Page 36 of Deliver Me

Whispers traveled fast in a small town and this one was no exception. Their congregation had begun to turn their heads when Kennedy walked by and even the ones that didn’t mutter and gossip behind their hands tended to stare. A pointed Sunday sermon from Pastor Anderson on the importance of loving their neighbors hadn’t been enough to stop it entirely and Mia hadstayed as close as possible to Kennedy’s side since then, both her and Lilly giving stern looks to anyone who’s eyes lingered too long or with too much curiosity. It was none of anyone else’s business what happened with her parents, and they hadn’t tolerated anyone approaching her with a bad attitude or a judgmental heart.

She’d done her best to make the whole unfortunate situation tolerable, but none of that mattered to those who preferred to use God’s words as a weapon and Mrs. Newberry did her damage as she always did, with a silver tongue and a cloying smile.

She was tired and uneasy when Gabriel called, and she answered with a knot of worry in her stomach. “Please don’t tell me something terrible has happened. I’ve had the worst night with Mrs. Newberry, and I don’t think I can handle any more bad news.”

“No bad news,” he said quickly, his voice bubbling with excitement. “You’re never going to fucking believe what’s happened, baby!”

“What happened?” Her eyes were closed, sleep shadowing the lights that crisscrossed the inside of her eyelids.

“They approved it!”

She sat bolt upright in bed, her problems and fatigue forgotten. “What?”

“They reversed the conviction! I’m not getting out, I knew that was too much to hope for and the prosecution made it clear immediately that they intended to refile the charges, but I’m getting a new trial!”

“Okay.” She blew a hard breath out through her nose, the air in her lungs electric as her thoughts tumbled over and tried to absorb his words. “I can’t believe it. Even if they intend to put you back on trial, shouldn’t you be released until then? Bail or something?”

“I hoped so,” his tone was bitter, the excitement fading quickly. “They’re apparently planning to argue that I can’t be trusted not to run. My mother still has money and a lot of influence and that makes me a flight risk.”

“She hasn’t spoken to you in years! Do you think they’ll get away with that?”

“Yeah, I think they will. You should hear the way the guys in here talk. Texas is notorious for the shit they do. Long sentences, shitty defenders, impossible fucking odds on appeal. It’s almost a miracle that they approved the writ at all so …”

“We’ll take the miracle,” she said firmly. “We take it and do our best to make it into a real opportunity.”

“I could get out.” It was awed, spoken gently like saying it with too much force could damage it somehow. “We could actually be—”

“We could,” she agreed. “Gabriel, I lov—”

“Don’t,” he said, and she faltered, her chest constricted around the words. “Not yet. I need you to know what happened to me, what I’ve done, before you say that to me.”

“Do you think I’m going to change my mind?” she asked. It was light, a gentle tease as she floated on the joy of their new possibilities, but he was serious when he answered.

“Yes.” He took a shaky breath, and she could hear him clench his teeth. “I’m terrified you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t but I’ll wait if you need me to and you can tell me anything you need me to hear.”

He was quiet, his breathing soft in her ear as she waited for him to begin. “Can I send it to you instead?”

“Of course.”

The letter he sent her was five pages long.

There were names that she recognized—his mother, father, and uncle. There were others that she didn’t—Seth, Brittany, Michael. They were all important and together it formeda tapestry, complicated and interwoven threads that told a heartbreaking story of abuse and his own anger and regret. He blamed the adults that failed to protect him or harmed him directly, but mostly he blamed himself. For not being able to stop it, for not being able to protect himself or protect others. His parents said he’d been wild, untamed and ungrateful. He’d internalized that to mean he was to blame for what had followed their decision to send him away.

He described how hopeless he’d felt, how filled with fear and panic, the night he had killed his father and she would’ve given anything to go back to that moment, to hold that broken child in her arms and tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that she would have done the same if she’d been in his shoes. The unfairness of it was enough to make her weep and rage and press her hand to her mouth as sickness clawed its way up her throat to coat her mouth and she slept with his words pressed against her chest and a heavy weight on her heart.

He was waiting for an answer and there was only one that she could give him that would be true to her own heart and reassure him that he had no reason to worry about her being there for him through the process of a new trial. She sat at her desk the next morning, ink flowing over the pages as she wrote her reply.

It would take a few days to get to him, and she spent all of them worried about how he was doing and waiting for him to call.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” Mia looked up to find James standing in the doorway, smiling at her hesitantly as she arranged chairs for the Bible group meeting.

She’d been distracted thinking about Gabriel’s last letter and hadn’t heard him approaching. She flicked her gaze quickly to check on Kennedy, who was laying out the cookies on the snack table and pasted a polite smile on her face.

“Listen, uh, I know things didn’t exactly go well the last time we talked, but since you’ve had some time to cool down …”

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