The phone call comes on a Wednesday morning while I'm standing in my office with a cold cup of coffee and the dawning realization that I've worn the same sweater three times this week. My reflection in the dark window looks like a woman who's been sleeping approximately four hours a night, which is accurate.

"Iris." Marcus's voice has that particular tone—soft, concerned, the one that makes my skin crawl because it sounds genuine. "Do you have a moment?"

I don't. I have approximately seven minutes before my Intro to Ethics class, and I've spent the last hour staring at Dostoevsky without absorbing a single word because my phone keeps buzzing with texts from Gabriel that I can't answer in the office, and my body keeps remembering things it shouldn't.

"Sure," I lie. "What's up?"

"Not over the phone." He pauses, and I can hear him closing his office door. "I need to talk to you about something serious."

The tone shift is immediate. This isn't departmental politics or a question about curriculum. This is Marcus in protective mode, which is somehow worse than Marcus being hostile because I can't dismiss it as easily.

"I'll come to you," he says, which means he's already standing up.

He arrives three minutes later, and I have just enough time to register that he's brought coffee—the good kind from the place two blocks away, the one he knows I like—before I realize this is a negotiation. Marcus doesn't bring peace offerings unless he's about to ask for something expensive.

"Sit," he says gently, and I hate that I do it.

He settles into the chair across from me with the kind of careful deliberation that suggests he's rehearsed this. The coffee sits between us like a neutral territory.

"I need to talk to you about Father Moretti."

My entire nervous system goes rigid. I don't move. I don't even breathe, which is probably obvious because Marcus is watching me with the intensity of a man who's been waiting for confirmation of something he already suspected.

"I've noticed," he continues, and his voice is careful, almost kind, "that you've been... distracted lately. You missed the curriculum committee meeting last week. You're not engaging in departmental events. And I've seen you leaving campus at odd hours."

"I'm not aware that my schedule is department business."

"It's not." He leans back, and the morning light catches the silver in his hair. "But you are. And I care about you, Iris. I have for a long time."

Here it comes. The thing I've been avoiding since the day he first looked at me like I was something worth protecting instead of something broken that needed to be fixed.

"I know," I say quietly, because lying would be worse.

"So you understand that I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying it because I'm concerned." He picks up his coffee, takes a sip, sets it down with the precision of a man in complete control. "A relationship with a priest is—it's not just complicated. It's impossible. And more importantly, it's a liability."

The word hangs there like a curse.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if this continues, if you continue to be involved with Father Moretti, I'm going to have to recommend your dismissal from the department."

The room goes very quiet. I can hear the sound of students passing in the hallway, the distant hum of the building's ancient HVAC system, my own heartbeat, which has somehow become a physical thing in my chest.

"On what grounds?" My voice sounds strange. Calm. Like it belongs to someone else.

"Inappropriate relationships with external parties. Conduct unbecoming of a faculty member. There are ways to frame it." He's not looking at me now. "I don't want to do this, Iris. But I will. Because I care about you, and I won't watch you destroy your career for something that can't possibly—"

"Stop."

He stops.

"You don't get to dress this up as protection," I say, and I'm standing now, which I don't remember deciding to do. "You don't get to threaten my livelihood and call it concern. That's not love, Marcus. That's control."

"It's not a threat." His voice is still gentle, which somehow makes it worse. "It's a fact. University policy exists for reasons. And you know as well as I do that a relationship with a Catholic priest isn't something that ends well. He has vows. He has a calling. And you—"

"I what?"

"You deserve someone who can actually choose you. Not someone who's going to wake up one day and realize he made a mistake."

The thing that kills me is that he means it. He genuinely believes this. He's not being malicious; he's being protective in the way that people who've never had to claw their way out of anything can afford to be. He thinks he knows what's best for me because he's never had to survive on instinct alone.

"Get out of my office," I say.

"Iris—"

"Out."

He leaves, and I sit back down in my chair and stare at the cold coffee he brought me, and I feel something break open inside my chest that I've been very carefully holding together.

---

Gabriel doesn't know yet.

I don't tell him until Thursday night, when he shows up at my apartment with that expression he gets when he's been in his head too long—like he's been arguing with God and God won the round. The expression changes immediately when he sees my face.

"What happened?"

"Marcus threatened to have me fired if I keep seeing you."

I watch the information move through him. Watch his jaw tighten. Watch his hands clench into fists and then deliberately, consciously, release.

