Borrowed Time

Chapter Twenty Three

The church was so dead on Thursday nights, honestly Juliette couldn't figure out why her father held mass in the first place, it felt tedious... but it gave her the chance to talk to Becky in a controlled environment where she couldn't leave, so she'd take it. Shit, that felt creepy... but she meant it. If she'd brought it up at school, Becky could simply avoid her, but if she had to stay anyway, there was no getting past it. Her father, on the other hand, seemed worried that she suddenly wanted to be involved which was weird because honestly, shouldn't he be encouraging her engagement.

"Are you sure that you want to be doing this, honey? Because I'm sure Becky can handle it, there aren't often many kids on a Thursday night..." He said, and Juliette nodded. She was counting on there being a really small crowd so that she could talk to Becky about what she'd been through, that was part of the reason she'd gotten here so early. She had research to conduct.

"Yeah, I wanna be here. I feel like I've been neglecting the church community recently, and I wanna give back." She explained, which wasn't entirely a lie, she did feel that her... pleasures of the flesh were starting to take precedence over her worship... But she was still technically worshiping... She called on God plenty. She shivered, thinking back to the prior night... Her hands on Esme's bare waist, her lips on her neck... They hadn't really done anything too bad but it'd felt positively sinful, and the sound of her moans had been playing in Juliette's mind nonstop, distracting her from anything else. As testament to that, her father placed his hand on her shoulder and made her jump, drawing her back to reality away from her fantasy.

"Hey." His tone was soft and gentle as his eyes bore into her soul... It was like looking in a mirror, only these eyes looked at her with love and kindness and her own often favored contempt.

"What?" She watched as he furrowed his brow, leaning a little closer. Okay...

"You're not trying to repent for the... Uh..." He leaned down to be level with her ear, taking a deep breath, which made her grimace and shudder... That felt terrible. "The gay thing, right?" He whispered, and she nodded. No, she wasn't doing anything to repent for that... sometimes she felt like she should, but she couldn't bring herself to do that... It'd only make her feel worse.

"Right." That seemed to relax him a bit as he nodded, giving her a worried sort of smile... Ever since she'd told him, it'd felt like he was walking on eggshells around it, afraid to hurt her or make her feel uncomfortable.

"Good. Because that's not a sin and I don't think you should have to apologize for it." Yeah, she was gathering that from him, but it didn't feel genuine with Samantha still in the house, still whispering in her ear. She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall.

"Tell that to your wife." She muttered under her breath, hoping her father wouldn't notice that she'd said anything at all, but of course he did, and he leaned closer for her to repeat it. Shit.

"What?" Fuck. Come up with a lie, any lie that could be even slightly believable would do.

"I, uh, I just asked if I'd need a knife... Like a butter knife... to cut up the kid's snacks so they don't choke? I remember we had to have them around Freshman year just in case." Okay, so that wasn't even slightly believable. Juliette mentally kicked herself as she saw her father's face contort in confusion as he shook his head. God, don't be such an idiot...

"Uh... Yeah, no. No, I think they provide those, sweetheart." Clearly. It was a stupid lie, but he'd bought it.

"Good! That's probably a good thing, we don't want that coming out of the volunteer's pockets, right?" She chuckled nervously, her voice going up on the last word. Her father looked a bit confused as he gave her a smile, nodding. Well, that was one thing that was good about him being an absent father the past couple of years, he'd forgotten her tells for lying.