine gasped, her body arching instinctively, her moans growing louder, more luscious, as the wine’s cool touch sent shivers through her.

“Frankie…” she whimpered, her hands clutching at Frankie’s hips. The sound of her inconsistent breathing filled the room, raw and unfiltered, echoing off the walls with a fervor that felt like it could wake the saints.

Frankie leaned in, her lips finding Geraldine’s neck, her tongue hounding the wine’s line with a racy, practiced slowness.

She licked the fragrant liquid from Geraldine’s skin, her mouth hot and hungry, each swipe a new broken rule that made Geraldine shake.

“Mmm,” Frankie hummed, the sound vibrating against Geraldine’s throat, her tongue flicking lower, chasing the wine across the curve of her breast.
She lapped at the nipple, teasing it with a slow, swirling motion, pulling a little, drawing a loud, carnal cry from Geraldine. “You taste just as good as you look,” Frankie murmured, her voice muffled against Geraldine’s skin, her hands sliding up her sides.

She was doing God’s work by avoiding grinding against Geraldine’s core.

Geraldine’s moans grew louder, more frantic, each one a plea that threatened to unravel them both.

The sound was too much, too evident, and Frankie’s eyes darted to the rosary at Geraldine’s chest, its beads glinting like dew on a spider’s net.

With a swift, reverent motion, she unhooked it, letting the beads slip through her fingers and fall to the floor, a soft clatter that felt like a rite of passage.

“We don’t need this,” she whispered hoarsely, with both love and blasphemy. Her gaze shifted to the nighttable, where a wooden crucifix stood, its surface worn smooth by years of devotion. She reached for it, pulling it free, and pressed it into Geraldine’s trembling hands.

“Bite this,” she said, her voice low, commanding, yet laced with pleasantness. “Keep those sounds for me.”

She didn’t want to silence her.

In truth, she longed to hear her—unfiltered, feral—screaming like a starlet in some obscene, pornographic movie. But they couldn’t afford that kind of reckoning. The crucifix hadn’t been planned; it was just there, within reach. Better she bite down on something sacred than be gagged or smothered.

Geraldine’s eyes widened, her breath hitching as she took the crucifix, her fingers trembling against the wood.

She brought it to her lips, her teeth sinking into it, the act both erotic and wrong, a sacrilege that made her heart race with excitement and shame.

Geraldine couldn’t quite fathom why this felt so exultant. This sick sacrilege, somehow was unthreading the tapestry of everything that had once shackled her. The symbols, the shame, the inherited dread—they began to unknot.

And she was grateful. Grateful that it was Frankie leading her through this quiet undoing. Grateful for the way she made desire feel less like a descent into ruin and more like a reclamation. Frankie softened the terror, dulled the doom, and in its place offered something tender—something that made Geraldine’s want feel not monstrous, but liberating in its defiance.

Her moans broke down, muffled by the wood, but they were no less hopeless, the sound vibrating through the crucifix as saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth, glistening in the crepuscular light.

The sight of her was mortally wrong, feverishly erotic. Frankie felt her saneness decaying, unable to blink.

How could she miss a second of this wonderland?

Frankie straddled Geraldine’s legs more firmly, her thighs pressing against Geraldine’s soft hips, her hands cupping her face as she leaned in to pick up Geraldine’s drooling with her tongue.

She was sucking on her deeper, hungrier, wondering if she’d need to muzzle herself as well.
Geraldine’s muffled cries vibrated against the crucifix, her body arching into Frankie’s, her hands clutching the fabric of Frankie’s shorts so tightly her knuckles whitened.

Because while Frankie tried to buckle herself up, and only hover above Geraldine’s pelvis, Geraldine kept pulling her in. Addicted, imploring for a fix of friction. 

And when she opened her eyes to stare at Frankie, her face didn’t resemble her sweet Romeo, she looked almost feral, beastly.

She poured another slow trickle of wine onto Geraldine’s chest, watching it pool in the middle of her bosom, then drip lower, teasing the edge of her panties.
Frankie’s tongue followed, racy but regardful, licking God’s blood from Geraldine’s skin with a hunger that edged on madness.

“Ohhh,” she groaned, the sound mingling with Geraldine’s suffocated moans, the air thick with the wet, slick sounds of her tongue against skin.
She sucked gently at Geraldine’s nipple, yanking another heathen cry from her, the crucifix trembling in her mouth as saliva dripped down her chin.

She wanted nothing more than to press herself against Geraldine, to scissor their bodies together in a frenzy of heat and friction, but the thought of hurting her stopped her cold.

Therefore, she leaned back, her eyes locking with Geraldine’s, her voice low and trembling with restraint.

“I know you want me to take your virginity,” she said, her words heavy with longing, her gaze fixed on Geraldine’s face—the crucifix in her mouth, spit flowing, her eyes vitreous, a perfect blend of fear and itch. “And I will, but first… let me give you something.”

Geraldine’s breath quickened—ragged, melodically—a fucking siren call that drove Frankie mental.
Her body, half-clad in nothing but her bottom silk, glistened with the sacramental sheen of wine and spit, a divine desecration. She was weeping with the gore of God himself and the liquid form of her lustfulness.
The crucifix clenched between her teeth was no longer holy—it was a symbol of silence and trust willingly worn. And those glassy eyes—wide, pleading, incandescent with need—stared up at her, demanding everything.

Frankie couldn’t take her here, sprawled on the cold floor like animals. No. She had to lift her, cradle her, take her to the bed like the sovereign she was.

Frankie stood up and sat at the edge of the bed, her legs dangling like a child waiting for a story, her fingers nervously tracing the seams of the mattress. The moonlight did a solid job mellowing the wildness in her eyes. She didn’t speak—just watched Geraldine, calculating her next step.

Geraldine followed purposefully, barefoot and breathless, drawn toward Frankie like she was pulled by a leash.

She climbed onto the bed, straddling her with a quiet urgency, her knees sinking into the mattress like pillars. And for a heartbeat, she pressed herself forward.

Because Geraldine was whining, shrieking for collision. But Frankie couldn’t allow herself to forget the hematomas buried under Geraldine’s pubic hair.  

So she reached up with quievering hands and guided Geraldine down—delicately, clumsily, like someone learning how to hold a butterfly without crushing its wings.

Geraldine lay back, her hair fanned out like brown ink spilled across parchment, her chest rising and falling. Frankie floated above her, eyes wide, drinking her like glimmer through stained glass.

They both laughed—softly, breathy chuckles that broke the tension like cracked bells. It wasn’t nervousness. It was pure joy. The kind that sneaks in when two people realize they’ve stepped into magic.

Frankie inched closer, drawn to Geraldine’s gaze.

Her lashes flickered gently, reminiscent of a fledgling splashing in shallow water. It was then that Frankie caught the shimmer in her eyes—moist, glistening—and silently wished they stemmed from happiness, not unease.

Lowering herself, Frankie let her own lashes graze Geraldine’s skin in a featherlight caress, her body gliding downward. Her mouth hung just above Geraldine’s belly, lips grazing the tender flesh near the waistband, playful and slow.

But before she could move further, Geraldine’s hand shot out, trembling, and reached for the small statue of the Virgin Mary on the nearby nighttable—the very statue she’d once used to bruise herself, to punish her body for the desires she couldn’t suppress.
Heavily, she turned the statue away. As if shielding it from their sin, her fingers shaking as she did so.

Frankie paused, her breath catching at the gesture, her heart aching with the tragedy of it—Geraldine’s guilt, her surrender, her need all laid bare.

“We don’t have to do it if you’re not ready yet,” Frankie whispered, her voice soft, reverent, as she pressed a gentle kiss to Geraldine’s hip, avoiding her pelvis. “We have a whole lifetime.”

Geraldine’s eyes fluttered shut, a tear slipping down her cheek, it was now another drop in the river of wine and saliva.

And she was still biting the crucifix, grateful for its quiet presence.
It kept her from speaking, which was a relief—because if she tried to put her feelings into words, she feared they’d unravel into weeping. And that sorrow might halt everything.
Yet her ardor was unmistakable, deeper than anything she’d ever known. So instead of explaining, she gave a small nod and gently tugged at the waistband of her own panties, lowering them just enough to signal her intent. It wasn’t a demand—it was a question, a silent plea for Frankie’s understanding.

And of course she did.

Frankie’s lips moved lower, her tongue tracing the edge of her panties, teasing but never crossing the line that would cause pain.

The room was a haze of heat and shadow, the air thick with the sounds of their libidinousness—between Geraldine’s muffled cries, Frankie’s soft groans, and the wet slick sounds of Frankie’s constant sucking.

It was dirty, fucking sacrilegious, and yet it was so painfully beautiful.

The wine had dried on both of their skins, but the taste lingered.

Frankie never thought she’d found those grandma-style panties to be so hot, especially when they barely clung to Geraldine’s hips, a last barrier of modesty.

Frankie’s gaze burned through them, her mind a wildfire as she took in the woman she’d dreamed of consuming.