"He can't—"

"He can. And he will." I move to the kitchen because I need distance, need to not be in the radius of his presence right now. "He framed it as policy violation. Inappropriate relationships with external parties. He's probably right, technically. Universities have these rules for a reason."

"And you're considering it." He's not asking.

"I'm not considering anything. I'm stating facts."

"You're angry with yourself for even thinking about it."

I pour water into a glass with more force than necessary. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That thing where you see through me like I'm made of glass. I don't need to be understood right now. I need to be angry."

He moves into the kitchen anyway, and the air between us changes density. Cedar and incense, that warmth underneath that smells like faith and sandalwood. My body responds before my brain can catch up—heartbeat accelerating, skin aware of him in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

"I'm leaving the priesthood," he says.

The glass slips from my hand. It doesn't break—the sink catches it—but I watch it fall and I feel the impact anyway.

"No."

"Yes."

"Gabriel, no." I turn to face him, and he's so close that I have to tip my head back to meet his eyes. "You don't get to make that choice."

"It's my choice to make."

"Not like this. Not because of a threat. Not because of me." I can feel the tremor in my own voice. "I didn't survive my whole life just to become the reason you destroy yours."

"You're not destroying anything. You're saving me."

"From what? From faith? From your calling?" I step back because proximity is making it hard to think, and I need to think. "You don't get to be a martyr, Gabriel. You don't get to make this grand gesture and pretend it's noble. It's not. It's just another form of running away."

Something flickers across his face. Hurt. Recognition.

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not. But it's true." I wrap my arms around myself because my body is doing that thing again, betraying me. "You came to the priesthood to escape your father. You built this whole identity as a man of unwavering conviction because you were terrified of being like him. And now you want to blow it all up because you're terrified of losing me."

"Is that not enough?"

The question sits between us like something alive.

"It's not enough for me," I say quietly. "It's not enough to know you're choosing me because you're scared. I need to know you're choosing me because you actually want me more than you want your faith."

"I do."

"You think you do. Right now, in this moment, with Marcus's threat hanging over us and your bishop probably getting suspicious, you think you want me more. But six months from now? A year from now? You're going to resent me. You're going to look at me and see the woman who made you give up everything, and that resentment is going to poison whatever this is."

"You're borrowing pain from the future."

"I'm being realistic."

"You're being a coward."

The words land like a physical blow. I feel them in my chest, in my throat, in the place where I've been holding my breath.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me." He's not angry. That's what makes it worse. He's calm and sad and certain. "You're so terrified of surrendering control that you'd rather push me away than risk believing I actually want you. You'd rather lose me than take the chance that maybe, just maybe, I'm choosing you because I'm tired of living half a life. Because knowing you has shown me that faith without doubt is just fear wearing a collar."

"And what about your vows?"

"What about them?"

"You swore them, Gabriel. You stood in front of God and the Church and you made promises."

"Promises made from a place of fear aren't promises. They're prisons." He steps toward me, and I step back until I hit the counter. "I know what I'm risking. I've known it since the moment you reached for that book in the library. But you—you're not risking anything. You're just protecting yourself."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" He's close enough now that I can feel the heat coming off his body. "You're so afraid of being hurt that you'd rather hurt yourself first. It's cleaner that way. Less messy. You get to be the one who chose the pain instead of the one who had to survive it."

"You don't know anything about surviving."

The words are out before I can stop them, and I regret them immediately because I see him flinch. I see him take that direct hit and absorb it.

"You're right," he says quietly. "I don't. I hid in a church while you were clawing your way out of hell. I built myself a nice safe life while you were learning how to trust your own instincts. So maybe I don't get to tell you what you should do with your fear. But I know what I want. And I want you. Not the idea of you. Not the version of you that's convenient and safe and doesn't challenge my faith. I want the real you—the woman who's terrified and angry and so desperately hungry for connection that she's willing to push away the one person who actually sees her."

I can't breathe.

"Don't," I whisper.

"Don't what?"

"Don't say things you don't mean."

He reaches up and touches my face, and the contact is like electricity. His palm is warm against my cheek, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone with a gentleness that makes me want to cry.

"I've never meant anything more in my entire life."

He kisses me before I can argue, before I can protect myself, before I can do anything but surrender to the feeling of his mouth on mine. It's not gentle. It's desperate and angry and full of all the things we haven't said, all the ways we've been hurting each other because we're too afraid to admit how much we need this.

