a sinner's preach

3: and of the holy spirit amen

(the abSOLUTE final part that took forever to write and im so content with, thank you for reading, enjoy)

A book with so many prayers for people who need to speak it, a language so forgotten but speaks like second on my lips. The same lips that become sex bruised too many times a night which will never let me forget. So I remember prayers of my liturgy, they die on my lips the moment I see her; Camila.

Last row in the church, head lolling back as she stares at the stained glass windows, like this is her own home with her black boots kicked up on the head of the next row. The only thing that's missing is the cigarette on her lips, instead there's a lollipop replacing it when she takes it out her mouth and puts it back in again.

I catch her eye and that's when she sends me a childish smile, something I wish I never get used to when my stomach flips. I'm surprised to see her here, a place where is so out of bounds in her books and so out of place for her body. I see her wedged between dark corners of streets but never on the last row in church, I'm reminded of when she first introduced her name. Little did I know of how much she would end up meaning.

"Why'd you stop?" She asks from the other side of the room.

I ask myself the same thing as I stare down at the open book in front of me and close it. She watches me in curiosity and I wonder how long she's been seated there before I noticed.

"Its nice being here." She continues when I don't reply, she takes the red lollipop out of her mouth with a pop and sucks it back in; nothing about it is supposed to be seductive but my knees still go weak at what the sight of her mouth does to me. She frowns a little when I get away from the alter and the podium that supports it.

"Is it?"

"Yeah, this is like...." she trails off, tilting her head at me as I near her, then in a quiet voice she slowly says, "it's like your place. Your element."

There's a brief moment I wonder what that means when I cutting close to her, she stands up as I near her, smiling at me even though the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes and there's something off about her demeanour.

"What's wrong?" I ask immediately, the calmness that radiated her before is gone. I hold her hand when she reaches for me. Fingers locking like they always do and it settles me off the edge when she flickers her eyes back to me from staring at our hands.

"This place." Is all she says quietly.

"Oh." I turn to look at the front of the church where the altar is and where the huge crucifix intimidatingly stands. I wonder if she means that she's scared of being here, in the church, the eyes of God being scared to stand in her own home. "Do you want to get out of here?"

When I look back she's already boring her eyes at me, trying to figure me out in this place when she's the one that looks out of place. "I mean, this place. This is your place. I've got nothing to do with this place, yet here I am."

"You were here when we first met." I say and she smiles, this time it reaches her beautiful brown eyes and she holds my hand tighter.

"I was." She nods, "that was the first time I ever stepped into a church. I'm not religious you see, but you're turning me into a believer."

She's pulling me into her this time, arms wrapped around my body as my head tucks into her neck. I'm overwhelmed with her scent and the feel of cool leather on my skin; she holds me there and I can think of nothing more than this girl.

* * *

Camila is doing well in trying to stop smoking. After sex there's usually a lighter on one hand and cigarette on the other, but recently there's been nothing besides a soft melody that places in the background and her humming.