She leaned down, her lips brushing the soft cotton, and let out a low, reverberating whimper, the sound humming against the fabric, sending a jolt of sensation through Geraldine’s core.

“Mmm,” Frankie purred, the vibration teasing, testing, her breath hot through the thin material.

Geraldine’s back coiled, a jerking, almost violent motion, her censored cries crushing against the crucifix, a hail so raw it felt like a prayer torn personally from her soul.

Maybe God had always offered her silence, a refuge in her penance, but now that silence was shattering, replaced by the wet, fervent sounds of Frankie’s devotion.

Frankie’s lips moved to Geraldine’s inner thighs, kissing every inch with a compulsion that could be misjudged as obsession. Perhaps it was.
Her tongue dragged meticulously, leaving no spot untouched, the slick echoes filling the room—slurping, sucking, a symphony of lewdness that matched well with Geraldine’s stifled moans.

She kissed the soft, unmuscular flesh, tracing patterns, a whole trapnest, igniting sparks that made Geraldine writhe.

Her hands gently spread Geraldine’s thighs wider, careful to avoid the bruised areas she knew lay beneath.
Geraldine’s body responded like it was possessed, her hips bucking, her whimpering growing louder, more frantic.

Frankie’s eyes lifted, locking with Geraldine’s, her gaze dark and unwavering, a silent promise of what was to come.

With agonizing slowness, she hooked her fingers into the waistband of Geraldine’s panties and slid them down, revealing the soft, vulnerable expanse of her core. Geraldine’s legs trembled as she spread them wider, her body open, fully exposed.

And those sage green eyes had never looked this jeweled.

Frankie held her gaze, unwavering, for a long, electric moment. And Geraldine, breath caught somewhere between awe and delirium, swore the woman before her had shed every trace of civility. There was something feral in her stillness, something untamed and bestial. Geraldine saw it—not in Frankie’s eyes alone, but in the unruly thicket between her thighs, a wildness that refused to be groomed into decorum.
It was as if the jungle itself had parted just enough to reveal the predator within.

Frankie’s tongue darted out, like a salivating beast, as she let a slow drop of drool fall onto her core.

The liquid glistened as it painted her inner lips, an unthought yet extremely erotic act that made Geraldine’s breath rush. It had never occurred to her that this could happen.

The silence between them was spellbinding, charged with the massiveness of the occasion.
Frankie’s tongue hovered, teasing, promising, while Geraldine moved like she was having an exorcism, her body writhing, her hips jerking upward as if chasing the sensation, the pleasure so intense it felt like a divine punishment.

It was fucking overwhelming, a torrent of intoxicating heat that surged through her, her whole body itched in a way she had never experienced before.

It started at her core and radiated outward, making her skin tingle, her heart race.

The second Frankie’s tongue landed flat on her concupiscence, Geraldine let out a loud cry that not even the weight of her cross could silence. It was a first-time ecstasy that shattered her completely.

And Frankie couldn’t help but rejoice at her own evil, crooked and wicked skill. Because she was aware of how fucking painful this pleasure could strike.

Geraldine wasn’t sure where to place her hands—uncertain, suspended in hesitation. A part of her burned to pull Frankie closer, to press her body with primal, animalistic urgency. But she resisted, afraid of seeming feral, afraid of overwhelming her. Even though, deep down, that was all she wanted.

Her fingers grasped at the air, at nothingness, until they found the rosary that Frankie had removed from her and left on the floor, but she had deposited on the night table, its beads cool and heavy.

In a frantic, almost instinctive motion, she tangled the rosary around her wrists, looping it through the bedframe’s wooden slats, binding herself as if to keep from touching Frankie, as if to preserve some shred of her sanctity. The act was futile, a gesture of repression, and Frankie’s heart pounded with the tragedy of it—she craved Geraldine’s touch, her surrender, more than anything.

Frankie’s tongue moved lower, her hands carefully spreading Geraldine’s inner lips, avoiding the bruised labia with a tenderness that tricked her hunger.

She coated the sensitive flesh with more saliva, her tongue swirling, licking, the wet sounds loud and obscene, intertwining with Geraldine’s insulated cries.

The sensation was a revelation for Geraldine—hot, slick, gratifyingly painful, a pleasure so intense it neared the most delicious pain. Frankie’s tongue held demonic powers, sending waves of ecstasy crashing through her.

It felt like fire, like water.

Maybe heaven was just hell seen through softer eyes. Maybe the difference lay not in the fire, but in how one chose to feel its burn. Perhaps salvation and damnation were two sides of the same coin—flipped by circumstance, caught in the palm of perception. In the end, it was never about the place. It was always about the gaze.

And Frankie’s gaze was the Garden of Eden.

Her body arched higher, her wrists straining against the rosary, the beads digging into her skin as she caved in to the feeling, she sang noisier than before, the crucifix barely containing her.

Frankie’s expertise was undeniable, a master of rhythm and pressure, teasing Geraldine’s clit with precise flicks that drew out the pleasure, building it layer by layer.

Geraldine’s hips began to grind intuitively against Frankie’s face, chasing the sensation with a fervor that felt unquestionably physical.
The room was a haze of sound—the wet slick of Frankie’s tongue against Geraldine’s southern lips, the creak of the bedframe as she writhed and cried.

Frankie lifted her face to check up on her, her mouth glistening, her eyes dark with concern and desire.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, her voice soft, measuring in despite the fire burning through her.

Geraldine’s face was a vision—red, flushed, covered in sweat, the crucifix still clenched in her jaw, drooling at her sides, her eyes wet with tears of mania.

She shook her head, the motion frantic, her moans vibrating against the wood. Frankie’s lips twitched, a mix of amusement and reverence at the sight of Geraldine, her fight against shame, her beauty. 

It was so deeply human, so achingly important.

Frankie crawled up Geraldine’s body, her movements slow, predatory, her eyes never leaving Geraldine’s face.
She hanged above her, and quickly caught sight of the rosary—wrapped tight around Geraldine’s wrist like a self-imposed shackle. Frankie nearly laughed. Of course. So typically Geraldine: surrendering, but only within the confines of her own restraint. Pleasure, yes—but only if it came dressed in guilt. It was maddeningly endearing. Maddeningly erotic.

Their breaths tangled in the charged space between them, and Frankie whispered—“Do you like it, being all tied up?” Her voice was a teasing purr, laced with love and a hint of sorrow for the leftovers of culpability she saw in Geraldine’s eyes.

Geraldine nodded, her eyes brimming with silent tears, her cheeks burning bright on her pale skin. The rosary beads dug into her wrists, only heightening the eroticism of the moment, and Frankie’s heart stung with the need to break through those chains, to feel Geraldine’s hands on her skin.

Frankie had promised herself this would be about Geraldine, about giving her a first time. But the mess of her—tied up, sweating, the crucifix in her mouth—was too much. Her own desire was a wildfire, uncontrollable, and she couldn’t hide it anymore.

She unbuttoned her cargo shorts with quiet intent, sliding them down her hips along with her underwear in one fluid motion.
What she revealed wasn’t polished or performative—it was her, unfiltered. Frankie was even hairier than Geraldine, her body unapologetically wild. There wasn’t much to see in the conventional sense, it was covered in fuzz.

She straddled Geraldine’s hips again, her body a flame against the inundation they had set free.

She couldn’t tell if Geraldine was fully aware of where her fingers were landing—what precise spot she was coaxing, what rhythm she was crafting to stir pleasure. But she hoped Geraldine could sense it, feel the relentless tremors beneath her skin.

Geraldine’s eyes widened, her breath hitching as she watched Frankie, her body shuddering with a mix of awe and need.

Unable to stay passive, she sat up and released herself from the rosary, she reached for the crucifix, pulling it from her own mouth. And in an act of courage, she pressed it to Frankie’s lips, muffling her whimpers, the wood now glistening with their shared saliva as she bit it too.

The scene was desperate, intimate, a shared sacrilege that bound them closer, their moans mingling through the crucifix, a symphony of sin and salvation.

As Frankie’s fingers moved faster, her hips grinding against her hand, Geraldine’s gaze darted to the Virgin Mary statue on the table, its head still turned away from their earlier gesture.

The statue, once a tool of her penance, now stood silent.

Geraldine’s core kept pulsing with the pleasure Frankie had given her. And she was voracious to touch her and be the one making her feel like that. The room was a cathedral of their own making, its walls alive with the sounds of their desire—damp, slick, desperate. 

Frankie’s moans were raw, breaking through the crucifix clenched in her mouth, her eyes wet with tears as she rode her own hand, her hips grinding with a haywired, almost frenzied rhythm.

The live picture of Geraldine—sweating clothless under her—was a vision that pushed her to the verge of insanity, she couldn’t contain herself.

She craved it with a kind of ferocity that didn’t seem human anymore—a hunger not just for closeness, but for something raw, something that stung just enough to remind her that there was a price for this much heaven.

