I was still in junior high
small enough
to believe cathedrals could hide a person whole.

A senior high boy
walked behind me
with the persistence of an unanswered bell.

So I slipped inside the cathedral
into the cool hush of stone and stained light
and let an hour kneel itself beside me.

I thought time
would teach him to leave.

But when I stepped outside
the afternoon still carried his waiting.

So I fled deeper…
to the eucharistic chapel
where silence had a second door.

He did not know the sacred geometry of the place.
He searched from the wrong side
until his eyes found me
across the divide.

Between us,
iron bars.
He on the other side
while I was looking from the inside.

“Can I fetch you home?”
he whispered
through the metal.

And there,
with heaven on one side
and the street on the other,
I learned the holiness of refusal.

No,
I said.

The word did not echo.
It simply stood there,
firm as the iron between us.

Then came his heavy steps,
the sigh of surrender,
the slow leaving
of someone who finally understood
that wanting is not the same as being welcome.

I stayed
until the chapel was only breathing
and the fear had turned into memory.

Even now,
I remember how awkward
we might have looked that day.