Caleb - A Fool Indeed But A Blessed One

This was it. This was how I died.

Not by martyrdom. Not by persecution. Not even by old age after a long life of service.

And somehow, that felt worse than anything God could have planned.

‘You can take me now, Lord,’ I muttered internally, staring at the chapel floor. ‘I’ve lived a full life. Twenty-five years. A respectable run.’

I pressed my fingers to my temples. What have I done?

I had heard her crying. I had stepped in because I couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone. I had caught her before her head struck the pew. Dramatic, heroic, very knight-in-shining-armor of me. Naturally, the moment was charged. Emotions surged. Naturally, a woman who had just been rescued by a man she trusted might want closeness.

Anyone would have felt it… anyone who’s not me…

And what did I do?

I kissed her hand like I was auditioning for a period drama and then retreated like a coward wrapped in scripture.

Of course she walked away. Of course she did. Caleb, you absolute fool.

From her perspective, it must have looked cruel. Man saves her. Man admits feelings. Man immediately withdraws physical affection.

After all the eye-talking she’d been doing in the past hour, the way she held on to my sleeves, only to be rejected over and over.

‘Brilliant,’ I thought bitterly. ‘Just brilliant.’

No wonder she didn’t respond. No wonder she left. I had confessed with words and rejected with actions. Half-hearted love. Half-brave honesty.

Saints, have mercy.

I stood exactly where she left me, staring at the floor as if absolution might be etched into the stone. I replayed the moment again and again, cataloguing each failure like a formal confession.

I should have said more. I should not have frozen. I should not have assumed restraint would translate as care. Restraint was supposed to be virtue. Instead, it had become distance.

‘I treated caution like holiness,’ I whispered remorsefully, ‘and left her carrying the cost.’

I swallowed hard.

‘She probably thinks I was confused,’ I said quietly to no one. ‘Or worse… repulsed.’

The thought made my chest ache. She deserved clarity. She deserved certainty. She deserved more than a man who could speak the truth and then flinch away from it.

I dragged a hand down my face, mind spiraling unhelpfully into images of what might have happened if I’d been braver. Or stupider. Or less trained to step back from anything that felt like fire.

Everything about my life had been clean and planned. And yet, nothing about Aika felt like temptation. She felt like truth. Like a hand reaching for another hand in the dark.

I was still standing there, lost and thoroughly condemning myself, when her voice cut through the chapel.

‘Are you always this slow,’ she said, ‘or is today special?’

My heart leapt violently. I looked up. Aika stood a few steps away. She was somehow different. Her usual composure was gone, replaced by something blazing. Controlled anger. The kind that didn’t shout because it didn’t need to.

‘Aika,’ I breathed. ‘I thought you—’

‘Left?’ she cut in. ‘Yes. I did.’

She walked toward me with purpose.

Oh. Oh no.

This was the calm before violence.

Did she come back to slap me? Honestly? Fair. I braced myself instinctively.

‘Do you know how cruel it is,’ she asked with certainty, ‘to finally want something and have the person you want act afraid of touching you?’

‘I wasn’t afraid of you,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m just— I’m still a man of God. I made vows.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ she replied flatly.

She closed the remaining distance before I could process it. I barely registered the same handkerchief I’d used earlier, the one now pressed firmly against my mouth.

‘What—’

She grabbed my collar and hauled me down to her height with startling strength. My brain stopped functioning. My heart slammed into my ribs.

‘You don’t get to confess and then act surprised that I wanted more,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘You don’t get to look at me like I matter and then step back like I don’t.’

Her hand slid into my hair, fingers tightening just enough to anchor me there. Every instinct screamed at me to hold her back. Every vow screamed to let go. I did neither.

She kissed me through the handkerchief.

Every nerve in my body ignited. I felt the shape of her mouth. The soft yet hungry pressure she applied. The heat. The certainty of it. Everything my body had been screaming for, and none of what I was trained to take.

This isn’t seduction. It’s reclamation.

She pulled back just enough to force me to meet her eyes.

‘This is what honesty feels like,’ she said. ‘Don’t make me feel foolish for wanting you.’

And because apparently God wished to test the limits of my mortality, she bit my lower lip lightly through the fabric.

My vision went white. My knees buckled. I am fairly certain I blacked out standing up, because the next thing I knew, I was blinking at the chapel ceiling, dignity scattered somewhere near the pews.

Aika was gone.

My mouth was still tingling. My heart was attempting things it had no permission to attempt. The handkerchief remained clenched in my hand like evidence of a crime.

I stared at it. Then at the ceiling.

Despite the shock, the confusion, and the undeniable fact that I had just been thoroughly undone with one “protected kiss” by a woman I respected with my entire soul, I knew one thing with terrifying certainty.

She wasn’t finished with me. And heavens help me, I didn’t want her to be.

‘Lord, forgive me… I have vowed to love only You.’

‘But, I think,’ I whispered, ‘I am also very much in love with Aika.’