His hand slides into my hair, and I'm pulling him closer, and his other hand finds the small of my back and presses me against him until there's no space between us. The scent of him is overwhelming—cedar and incense and that warm sandalwood underneath, and it smells like faith tastes like doubt, like salvation tastes like sin.

"I can't lose you," he says against my mouth.

"You're going to," I say back. "If you leave the priesthood, you're going to lose everything."

"I know."

"And you're still—"

"Yes."

He kisses me again, and this time it's slower, more deliberate, like he's trying to memorize the taste of me. His hand moves from my hair to my neck, fingers pressing against the pulse point there, feeling my heartbeat. I can feel him shaking, or maybe that's me shaking, or maybe we're both shaking because this is the moment where everything changes.

"We need to talk about this properly," I say, pulling back, even though every cell in my body is screaming at me to stay.

"I know."

"Not now. Not like this."

"I know."

But he doesn't let me go. He just holds me against him and breathes, and I let him because I'm not strong enough to push him away twice in one night.

---

The bishop calls Gabriel in on Friday morning.

I know this because he texts me at 6 AM—Bishop Donnelly wants to see me. 9 AM. I think someone reported my absences.

My stomach drops. I spend the next three hours at my kitchen table refreshing news sites like there's going to be an article about a priest's crisis of faith, like the world is waiting to document our unraveling.

By 9:30, I can't handle it anymore. I text back: How bad?

The response takes fifteen minutes: He knows something is wrong. Didn't say what. I didn't lie but I didn't tell the truth either.

Are you okay?

No.

At 10 AM, I'm supposed to be teaching Intro to Ethics. I stand in front of thirty students and lecture about Kant's categorical imperative while my hands shake and my mind is somewhere in the bishop's office with a man who's about to lose everything.

The irony is not lost on me.

By noon, my phone rings. Gabriel. I step out of my office into the hallway.

"Hi."

"He knows," Gabriel says without preamble. "He didn't say it, but he knows. He asked me about my prayer life. About whether I was struggling with my vocation. About whether there was anything I needed to discuss."

"What did you say?"

"I said I was fine. I said I was just tired. I said all the right things." His voice sounds hollow. "And the whole time I was lying, I kept thinking about you. I kept thinking about how you were right—I'm a coward. I'm hiding in the priesthood just like I hid in it when I was nineteen."

"Gabriel—"

"I'm going to tell him," Gabriel says. "Not about you, not yet, but I'm going to tell him I'm having doubts. I'm going to tell him I need time. I'm going to give him the chance to remove me before I remove myself."

"And then?"

"And then I don't know. I don't know what happens after."

Neither do I.

"Come over tonight," I say. "We'll figure it out."

"Iris—"

"Come over."

He comes over at 7 PM, and he looks like a man who's been dismantled and put back together wrong. His collar is gone. He's wearing a regular shirt, and the absence of it is like watching someone take off their skin.

I don't ask questions. I just pull him inside and lock the door behind him, and we stand in my living room in the gathering dark, and I realize with a clarity that feels like drowning that I've already made my choice.

I chose him the moment I reached for that book.

Everything else is just catching up.

"I'm going to fight Marcus," I say. "I'm going to fight him on the dismissal threat, and I'm going to win. And then I'm going to figure out what happens with us. But I'm not going to lose my career, and you're not going to blow up your life in some grand gesture of sacrifice. We're going to do this the hard way—the real way."

"The hard way?"

"We're going to figure out if this is actually worth destroying everything for, or if we're just caught in the intensity of the forbidden thing." I step closer to him. "And we're going to do it with our eyes open. No martyrs. No cowardice. Just the two of us trying to figure out if we're actually compatible in the real world, or if we only work in the dark."

"And if we're not?"

"Then at least we'll know. And at least you'll have your faith intact."

"I don't want my faith intact," he says. "I want you."

"I know. But you have to want both, or this doesn't work."

He pulls me close, and we stand like that in the darkness, and I feel something settle inside my chest that's been restless since the moment he first looked at me.

Tomorrow, the real fight begins.

Tonight, I let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—we could actually survive this.

The phone on my desk buzzes at 11:47 PM with an email from Marcus: We need to discuss your status with the department. I'll see you Monday morning.

I turn off my phone and don't look back.