She understood Geraldine’s insistence for punishment—It was as if she needed God himself to descend, belt in hand, to lash her spine and decree her unworthy of this heaven. Not out of cruelty, but as confirmation of her valuelessness beneath greatness.

She wanted to know what was the cost, the nightmare beneath this gift. She longed for Geraldine’s touch to be unflinching, for those slender, bony fingers to claim her with urgency, to fill the hollow spaces inside her with something sharp and undeniable.

To pierce her with that cruel Virgin and bleed her as purple gore as she had tinted herself.

She leaned closer, her breath hot against Geraldine’s face, the crucifix censoring her words as she gasped—“Take care of me, Gee.” Her voice was a sob, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I know you’re a good nurse. You know what to do with hysterical women like me.”

The words jabbed at Geraldine’s heart, a plea that shattered her last defenses.

She couldn’t tremble, locked on Frankie’s tear-streaked face.

Although she counted with medical professionalism, her fingers were timid and doubtful as they landed atop Frankie’s, feeling the slick, rhythmic motion of her self-pleasure.

The contact was intriguing, a spark that sent a jolt through them both, and Geraldine’s breath hitched, as she felt Frankie’s heat, her need, under her touch.

Frankie’s eyes fluttered shut, a low, guttural moan vibrating through the crucifix as Geraldine’s hand learned hers. But Geraldine wasn’t done with just learning.

With a sudden, fierce determination, she pulled Frankie’s hand away, feeling the slickness, impressed by how much fluid could come out of her. It was dripping down Frankie’s inner thighs.

It was fucking racy. 

Her own lips closed around the crucifix once more, biting down hard as she took control.

Her long, bony fingers, strong from years of labor and prayer, slid to Frankie’s core, parting her with a careful, dauntless touch. She used her thumb to circle the spot where she hoped it felt good, applying what she had been taught.

The motions were rapid, intense, a little rough, but it was better than Frankie had dreamed of. Her hips bucked as she rode Geraldine’s hand with a fervor that matched her own desperation.

Geraldine’s inexperience didn’t matter; Frankie gently guided her hand, positioning it with care and moving together so Geraldine’s touch found exactly the spot that sent shivers through her.

Frankie gasped, her body arching as Geraldine’s fingers penetrated her, deep and steady, the rhythm both tender and relentless.

The sensation was overwhelming, a flood of heat and intensity that made her tremble, her smaller breasts bounced slightly with each thrust of her hips.

She reached out, her free hand finding Geraldine’s breast, her fingers tracing the soft, downward curve, teasing the nipple with a gentle pinch that drew a muffled cry from Geraldine’s lips. Frankie’s other hand slid to Geraldine’s ass, gripping the soft, pretty curve of her hip, pulling herself closer, their bodies pressed so tightly it felt like they could merge into one.

Geraldine’s moans were a symphony of desperation, vibrating against the crucifix, saliva dripping down her chin as she worked her fingers inside Frankie, her thumb circling with a precision she didn’t know she possessed.

But Frankie, ever careful, ever devoted, mirrored her touch, her fingers sliding to Geraldine’s core starting from the clit, avoiding the bruised labia with a tenderness that made Geraldine’s heart ache. And Geraldine was so wet. So fucking wet.

It felt unfair not to touch her.

Frankie lifted her face, her eyes locking onto Geraldine’s, where the crucifix still shook between her lips. With a gentle but firm touch, Frankie reached up, her fingers brushing Geraldine’s cheek as she eased the crucifix from their mouths, letting it fall softly onto the bed.

“No more of that,” she whispered, her voice thick with desire, her gaze burning with intensity. She guided Geraldine’s hands away from her own body, pinning them gallantly to the sheets.

She leaned forward, pressing her lips to Geraldine’s sweat-slicked collarbone, tasting the salt of her skin.

With a tender but commanding touch, she eased Geraldine down onto the bed, her body sinking into the soft mattress. Frankie’s hands roamed, hungry yet reverent, as she positioned herself between Geraldine’s thighs.

“Do you want me to touch you with my fingers?” Frankie asked her, almost silently.

 She bobbed her head in approval, as she grabbed her by the back of her neck. “But please don’t go, I need to see your face.”

Geraldine’s body was a vision—a shuddering canvas of glowing skin, her inverted triangle form shimmering with sweat, her downward-pointing breasts heaving with each ragged breath.

Her hips quivered, her sage-green eyes, now half-lidded and brimming with tears of rawness and honesty. Frankie’s lips found her left ear, kissing and nipping with a fervor that sent shivers through Geraldine’s core. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, Frankie’s mouth descended, tasting her, exploring her with a devotion that felt like worship.

Her fingers followed, sliding with expert precision, teasing Geraldine’s inner lips while carefully avoiding the bruised labia with a delicateness that made Geraldine’s heart ache.

Frankie’s touch was both kind and relentless, her fingers curling and stroking with a frantic rhythm, building a fire that threatened to consume them both. Geraldine’s moans grew louder, more desperate, vibrating through the air as her body arched off the bed, her wrists straining against Frankie’s gentle hold.

The pleasure was a tidal wave, a divine reckoning that started in Geraldine’s core and spread outward, igniting every nerve, every inch of her skin.

It was her first time, and the sensation was unlike anything she’d ever imagined—a white-hot surge, a flood of ecstasy that felt like the end of the world, like the end of her own body.

Her thighs jolted, her breath came in ragged gasps, and her eyes fluttered shut, tears spilling down her flushed scarlet cheeks.

As the pleasure built to a crescendo, Geraldine’s body tensed, her teeth grazing Frankie’s shoulder before sinking in, a primal mark of possession.

Frankie understood—Geraldine didn’t truly want to look at her. What she needed was shelter, a shield from the gaze she feared most. As if Frankie’s body, hovering above her, could eclipse the eyes of God himself.

Not out of shame, but out of a desperate need to feel safe within her own libido.

The climax hit like a lightning strike, a searing, pulsing wave that tore through her with mind-shattering force. Her cry was raw, carnal, echoing through Frankie’s spine as her body convulsed, waves of heat and electricity radiating from her core.

Frankie felt like she was being branded forever. Those teeth wouldn’t let her go.

Her thighs clamped around Frankie’s hands, her hips bucking uncontrollably as the orgasm ripped through her, each pulse a revelation, a shattering of every fear, every guilt she’d been taught to carry.

Her first orgasm was life-changing, a moment of pure, unadulterated liberation.

It felt like the universe itself had cracked open, spilling light into every shadowed corner of her twilit soul.

Her heart raced, her breath hitched, and her body glowed with a warmth that lingered long after the waves subsided. And she felt shocked to hear her own desperate claims to this moment, this feeling, this truth that she was alive, desired, and free. As the sensation slowly ebbed, Geraldine lay wobbling, her skin still tingling, her mind reeling from the intensity of it all.

The fear lingered like a faint shadow, but it was drowned out by the radiant afterglow of her awakening.

Frankie took Geraldine’s hand, who was fixed on her back, completely exhausted.

And evil possessed her, this drug she’d been craving for months, finally served on a silver plate.

“Can I use your hand?” she questioned.

Geraldine stared at her, joyous, and simply nodded. 

Geraldine’s fingers barely moved, but Frankie rode them desperately, pushing herself to the edge. She muffled her own sounds against the pillows until her orgasm hit her too.

Geraldine had collapsed onto her back, her chest was still heaving, a tired smile spreading across her face.

For the first time to Frankie, she looked absolutely holy—not the austere sanctity of a nun, but something vibrant, full, alive.

Her skin glowed in the twilight, her eyes shimmering with awe and contentment, her body soft and curvy, strong arms relaxed, her pretty hips didn’t tremble anymore.

She looked so healthy, so whole.

Frankie leaned down, capturing Geraldine’s lips in a slow, sensual kiss, sucking gently on her bottom lip, earning a soft, another radiant smile from her.

The kiss was tender, a promise sealed in the afterglow, their breaths mingling like a shared prayer. Frankie pulled back, her lips curving into a soundless laugh, her eyes sparkling with love and mischief.

“How was it?” Frankie asked, her voice a soft curl of smoke—teasing, reverent, like moss whispering secrets to stone.

Geraldine’s smile unfurled slowly, shining with a kind of sacred awe, as if she’d been carved into the stained-glass window of some forgotten chapel. Her cheeks flushed with warmth, her breath still uneven, like wind rustling through a forest floor thick with fallen leaves and hidden spores.

“Amazing,” she murmured, her voice syrupy with wonder, each word dripping like sap from a wounded tree. “Thank you,” she added, her tone dropping into a husky hush, her eyes gleaming with a fervor that felt both raw and holy—like a mineral exposed to moonlight for the first time.

Frankie’s heart clenched, not like a fist, but like a vine curling tighter around a branch. She leaned in, her lips grazing Geraldine’s ear, her breath warm and earthy, like the inside of a hollow log.

“Thank you for trusting me,” she whispered, her voice firm but tender.

