Chapter 77 – Outline of the Damned

Edward

Bella was silent the whole ride to Children's Hospital. I was worried about her overall condition, both physically and mentally. So much drama and trauma had happened in our lives over the past few weeks, not to mention the stress of our jobs, that I was afraid she would break any minute. However, as we walked into the hospital, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, and that look of determination she got when she was under pressure came over her. She was stronger than any individual I had ever met, and my love for her doubled in that moment, as I was reminded just what a remarkable woman she was.

We rode up in the elevator in each other's arms. I got out at the Sanctuary, and then Bella continued up to Father Lebuteur's office. He was correct that I needed some time alone as well, and right now, time at the Sanctuary piano was what my soul craved.

The afternoon light was doing its magic through the domed stained-glass ceiling, the colors seeming to swirl more intensely today than usual with the bright spring sunshine hitting it. As I played, I glanced around the room, the sight of something that looked out of place on the sacrament alter catching my eye. I was just going to ignore it, but I suddenly felt strongly prompted not to.

I stopped playing and walked over to see what it was. It appeared to be a journal, and it had a stem sticking out from it. As I picked it up, dried red rose petals floated silently to the floor. This was something personal, so my first instinct was to lay it back on the alter or put it behind the pulpit, but I heard the command, "Read it," stated so clearly, I looked around to see who had said it. No one was there. I obeyed and opened the journal and began reading where the stem lay, marking the last entry, dated today. The entry was titled Final Thoughts. Another handful of dried rose petals fell to my feet, as I entered the world of Alec Lebuteur…

~As I write this, my final entry, my soul seeks absolution. I always knew that one day, I would do something which would make all my efforts in the priesthood moot on my own behalf. Apparently, it's in my family's blood. My mother was a harlot, always dragging strange men home, excusing her actions by saying that I would be able to save her. Who did she think was going to save me from the ones who found me once they were done with her? I doubt the thought ever crossed her selfish mind.

Regardless, since the end of my life as I know it is fast approaching, I feel the need to sit in confession as the convicted, the one in need of absolution, instead of the one offering it. I'm certain that, for what I've done, and for what I'm about to do, there is no absolution. However, according to even my own teachings and those of much of society, I was damned from the first intimate contact I had with a man. I have nothing to lose now, and quite frankly, they deserved it.

Laurant Dubois loved that wretched girl from the time we were children. At nine, I was already playing my part, marrying them in a front porch "ceremony" that was one of the worst days of my young life. She'd held those godforsaken red roses that day, cut from the bush that commemorated her birth. I hate red roses, they've reminded me daily of her, but Jane and I have grown them zealously, in hopes of someday putting a big, ugly bouquet of the horrid things on that vile woman's grave.

I'd lived two houses down the street from Laurant when we were children, so it was fate for us to become friends early on. He was always a quiet boy, happy for the most part, unlike me. I was groomed from a young age for the priesthood, something that was demanded of me by my overbearing whore of a mother, and I resented it. She seemed to believe that having someone on the "inside" praying for her to the saints could get her into heaven and erase her many indiscretions. I did my best when she died, but who will be praying to the saints to get me into heaven after this? It seems a ridiculous notion now.

At nine, I didn't know it wasn't considered "normal" for me to have the feelings I did towards Laurant, but it felt normal to me, and Laurant seemed to enjoy being with me. However, I could see that, when that horrible girl's grandmother allowed her to play with us the first time, Laurant would never be the same with me again. We had always played together, just the two of us, and suddenly, this horrible girl was intruding!

We played together for five more years before I got up the nerve to let Laurant know how I felt about him. She had been over, as usual, the perpetual third wheel, and she had finally gone home. And then, I did it. I kissed him. Laurant wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said it felt gross and warned me never to do that again. And I never did, until that day.

Those years since our first kiss passed agonizingly, as I watched Laurant trail after her like a lovesick puppy. He became increasingly withdrawn and fragile, as her grandparents refused more and more to allow her to be around him. That was fine with me that she wasn't around, though seeing Laurant hurting like that caused the monster of hatred already residing inside me, spawned due to her very existence, to begin to grow.

I tried to stay close to Laurant over the years by offering my love and support, disguised in the role of priest and friend. I even encouraged Jane to get involved with him, much to my distaste, hoping to distract him from his obsession with that girl. It didn't work, and I watched the same monster grow inside my sister, as she fell deeper in love with him, while he continued to follow and watch that girl every chance he got. He put on a good act and a brave face for Jane, even getting engaged, which only led her in deeper, while he tried to live a double life. She became so depressed every time she would catch him in a lie about following that girl again, that she ended up spending a lot of time with me for comfort during my prison ministry visits. I thought her conversations with the inmates were innocent. Had I only known. I never wanted Jane to get hurt. She was my baby sister, and I loved her.

Not being able to be with Laurant was torture, but I was able to at least relieve my pent-up frustrations with Father Jonas Brady on occasion. He wasn't the one I loved, however, and he knew it and resented me, but he still kept coming back for more. Our encounters usually left me feeling guilty, empty, and more frustrated emotionally. Every time we were together, all I saw was Laurant's face. More than once, I even cried out his name in my passion, which infuriated Jonas. And every time, I cursed that wretched woman to the fiery depths of hell for all our pain.

When Dr. Edward Masen came into the Sanctuary that day, talking animatedly about a new woman he had met and mentioned that her name was Bella Swan, I about leapt for joy. Masen obviously was in love with her from the first mention of her name, and I knew it wouldn't be long before he would be talking marriage. I'd seen and conducted enough premarital counseling sessions to know a man in love when I saw one. Surely, I thought, this would be the end of Laurant's obsession with her. I was wrong.

