As she picked up her darning, the sounds of the girls going about their business once more resounded throughout the room again, including, this time, a little giggling. I watched Sister Marguerite keep one eye on her needle and the other on our visitor.
“Why have you come here, Ethan?” she asked.
Ethan smiled at me and I couldn’t help but grin back. He cleared his throat. “I came to help, to protect my very good friend.”
Sister looked up at him, learning him, seeking something deeper in his words, but I didn’t know what. “Do you know what it is we do here?” she asked, twisting my guts into knots. My hands shook, waiting for his answer, and knowing that her response would reveal what I had longed for, worked so hard for him never to have discovered about me.
Ethan looked at me with deliberate slowness, his eyes piercing my own. “You save children from slavery,” he whispered in answer, his gaze still on my face.
All the breath left in my lungs rushed out through my nose, my body rocked back, as if his words held weight and when they reached me, pushed me back on my heels.
He knows.
My eyes stung with a shame I hadn’t felt since I’d been a little girl. Ethan knew my dirty secret, my dirty past, inflicted upon me by the same type of men I’d hoped to save the girls sitting around me from ever knowing again. I was at Slánaigh to cleanse myself, purge myself, of every single touch I’d ever received that had never been welcome. Those moments I’d never get back, the ones that had been stolen from me, the moments I was supposed to give to the name of my choosing. Slánaigh was my therapy’s end point. A time I would dedicate toward forgiving the things that had happened to me and when my year was over at Slánaigh, I would continue to give to them with time, energy, and money, but never for those reasons again. This single trip was a self-imposed border, one I would never, ever cross again.
But he knows.
A single tear slid down my cheek so excruciatingly slowly I could sense every creeping roll, every shifting inch, desperately convincing me to recognize it. It begged me to swipe it away so I did so with the back of my hand and let my hair fall forward. I avoided both their gazes as they returned to their conversation, unaware of my secret torment.
“Yes, we rescue children here from a fate worse than death,” Sister Marguerite spoke with sincerity.
“I am here to help you,” Ethan added again with that dogged earnestness. “And I will do it, whether you want me to or not, if I have to camp outside this house on the lane, I will be there for every trip, every investigation.”
I peered their direction once more, noticing Sister Marguerite’s hidden smile of amusement. “No need, young man. We would never refuse the help of anyone worthy of helping, and Finley has assured us that you are.”
Looking surprised, Ethan glanced at me with wide eyes, his expression unreadable. He turned back to Sister Marguerite, “Well, thank you for allowing me to stay.”
She leaned toward him and lowered her voice, “Prepare yourself then, Ethan Moonsong.”
Confused, Ethan only nodded.
I needed to talk to him, take him somewhere I could really talk to him.
“Sister Marguerite, do you mind if I take Ethan down to the shore for an hour before dinner? I want to explain a few of the, uh, delicacies of the girls here,” I asked.
“I believe he should speak to Father before you do that, though,” she answered.
“Father’s gone out to talk with an informant then visit An and her dad. I promise as soon as we see him back, we’ll talk to him.”
She looked at me then nodded, returning her attention to her work.
“Ethan,” I said, his name thick on my tongue. I swallowed.
I started walking around the small groups of girls on the floor and made my way toward the door. Before long, I could feel the temperature of Ethan’s skin near my own and I nearly cried at his proximity. Knowing what I was about to reveal to him had me feeling sick to my stomach.
I pushed through the door and onto the boardwalk then down the winding staircase. As soon as my feet hit path, I abandoned my flip-flops, and took off running toward the shore, my breath panting as I passed through the grove of thick trees that canopied the path to the ocean. When I reached the beach, I fell to my knees within the shadow of a tall crag covered in green. My hands felt sand and I realized I’d fallen forward, my gut aching in a sorrow I hadn’t let myself feel in years.
I sensed Ethan’s heat once more hovering over me. “Why did you have to come here?” I asked in sobbing gasps.
I felt him fall beside me, his arms encircling me, soothing me against my will.
“Stop!” I demanded, throwing his arms off me. “I don’t want to be comforted, Ethan! I want to feel every inch of pain. I need to feel this.”
“You don’t have to suffer anymore, Finley,” he said quietly in my ear.
I whipped my face toward his, startling him. “Don’t you get it? I want to feel the pain again, Ethan. I know if I can just see it, feel it, I can grab it with both hands and hoist it away from me. I know I can do this. I need to do this.”
He pushed off his heels, sitting back, and looked out into the bay, his hair whipping behind him with the ocean wind. “I don’t want you to hurt anymore,” he told the air around me.
Tears streamed down my face. “It’s not for you to decide,” I told that same air. I sat back, my legs tucked beneath me. “Couldn’t you leave it alone? Why couldn’t you leave it alone? I didn’t want you to know that side of me. Ever.” I turned to him, to look at his beautiful face.