‘Sunday? Where are you staying?’
‘River Backpackers.’
Her eyebrows rise slightly. ‘You’re staying at a hostel?’
I shrug. ‘It’s cheap.’
She pours boiling water into the plunger, then turns back to me. ‘You weren’t tempted to look up the local congregation and stay with one of your spiritual sisters?’
I lift my chin. ‘Is that what you did?’
Her eyes never leave mine. ‘I shared a place with some other students.’ She regards me a moment. ‘I’m not going back.’
‘I know.’
‘I didn’t “fall out” of the truth, like they said. I educated myself. I intentionally chose this life instead of that one.’
I nod. ‘Bridget, I know.’ She’s never experienced me outside of the religion before, and she clearly doesn’t trust this version of me. ‘I’m not here to bring you back in. I’m here because I left it too.’
She leans on the bench. ‘Why did you leave?’
What answer to give? A persistent gut feeling that never subsides? Conflicting beliefs? Lust? Questioning if there’s even a God? ‘I guess I just want to live a life shaped by something other than guilt and shame.’
She turns to pour the coffee. ‘How do you take it?’
‘Milk with one.’ Just like her.
She finishes making the drinks, then hands me one of the mugs. ‘It doesn’t go away when you leave, you know.’
My eyebrows come together in question. ‘What doesn’t?’
‘The guilt. The shame.’
I take a sip of my coffee, savouring the taste. ‘It must ease at some point.’
‘I think you just learn to live with it.’ She watches me over her cup. ‘I still can’t watch TV in the evenings. When I was studying, it was fine. I replaced one form of study for another. When I graduated, suddenly I had all this time. Nothing triggers guilt more than time spent doing something for yourself.’
I look around the perfectly organised kitchen. ‘Do you still pray?’
She shakes her head. ‘I took up journaling instead. Clears your mind the same way.’ She taps a finger on her mug. ‘It’ll take you a while to break the habit. Or maybe you won’t break it. Maybe you’ll keep that part.’
To stop is an admittance that you no longer believe, that there’s no one listening. ‘What do you believe now?’
She stares at the microwave. ‘I believe it’s okay to not have all the answers.’ There’s a pause. ‘I believe you don’t need to belong to an organisation to be spiritual, and that a person’s beliefs, and their relationship with God, or complete dismissal of him, is no one else’s business.’
I lift my eyebrows. ‘Fair enough.’
She’s tapping on her mug again. ‘Why didn’t you go to Dad’s?’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I catch the hurt in her eyes before she looks in the direction of the terrace, but I don’t dare ask about it. ‘He’s seeing someone.’
She doesn’t react at first. ‘Surprised Mum didn’t put him off women forever.’
Those words hang between us for a moment.
‘I can’t hold your hand through this,’ she says, changing the subject again. ‘It has to be a hundred percent you.’
Feels like she’s wiping her hands of me before I’ve even asked for help. ‘I don’t need you to hold my hand.’ Though it might have been nice. ‘We’ve not talked all these years because you were out, and I was in. Now we’re both out. That’s why I’m here.’