Geraldine’s gaze flickered—an entire ecosystem of emotion blooming behind her eyes. Her hand reached up, fingers trembling slightly, and cupped Frankie’s face. Her thumb traced the curve of her cheek, slow and reverent, as if mapping the rings of an ancient tree. Her body still hummed with the aftershock of pleasure, like a mushroom pulsing in the dark after a storm.

Frankie grinned, a wicked, loving twist of her lips, and reached for the remnants of their impromptu feast. She picked up a Snickers bar from the floor, its wrapper crinkling like dry leaves underfoot. She peeled it open slowly, the sound loud in the hush of the room, and broke off a piece, holding it to Geraldine’s mouth.

“We didn’t even get to eat,” she teased, her voice light, laced with warmth and mischief. “You distracted me with all your… holiness.”

Geraldine laughed—a soft, bubbling sound, like spring water gurgling on a fountain.

She took the chocolate, her lips brushing Frankie’s fingers as she ate, the gesture intimate, playful, almost ritualistic. Frankie popped a piece into her own mouth, chewing slowly, her gaze never leaving Geraldine’s face.

“You’re gonna kill me, looking like that,” she said, half-joking, half-devotional, as she leaned down to kiss her again, tasting chocolate and wine and remains of fermented longing.

The aftercare was a slow, gentle descent from the fevered heights.

Frankie slid down Geraldine’s body, her lips trailing kisses, spores drifting through air—along her stomach, her hips, her inner thighs—avoiding the bruised places.

“Let me take care of you,” she murmured, her voice a soft promise, her hands parting Geraldine’s legs with reverence. She leaned in, desperate to flick through her folds but staying outside, avoiding the labia with a care that spoke of devotion. The sensation was gentler now, like dew collecting on petals, drawing soft, contented moans from Geraldine, whose body melted into the mattress.

Her fingers threaded through Frankie’s hair, no longer bound by the rosary, her grip light but sure, like roots finding their way in the soil.

“How’s this feel?” Frankie asked, lifting her head slightly, her lips glistening, her eyes searching Geraldine’s face for any shadow of discomfort.

Geraldine’s smile was radiant, her eyes half-lidded, her voice thick with emotion. “Like… like you love me.”

Frankie’s chest swelled, her heart blooming, and she returned to her task, her tongue moving with slow, deliberate strokes, coaxing soft gasps from Geraldine. The pleasure was no longer a storm—it was a tide, a gentle flood that carried them both.

“That’s because I do.”

They spoke between kisses, their voices soft, intimate, like corpses trading secrets underground. “You’re so beautiful, Gee,” Frankie murmured against her skin, her breath warm and teasing. “I could do this forever.”

Geraldine laughed, shy and sweet, like a breeze rustling through a grove of sleeping trees.

“You’d get tired,” she teased, her voice lighter now, the weight of her guilt dissolving in the warmth of Frankie’s care.

“Never,” Frankie replied, fierce and certain, pressing a kiss to Geraldine’s thigh. “Not of you.”

They lay together afterward, tangled in sheets like vines in a thicket.

The rosary lay discarded, the crucifix forgotten, the Virgin Mary statue still turned away, as if she too had chosen not to witness. Frankie pulled Geraldine close, their bodies pressed together, warm and soft. She kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.

Geraldine nestled into her, her head resting on Frankie’s chest, her smile glowing in the dim light like bioluminescent mushrooms in a cave. The tower room was their sanctuary, its walls soaked in the echoes of their bond—a fire and a flood that had remade them both.

“We need to shower,” Frankie said, her voice breaking the spell. “I can’t go back to the facility reeking of wine and sex.”

Geraldine chuckled silently, momentarily forgetting she was a nun in a mental retreat.

“‘Reeking of wine and sex’ sounds like a Guns ‘N Roses song,” she said.

Frankie snorted. “True. I didn’t know you liked Guns ‘N Roses.”

“I hate Axl Rose, though. I’m more of a Kurt girl,” she admitted. “But I love Iron Maiden.”

“Everything you’re saying is turning me on.”

Geraldine lifted her head, meeting Frankie’s chin. “I thought sex between women was different, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you were gonna kiss me… with your other lips.”

Frankie huffed a silent laugh. “Look at her, she’s not satisfied…”

“That’s not what I said—”

“She wants to scissor already. So fucking greedy,” Frankie cracked up, mockingly, as she kissed Geraldine’s temple. “Greed, lust—they’re all capital sins, Sister.”

Geraldine rolled her eyes and bit her lip. “Oh, shut up.”

Eventually, Frankie untangled herself, her movements slow and careful, as if not to break the delicate spell between them. She slid off the bed, gathering the scattered remnants of their passion—the discarded crucifix, the cheesestrings wraps, and the half-empty bottle of communion wine that had spilled across their skin in their fervor. She wiped the bottle with the edge of the sheet, preparing to tuck it into her backpack.

Geraldine propped herself up on her elbows, her hair a wild halo around her flushed face.

“Wait,” she said softly, her voice carrying a practical edge despite the tenderness in her eyes. “Don’t take it. If you get caught with that, you’ll be in serious trouble. Let me keep it in my wardrobe. I’ll return it to the sacristy tomorrow.”

Frankie paused, a playful smirk tugging at her lips.

“You sure? You’re not gonna drink it in secret, are you, Sister?”

Geraldine laughed, a soft, melodic sound that made Frankie’s heart flutter.

“I think we’ve sinned enough for one night,” she teased, sliding off the bed to take the bottle from Frankie’s hands. She padded across the room, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor, and tucked the bottle behind a stack of neatly folded habits in her wardrobe. “Safe and sound,” she said, turning back with a shy smile.

Frankie crossed the room in two strides, wrapping her arms around Geraldine’s waist from behind, pressing a kiss to the nape of her neck.

“You’re too good for me,” she murmured, her breath warm against Geraldine’s skin. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up. We’re sticky with wine and… everything else.”

Geraldine blushed but nodded, leading Frankie by the hand to the small bathroom attached to her room.

The space was modest, with a single overhead light casting a soft, golden glow over the tiled walls. The shower was narrow, barely big enough for two, but that only made it feel more intimate. Geraldine turned on the water, testing the temperature with her fingers until it was warm and inviting. Steam began to rise, curling around them like a gentle embrace.

They stepped into the shower together, the warm water cascading over their bodies, washing away the traces of communion wine that had stained their skin in crimson streaks.

Frankie reached for the soap, lathering it between her hands before gently running them over Geraldine’s shoulders, her touch chasteful and loving. Geraldine sighed, leaning into the sensation, her eyes fluttering closed as Frankie’s fingers glided over her arms, her back, washing away the remnants of their earlier passion with care.

“You’re beautiful,” Frankie whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of the water. She turned Geraldine to face her, cupping her face and brushing a damp strand of hair from her cheek. Geraldine’s eyes sparkled, her lips parting in a shy smile as she reached for the soap in return, her hands trembling slightly as she began to wash Frankie’s chest, her fingers tracing the curve of her collarbone with a tenderness that felt like a vow.

“You’re beautiful too.” Geraldine mumbled nearly soundlessly. Just like that first time, back when she confessed she loved her.  

They moved in a quiet rhythm, washing each other with slow, deliberate care, their touches soft but charged with the intimacy of their shared secret.

The water mingled with their laughter, soft giggles escaping as they playfully flicked droplets at each other, the tension of the night melting into something pure and sweet. Geraldine leaned forward, resting her forehead against Frankie’s, their breaths lost in the steam.

“I’ve never felt this… close to anyone,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper.

Frankie’s heart swelled, and she pressed a chaste kiss to Geraldine’s lips, the water running in rivulets between them.

The moment was perfect, a cocoon of warmth and love—until a sharp knock on the door shattered the quiet.

Both froze, their eyes widening as Sister Patricia’s anxious voice called out from the other side.

“Geraldine? Are you alright in there?”

Frankie’s lips parted in a silent gasp, her eyes flashing with a mix of fear and scarcely suppressed laughter.

Geraldine clapped a hand over Frankie’s mouth, her own lips twitching as she fought back a giggle.

The water continued to pour, masking their stifled breaths as they pressed closer together in the cramped shower, trying not to make a sound.

“Geraldine?” Sister Patricia’s voice grew more insistent, laced with concern. “I heard you crying earlier, and… it sounded like you were moving furniture or something! Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you feeling alone?”

Geraldine’s eyes sparkled with mischief as she met Frankie’s gaze, both of them catching the unintended double meaning in Patricia’s words. The “crying” and “moving furniture” had been anything but—sinful lust and the creak of the bed as they lost themselves in each other.

Frankie’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, and Geraldine pressed her hand harder against Frankie’s mouth, her own cheeks flushing as she struggled to keep her composure.

“I’m fine, Sister!” Geraldine called out, her voice steady despite the grin tugging at her lips. “Just… taking a shower. I was, um, praying earlier, and it got a bit emotional. No need to worry!”

There was a pause, and then Patricia’s voice softened, still tinged with concern.

