Sobbing could be heard from down the hall, drawing Sister Theodore towards it. Most students left the building as soon as the final bell rang, and to the best of her knowledge, all of the student committee meetings had ended an hour before. Who was the young woman left behind?
Walking quietly so as not to scare anyone, Theodore turned the corner to find Rachel, the head of the Student Council, dissolved in a pool of despair under the stairs. Sister Theodore went through all of her conflicted emotions when she saw Rachel. Few students had raised her ire as the one in front of her, with her showy good looks, endless money for clothing and her absolutely hateful attitude towards anyone she deemed inferior. Many a time Sister Theodore found herself praying for patience and the need to be reminded that God loved Rachel as much as anyone else in her classroom. It would be so easy to turn and walk away... so very easy. And yet something much stronger than personal dislike overcame Theodore, pulling her even closer to the girl.
As she sat down beside the teen, Rachel looked up in confusion and then fright. All trace of attitude was gone and what remained was a frightened little girl. Silently Sister Theodore offered up a simultaneous prayers of "Thank you God, for letting me be here for your child" and "Okay, I'm here. Now what?". Bracing herself for the inevitable barrage, Theodore took a deep breath and just looked Rachel directly in the eye. That was all it took for Rachel to find herself again and pull the mask of contempt around herself.
"What do you want?" she sneered. "Come to make me even more miserable than I already am?"
"Is that even possible?" Sister Theodore asked with just a hint too much saccharin in her voice.
"Look Sister, I'm not in the mood."
"You know Rachel, it would have been very easy for me to walk away when I first heard you crying."
"So why didn't you?"
"I was tempted, very tempted. But something told me you needed to talk, so just get the attitude out and we can get on with things."
"Why do you even care?" The challenge was in Rachel's eyes.
Sensing that everything hung on her next response, Theodore stared at Rachel's swollen, tear streaked face for a moment and struggled with her lack of compassion for the girl, praying for the right words.
"I don't know, Rachel. I really don't know why I care, but I do."
"Aren't you supposed to be all Godly and tell me how important I am to you or some crap like that?"
Theodore laughed at that one, chuckling at the notion that one more person was expected to tell this obnoxious teenager how special she was.
"Do you think we come with a meaningless script of platitudes, Rachel? Or are you just so used to being everyone's image of the perfect child that you expect the Roman Catholic Church to add their approval?"
The look in Rachel's face stung Theodore more than she expected. The mask fell and the tears started to well up. Rachel's mouth hung open as if she's just been slapped, forcing Theodore to realize that was exactly what she had done. Preparing to apologize, Theodore turned herself more towards the broken person in front of her.
"Rachel..."
"I'm not perfect" Rachel whispered. "I wish I was..."
Realizing the door had just been opened, Theodore sent a silent thank you and dove in. "What is it, Rachel?"
"I... I... You're a nun, what do you know about real problems?"
"Rachel, I am a human being first, and I was once a teenage girl in a Catholic School, just like you. I did have a life before I joined the Convent, and I have a memory."
"Yeah, but did you ever do anything you were ashamed of?"
Taking a fresh breath to steady herself, Theodore nodded. Had she ever done anything she was ashamed of? Oh, if this child only knew what she had done. If anyone knew some of those things they wouldn't see her as a person of authority at all but merely a force of destruction. Things she was ashamed of awoke with her every morning, and joined her in bed at night. Prayer and work were the only things that kept the feelings of despair from overwhelming her some days. This child before her wasn't old enough to create the demons that surrounded Theodore's life.
"What is it, Rachel? You can tell me anything."
"What, like you're my 'Nun Confessor' or something?"
Reaching across the floor to clutch Rachel's hand and give it a gentle squeeze, Sister Theodore smiled. "Yeah, something like that."
"Okay, but don't judge me."
It was on the tip of Theodore's tongue to say only God was the judge, but she realized the hypocrisy in those words would stop any further flow of conversation.
"I won't"
"After the game on Saturday, Mark wanted me to celebrate with him. I couldn't. He got so mad, but I couldn't. I know popular girls are expected to do things, but when I got down on my knees... It was just so ugly, you know. I opened my mouth but I couldn't." Crying freely again, Rachel lowered her head to her knees. "I couldn't."
"Oh Rachel", Sister Theodore put her arm around the shaking shoulders and pulled her closer, letting the girl cry as long as she needed to.
"Will God hate me?" Rachel asked with the fear of a small child.
Not for the first time, Theodore silently cursed the established church for their hard line attitudes on right vs. wrong, and the inability to convey the true message of Christianity to the world.
"No Rachel, God will not hate you, nor will I. I'm so proud of you."
"Why? Because 'Good Little Catholic Girls' stay pure for marriage?"
"No. Because you made a difficult choice to put yourself ahead of someone else's demands. Because you had the courage to say no."
"He was so angry at me, calling me names, telling me he'd destroy my reputation."
"I'm sure he said a lot of things, Rachel, and all of those things are on him. Anything he may or may not do at this point is on Mark, not you. I know it's hard to believe, but high school won't last forever, and the things that happen today won't mean anything in a few years."
"If they don't mean anything" Rachel began, pulling herself back to look Sister Theodore in the eyes, "then why do I feel so horrible? Why couldn't I just do it like the other girls? They don't seem to have a problem."
"Rachel, I'm going to tell you something woman to woman, okay, not Nun to student. Every time you have a sexual encounter, you give a little piece of yourself away. That's a little piece of yourself you never get back. Before the worry of disease and pregnancy, there is the worry about giving away more than you can afford to give. And when a sexual encounter is forced, that means not only are you giving something away but the other person is taking even more from you. This isn't about purity or the church's seeming attitude that sex is a sin, this is about you being made a whole person with joy and purpose and talents, and God doesn't want anything to hurt you along the way and diminish any of your gifts."
"Am I supposed to stay a virgin until I'm married? What if I really want to do it with the next guy?"
Rubbing small circles on Rachel's back, Sister Theodore hummed slightly and smiled. "No, waiting until marriage isn't always the answer. Admittedly, often it makes things a lot easier to know you are in that committed relationship, but that is a sign for the outside world of your promise to each other. Someday you will fall in love and you will want to give yourself heart and soul to that person. It might happen before you leave high school, or it might not happen until you are in the working world. You can't control the timing. All you can control is how you respond, and then when you give that special part of yourself to the other person, they will be giving something special back to you in return. That's the way it is supposed to be."
"And God won't judge me?"
"Oh Rachel, people will judge you far more harshly than God ever will. And those who judge you the harshest will be those who see themselves reflected in your choices - for good and for ill."
Rachel nodded as she tried to understand. Her tears had stopped and Theodore could see that her sense of self was returning.
"Sister, I have one more question but I know you can't really answer it."
"Try me"
Gathering her courage, Rachel looked Sister Theodore in the face. "Will it always be so ugly?"
With a twinkle in her eye and smile of fond memories tugging at the corner of her lips, Theodore stroked Rachel's hair and simply said, "No."