#dicking around with 2nd person as a writing exercise and I am not enjoying it

[birgittesilverbae]

endure thou therefore hardship

cw: mention of domestic abuse

i. who hath chosen him

You can't remember a time when you could stand tall, before you had been buckled beneath the weight of a load too large for your young shoulders. Your mere presence to blame for a family unit shattering, for the departure of a woman who looks upon you and feels nothing. Your own actions to blame for the bruises that long blanket your ribs and your back and every inch of your skin that can be covered by clothing. Your disinterest to blame for the whispers that spread behind you in the halls of a Department of Defense school you've never quite felt at home in. You're to blame, you're to blame, you're to blame. 

The litany of blame only lightens when you step into the church on base, tucked into the back of the installation. You while away your evenings there alongside the chaplain, growing tall enough that your feet no longer dangle above the floor when you settle into one of the folding chairs that stand in for pews. Alan, the latest in a long line of chaplains, is always slow to hide his grin when you carry the chairs in ungainly stacks and rest them in neat ranks against the back of the hall. He sits with you as you struggle gamely through biology and calculus, chemistry and history. There's a keenness to his eyes, an interest in his gaze, that makes you feel accepted here, in this quiet space where you can shelter from the whirlwind of rage that haunts your home.

His quiet, steady voice – so much at odds with the barks of every teacher who seemingly aspires to become a drill sergeant – directs you to prayer, to supplication, to stain your lips with the crimson of His blood, and you find peace in those moments in which you can finally hear yourself think. You are so used to living with eyes downturned that it doesn't feel a burden to lower your head in prayer. It feels a relief to know that you are not alone, even in your isolation.

Your backpack is light, containing only a binder with an essay you've left almost to the last minute, when you duck your head into Alan's office to give your greetings. He is not alone, and confusion spikes up and down your spine when he gestures towards you and introduces you to a full-on nun. Wimple and all. You've grown too used to Alan in his fatigues or his dress uniform, can't remember the last time you'd seen him in his robes of office – the Easter services, maybe – and thus the contrast between the pair of them is all the more stark. Alan with the top buttons of his fatigues undone in concession to the heat while this black-robed crow perches opposite him without even a bead of sweat on her face.

The confusion only grows, as confusion so often does for you, with the continuance of conversation. An offer of something that's never quite stated outright, the way your fingers trace the margin of a bruise but never press at its centre. An opportunity to take a combat-oriented role in… something. An affiliation to the Church, the proper noun always evident in the stating of it. 

You've drifted from Mainline Protestant to Evangelical to Catholic with the rotation of chaplains through the base, none of them striking any particular chord with you beyond the one strummed by the offering of religion as refuge. Face to face with a steely-eyed nun of the Catholic capital-c Church, you feel a sudden surge of belief that this is where you are meant to be. That all your burdens have brought you to this moment, to this offering of escape from the only path you'd felt left open to you. 

(You've never had the grades for university, and you've heard often enough that art is not a viable option. But you have a body, and what better use for it than to lay it on the line for a country you've experienced only in brief snapshots of time, a week long vacation here, a funeral there. If that's all you're good for, then it will be no trial for you to pile more dirt upon the root of that disinterest in boys you've already so easily buried.)

You have a body, and you are being offered another use for it.

You grab hold with both hands and hang on tight.