“Oh, alright, dear. Still, this isn’t an appropriate time to shower,” she expressed. “I just wanted to check. You know you can come to me if you’re feeling… lonely. We’re all here for you.”

Frankie’s eyes crinkled with amusement, and Geraldine bit her lip to stifle a laugh, her hand still covering Frankie’s mouth.

“Thank you, Sister,” Geraldine replied, her voice warm but laced with barely concealed humor. “I’m not alone. I promise.”

As Patricia’s footsteps retreated, Frankie let out a muffled snort, and Geraldine finally released her, both of them dissolving into quiet laughter, their bodies shaking as they clung to each other under the warm spray.

“Please don’t ever cum to her.” Frankie whispered, her voice enticed with mirth.

Geraldine swatted her playfully, her laughter bubbling up as she pulled Frankie close again, their lips meeting in a quick, sweet kiss.

The interruption had only deepened their connection, the shared secret making the moment feel even more precious.

“I won’t.” 

Chapter Text

hi friends, clits, and sexy people💜 as some of you know, i’ve been taking care of my grandfather for the past four months, who had pancreatic cancer. he passed away today, and i’ll be at the funeral all day.

i’m so, so sorry to say there won’t be a new chapter this week.

i thought a lot about whether to post anyway because you guys have been nothing but incredible and supportive, and i really do feel like i’ve made friends here. but i barely wrote this week (not even 1k words—i usually write about 2k a day so i can polish and edit by the end of the week), and honestly, if i tried to rush a chapter right now, it would feel disingenuous. you’d be able to tell my heart wasn’t in it.

instead, i want to share a little painting i made of our girl geraldine💜 i hope you enjoy it and can forgive me for missing this week’s update.

thank you so much for your understanding and kindness. i’ve been really active on tumblr lately (@pussyphoric) if you want to see more of my art (or whatever you’d call it, lol).

love you all from the bottom of my heart,

pussy.

https://www.deviantart.com/pussyphoric/art/Walpurgis-1241442265

(yeah i put the link bc idk why the image won't show. also exclusively created a devianart just to post this, it's gonna be on tumblr too tho!) 

Chapter Text

Geraldine sat in the hush that followed Frankie’s departure, the silence thick as velvet and trembling with memory.

Her lips still tingled, haunted by the ghost of every kiss—so many, too many, and yet never enough. She had never been kissed like that before.

Not with such urgency, such reverence, as if each touch of Frankie’s mouth had been a spell cast to bind her soul. It was dizzying, forbidden and ritualistic.
They had shared a towel, their damp hair tangled like ivy, fingers brushing in quiet communion. Frankie had laughed more than once, quiet and breathless, and Geraldine had felt it echo in her ribs like a song she needed to hear again.

She didn’t want her to leave. The thought of Frankie slipping back into the sterile corridors of the facility, of her climbing down the rusted ladder and vanishing into the world below, made Geraldine’s chest pain with a grief too large for her fragile stitched up heart

This room—her own room—now felt like a tomb, distant and cold, a place that no longer belonged to the dead girl, but it wasn’t hers either.

Everything had changed.

The air itself seemed different, charged with something electric and anciently dooming. The walls of Saint Agnes, once immutable, now pulsed with secrets.

Geraldine could feel it in her bones: the shift, the unraveling. There was no going back. The apple had been bitten, and Sister Gabrielle’s warning rang like a bell in her ears. She had tasted what couldn’t be untasted.

She had devoured it. And now she was starving for more.

She was addicted—not to the fruit, but to the hand that had offered it.

To Frankie, with her wild eyes and strong fingers, her laughter that chirped like a bird in the summer mornings. Geraldine was drunk on her presence, on the way she made the world shimmer and tilt.

She was a fever, a haunting.

And as the shadows lengthened across the stone floor, Geraldine curled into herself, clutching the towel that still smelled faintly of Frankie’s skin. She whispered her name like a prayer, like a spell, like a secret she could never unlearn.

Geraldine felt trapped in the high turret of her existence, watching her Romeo vanish across the moonlit fields—her silhouette swallowed by the night, slipping back through the cracks of reality. She pressed her forehead to the cold glass, wishing for some enchanted device to bridge the distance. A cellphone, perhaps. Or a mirror that whispered secrets. Anything to keep the thread between them taut.

Her body still hummed with the memory of Frankie’s touch, each kiss etched like a rune into her skin.

She hugged herself, a smile flickering across her lips as she drifted back to the bed, the sheets still warm from their shared presence. It was absurd. It was divine.

She had been kissed—again and again—until her breath had turned to mist and her thoughts to ash. And Frankie had called her beautiful. Not once. Not twice. But three times. As if saying it aloud could make it real.

Geraldine couldn’t comprehend it.

Not after being seen—truly seen. Naked, vulnerable, her body no longer a secret folded beneath layers of linen and silence. She had always dressed quickly after showers, avoiding her reflection’s judgment.

That small, cracked glass in the bathroom had never been kind.

But now, wrapped in the sheets like a relic in a reliquary, she reached for a clean pair of panties, laughing softly to herself. The absurdity of their conversations, the tenderness, the hunger—it all felt like a dream sealed together with candle wax and a parchment envelope.

She remembered the moment, vivid and trembling, like a pressed flower in her mind.

“What?” Geraldine had asked, towel in hand, gently blotting the damp strands of Frankie’s hair.

Frankie had looked up, eyes wide and astounded, as if Geraldine were something holy. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured, voice thick with awe.

Geraldine’s cheeks had flushed, her gaze dropping to the floor. “You’ve said that already,” she whispered, fingers tightening around the towel.

“You don’t like it?” Frankie’s voice was soft, almost afraid.

“No, it’s not that,” Geraldine replied, her voice barely audible. “I’m just not used to it, I guess.”

Frankie had reached out then, brushing a strand of hair from Geraldine’s face, her fingers trembling. “Then I’ll say it until you believe it.”

And now, alone in the tower, Geraldine clung to those words like a talisman. The world outside was shifting, crumbling, and she was no longer the same girl who had prayed beneath the gaze of Sister Gabrielle.

She had bitten the apple. She had tasted the forbidden. And now she was addicted—she wanted to drink her in.

She lay back against the pillows, the sheets tangled around her legs like vines, and whispered into the dark:

“Say it again.”

Frankie sat on the edge of the bed, her bare skin pale as porcelain left out in moonlight—fragile, cold, and somewhat smooth. The air around her felt thick, like the hush inside a cathedral after the last hymn has died.
Geraldine moved instinctively, drawn to her like a beetle to a dying candle. She settled beside her, but Frankie, with the gentle authority of someone who knew how to guide a ghost back into its body, took Geraldine’s hand and hips and turned her—so that she straddled her, facing her directly, like a statue brought to life.

Their bodies fit together with the ease of old rites, like dried flowers pressed between the pages of a dusty, hidden book—delicate, preserved, and aching with memory.

“You’re beautiful, Gee,” Frankie said, her voice barely more than breath, as if the words themselves might shatter if spoken too loudly.

Geraldine’s cheeks flushed, a bloom of color on otherwise pale skin. “I like it when you call me ‘Gee’,” she whispered, the syllables curling like smoke.

“I like it when you call at all,” Frankie replied, her eyes searching Geraldine’s face with deference. “Even when you call me ‘Frances’.”

“That’s your name,” Geraldine said, her fingers combing through Frankie’s damp hair with the precision of a mad scientist dissecting a miracle. She studied her face as if it were a rare ceramic—cracked in places, glazed with sorrow, but still devastatingly beautiful.

Because Frankie was beautiful. Undeniably so. Unlike herself—or at least unlike what the world had always told her—Frankie was conventionally beautiful.

She had those soft, pretty eyes framed by thin brows, a tiny nose, lips just full enough to seem perpetually on the verge of a smile. Her jawline was delicate yet sharp, like something carved with care. Her frame was slight, fragile, shorter than Geraldine’s, and even when her skin was inked with tattoos, she still looked like a fairy—too dainty, too otherworldly. Geraldine could never understand what it was about her that had drawn Frankie in.

At first, she told herself it was nothing more than the thrill of seducing a nun. Then she blamed the loneliness, or the pills, or the way desperation makes people cling to whatever warmth they can find.

But now, it was harder to justify. Harder to explain why Frankie kept looking at her that way.

She was in a mental institution, after all. Maybe that was it—the strangeness of her mind, the way she thought sideways, outside the neat little boxes the world demanded. Maybe Frankie was fascinated by that. Or maybe it was simpler: maybe Geraldine had given her something to chase, a distraction in this godforsaken place, a spark in the endless gray.

“But I have so many nicknames,” Frankie murmured, smiling with a kind of tragic joy. “Frankie, Frank, Frankenstein…”

“They used to call me ‘Frankenstein’ too,” Geraldine said, her voice trembling with the weight of old wounds.

“Really?!” Frankie’s eyes lit up, a flicker of excitement in the gloom. “That’s so cool, we’re like connected.”

