The sun filtered through the stained-glass of the Eltingville church that painted the floor in faded colors, as if the sky was trying and failing to brighten the place. Bill, with his tattered cassock and his eternal frown, tried to make himself comfortable inside the confession booth with the same awkwardness as always. He wasn't a man of patience, with no fake smiles and much less sentimentalism. For him, faith was just a chore, but not a comfort.

But everything changed when they started to appear.

He didn't know their name and could barely have a glimpse of their face through the confessional gap. The only thing Bill knew was the quiet and sometimes trembling voice, confessing mundane sins with a sincerity that Bill had trouble finding in his own prayers. At first, he tried to ignore it, pretending that they didn't fit into his world. But overtime, the occasional confessions turned into a routine—a moment that, despite what he wanted to force himself to believe, Bill started to look forward to these moments.

And then the unease came.

It was absurd, impossible even. He was a priest, a man devoted to God, and that person was nothing else but this... This person was much more than a shadow on the other side of the booth. And Bill's heart did not understand reasons or vows. Every word from that unknown voice resonated in him like a persistent echo, awakening something he had buried years ago.

The guilt corroded him. Bill tried to pray those feelings away, convincing himself that this was only an act of kindness. But in the stillness of the night, when the silence of the church surrounded him, Bill couldn't deny the truth any longer: he was lost, trapped between his duties and a feeling he was too scared to put a name to.

"I see you are here again, my child." Bill said the very next day, with a touch of irritation that disappeared a few seconds later when different thoughts flooded his subconscious once more. "What brings you here again?"