La Mort et ses Merveilles
Chapter 11: Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned
Jason Rosendale did not do anything with Leslie Carpenter that night. Nope. Nothing at all. And that was final.
I repeated that in my head as I stood in the chapel, hands clasped as Mother Agnes led the prayers. I wasn't particularly religious, but if praying could absolve me from the guilt of what I did the previous night, then I'll get down on my knees and take my vows and devote my entire life to prayer. I even took a shower and gave myself a good scrub, whatever it took to get these sticky, disgusting feeling off me.
Leslie had gotten up early, but I didn't see him anywhere in the chapel. Good. Who knew where he went. Who cares? I don't. I certainly don't.
I bumped into the young man in the dining hall for breakfast. I was in the queue right in front of him, try as I could to ignore him, I couldn't help but notice him in the corner of my eye. He wasn't in his blue trunks anymore, obviously, his body all covered up by a plaid shirt and jeans. He didn't try to talk to me, and I did the same. The situation was already awkward enough for us. I handed my plate over to the sister behind the counter for breakfast.
It didn't help that breakfast for that day was scrambled eggs and sausages. It made me want to gag.
Spotting Josephine and my little sister at their usual table, I made a beeline for them, quickly turning my back to Leslie.
"Fancy seeing you at mass this morning," Josephine remarked as I plopped myself down on the seat in front of her.
"Yeah, just thought I needed to uh," I muttered, grabbing my fork. "Ask for forgiveness. For uh, my sins. That's what people do in church right?"
I trailed off with an awkward chuckle. The nun only raised an eyebrow as she sipped on her coffee. Placing it down on the table, she looked to our right, to the other end of the dining hall. Instinctively, I turned to look at well.
Leslie was seated alone at our usual table. He toyed around with his fork, picking away at his food. He didn't seem to have an appetite. Just like me. I guess he must've felt pretty awkward about yesterday too.
No, no, what was I talking about? I shook that idea out of my head. Nothing happened yesterday. Nothing.
"Why aren't you sitting with him?" Josephine asked as she cut a bit of sausage and picked it up with her fork.
"Wh-What?" I stuttered under my breath, the sound of her voice bringing me back to the real world, back to the world where Leslie did, in fact, play around with my privates the night before.
Josephine only rolled her eyes as she stuffed the piece of sausage in her mouth. I had to look away.
"Aren't you usually with Leslie when it comes to meals?" Josephine asked me, obviously pressing me for answers.
"I-I" I stuttered, my eyelids fluttering in embarrassment. "I don't know who that is. Leslie who?"
The young woman snickered as she shook her head. She and my sister shared a knowing look.
"Boys," she said in a soft whisper, but it was still loud enough for me to hear.
The two of them shared a giggle. Sure, it was at my expense, but I still couldn't help but smile to myself. Josephine and my sister were truly inseparable. She was the mother my sister never had.
As I nibbled on the eggs in tiny bites, I thought about my mother. I've never met her in ten years, not ever since she left. Not even a call or a message. She just disappeared. I wonder what she was up to now? Was she dead? Who knew, and I may never even find out.
I finished the eggs, but I left the sausages untouched. I didn't want those anywhere near my mouth.
It was then when I noticed Leslie walking up to us, holding his plate in his hand. Nervously, I looked up, but his gaze was stuck at the floor, or at his plate, or Josephine. Anywhere except for me. He brushed past me without a word, walking up to Isabella.
"Hey," he said, gently lying his free hand on my sister's shoulder. "How's your morning, Bells?"
I gulped. It was the hand that he used to touch me, his left hand. Now he was touching my little sister. I wanted to die. I could only hope he washed his hands.
"It's fine," she looked up with her bright eyes, an equally bright smile on her lips. "Except that Jason's been actin a bit weird."
I noticed him gulp, as our gazes finally met. His eyes flickered, all the while saying nothing, before finally looking away again.
"Hey you know what," he said to my sister. "If you want to grow up to be a big girl you've got to eat more."