“Back in high school,” Geraldine admitted, her smile a broken thing, stitched together with laughter and grief. “Because apparently I looked like a monster.”

“No way,” Frankie said, her voice fiercely incredulous and soft all at once.

It made no sense. How could Geraldine be seen as such.

Geraldine shrugged, her shoulders folding inward like wings too tired to fly. “But I never cared about beauty, it’s like some people are just born with it, and the rest of us are left to watch.”

Frankie reached up, her fingers tracing the curve of Geraldine’s jaw like she was made out of clay. “How could you even say that?,” she whispered. “The more I stare at you, the prettier you look.”

“That’s not possible,” Geraldine snorted, softly. Skeptical of these showcases of tenderness and new found affection. “I always look the same.”

Frankie kissed her lips carefully, then lowered her mouth to the place where Geraldine’s heart beat beneath her ribs. She lingered there, pressing her lips to the pulse as if she could drink it in.

“You don’t,” she murmured against her skin. “Every second, we’re changing. I’m just glad that I get to be the one who notices.”

And Geraldine had never seen the ocean, but she imagined it as something vast and unknowable like this, like love or death. Now, sitting naked and trembling in the dim light, she felt like she understood it.

The pull, the salt, the surrender.

She pictured herself and Frankie living by a beach, though not the kind drenched in golden light and laughter.

No—hers was a shoreline of iron skies and restless tides, a place where the sea was not for bathing but for brooding. Perhaps Ireland, or some other lonely coast where the wind carried the taste of salt and strength, and the sand was cold enough to sting bare feet.

She imagined them there, wrapped in wool blankets, their bodies pressed close for warmth, the horizon stretching out like an endless cathedral nave. Geraldine would read The Return of the King aloud, her voice trembling against the roar of the waves, and Frankie would pretend to listen—until her gaze drifted, her focus dissolving into the pull of Geraldine’s mouth, her desire to kiss her more powerful than any story.

It was a vision too fragile to speak aloud, too sacred to risk breaking with sound. So instead, Geraldine let it dissolve into silence, and all she could manage was a low, timid:

“Yeah.”

The word hung between them, small and shy. It was a moment drawn out so unbearably it felt like the final petal clinging to the hollow heart of a flower already stripped bare. Because Frankie had stripped her bare. That’s what she did. What she was good at. 

And though the memory of her past no longer hurt her in the same way, it still pressed against her skull like the aftermath of a chronic headache would never fully disappear.

“I’ve been this tall since I was a freshman,” she added at last, her voice breaking the spell, concealing an actual laugh beneath the words. The laugh was brittle, like porcelain struck by a fingernail—fragile, ringing, and almost ready to shatter.

Frankie looked at her then, and Geraldine felt as though she were being studied the way one might study a dried flower pressed between pages: delicate, preserved, yet still carrying the faintest trace of dew.

She wondered if Frankie saw her as something already fading, or as something eternal.

“Don’t you have a picture?” Frankie asked, her voice low, lovingly, as though the question itself were oaths.

Geraldine shook her head, a small denial, her hair falling like a curtain across her face. “Probably back at my parents’ house.” The words tasted strange on her tongue, like dust stirred from a locked trunk.

To speak of her parents, of her youth, felt like recalling a life that belonged to someone else—distant, irrelevant, and suddenly not as tragic as it once had seemed. It was as though the grief had been embalmed, preserved in glass, and now she could look at it without flinching.

“I want your picture in a heart locket,” Frankie murmured, her lips curving into a smile that was both tender and desperate. She twirled the ends of Geraldine’s fine, silken hair between her fingers, as if weaving a spell. “Like they do in the movies. Something I can keep close, pressed against my chest, so you’re always with me.”

Geraldine laughed softly, though the sound was brittle, shiny ceramics struck too sharply.

“Or you could get it tattooed,” she teased, her voice carrying the faintest tremor of disbelief, as though daring Frankie to prove her wrong.

“Deal,” Frankie said, and though she tried to let the word fall lightly, like a joke tossed into the air, it landed heavy between them. Her smile faltered, her eyes darkened, and in that moment she knew—somewhere deep in the marrow of her bones—that it was not a jest but a vow.

They were chased by silence. Geraldine’s heart beat against Frankie’s hand, steady and tenuous. Frankie pressed her lips to it as though sealing the promise with blood.

And though she could not know it then, that vow would become her deathrow. Not a prison of iron bars, but of devotion—an execution chamber built from longing, from the unbearable weight of loving someone so completely that the world itself would conspire to tear them apart.

For love, in its most twisted form, is always a sentence. And Frankie had just signed hers.

As Frankie descended from the tower, the night air embraced her like a shroud, damp, heavy, as though the world itself wished to press its weight upon her shoulders.

She kept whispering to herself that everything had gone well, that she should not torment her mind with thoughts of tomorrow. Yet her heart betrayed her, beating with a slow, funereal rhythm that carried with it the dread of consequence.

The stone steps beneath her feet seemed to echo her guilt, each footfall a tolling bell. She tried to convince herself that what had happened was nothing more than love—pure, desperate, inevitable.

But the truth gnawed at her: she had made a nun commit sacrilege. She had coaxed Geraldine into a sin that could not be undone, had drawn her across a threshold from which there was no return.

She had deflowered her, more than that—she had marked her, branded her soul with a kiss that would never wash away. Geraldine’s lips had touched no one else’s, and now they belonged to Frankie alone.

The thought was intoxicating, but also terrifying.

Had she ruined her? Had she taken something fragile and holy and twisted it into something profane? Was Geraldine’s devotion truly love, or merely the fever-dream of a girl starved of affection, imprisoned by isolation, low self-esteem, and the suffocating walls of Saint Agnes? Frankie’s chest tightened as she second-guessed every touch, every whispered word.

Geraldine had not spoken of running away with her since Hayley’s death.

That silence haunted Frankie more than any Christmas ghost. Perhaps the suicide had paralyzed her, frozen her in place like a frog pinned beneath biology class. Perhaps it had opened her eyes to the futility of escape, to the cruelty of hope. Frankie could not help but feel the selfishness of her own longing—because Hayley’s death was not about Geraldine, nor about her.

It was about Hayley, and the abyss that had swallowed her whole. And yet, Geraldine’s grief had become another chain binding her to the convent, another reason to stay behind.

Frankie’s thoughts twisted darker still. What if she herself was no better than the convent, no better than the walls that caged Geraldine? What if she had simply replaced one prison with another—her touch, her kisses, her promises becoming shackles disguised as tenderness?

The night wind moaned through the trees, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and decay. Frankie paused, clutching the stone balustrade, her breath clouding in the cold. She thought of Geraldine’s face, pale and luminous in the candle of moonlight, her eyes wide with wonder and the torture that came with loving her.

She thought of the way her body had trembled beneath her touch, not entirely from desire, but from fear—fear of the unknown, fear of herself.

And Frankie realized, with a chill that sank into her bones, that she had not only taken Geraldine’s innocence. She had entwined their fates. She had bound them together in a way that could not be undone, a way that would demand a price.

No treasure may be taken without the world exacting its payment in return.

The tower loomed above her now, black against the sky, a silent witness to their transgression.

It was 2 a.m., the witching hour when the world held its breath, and Frankie moved through the darkness like a ghost, her sneakers silent on the dew-slick grass, her heart a raw pulse in her throat.

She could not shake the feeling that the convent tower itself was watching her, its ancient stones remembering every forbidden touch, every whispered vow she’d shared with Geraldine in the candlelit chamber above. She had not merely loved Geraldine—she had doomed her. The weight of that truth clung to her like damp rot, her bleached hair sticking to her sweat-damp neck as she slipped from the tower’s ladder, its iron rungs cold as a corpse’s grip.

The nurses would check her room soon, their rounds as predictable as a death knell, and if they found her bed empty, the strike would be more than a mark—it’d be a strike, maybe extra sessions with Doctor May, or worse: punishments. Praying hours, rosary reads, isolation.

The facility impended ahead, its windows dark as empty eye sockets, the air thick with the stench of mildew and the swamp’s sour decay. The rotting taste between the death of summer, and the birth of autumn. 

Frankie’s breath hitched, her eyes darting to the shadows, half-fearing Patricia’s vulture-like silhouette or some nurse’s angry expression to emerge.

She crept toward the side entrance—a rusted door by the kitchen, left unlocked by the cook’s claustrophobia. Anthony had shared that with her before. 

Each step was a ghostly pace, her body low, her hands grazing the stone wall, its texture rough as flayed skin. The hall inside was a crypt, lit only by flickering gas lamps that cast shadows like writhing souls. Her sneakers squeaked faintly on the linoleum, each sound a betrayal, her heart hammering as she froze, listening for the nurses’ footsteps.

The silence was a blade, sharp and waiting, broken only by the distant drip of a leaking pipe, like blood from an open wrist.

She reached the stairwell to the patient wing, its iron steps spiraling like a noose tightening.

Up she went, her breath shallow, the air growing colder, heavier, as if the asylum itself resented her return. She could sense it now more than ever.

