Page 107 of Saint

“You bring me closer to God, Elijah,” I tell him softly. “Simply by existing.”

He ducks his head, his fingers scrunching a little against my tuxedo jacket, as if he wishes he could press through my skin and muscle to touch the organ that even now beats so fervently for him.

“It’s everything I wanted to hear,” he confesses, still not looking at me. “How do I know it’s real? How do I know it will last?”

“Patience,” I say. “Youwere the one who wrote about that.”

He finally looks up, tears still tracking down his face and sliding down his jaw. “It feels too good to be true. Like a spring of water coming from a severed head. How can something beautiful come from the mess we’ve made?”

I kiss away one of his tears, and then I press my fingers under his chin and lift his face to mine. I rub my thumb against the subtle cleft there, as I give him my best Aiden Bell grin—the one that used to get me everything I wanted, everything in the entire world.

“I have an idea,” I say mischievously, relishing the catch in Elijah’s breath at my boxer-dropping smile. “What if we played a game?”

“A game,” he whispers, the first hint of a smile returning to his mouth.

“A game,” I confirm. “What if...what if we leave here together tonight?”

“I like the sound of that,” he says, his tone cautious but his smile growing.

“And then, what if we decided to try again, the two of us? Knowing that it might take time, that we might be scared, that parts of it will be hard, but knowing we’ve been through harder?”

“I like the sound of that game a lot,” he says softly.

“And,” I say, keeping my fingers under his chin to hold him still for the sweetest, slowest kiss I’m capable of, “what if we loved each other until we were old and gray?”

He presses his hand harder against my chest. Against my heart.

“Okay, Aiden Bell, former monk,” he says. “I have awhat iffor you too.”

“And what’s that?”

He gives me a smile that makes me very glad I’ve given up wearing my cage. His hand begins drifting south, down to my zipper, as he asks, “What if we started right now?”

Epilogue

From Mode Magazine

We got married on a rainy day in October—the kind of rainy day that makes you want to be in a college library or tucked into a big chair with a hot apple cider and a thick book. Of course, it mostly reminded me of the Irish abbey where I realized that I wasn’t just in love with my ex, butunconditionally and sacrificiallyin love with him. And so it felt like a piece of that fateful trip was with us as we said our vows and pledged to love each other forever, with patience above all.

His brother—a former priest (yes, you might say some things run in this family)—led the ceremony, which we held in the same place where we came together the first and the final time. My husband chose it because he wanted to see the hills in the distance as he said his vows to me. I agreed because I can’t deny him anything, and also because I got a very good discount on the rental fee.

My sister and his brother were there with their babies, which now number five. My parents were there too, and my father cried so hard that my mother had to sneak him a tissue during the service.

All of the usual friends and colleagues were there, and perhaps most surprising was the entire section of monks who’d driven up from Mount Sergius to see their Brother Lumberjack take some final vows at last. I think of all the weddings in this city, I can safely say that mine had the most Benedictine monks. They all cried harder than my father did.

When you marry an ex-monk, you learn to expect certain things: that he will pray at all hours of the day and what most people would term the night, that he’ll crave being outside even when it’s sweltering or bitterly cold, that no amount of deprivation or frustration makes him flinch (except when it comes to me—then the smallest sliver of deprivation has him whining like a puppy until I’m back in his arms).

You learn that his devotion to you will be breathtaking and fierce. You learn that the sacred you’ve held at arm’s length ever since you became an adult has been waiting patiently for you all this time, and that it’s used the man you love to speak in its small, quiet voice once more.

Of course, marrying is the easy part,stayingmarried is usually where most of us find ourselves in trouble, but after a love story that’s encompassed breviaries and vows and a European beer-tasting trip and actual, literal God, I think we can be forgiven for having hope. And anyway, I already love him like how forever feels.

I already love him like eternity is in the rearview mirror.

I love him like everything.

—“Vows After Vows: My Wedding to an Ex-Monk”by Elijah Iverson