Altarboy novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Box

Kaz let the phone ring until it stopped.

Then he turned it facedown on the pierogi table and went on selling potato and cheese until the last pastry was gone.

Fintan watched him do it, and said nothing, which was how Kaz knew a fight was coming.

It came at nine o'clock, in the carriage house, with the door shut.

"You can't be the face of this," Fintan said.

"I'm not the face of anything. Somebody filmed me."

"Somebody filmed an old man forgetting the Creed and posted it with your name on it. Five hundred thousand people have seen Father Cyril lose his place."

"They've seen him found. Read the comments."

"I don't care about the comments." Fintan was pacing in front of the stove, his hands in his hair. "Halina will play it for the bishop. Every clip, every second. 'Look, the server has to feed him lines.' She's been waiting two weeks for a clean picture, and now she's got one with a bow on it."

"So I shouldn't have been there?"

"I didn't say that."

"You're saying it with your whole face."

"I'm saying I can't lose another one!"

The words rang off the rafters.

Fintan stopped.

His chest was heaving.

"I lost my father a hundred and thirty miles from home," he said, much lower. "I'm not losing Father Cyril to a clipboard. And I'm not..."

He didn't finish.

"You're not what?"

"Nothing."

"Say it."

"I'm not going to fall asleep one night and wake up and find that you've gone off to a university and a dorm full of people your own age and left me with a woodstove."

Kaz stared at him.

"I just tore up the scholarship," he said slowly. "In front of forty people."

"You were angry."

"I was angry. And I was right. And you're being an idiot."

Fintan turned away.

Kaz picked up his hoodie and his one glove.

His eyes stung, and he refused to let it show.

"I'm not your father," he said from the door. "I'm not going to leave because it's easier. You think everyone's leaving because you were in Philadelphia and you missed it. That's not the same thing. Think about it."

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