She didn’t belong to this place anymore. Not her, not Geraldine.

A nurse’s laugh echoed from below—Nurse Evelyn, maybe, her voice sharp as a scalpel.

Frankie pressed against the wall, her backpack catching on a splintered rail, her pulse a drumbeat of dread. Two minutes, maybe less, before the rounds reached her room. She slipped into the corridor, its walls papered with faded crosses, their edges curling like peeling flesh.

Her door was at the end, number 13 scratched into the wood like a curse. She turned the knob, slow as a held breath, and slipped inside, easing the door shut with a click that felt like a bone snapping.

The room was a cell, its single window barred, the swamp’s fog pressing against the glass like a ghost’s exhale. The air was humidly oppressive, metallic, as though it had been trapped there for centuries.

Frankie’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she froze, her breath catching like a hook in her throat.

Her bed—her sanctuary, her lie—was a grotesque tableau. She’d built a pillow fort before sneaking out, a crude mimicry of her sleeping form to fool the nurses, but now it looked too real, too alive. The sheets draped over the pillows in a way that mimicked a body’s curve, the contours eerily human, as if the bed itself had birthed a doppelgänger.

She took a step closer, her shoes whispering against the stone floor. The shape beneath the blanket seemed to rise and fall, almost imperceptibly, as though it were breathing. Frankie’s stomach twisted. She told herself it was a trick of the light, the fog outside shifting shadows across the room. But the longer she stared, the more undeniable it became: the rhythm was too steady, living.

Her throat tightened.

She remembered how she had left it—pillows stacked haphazardly, the blanket thrown carelessly over them. But now the sheets were tucked in with precision, smoothed down as if by careful hands. The head-shape on the pillow was too round, too exact. And the curve of the body beneath the blanket was not the stiff geometry of cushions, but the supple outline of flesh.

Frankie’s pulse thundered in her ears. She reached out, her fingers trembling, and hovered just above the blanket. The air above it was warm. Too warm.

A bead of sweat slid down her temple. She wanted to rip the blanket away, to expose whatever lay beneath, but her body refused to obey.

Instead, she stood there, paralyzed, listening.

And then she heard it.

A sound so faint it might have been imagined: the wet, thriving swallow of a throat.

And there, at the head, a dark mane of hair—her spare hoodie, stuffed with rags—jutted from the top, its silhouette so lifelike she swore it breathed.

A chill crawled up her spine, her skin prickling as if the room itself were watching, judging. It was creepy, wrong, like a corpse dressed in her own clothes, waiting to rise.

She could spot her boots at the end of the bed. Her studded leather bracelet. She could spot a fucking body.

The shape beneath the sheets shifted ever so slightly, as though turning toward her.

Frankie stumbled back, her spine pressing against the cold wall. The barred window rattled with the wind, but the sound was drowned out by the sudden, suffocating silence of the room. The silence wasn’t empty—it was listening.

Her gullet tightened. She wanted to run, but her legs felt nailed to the floor. She told herself it was impossible, that no one could have gotten in, that it was just her imagination feeding on shadows. But the air was too heavy, too sour, like the aftermath of a slaughterhouse, copper and rot clinging to her tongue.

She had to reveal it. She had to.

Her steps were slow, each one echoing like a tolling bell. Her heart was a raw wound pounding with dread, every beat screaming don’t. Don’t get closer. Run away. Run away, right fucking now. 

She reached for the sheet, her fingers shaking so violently she thought the fabric might slip from her grasp. She pulled it back, fast and rough, as if unveiling a grave.

The fabric slid away, and the world seemed to tilt.

Not pillows. Not rags. A face.

Pale, waxen, and smiling.

“Hi, Frankie,” he said, his voice a low, oily purr, dripping with malice. His eyes gleamed in the half-dark, catching the faint light like a predator’s. “How was your night at the convent?”

Her stomach lurched. She staggered back, but his gaze pinned her in place, sharp as nails hammered into her skin. The smile widened, too wide, stretching his face into something inhuman.

“I’ve been waiting,” he whispered, his words slithering into the corners of the room, filling every shadow. “You left me here, all alone, in your bed. Wearing your clothes. Breathing your air. Didn’t you wonder who might be dreaming in your place?”

Frankie’s breath came in shallow gasps. The room seemed to shrink, the walls pressing closer, the barred window rattling like a cage. She could smell him now—that gross Dior perfume, mildew, and something sweetly rancid, like flowers left too long in stagnant water.

“Once again, Ronnie saves your ass,” he announced proudly.

Her hand twitched toward the door, but she knew—knew in her marrow—that if she turned her back, he would rise from the bed, and she would never make it out.

The figure shifted again, the sheets sliding down to reveal his hands—long, pale fingers adorned with her bracelet, her rings, her life. He flexed them slowly, as though savoring the feel of her skin against his.

Ronnie’s eyes glinted like polished knives, his lips curled into a devilish grin that split his face like a fresh cut.

Frankie stumbled back, her breath a gasp, her heart lurching like a beast caught in a trap.

Ronnie sat up, his broad frame filling the bed, his presence a violation, his smirk a blade twisting in her gut.

The room spun, the walls closing in like a coffin, and she knew—knew—he’d seen her climb down from Geraldine’s tower, knew he’d been waiting to carve her open with his rage.

Frankie’s mind raced, every thought a jagged shard cutting into her skull. The door was only a few steps away, but she was aware—aware with the certainty of prey cornered by a predator—that if she bolted, Ronnie would be on her before she even touched the handle. He was faster, heavier, and worst of all, he was waiting for her to try. The room itself seemed to lean inward, conspiring against her, the barred window rattling like laughter in the storm.

This was the price she had been asking for.

Her stomach twisted as her thoughts turned to Geraldine. What if he found out about her? What if he followed her scent back to the tower, back to the convent? The image of Geraldine’s pale face, her trembling lips, her delicate pulsing heart, flashed before Frankie’s eyes.

The thought of Ronnie’s hands on her—his voice dripping poison into her ears—made Frankie’s chest seize with panic. She couldn’t allow him to get close. She couldn’t let him touch her.

Ronnie shifted on the bed, the sheets whispering like skin against skin. He turned his head toward the streaked window, the very one Frankie had used to fantasize about slipping her rope down, her lifeline to the outside. His grin widened, teeth catching the dim light.

“Is that how you entertained yourself?” he mumbled, mockery curling around each word. “Watching the nuns from your window? You’re a fucking perv, Frankie. Way more than me.”

The words slithered into her ears, sticky and vile. He dragged his fingers along the sill, tapping it like a metronome, as if keeping time with her heartbeat.

“Told you that nun was a slut,” he whispered, his tone suddenly conspiratorial, like they were old friends pre-gaming before a party. His voice was low, intimate, obscene. “Y’’all probably were giving each other’s smoke signals to meet in the barn to fuck.”

Frankie’s throat tightened, rage and terror colliding in her chest. “Get out of my room,” she spat, her voice trembling but sharp. “I’ll scream.”

Ronnie’s laugh was soft, humorless, like the scrape of a blade being sharpened. He leaned forward, his eyes glinting with cruel delight.

“You don’t write the rules anymore,” he hissed. “Did you really think I’d let you get away with all the shit you pulled at the trial?” His voice was cruel, incredulous, dripping with sarcasm, as though her defiance was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Frankie’s skin crawled as she looked at him—her white baggy t-shirt lengthened on his inked frame, her bracelet glinting on his wrist.

He was wearing her life like a costume, parading around in her skin. She suddenly thanked whatever impulse had driven her to buzz half her hair and bleach it blonde, because the thought of them looking alike—of being mistaken for kin—was repulsive to say the least.

Her mind clawed for escape routes, for weapons, for anything. The backpack by the door. The splintered rail outside. The shard of glass she’d hidden once beneath the mattress. But every plan ended the same way: Ronnie catching her, Ronnie laughing, Ronnie dragging her back into the dark.

And beneath it all, the thought that hollowed her out: if she failed, if she screamed and no one came, if he broke her—Geraldine would be next.

“My parents almost disowned me after your little guilt trip show,” he growled, his voice low and guttural, like gravel grinding in his throat. “And I was so nice to you, Frankie. I tried to be your friend.”

Normally, she wouldn’t have been afraid. Normally, she’d have her pocket knife tucked into her boot, or a lighter hidden in her jacket, something sharp or burning she could wield like a talisman.

Normally, she’d have her strength—the wiry resilience of someone who lived on lentils and discipline, who ran until her lungs burned just to prove she could.

But Saint Agnes had stripped her down, hollowed her out. The months of silence, of prayer, of being watched and judged had turned her into something bleak, something brittle. She was no longer the girl who could fight back. She was the fantasy of a man who wanted his woman weak, tired, lackluster—an ornament to his cruelty.

And the pills. The pills had made her so complacent. 

“You were never nice to me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, as if speaking too loudly might summon something worse.