With that, he dumped the sausages on his plate onto Isabella's. Without another word, he leaned down and planted a kiss on the crown of my sister's head before hurriedly walking off. If I wasn't aware of the context, it would've seen like such a nice, sweet act. But he was probably not touching the sausages for the same reason I was avoiding them too. But I had to admit, he was always pretty nice to Isabella. It was growing on me, I must confess.
"He's acting kind of weird today, don't you think?" Josephine said teasingly. "You've got anything to say about that?"
I quickly picked up my plate and dumped the sausages on her empty one.
"Well," I said, rather awkwardly. "You uh, need to eat more. . . meat! Yeah, it's good for you."
I trailed off with a chuckle while the young woman merely raised her eyebrow at me. Grinning sheepishly, I turned away and got out of there as fast as I could.
I did whatever work I had according to the schedule that day alone. Weeding the plants, making my rounds around the grounds looking for anything that needs patching up, and conducting inventory in the infirmary. This time, it was all without Leslie's overbearing presence hovering in the background. I noticed a box of vicodin had been opened. I thought nothing about it, nothing was gone from the total boxes of medicines that haven't been accounted for, so I thought that perhaps Josephine had opened it to administer it to someone who might've needed it. I could've gone into her office and asked her, but I wasn't too focused on the assignments for that day. I just wanted to be alone and try to sort out my thoughts.
After I was done, I immediately rushed up to my room, closing the door behind me. Plopping myself onto my bed, I let out a deep sigh. I did a good job avoiding Leslie throughout the whole morning, but I couldn't run away from him in my head. I kept thinking of his blue eyes, his kisses on my neck, his hands running down my back. Just the mere thought of it sent a shiver through me.
I couldn't help but suppress the need to slap myself in the face. Well if I didn't like it I could've just put an end to it the moment he started getting handsy couldn't I? But no, silly me just had to let him go on. Did I actually want it? No, that can't be possible.
Maybe it's because the last time I got any action was way before the whole world collapsed, back when I was in high school with my ex. It had been a long time since I got to get off, so of course I'd respond in that way. It wasn't like I was attracted to him or anything. It was just a physical reaction, nothing more. I didn't want it, for sure. Maybe my body was just desperate. I tried shaking those thoughts out of my head.
All of a sudden there were three sharp knocks on my door, bringing me out of my thoughts.
"Hey, uh, Jason?"
That familiar husky voice. Leslie.
"Are you in?" he asked. "I wanted to talk."
I gulped. What could he possibly want to talk about? There was nothing about it, and I myself didn't want to even remember what happened. I just wanted it gone.
"I-I'm not in!" I blurted out.
How stupid of me, I thought to myself. The door opened anyway, and in stepped Leslie. He seemed a little more sombre this time, the boyish grin that was usually on his face gone. He was being a bit bashful as well, taking a seat beside me on the bed as he fidgeted with his sleeves that he had folded up to his elbows. I shifted slightly to the side, so that the gap between us was about an arm's length. My heart thumped in my chest. It was just me, Leslie all alone in the room. The last time that happened it didn't end well.
"I came here to talk about the whole thing," he began, looking down at the ground. "The whole Rosanne situation."
I let out a deep sigh of relief.
"Oh," I muttered. "Of course."
"So well," he began, biting his lip as I tried to relax. "Just so you know, Rosanne used to be one of the nuns closest to my mom, before the whole zombie thing happened. That's when I showed up."
"So what I'm gathering is that this Rosanne is just jealous of you," I said. "Then that's no big deal. I mean sure, she's just a little bummed that you took her place, and maybe that's why she started those rumours about you."
"You don't get it, it's more serious than that," came his reply as he let out a deep breath. "I know I told you that only the four of us knew about what I did out there, but Rosanne knows too."
"What do you mean?" I asked, a little confused with all this.
"You see Jason," he explained. "When I came here, this place was really disorganised, and with my mom being so isolated from everything she wouldn't know how to make things work. So the three of us got together and made a pact with Bradley's gang in Hannelore."
