Free Emily and the Priest by Selena Kitt Page B

missed her mother’s weekly calls. But she wasn’t going to tell her, or Father Mark, anymore. She’d learned to keep her mouth closed , because no one could do anything about it . Telling people—f r om the ir dorm mother, Sister Francine, to Father Mark, who told her he’d talked about it with Bishop Avery, who ran the school— hadn’t stopped the pranks. In fact, they’d gotten worse. So she had just decided to i gnore them as much as she could and hope it would go away.
    “I have a feeling, now that you’re switching roommates, that there won’t be any more issues .” He gave her a pointed look and she flushed. She wouldn’t confess her suspicions about her roommate, but he seemed to know anyway.
    “Maybe.” Emily shared the same hope, and although she hadn’t been the one who initiated the roommate change, she was grateful. Sh e and Alexis had a world religions class together and although they didn’t sit next to e ach other, they got along well enough. Maybe she was finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
    “How are you doing otherwise? How are classes?”
    “Good. I’m loving my art classes, as usual.” She smiled at his interest. Father Mark was always so kind. She had wanted to go to the College for Creative Studies, and had been accepted, but her mother decided that a c atholic college would be better for her than art school . Emily hadn’t had much of a choice, since her mother was paying for it all. “ Thanks for loaning me that book on catholic s aints , by the way . It was just what I was looking for .”
    “ So are you going to tell me which saint you were researching?” He tented his fingers and looked at her. Sometimes when he looked at her, she felt almost naked, like he was seeing not just through her clothes, but fully into her somehow.
    “Oh, it wasn’t for a class. ” She flushed. “ It was just for me.”
    He cocked his head at her. “Which one called to you?”
    “Saint Lucy.” There was no point not telling him. She knew he’d get it out of her eventually. He had a way of making her want to confess things, even when she wasn’t in the confessional. He nodded, just waiting, somehow knowing she was going to continue , and she did. “She’s the patron saint of the blind. I had a dream I was going blind.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Scary?”
    “No, actually. I dreamed I was going blind, but I could see everything. I was just seeing it…from inside.” She glanced at him, seeing the quizzical look on his face. “It’s hard to explain.”
    “I think I understand.” He leaned forward, putting his feet on the floor, elbows on his desk. S he could see the dark hairs covering his forearm. “Do you know how Lucy lost her sight?”
    “Yes. She plucked out her own eyes and sent them to the man who was in love with her .”
    “Why, do you think?”
    Emily shrugged. “Well, the book said it was because she wanted to give her heart to God, not to a mortal man. So when her admirer said she had beautiful eyes, she plucked them out to prove that her beauty wasn’t external, and she was devoted only to God.”
    “Why do you think she did it?”
    “I think… ” Emily looked up, meeting his eyes fully. “ I think she was afraid.”
    “Afraid? Of what? ” Father Mark looked surprised. “ Doesn’t it take a great deal of courage to pluck out your own eyes?”
    “I think it was cowardice. ” She bit her lip, watching his reaction. “ I think she was afraid of love.”
    Father Mark stood, pacing for a moment, contemplative, then coming around to the other side of the desk to lean against it in front of her. “ But Lucy loved God.”
    “ Yes,” Emily agreed, looking up, up, into his handsome face. “But she was afraid of men. Of the way they looked at her. Admired her. I think she wanted to make herself ugly, so no one would notice her.”
    He seemed to contemplate this, and sh e noted the way his gaze fell to her hemline, where she was playing with the