“Oh, I was,” he said, his lips curling into a sneer. “I was so fucking nice. I paid for Brody’s treatment, didn’t I? I helped you scrape together money for your own.”

“You prostituted me,” she spat, the words tasting like blood in her mouth.

“It’s not my fault that’s the only thing you’re good at!” His voice rose, incredulous, as though she were the one twisting the truth. “Not only did I help you get the money, but I made sure you didn’t end up in prison. You’d be rotting in a cell if it weren’t for me.”

He moved then, leaving the safety of her bed—her bed, now fouled by his presence—and stepped closer, his breath hot and sour, his words dripping venom. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a hiss, intimate and poisonous.

“And you don’t even thank me.”

His hand reached for hers, and the moment his skin brushed against her, Frankie’s stomach revolted.

The taste of wine, of sneaker bars, of apples—all the sweetness of hours before—rose in her throat, curdled into something loathsome, like candy left to melt inside acid. His touch was a contagion, a corruption.

He had that monstrous gift: the ability to take what was beloved, what was pure, and twist it into something foul. He could breathe in happiness and exhale dread, could turn tenderness into decay with nothing more than his presence.

And the worst part—the part that made her want to scream—was that he didn’t even know. He didn’t see himself as the monster. He believed, with the conviction of the damned, that he was the victim. That she had wronged him.

“You have humiliated me enough,” he hummed, his tone almost sing-song, as though he were reciting a lullaby. His eyes gleamed with something feral, something final. “And I’ll make sure you never see that bitch again.”

The words slid between her ribs with surgical cruelty. Geraldine. He had spoken about her, and in that instant Frankie felt the world tilt. He knew.

Perhaps not everything, not the full depth of their secret, but enough. Enough to suspect, enough to wound, enough to use her against Frankie. Their last encounter must have betrayed something—an unguarded glance, a tremor in her voice, the way her body leaned toward Geraldine like a compass needle drawn to true north.

Now it was obvious: he had plans. Or at the very least, the possibility of them. And that possibility was enough to unravel her.

The thought of him circling Geraldine, of his shadow falling across her, was unbearable. It could drive her feral, make her tear at her own skin just to keep from screaming. But she could not let him see that. That was what he wanted. He was baiting her, prodding her with words like knives, trying to provoke a chain reaction that would expose everything.

She forced her face into stillness, though her insides writhed. She could not let her eyes betray her, could not let her mouth tremble with the truth of her love.

If he saw even a flicker of panic, he would know. And once he knew, Geraldine would no longer be safe.

He had seen her return from the convent. He had seen the way she carried herself differently, as though she had left part of her soul behind in that tower. But he could not know with certainty what had bloomed there, what had been whispered in the dark. He could not know that their love was real, that it was the only thing keeping Frankie tethered to this world.

Geraldine was good at hiding. She had perfected the art of silence, of masking sweetness with severity, of burying tenderness beneath a stern expression.

She could make herself look untouchable, unreachable, as though her heart were locked in stone. Frankie prayed that would save her now.

She hoped—no, she begged—that Geraldine would look as she had the first time they met: serious, cold, vacant. A fortress of quiet disdain. Because if Ronnie ever glimpsed the softness beneath, if he ever saw the way Geraldine’s eyes could glow like embers when she let her guard down, it would be over.

And Frankie knew, with a sick certainty, that the universe was wicked enough to allow it. That love, once revealed, was always punished. That every secret she tried to protect was already marked for ruin.

So she stood there, her face carved into anger, her heart a storm of terror, and prayed that her mask would hold. Because if it cracked—if he saw even a fraction of what Geraldine meant to her—then the doom she felt pressing in from all sides would no longer be hers alone. It would be Geraldine’s too.

Frankie’s chest tightened, her breath catching in her throat. The thought of him finding Geraldine, of his hands on her, of his voice dripping poison into her ears—it was nauseous.

Because she had been there.

Her mind raced, clawing for escape, for a weapon, for anything. But the door was too far, and Ronnie was too close. The striped window rattled with the wind, the fog pressing against the glass like a suffocating hand. She felt trapped in a coffin, the air thinning, the walls were really closing in.

Ronnie’s hand shot out, rough and invasive, fingers clawing at her wrist, at her side, groping as if he had the right to mold her body into his possession. Frankie recoiled, but he pressed closer, his breath hot and rancid against her cheek.

“Don’t fight me,” he hissed, his voice a serpent’s coil.

But Frankie did fight. She shoved, twisted, her nails raking across his arm. He laughed, low and cruel, as though her resistance were nothing more than a child’s tantrum. His hand slid again, and something inside her snapped.

Her scream tore out of her throat—not a scream, but a howl.

A sound older than language, raw and feral, echoing through the peaks of the ceiling, like a wolf calling down judgment from the hills, like she was trying to wake up the spiders living in the corners so they’ll assist her. It was the howl of Lilith cast from Eden, of she-wolves who nursed abandoned kings, of the beasts that stalked prophets in the desert. It was the howl of every woman hunted, every lamb turned predator.

Ronnie staggered back, startled, his sneer faltering. But Frankie did not stop. She howled again, louder, her voice cracking the silence like thunder. It was not just sound—it was defiance, it was survival, it was the refusal to be prey.

He lunged, furious now, but she met him with fists, with knees, with teeth if she had to.

The room became a blur of violence, of shadows colliding, of breath and curses and the thud of bodies against stone. She could not let him catch her. She could not let him win.

What happened seemed to last hours and seconds. 

And then—light.

It came sudden, blinding, as though the universe itself had flung open a door and poured its merciless gaze upon her. Frankie blinked, dazed, her body trembling, her mind slipping sideways into a place where time no longer moved in straight lines. Dissociation wrapped around her like a straitjacket—tight, suffocating, yet strangely protective. She was both inside her body and far above it, watching herself fight, watching herself howl, watching herself fracture into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.

The light was not salvation. It was judgment.

And in that brightness, she felt hands—cold, efficient, unyielding—pressing her down. The nurses.

Their faces blurred, their voices muffled, but their grip was iron. For the first time ever she was more than relieved that it wasn’t Geraldine checking in, her body was heavy and sluggish, as though her blood itself had turned against her. She didn’t feel the sting of the needle, but she felt its aftermath: a slow, creeping numbness spreading through her veins, a frost that dulled her like her mom’s chicken soup after cough syrup, that silenced the howl still caught in her throat.

Her bones slackened, from surrender and chemical betrayal. The warmth of her rage, her terror, her desperate fear for Geraldine—all of it was being smothered, drowned beneath the tide of clinical mercilessness. She could feel it taking her, one vein at a time, until even her heartbeat seemed to thrum from far away.

This was the toll.

The nurses’ hands blurred into the light, their white uniforms indistinguishable from the glare that swallowed the room. Frankie’s vision fractured, her mind hovering between waking and oblivion. She thought of Geraldine’s fingers, of the way they had once traced her jaw. And the room glowed with a terrible clarity, shadows banished as they dragged her outside her room.

Frankie felt hollow, emptied, as though her howl had ripped her soul from her chest.

And in that hollow space, the truth settled like ash:

He had stripped away what Geraldine had explored so carefully. 

She couldn’t help but mourn—mourn with a grief so sharp it felt like a painful, silencing flood—that Geraldine’s fingers weren’t the last thing that had touched her. That the memory of tenderness had been overwritten by something vile, something that would fester in her skin like rot. She hated herself for it. She hated her weakness, hated the way her body couldn’t protect her, hated the past decisions that had led her here like stepping stones across a poisoned river. She hated her Lexapro-driven mind, dulled and sharpened in all the wrong places, hated her prophetic mind most of all—because it had always been right.

Everything she desired eventually became a reality, but never in the way she imagined. She had wanted Geraldine to be like her, to be marked, to be broken open by love and longing—and so it had happened. She had wished for them to consummate their love, to seal it in flesh and breath—and so it had happened. She had wished for punishment after heaven, for the scales to balance, for the universe to notice her joy and strike her down. And now it had happened.

And she hated it. The universe had evened. Her debt was collected in flesh and guts. 

She hated that her wishes had been answered like curses, that her prayers had been twisted into weapons. She hated that she had been foolish enough to believe she could hold something beautiful without leaving corpses behind. She should have been more careful with what she had wished for. She should have known that the universe does not grant love without demanding blood in return.

Now every memory of Geraldine’s touch was stained, haunted by the knowledge that it was not the last.

That something monstrous had come after, had claimed her body like a thief desecrating a shrine. And the thought hollowed her out, left her feeling like a ruin.

She bit her lips hard enough to sting. In the darkness behind her eyelids she could see it: Geraldine’s smile, fragile and trembling, dissolving into Ronnie’s leer. The sacred and the profane tangled together until she could no longer tell them apart.

In that moment, Frankie understood that she was cursed. That her love was the actual contagion, her desire a prophecy of catastrophe. That every time she reached for heaven, she would be dragged back into hell.

And still—still—she mourned. Because even knowing all of this, she would have wished for Geraldine anyway.