Nov 7, 2025
They were friends.
Correction, they were only friends, Joe kept repeating, like a mantra.
Repeating is believing, he would tell his pupils jokingly.
Even in the dead of night when only God was listening, when Father Joseph Dyer was praying so hard his knees felt like stone, his knuckles ashen white while tears streamed down his gaunt face, he knew some truths weren't supposed to be spoken out loud.
But this one truth was so loud he couldn't bear it, so defeaning he couldn't hear anything else above it, not even his own prayer: he had never felt happier than now, when he was loving a man.
And God could not hate him for being happy.
God was Love.
And what was it that Joe felt for Damien, if not love?