I frowned at him, a bit lost with all the politics in this place. Who knew, a sacred house of God like this could be muddled with petty politics.
"Who's Bradley again?" I asked.
"He's a friend of mine, back in the day," the young man said as he leaned back slightly. "And he also happens to be Rosanne's nephew. He was the guy I went around with when we went to raid for supplies. My mom doesn't know though, I'd rather keep it that way. We got our weapons through him and those guys with guns at the gate? Yeah, those are his guys."
"So how does this all tie in?" I asked. "Hannelore, Bradley, Rosanne. . ."
"So in short," Leslie replied. "She knows what I did. And she's dangling it over my head. Doing things like this? She's just testing the waters. She knows my mom can be a bit. . .moralistic. Sure, she's my mom and she won't kick me out for skipping services but for murder? I can't say the same. She'll get rid of me again, just like how she got rid of me and joined the convent."
"I think Mother Agnes is pretty nice," I muttered, not knowing what to say.
Leslie shot me a glare with his icy blue eyes.
"You don't know what she did," he said, shaking his head. "You don't know her like I do."
I just held my tongue. The atmosphere was tense, the air heavy and suffocating.
"So what are you going to do about Rosanne?" I asked, quickly trying to change the topic.
The young man bit his lip.
"I can't beat her. . ." he said, almost as if it was a bad thing. "Maybe we should frame her or something. Just to get some leverage against her."
"And how do you say we go about doing that?" I asked, raising my eyebrow.
"Well," he said, leaning towards me, a serious look on his face. "You know, we could try and gather some wild leaves and berries or something and hide it around in her room, and you know how every nun's room has a cross on the wall? Yeah, we turn that upside down. Then we can accuse her of being a witch."
I couldn't help but burst out laughing. It was a little mean, but between all that pent out tension within me and Leslie's ridiculous suggestion, I just had to let it all out in a muffled guffaw. Leslie only stared at me with his blue eyes, an expression of boyish confusion on his face. Immediately, I felt guilty.
"I-I just thought that since everybody here's religious," he muttered, a slight redness filling his pale cheeks. "You know, that they'll probably make a big deal out of that."
"I'd say that's a pretty good concept," I replied, trying to make up for it. "But execution wise. . .It comes off as really silly. It'll be too obvious anyway."
"Yeah, I guess we'll just have to talk to Clara about this," the young man chuckled nervously. "Besides, she's the one who went to college and got her nursing degree."
The silence that befell the room soon after was deafening. The Rosanne issue was out of the way, but there was still something else that Leslie came here for. And we both new.
"About yesterday," the young man finally blurted out, heaving a deep sigh. "I-I'm sorry about that, okay?"
Chuckling nervously, I inched further away from him.
"What happened yesterday?" I said, feigning ignorance as my batted my eyes. "Nothing happened."
Leslie scooted over to me, getting closer. Gosh, this boy couldn't take a hint.
"It's been a while since I've done anything like that," he said as he ran a hand through his brown hair. "I'm sorry if I went too far."
As he got closer, I found myself staring into his deep set eyes. I felt like I could melt into their deep blue depths. My heart beating faster, a part of me wanted to fall onto him and tell him to hold me tight, to plant those sweet kisses on my neck again, to embrace me and make me forget all the pain. I only turned awkwardly to avoid his gaze.
"I'm sorry," I muttered, unable to look him in the eye. "I don't swing that way."
I could hear the young man shift away, pulling back.
"Yeah," he said with a nervous chuckle. "Me too."
"Can we just go back to how we were before all this?" I asked, flashing him a polite smile. "You know, maybe forget about what happened?"
The young man stood up and walked up to the door. His hand on the knob, he turned to look at me with those sad, sad eyes of his.
"If you haven't realised," he muttered, biting his lower lip. "Things between us can never be the same."
As he shut the door behind him, I buried my face in my palms. Engulfed it my thoughts, I realised he was right, whether I wanted to admit or not.
Things were never going to be the same.