"Bless me, Father, I've... I've been a really bad friend."

I thought I heard a note of surprise in the priest's voice when he responded.

"Do you think you've sinned?" He asked.

I fidgeted in the small booth. My summoning paper was between my fingers, wrinkled from my nervous grip of the walk to the monastery. I licked my lips and tried to smooth out the paper, but it wouldn't flatten out.

"I... I'm not sure what a sin is... all I know is that... is that I told my mom that I wasn't feeling good about keeping it inside, but I didn't want to talk to her, and so she told me to-"

"Come to confession?" The priest asked, amused.

I curled in on myself, shame biting at my cheeks like some small, needle-toothed creature.

"Y-yes..." I stammered, my face hot, my hair hanging in my face.

The priest laughed kindly. "It's all right, child. I'm assuming you've never been to confession before. Do you want to tell me what-"

"I-I don't know where to start." I muttered, mostly to myself. Really, where should I? Maybe I didn't know what a "sin" was, or if there was even such a thing, but I'd done so many... bad things that I didn't know where to start.

The priest smiled. "There's no time limit, child... you can start wherever you want, and if you need to backtrack, then backtrack. The only rule of truth is Truth." He said quietly.

I hesitated, letting the words sink in. Realizing that I didn't need to rush, I sighed. "There was... there was the arbor incident..." I whispered. I felt a lump begin to form in my throat, and I swallowed.

I heard the priest quietly urge me to continue. I took a moment, trying to get rid of the lump, before I began to speak again.

"When... when I was... younger..." I sniffled, and wiped at my eyes, even though the tears hadn't hit my cheeks. "My... my grandmother used to tell me about... about this garden... she said it-it was "God's Garden", where all the plants in the world grew..." I laughed a little, trying to hide the fact I was starting to cry. "...I don't... I don't believe in God, but back then, I was thinking more about the plants... I told my grandmother that we'd search for it together, but she couldn't she was too old, she said." I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears found their way onto my lashes. "And, one day, I... I thought I'd gathered enough money to travel the world and search for the garden. I told her that I was going to search for it, when she wanted me to help her with the grape arbor..." I clenched my teeth, and my fingers curled around the paper, crumpling it further. I thought, vaguely, that I should apologize to my demon, but the thought quickly disappeared. "...I left her with no help, and I came home late, and she...I found her..." The tears finally fell from my eyes onto my hands, and I trembled.

"The arbor had fallen on her, and... and she was..." I sobbed, and I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth in an attempt to smother the sounds. "And, I should have come home earlier, and she wouldn't have died, I should have helped her with the arbor, and-"

"Do you think she would be mad at you?" The priest cut in. His voice was steady, and I clung to the sound like a lifeline... I had to have something to hold onto, something to keep me tethered.

I took a second to calm my breathing, then shook my head. No, this was... this was Grandmother, she was the kindest person I knew, she was loving, and gentle, and... "I...no... I don't think she would..." But... what if she...?

"Then why, if you pardon my informality, beat yourself up over it?"

I opened my eyes and pressed my palms to my face. I frowned against my skin, and let my hands drop to my lap. "I... I don't know whether she's mad at me or not..." I breathed, shaking my head slowly. How could I know? She was gone... there was no way for me to know.

The priest took a minute to respond. "She would forgive you though, right?" He pressed gently.

I fell silent. I gathered the skirt of my kimono. I could almost see her in my mind, smiling. I smiled along with the memory, and I closed my eyes.

"Yeah... I think she would." I murmured. I took a deep breath. I still had other things to talk about, but at least I didn't feel the need to cry anymore.

"Is that all?" The priest asked me.

I swallowed, and shook my head. "No... after I lost my grandmother, I... I became stubborn. I wouldn't help her with the shop, I wouldn't even leave the garden, I... I was sleeping in the storage shed... ah! I moved all my bedroom stuff out there, I wasn't just, you know..." I added, after I realized how that sounded. The priest chuckled, but didn't say anything, so I went on. "...It... well, it got to the point where I ended up being-" I cut myself off, and I cleared my throat. I couldn't tell him about that, I didn't know if he knew about exorcists and demons and all that. "...my legs, they... they stopped working, I couldn't walk... I was totally useless." I said.

"...and you think that was a 'bad' thing?" The priest asked.

I looked up sharply. "It-it was! I couldn't-"

"You were grieving." He said softly. I closed my mouth, and he continued. "I'm sure your mother was as well, and she could understand what you were going through... while she had lost her mother, she understood that you had just lost your grandmother... you all lived together, am I right?"

I nodded slowly. "Y-yes, we were all very close..." I replied.

"...Forgive me for asking, but... you haven't mentioned your father... is he...?" He trailed off.

I cast my gaze down to my hands. "I...I never met him, and my mom, she... doesn't talk about him." I lifted my head and offered the dark a small smile. "I... don't actually think about him, so I don't miss him." I admitted. It was true, he was never a part of my life, so why did I have any reason to miss him?

