Holy Blessed Abomination - Lior's Eyes - Chapter 4
Holy Blessed Abomination
Chapter 4 -Lior's Eyes
Dedication: To every survivor who whispers their truth into the void. We hear you. Trigger Warning: References to trauma, dissociation, and recovery from CSA. Proceed with care. Lior's story is for healing not recognition
The coffee had gone cold in Lior's cup, but the warmth from Berta's words lingered like the afterglow of a hearth fire on a frostbitten night.
Outside, the December wind had softened to a whisper, as if the world itself were leaning in to listen.
Inside, the kitchen felt larger somehow—less like a room and more like a sanctuary where secrets could finally stretch their legs.
Lior lifted his head, eyes red-rimmed but clearer, like rain-washed glass. The crumbs on his plate had multiplied into a small constellation, each one a tiny star marking the places where his defenses had cracked. He traced one with his fingertip, hesitant, as if testing the weight of what came next.
“Berta,” he said, his voice steadier now, threaded with something new—curiosity, maybe, or the faint echo of hope.
“You talk about the windows, the light rushing in... but what if the light shows you things you don’t want to see? Things that make you wonder if you’re still... you. After all of it.”
She tilted her head, the lines around her mouth deepening into a map of all the roads she’d walked.
Her hands, gnarled from years of kneading dough and clutching rosaries, folded neatly in her lap.
“Ah, Liebling. The light doesn’t just show you the dirt on the floor—it shows you the good bones of the house.
The places where you’ve held on, even when everything else let go.
What things are you afraid it’ll show you?”
He swallowed, the words sticking like burrs in his throat. The room seemed to hold its breath:
Kelly the Siamese uncurled from his perch, tail flicking once like a metronome counting down.
In the hallway, Brother Jerome froze mid-wipe of his tears, his silent prayer hanging in the air like incense.
Even St. Rita paused her sobbing—one ethereal hand still on the monk’s shoulder, her thorn-crowned brow furrowing in anticipation.
The garden gnome, ever the uninvited guest, poked his red-capped head from behind the hall table again, a tiny handkerchief clutched in his fist, ready for whatever flood might come.
Lior’s gaze dropped to the table, to the half-eaten kuchen that now tasted of something bittersweet—cinnamon and confession.
“The boy I was... before the priest, before the rooms that smelled like incense and regret.
He laughed easy, you know? Ran through fields without looking back.
But now? Sometimes I catch my reflection and I don’t recognize him.
Or worse—I do, and he’s staring back like he’s waiting for an apology that never comes.
And the feelings... the ones that twist up after what happened. The confusion about who I even want to be close to.
It makes me feel like... like I’m carrying a shadow that isn’t mine, but it follows me anyway.
How do you let the light in when you're afraid it’ll burn the whole thing down?”
Berta didn’t flinch. She never did.
Instead, she reached for the coffee pot—empty now, but habit was a comfort—and mimed pouring anyway, a small ritual to buy the seconds she needed.
Her eyes, sharp as a seamstress’s needle, met his without pity—only the quiet knowing of someone who’d sewn her own ragged edges back together a thousand times.
“The shadow isn’t yours to carry alone, Lior,” she said softly.
“It’s the priest’s. The Church’s. The world’s—for letting wolves in shepherds’ clothing roam the flock.
But you... you’re the one who turned that shadow into a lantern.”
She paused, letting the weight of that settle.
“Think of it—all those children whose tears you’ve collected, the ones you hold space for when no one else will.
That’s not confusion, child. That’s mercy wearing a man’s skin.
The feelings that twist? They’re just the knots in the thread—messy, yes, but they hold the seam.”
She leaned forward, her voice dropping to that gravel-and-honey timbre that could coax confessions from stones.
“As for the boy in the fields... he’s still there. Not gone, just gone quiet, like a seed under winter soil.
The light doesn’t burn him away—it wakes him. Calls him back.
And the wanting—to be close, to be seen without the flinch—
that’s the most human thing of all.
God didn’t make you to walk alone in the dark, Lior.
He made you to reach for hands in it.
Even if those hands are men’s.
Even if the reaching scares you spitless.”
A soft hitch escaped him—a laugh, maybe, or the ghost of one.
“Mercy in a man’s skin,” he murmured. “I like that.
Feels less like a curse and more like... armor.”
“Exactly,” Berta said, her smile cracking open like dawn over the maple outside.
“Armor you forge in the fire of your own truth.
Now, enough shadows for one morning. Pass me your plate—I’ll warm up what’s left of this kuchen.
And while it heats, tell me: what’s one small step today? One window to crack open, just a sliver?”
