I went to confessions once, in the beginning. At the old church on Board, where Park Row meets Amusement Mile.
Crying, I told the priest everything. How I was liable to disappear, how even this conversation wouldn't be remembered, how much I didn't want this place to change me, even though I could still feel it happening, like slowly chipped ice.
He told me that it didn't matter if other people forgot. That what was important was my own memory. That if I really had no other options, maybe I should make a compromise. Just take what nobody needs. Forgotten things. Lost things. Because while there's a lot of stuff out there that people want, it's not necessarily what they need.
He told me that moral ambiguity never helped anyone, and that if I was serious about trying to stay clean in a place like Gotham, I needed to stick to my guns and be prepared to make the hard choices. It would not be easy. Just stay safe, be careful and keep my head down. Trying is the most that anyone's ever done and for me? It would have to be enough.
Talking helped, and after we left the confessional I gifted him with the biggest, if watery, smile I could manage. The old priest smiled back and accepted my thanks, even if he looked a bit confused while doing so. I really hoped he wasn't dirty, like the police force, or under somebody's thumb, but chances were, he was, unwilling or not. It didn't matter, though. He'd said what I need to hear and listened, if only for awhile. I put some of the stolen money I had stuffed down my shirt into the poor box, just because.
