Page 8 of Deliver Me

Fuck.

He hadn’t meant to make her cry.

Gabriel,

Shakespeare quotes, huh? I’m impressed.

You’re not a monster or a devil, even if you do try to act like one. I’ve been so nice to you, and I think you owe me an apology for being so mean all the time, but I forgive you.

I forgive you because it’s what I’m supposed to do. As a Christian it’s what God commands me to do, but more than that, I forgive you because I think you’re a man who has a lot of hurt in his heart. Have you seen those devils, Gabriel? The kind that you told me about in your letter? I think you have, and I think they hurt you.

You asked me what I knew about anything, and I guess that’s fair. No one expects someone like me to know about hurt or how it can dig around inside you and scoop out everything else until there’s nothing left but the numbness and the anger. They keep you safe because it means no one can get close enough to hurt you.

No one expects me to know it, but I do.

I learned about it the day my birth parents left me alone in a run-down motel room and never came back. I was three, and they left me behind like garbage they didn’t want anymore. Thestate thinks they were probably junkies, but no one knows for sure.

I learned it again in every foster home they put me in for the next three years. They bounced me around from place to place because no one wanted to deal with my issues. I guess my parents hadn’t fed me very well because I was always stealing food, no matter how much the new families gave me. I got into a lot of fights with the other kids, and I bit people a lot. My adoptive dad still has a scar on his arm that I gave him the first week they took me in.

I thought that was it when my last foster family adopted me. That pain would never be able to find me again because I had a family of my own, but I learned it again a few years ago when my mom died. That one probably hurt the worst. She was good, and kind, and she wanted me when I was so wild and angry that I was practically feral, and she loved me anyway. She didn’t deserve to die, but she did. I couldn’t stop it and it hurt.

I don’t know why I am telling you this, I probably shouldn’t, but I said we could be friends and I guess I think friends might talk about these things, the kind of secrets that weigh on their hearts and leave scars.

I have other friends, but I don’t talk to them about stuff like this. They don’t understand what it’s like to hurt this deep and if I talk about it, they look at me with pity. I don’t think you would pity me. I think you’d understand that even when things look okay on the surface, they might not be okay on the inside.

Maybe you don’t have many friends, and I hate the thought of anyone feeling like they’re alone. I know what it feels like to be alone and Gabriel … you’re not alone.

Mia

Her heart beat a little faster when she pulled the letter from the mailbox. She bit her bottom lip as nervous butterflies flitted around her stomach. She had no clue what she’d been thinking, sending him that last letter. She’d poured her heart out to him, an angry and resentful stranger, on impulse and with nothing but a stray hope that maybe there could be some connection there.

Now the results of that decision were in her hands.

If he was still angry at her, still not interested, then she would have no choice but to ask the warden for a different name, no matter how strongly she felt that God had brought her to Gabriel for a reason.

“Hey,” her dad called from the kitchen, “don’t let the screen door … slam.” He sighed, good natured even in perpetual disappointment, when the door reverberated against its hinges behind her, as he had done at least once a day since she’d moved into this house. She’d always been a little bit careless, but he never really seemed to mind.

“Anything good in the mail today?” He stood at the stove, sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up as he made dinner. There was a little salt in his pepper dark hair, and a few wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled, but he was still a handsome man. Mia attributed most of it to the kind twinkle in his blue eyes—everyone loved her dad.

“Hmm? No … I mean, yes, there was but it was just a letter from that pen pal program with the Bible group.”

He brought a spoon of spaghetti sauce to her lips for her to sample and she nodded. The flavor was good, better thananything she could have made. Desserts were about the most anyone could expect from her in the kitchen.

“Is it going well? The program? I’ve heard so many good things about what’s happening in the Bible group lately.”

She slipped the letter into the pocket of her jeans, hoping he wouldn’t ask her about her own experiences. “I think so. Everyone’s pretty satisfied with it so far and most of the inmates were very enthusiastic about the idea.”

“That’s good, honey,” he said, clearly distracted as he looked around the kitchen for a clean spoon. “Why don’t you grab us a couple of plates? I think this is almost ready.”

She sighed in relief, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and set the table for dinner.

As they ate, they chatted happily about her upcoming plans for the Bible group now that the Fourth of July picnic had come and gone, and his upcoming sermon for the week. The relationship between them was comfortable and easy, and she knew how lucky she was to be so loved and unconditionally supported, even though there was still a permanent ache around her heart when she looked at her mother’s empty chair.

Maybe she’d handled things badly in her letter and she should have focused on her blessings. Gabriel was going to tell her how spoiled and ungrateful she sounded. How spoiled and ungrateful shewas… complaining about her life to a man that would spend the rest of his behind bars. The guilt she felt was sudden, sticky and unwelcome as it clung to her ribcage and soured her appetite.

Unable to face him, she left the letter sitting unopened on her desk until morning, when her curiosity finally overrode her anxiety and she had to see his response even if itwasa blistering lecture on her own privilege. She could apologize if he was angry and try again, she decided, forgetting her plan to leave him aloneif he was still reluctant to write to her. It didn’t make sense for his opinion to matter so much to her, but it did.

Mia,

---