Page 41 of Deliver Me

He swallowed and shifted his hands restlessly on the coffee cup. “I guess, if I’m being honest, I just wondered if things were still the same as they were the last time we spoke?”

“You want to know if I’m still planning to apply to law school and if I still have feelings for Gabriel?” She knew her tone was blunter than he would have preferred, and he looked away.

“Yes, that’s what I was wondering,” he confirmed.

“I am,” she said simply. “I’m enjoying my classes and I love Gabriel.” Her father’s face was tired as he nodded and she relented enough to add, “I know Mrs. Newberry’s been causing problems because of my relationship with him and I’msorry you’ve had to deal with that.”

He waved a hand to dismiss her concerns. “I’m not blaming you for that. She’s being extremely difficult but … there’s still hope.”

He was stubborn about those things, but that relentless hope had once kept him from returning a wide eyed and terrified little girl, so she patted his hand, determined to work out the tension between them now that the conversation had begun.

“I know that you wanted me to follow the path that God had laid for me,” she told him with an understanding smile, “and that you always thought that it would be the same path as Mom, but it isn’t. I know that hurts you, but I can’t change it. I can’t change what God created me to be.”

“Is that what you think? That I want to change you?” He dropped his head into his hands, shoulders slumping.

“Isn’t it?” asked, bewildered when he lifted his head from his hands, eyes red rimmed and cheeks wet.

“I want you to behappy, Mia. Happy and safe and loved. I know you have feelings for Gabriel and after everything you’ve told us, I hate what happened to him, but if he never gets out …” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to be heartbroken. Heartbroken and alone.”

“I can handle this.”

“Iknowyou can achieve anything you set your mind to, but I don’t want you to put so much of yourself into your career or into waiting for Gabriel that you miss out on other things in life.”

“I understand—”

He shook his head, his face broken and anguished. “You don’t understand. I don’t think you remember what things were like when you first came to us. You were so touch starved, so scared of even being in a room by yourself, that we couldn’t leave you alone. I never wanted you to be lonely again. I wanted you to have a family, Mia, and someone to grow old with.”

“I know,” she told him. “And I’m fighting to have that. I’m fighting for the person I want to be with.”

“What if he hurts you?”

“What if I had married James and had a bunch of babies and then he left me and ran off with a stripper?”

He laughed bleakly, recalling the story she was talking about. A pastor in the next county had done exactly that a few years before, leaving his young wife brokenhearted and alone with three children to raise.

“I always wanted to find a man just like you and somehow I did,” she continued, patting his hand at his shocked expression. “He’s got a difficult past, but I promise you that I know what a good man looks like, whatlovelooks like, because you and Mom showed me. He listens to me, he cares about me, he supports me in everything I do. He looks at me like you looked at Mom, and that’s how I know it’s right.”

He pulled her in for a hug and exhaled a shaky breath. “You’re sure that you can be happy? That this is the life that you want for yourself?”

“Yes.” She sat beside him, her cheek pressed to his shoulder and her hand on his. “I trust him and I’m asking you to trust me.”

Chapter Seventeen

Summer

The June heat was inescapable and clung to Mia’s skin with the smell of sweat and sunscreen. She tugged on the hem of the rainbow T-shirt she was wearing, unsticking it from her stomach and hoping to stir a breeze. Bryce and Lilly looked nearly as miserable, hot and wilting as soon as they’d stepped out of the car.

“Mia,” Kennedy called, running up to hug first her, then Lilly and Bryce. She was beaming, face vibrant and nose sunburnt as the crowd pressed in around them. Her long blonde hair had been cut short and danced against her cheeks in the slight breeze. “I’m so glad you all came.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Mia assured her, looking curiously at the girl that was holding tight to Kennedy’s hand.

She was shorter than Mia by several inches, but she made up for it in vibrancy—the glint of silver shone from a piercing in her nose and her long hair was dyed electric pink. Her grin was fierce, slightly on edge like she wasn’t sure what sort of welcome she might receive.

To her, Mia and the others were Kennedy’s church friends and a note of dull pain echoed in Mia’s heart as she remembered what Gabriel had taught her. Faith was not always the guarantee of compassion that she had once thought it was.

“Or the chance to meet your girlfriend,finally,” Mia said, offering her hand and her warmest smile. “I’m Mia, this is Lilly and Bryce.”

“Alison has been a little nervous about meeting everyone,” Kennedy admitted, leaning in to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek. “But I convinced her.”

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