Lior hesitated, then pushed the plate toward her.
His fingers brushed hers, and for the first time, the touch didn’t spark retreat.
“Maybe... I go back to the support group tonight.
Not to hide in the back row, but to share a piece.
A real one. About the boy in the fields.”
Berta nodded, rising with the deliberate grace of oaks in a gale.
As she slid the plate into the oven, the kitchen filled with the scent of reviving sugar and spice—a promise that broken things could mend sweeter.
“That’s the step, Liebling. One sliver at a time. The light will do the rest.”
In the hallway, Brother Jerome exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
St. Rita, her tears drying to tracks of silver, placed a ghostly kiss on his forehead—a benediction for the voiceless who bore witness.
The gnome, dabbing at his own eyes, muttered under his breath,
“Well, I’ll be a bearded boulder. The lad’s got spine after all.”
He retreated into the shadows with a thumbs‑up to no one in particular, his tiny form vanishing like a footnote in a holy book.
Kelly stretched languidly on the radiator, his blue eyes approving, as if to say: About time.
And Lior?
He sat straighter, the weight on his chest lighter—not gone, but shared.
The shadow lingered, yes, but now it danced at the edge of the light,
no longer a pursuer but a partner in the slow, stubborn waltz toward dawn.
For the first time, he believed he might lead.
Lior closed his eyes.
And the light (finally, finally) found him waiting.
It came through the east window, the one Berta always said was cracked on purpose so God could sneak in without knocking.
A single winter ray, thin and silver-pale, slipped between the lace curtain and the frost on the pane.
It traveled across the kitchen like a cautious pilgrim—past the empty kuchen plate, past Kelly’s twitching tail, past Brother Jerome’s trembling knuckles—until it reached Lior’s shoulder and rested there.
He felt it before he saw it: the softest pressure, cool as moonlight, light as mercy.
Like Selene herself had descended on silent wings and brushed him with one of her feathers,
the way the old myths say she once soothed the sleeping Endymion so he would never wake to pain again.
The touch was so gentle it almost hurt.
It said, without words:
You are seen.
You are not the abomination.
You are the place where the turning-away ends.
The breath he let out sounded like a sob and a laugh braided together.
When he opened his eyes again, the ray was still there—steady, patient, refusing to move on.
He lifted one hand and rested it over the spot where the light touched his shirt.
For the briefest heartbeat, the warmth triggered something older:
a soft click—the confessional door.
Not in anger, not even fast.
Just that gentle, terrible finality of wood meeting wood.
He remembered the hush inside, the scent of polish and dust,
and how the dark swallowed his breath before any mercy ever could.
The fabric was warm now.
Warm from something that had never learned how to burn.
Berta watched him, eyes shining but dry.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
From the hallway, St. Rita smiled through her tears, the thorns in her brow suddenly looking less like wounds and more like a crown.
Brother Jerome sank to his knees, not in despair this time, but in something that looked a lot like gratitude.
And the gnome took off his red cap, pressed it to his heart, and bowed so low his beard swept the floorboards.
Kelly purred louder—a small, living hymn.
The ray stayed on Lior’s shoulder long after the sun climbed higher and the kitchen filled with ordinary daylight.
But he carried its memory under his skin from that morning forward:
a single feather of moonlight, proof that even the darkest nights can still be touched by something that only knows how to heal.
Later—much later—when he walked down the narrow hallway alone,
he noticed that the old confessional door Berta kept for firewood scraps—the one that had leaned shut for years—stood open.
Just a few inches.
Just enough for light to slip through.
He paused.
He didn’t touch it.
He didn’t need to.
Some doors, once opened, don’t close again.
Not on him.
Not anymore.
In the corner of the kitchen where no human eyes were turned,
Mary the Sacred and Mary the Scarlet stood—present but unseen.
Two halves of a story long misunderstood.
They clasped each other’s hands, bowed their heads,
and prayed not for forgiveness,
but for revelation.
For Lior.
For the other children.
For every child told they were the sin.
Their silent plea drifted up like incense:
Let them know they were never the wrong thing.
Let them know they were never the stain.
Let them know they were always the beloved.
Even when the world tried to paint them otherwise.
Bless the Church,
so it understands the harm chiseled in Your name.
Amen.
Author's/Artist's Note: As a disabled survivor using assistive technology, which changes day by day pending health - (#zebralife), I pour these chapters from my own experiences and the people I've met along the path of life. Assistive tech helps me myriad of ways present my message. If Lior's eyes reflect your shadows, reach out—resources like RAINN or Support for Men at 1in6.org are lifelines. What's next? Comments welcome, always.
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