"...I see." The priest murmured. I heard him cough quietly, and the small, divided box was plunged into a brief silence.

I waited patiently, not wanting to be the one to break the lack of sound.

"I don't think your mother blames you for how you acted after your grandmother's death." He finally said, his hushed words seeming to boom in the quiet space.

I sighed, and ducked my head. "I... I guess not..." I allowed a short, self-deprecating laugh to escape my lips, and I tucked my hair behind my ear. "I feel stupid for coming here, you're pointing out all these things that I should have seen before-"

"Never feel stupid, or bad, for coming for forgiveness." The priest interrupted me. I blinked, but before I could speak, he went on. "Part of forgiveness is understanding what you've done, and the reality of the situation..." He laughed softly. "I think one of the best feelings is going to confession and realizing that something you've done is not actually a sin." I heard him lean back against the wood of the confessional. "I understand that it doesn't have to be a sin, though." I could hear the smile in his voice, and it spread.

I sighed. "...I guess." I fell into the quiet again, and closed my eyes. I could see my last "sin" flickering in the darkness, blue, warm, like a candle. I grasped for my remaining courage, and found-to my surprise-that there was more there than what little bravery I had started with.

"There's one last thing." I said into the still, slightly stuffy air.

"Please," The priest urged.

I straightened my back and took a breath. "I... really hurt my friend." The priest was silent, so I forced myself to keep talking. All the courage in the world couldn't make the words any less bitter in my mouth. "He was one of my first friends, he helped me... when I literally couldn't stand, and he was kind, and he treated me as a person, as an equal, rather than a doll, or a flower..." I shook my head. The words were tumbling out of my mouth, and, when voiced, I heard just how much of an idiot I was. "...then I found out that his father was-well, we'll just say he was basically a demon." I couldn't help but smile at that. Oh well, it was true, but the priest would take it a different way, I was sure. "... I was scared of him. Just because of someone he was related to, I was terrified that he was going to hurt me, that he was going to hurt my new friends... I was terrified that he would turn on me, on us, and in reality, he was hurting so much that he-" My voice broke as I remembered what had happened in that prison cell, in the bleak landscape where he sat, alone. "He said that he-" I clapped a hand over my mouth.

I thought I was done crying.

It took a minute for me to calm down. I sniffled again and sucked in a breath.

"He said that... he should just die where he was, and that he was-" I sobbed, not able to control my emotions anymore. "H-he said he was a monster!" I cried. I curled in on myself, shuddering. I heard the priest start to say something, but I kept going. "He'd been thinking like that all along! And then when we all found out, he just tried to get along with us like nothing happened, he was trying to move forward and get along with us, and we just-we just made him think he was this evil, monstrous, demon!" I grabbed my hair and slammed my eyes shut against the stinging tears.

"Child, child, please calm down, it's alright, it's alright-" The priest tried to get me to calm down, but I couldn't, I couldn't.

"But it's not alright! I hurt him, I hurt him so much, to the point where he thought it would be better if he weren't alive!" I spat out. I coughed as if the words had been choking me. I shook my head. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that, I shouldn't have been scared in the first place..." I felt myself calming down a little, and I sniffed. "He didn't deserve it..." I whispered.

"Child."

My eyes flickered open as the priest's voice finally broke through my cries. I fell silent. I inhaled slowly. "Yes...?" I said weakly.

"I want to ask you... do you think he'd still be mad at you?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. "N-no... I don't think he was mad in the first place, he's not like that..." I murmured.

"Then do you think you really need his forgiveness?" My eyes widened. Of course I needed his forgiveness! I had to know if he-if he still didn't trust me, or-or- "Or do you think you already have it?"

His words were quiet, but they seemed to slam into me, shocking me into stillness.

My trembling slowed to a stop, and I let my fingers loosen from my hair.

Did I... already have it?

"How do I know if I have it?" I asked, almost under my breath.

"What do you think is the best way to find out?" The priest asked.

I sat up, thinking. How? What was the best way? I didn't know, how would I-

Oh.

I shot to my feet.

"I-I'm sorry, I need to-" I stammered, but he cut me off.

"Go." He said. I heard him stand, and I looked at the divider for the first time since I sat down on the wooden seat. I saw the silhouette of his hand pressed against the screen. "You know who you need to ask for forgiveness." He chuckled. "You don't need to get it from me or God, but let's just keep that a secret between you and me."

I smiled. I wasn't entirely sure what to do, so I placed my hand on the screen over his hand.

"Thank you." I said. I stayed there for a moment, before I tucked my summoning paper into my sleeve and reached out to draw the dark red curtains back.

Maybe I hadn't found what I was looking for...

But I knew where to go.

Ah well... I kinda like this chapter...

Hope you all did as well.

Hope you guys are doing awesome.

:)

. o O o .

"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight." ~Jim Rohn