Page 72 of Deliver Me

Fresh tears spilled over as Mia shook her head. “I’d already had the worst day and he just … He just isn’t here,” she said. “I probably didn’t handle it very well—IknowI didn’t handle it very well—but I was so damnmad.It hurt that he’d make me come alone instead of wanting to be part of my life.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all,” Lilly said, wiping at Mia’s tears with a napkin from the snack table. “He loves you, but he’s overwhelmed right now. Church has a lot of bad memories for him, and he might not be ready to face that.”

“I know he’s overwhelmed but he could have talked to me about it sooner and not after everything that happened today.” She looked up at Lilly with a frown. “I just ... I don’t understand why we’re fighting. It’s not like us. We never fight.”

“He was in prison,” Lilly said with a shrug. “You didn’t want to spend the little time you had to talk to him arguing. Now he lives with you and that’s different. You can’t just hang up the phone and avoid talking about the things that irritate you. You’re gonna have to deal with all the problems that you could sweep under the rug before.”

“I don’t like it,” Mia said.

“No one does, but conflict isn’t something you can avoid when you have to see each other every day. You’re going to disagree about all kinds of things that don’t even really make any sense. Did I tell you about the argument I had with Bryce about what kind of toothpaste to keep in our bathroom?”

Mia giggled around a mouthful of cookie. “Who won that one?”

“No one did. We switched to a different kind completely. You have to learn to fight fair and how to compromise.” She gave Mia a pointed look. “And how to make up when you’ve said mean things.”

Mia sighed. “I don’t think either of us really knows what we’re doing here.”

“You didn’t know how to be a couple while he was in prison at first,” Lilly reminded her. “But you figured it out and you did it without any real support from us. Now that he’s out it’s almost like you two have to start over. You have to learn each other all over again in a different way. It’s going to be hard, but this time you’ll have all the help I can give you.”

“I really love you,” Mia said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Lilly said. “And I really love you, too.”

The good feeling that Mia got from her conversation with Lilly didn’t last long. The arrival of the others meant the arrival of curious and judgmental eyes, the worst of which predictably belonged to Mrs. Newberry. Mia’s face had been all over the news, so there was no hiding that Gabriel was out and even though she doubted anyone had told the malicious old woman where he was staying, she would have guessed it correctly on her own.

Lilly tried to keep her voice upbeat and the discussions moving as they planned the upcoming Fourth of July picnic,sending supportive and encouraging smiles as often as she could, but it didn’t stop Mia’s cheeks from burning.

Most of them probably assumed that Gabriel was down the hall with her father, doing whatever it was that the men did on Wednesdays while the ladies had their Bible club meeting, but they would expect to see him when the meeting was over. When he didn’t show up with the other husbands and boyfriends, there would be no way for her to hide that he’d made her come alone.

It shouldn’t matter to her what Mrs. Newberry or the others thought. She knew that—shedid—but even knowing it and understanding why Gabriel felt the way he did about coming with her, didn’t dull the hurt or the embarrassment.

She tried to make it to Lilly as quickly as she could after the meeting was over, to say her goodbyes and leave before anyone could stop her or make any comments about Gabriel that she wasn’t prepared to deal with, but she found her path blocked almost before she’d had a chance to leave her seat.

“I heard on the television about your young man getting out of jail.” Mrs. Newberry’s voice was sickeningly sweet, bright to the point of insult. “Congratulations. Of course, the news didn’t seem to think it was all that wonderful, what with him being a danger to the community and all.”

“He’s not dangerous,” Mia said bitterly.

Mrs. Newberry nodded, her expression one of forced pity. “I hope not, dear. For your sake as well as the rest of us. Is he here?” She looked around curiously, as though a stranger in a group this size wouldn’t have been immediately apparent to everyone.

“No.”

“Ah,” she said, teeth flashing in a practiced smile. “I’m sure he’s probably off talking to your father about wedding plans. Can’t live in sin forever, can you?”

Mia snapped her teeth together so hard she was sure that they were on the verge of cracking, forcing her lips to turn up at the corners until her own smile was nearly as blinding and false as Mrs. Newberry’s. “He didn’t come tonight,” she said, surprised at her own polite tone. “As for living in sin … His dick is big enough to make it worth it.”

Mrs. Newberry’s jaw dropped, her mouth hanging open comically as she stared silently at Mia.

“And you can tell whoever you want to that I said that,” Mia continued in a furious whisper, “because they’ll never believe you.” She stepped around the still silent Mrs. Newberry and dashed down the hallway and out to her car. She didn’t even stop to say goodbye to her father.

It took her three tries to get the door unlocked and her hands were shaking as she put the key in the ignition. She held herself together long enough to leave the parking lot and drive just down the road to the nearest gas station where she parked as far away from the door as she could, put her head down on the steering wheel, and cried.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gabriel set his teeth as he watched Mia hurry in the door after class and drop her bag on the couch. He knew she had done nothing to deserve his temper, but it seemed that was all he had to offer her these days outside the bedroom.

The uneasy truce they’d reached the night after she’d come home from attending church the first time without him—when she’d come home still mad and puffy-eyed from crying and thrown herself into his arms to let him soothe her with his mouth and his hands and his body—had held as the weeks began to bleed together, but the strain that their relationship was under, thathewas under, was becoming more obvious with each passing day.

They’d gotten into another petty argument in Amy’s office, surrounded by piles of paperwork that needed to be signed for him to access his trust fund money. Amy had seemed nearly ashamed when she’d had to tell them that Lilah hadn’t sent any personal message, just a file with his birth certificate, social security card, and medical records up until he’d been sent to Richard’s. It was a blessing, containing all the documents he’d need to start an adult life, but he hadn’t even thought of themuntil he’d seen them and been hit with all the things he didn’t know how to do.

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