Laurant became even more withdrawn and took to stalking her outright. Jane even went with him a few times, as he followed Bella in the shadows, and she was unable to get through to him that it was pointless to dwell on her anymore, since she was with Masen now. Jane tried her best, growing more frustrated and manic by the day. By the time she came running into my office from the private corridor, covered in the blood of Dr. Stanley, I knew she was in trouble in more ways than one. She asked for confessional protection and absolution, and as a priest, I was obligated to keep her confession confidential. I should have tried to have her committed as her brother, but she was my sister, and I actually wished she had been successful. Had she been so, things would have turned out so differently. Bella Swan's existence has now damned my sister's immortal soul, along with costing me any chance at Laurant's love. Now, my path is set, and I have to do what I know I must.

The last time I saw Laurant was the day of the Masen-Swan wedding. He was standing outside when I pulled up, and it looked like he had been crying. He looked like hell. Jane was with him, looking worse for wear herself. She said she had been arguing with him all night, trying to talk him out of coming here at all. It killed me to see him like that, but he was determined to see it for himself. I went in and did what I had to do, praying the whole time that Jane would be able to get through to him and get him to go. However, I saw the look on his face, as the happy couple came outside and was getting ready to leave. He was devastated. I could see it in his eyes. His soul, his reason for living, was gone, destroyed by Bella Swan. She noticed him, and for a moment, I thought she was going to say something to him. I was hoping for something that would finally release him, but Jane pulled him away before Bella could say anything to him. If looks could kill, Jane would have left her in a million pieces on that sidewalk.

Part of me died that day, too. To see him hurting like that, knowing he loved her that much, it made me so angry, so angry at them both. I always held a small bit of hope in my heart that he could love me, that given a chance, I could get him to see that I would be better for him than either Bella or Jane. But his ability to love, to even exist, was gone.

I finally got back to the Sanctuary and called Jane to find out how Laurant was doing. She said he had gone out for a walk, but when she looked, his stuff was gone. He had thrown everything he had at her house in the trash. She was crying. He had left her, and me.

He hadn't been gone long, and he was on foot, so I knew it wouldn't be hard to find him if I hurried. The wind was bitterly cold, as I parked my car off the side of the bridge and ran to catch up to him. I was quickly wishing I had stopped for my hat and coat, as the snow was falling heavily and swirling around my head. Laurant whipped around at the sound of my footsteps, but he turned and continued walking as I came up next to him. I listened to him muttering as he walked, saying how he still loved her and forgave her for marrying someone else, and that he would never stop loving her. Nor would he ever love anyone else for as long as he lived.

I started yelling at him to wake up and realize that others loved him and to forget about that godforsaken Bella Swan. He was shaking his head, tears streaming down his face. I was still wearing the red rose boutonniere from the wedding, and he glared at it, ripping the rose from it and crushing it in his hand. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking away from me, continuing to mutter that he still loved her and always would. I was furious, and that was when I did it again. For the first time since we were children, I did what he had told me never to do again. I grabbed him and kissed him. I pulled away and started babbling like a fool, telling him how much I still loved him, and I always had.

He was taken aback and stood there staring at me before he started laughing in my face. He called me a pervert and a queer and pushed me back, telling me to get out of his face and stay away from him. His words cut through me like a laser, and something in me snapped. I was sick of being rejected. Sick of watching him fawn over that woman who kept his heart from me and doomed me to a miserable life alone all these wasted years. Sick of watching my precious sister die more each day, as she tried to make a life with a man who barely acknowledged her existence most days. Sick of sex with men I didn't love. And most of all, sick of trying to be something I wasn't, to please someone who never cared what I wanted, for a cause I didn't even believe in anymore.

It was late, cold, and very dark. The streetlight on that stretch of road over the bridge was out, so only the slight luminosity of the snow gave any hint of a glow. Laurant was almost a third of the way across the overpass when I caught up with him once more. I reached for him, and when he cursed me and turned away from me again, I was consumed with anger. The monster inside me took over, eclipsing any form of human reasoning I may have had left. I grabbed him, catching him off guard, and slammed his head into the rail of the bridge. He fell back, but then he jumped up and tried to fight. I was driven by emotion-filled rage at this point and picked him up, flipping him over the railing.

The realization of what I had just done hit me instantly, and I sank down on the bridge. I immediately shot up, though, as the sound of tires squealing and metal ripping tore through the cold, still night, making a noise that could only be described as a scream from the depths of hell. I looked over the side of the bridge in horror, as a school bus full of children flipped and rolled off the slick highway, crashing to a violent stop below. I could hear the screams of the children, as I ran back to my car and sped off into the night.

I had to stop and throw up several times on my way back to my apartment, where I jerked my clothes off and jumped into a freezing shower. I tried to wash away the images of the bus rolling, the sounds of the children screaming, and the heat of the sin I felt trying to consume me, all while remembering the look on Laurant's face, as he went over the side of the bridge. I couldn't get the water cold enough to extinguish the burning I felt, as if the very flames of purgatory were trying to swallow me up.

As I calmed down, I realized three things. My life was over, the love of my life was dead, and Bella Swan was to blame. I had only wanted love, and to protect what was precious to me. It was her fault, and she deserved what I was going to do today.

I pulled myself together, putting on my best priest face, and ministered to the families of the children as needed. I offered my help, which Edward, being totally trusting of me from our time together in the Sanctuary, was grateful for. I could tell Bella didn't trust me at first, but with Edward's encouragement, I began to council with her, building her confidence in me, leading her to me. This will be so easy. I will handle the third problem, and then I can finally be free to join Laurant and Jane. May God rest their souls, and may God forgive me for what I am about to do. ~

I clutched the journal in my hands, as I raced out of the Sanctuary towards Father Lebuteur's office, dialing Emmett as I ran. I only hoped I wasn't too late.