Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

of his makeup. It required skills he’d never cultivated and he felt no inclination to do so. Until now. But it was too late for that. He was comfortable with the life he’d built.
    He spent years refining the layers that buffered him from the outside world. His work had always been enough. The search for answers. Facts could be categorized, put in their proper place. Text books were conveniently black and white, but now the world was a swirling mass of murky grays. Feelings he couldn’t grasp, much less control, were getting the better of him day by day.
    And now, the one thing he’d been able to cling to, the one thing that centered him, was gone. If there were no way to get home, he thought and felt for the watch in his pocket, he’d be trapped here without his work. He supposed he could start a research project here, check some texts that were lost to the future. But it would do little good. She’d become an inexorable part of that too, he realized. There wasn’t a facet of his life she hadn’t slipped inside of, even his past—the one thing that separates each of us from the other. His grandfather’s death, his nightmares were now all inescapably linked with her.
    A fresh wave of guilt and dread washed over him. If ever there was proof that he should have kept her away from him, this was it. If he’d never given in to her curiosity, never allowed her into his life, she’d be safe right now. Instead, she was trapped here with him, and about to walk headfirst into God knows what.
    It was impossible. She was impossible. The way her eyes sparked with fire when she argued with him. The way her cheeks flushed. The way her pulse pounded out her fury. He wanted to strangle her with one hand and caress her with the other.
    Why did the simple act of watching her sleep make him feel more content than he could remember? Why did he care so much what she was thinking? What she was feeling?
    Why did he want her so very much?
    He stopped walking, and the crowd surged past him. He stood like a rock in a stream of humanity. Their current pushed against him, silently urging him to join the human race. Shapeless faces passed him by, dimly lit by the night stars and glow of the streetlamps. Each a life, each on their way to something, to someone.
    He let out a long breath, stepped into the current and started home.
    * * *
    Father Cavanaugh wiped the sweat from his forehead and hastily shoved the handkerchief under his robes. Those boys would be the death of him. Extra innings for goodness sake!
    He pulled open the heavy wooden doors to the church and took a deep, calming breath. Old St. Patrick’s wasn’t what it once was, since the diocese had been moved to the larger cathedral uptown, but he wouldn’t have traded his parish for the world. The air inside the church was cool, even in the midst of summer. The smell of candle wax and incense filtered from the side altar. Breathing in the soothing mixture, he smoothed down his robes and brushed a bit of dirt away.
    It was time.
    He walked over to the confessional booth and pulled back the plush, velvet curtain. This wasn’t the regularly scheduled confessional session. It wasn’t even, in the strictest sense, a confession. Sins were spoken of, not in coarse whispers of repentance, but in cold detachment. A dangling soul suspended between good and evil. A man nourished by the dark side and seemingly abandoned by the light.
    Father Cavanaugh settled himself on the small bench and pulled the curtain closed. He lit the small candle that served as light in the booth, the wick struggling to come to life.
    “You’re late,” came a voice through the thin mesh window.
    The vague smell of stale cigarette smoke infused in the man’s clothing drifted through the partition.
    “Yes, I’m sorry,” the father said, trying not to be unnerved by the subtle venom that laced every word the man spoke. “As always, your confession is sacred, kept in the strictest confidence, with only God as—”
    “Please save your prattling for someone upon whom it won’t be lost,” the man said. “You should know me well enough by now that I wouldn’t talk to you if I didn’t trust your...discretion.”
    Father Cavanaugh laced his hands in his lap, deciding to plunge headfirst into the matter at hand. “Would you like to talk about what happened last night?”
    “My business matters are irrelevant to our conversations.”
    “It’s not a line so easily drawn, my son. A sin