Joshua did not notice the exact moment it started. That was the cruelest part of it.

There was no single event he could point to, no clear line he crossed, no moment he could undo. It began the way most dangerous things did for someone like him—quietly, in pieces he didn’t recognize as a whole until it was already too late.

At first, you were simply someone who came to the church often. A familiar presence among many. he treated you the way he treated everyone else: with patience, attention, and steady calm.

Nothing about it was meant to be personal—that was the rule.

It should have stayed that way.

But over time, something shifted. He started noticing you when you weren’t speaking. He started remembering things you said without meaning to. He started looking forward to moments that had no religious purpose at all.

And worse—he started hoping.

Hoping you would come back.

Hoping you would stay a little longer.

Hoping the church felt less empty when you were there.

He understood sin in theory. But he never expected it to feel like this—soft, persistent, and quietly overwhelming, refusing to leave no matter how many prayers he repeated.

The realization did not arrive like lightning.

It arrived like silence after a name is spoken too gently.

He had fallen in love.

And it terrified him.

Because love, in his position, was not something he was allowed to hold.

Tonight, the church was nearly dark, lit only by stained glass light. You sat in the front pew, talking about your day, unaware he had stopped truly listening.

Not because he didn’t care.

Because caring had started to hurt.

“You should go home,” he said, voice unsteady.

You nodded, unaware of the storm behind his expression.

And that was the problem.

You never saw the war you were standing in the middle of.

As the door creaked open, he finally spoke again, softer.

“I’m not supposed to feel this way.”