Page 86 of Salvation
I don’t know what to say to that because she’s right. He wasn’t. No one ever will be. It will only ever be Campbell for me. So I stay silent, letting her have her victory.
She grins wider, knowing my non-answerismy answer, but she doesn’t press it.
“So, when am I going to see you at church again? It’s been a while.”
I shift in my seat, wishing we could go back to talking about Campbell, but knowing that topic has now passed.
“Um—you probably won’t,” I say, avoiding her eyes. I don’t want to disappoint her, but I can’t give her what she wants either.
Frustration mixes with the bitterness I felt outside. I try to bite my tongue against it, but it all spills out when she asks, “And why not?”
“Because I don’t want to sit in a place where people only care about how they look instead of the God they are supposed to serve.”
The honest words are freeing. Della Rae sits quietly, studying me as she picks up a cookie and takes a bite.
“I see,” she says, but she’s not saying it condescendingly. I think she really does see.
“Do you?” I ask. “Because I thought I did for a very long time. I thought I knew what church, and God, and fellowship, and all those things were, but I think I was wrong.”
Della leans forward, taking my hand in hers while she holds my gaze and delivers words that are like a punch to my gut. “Or maybe you didn’t, and you put your faith in people instead of Jesus.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” she says, letting go of my hand to wag her finger at me. “You are smart, Ivy, so you know exactly what I mean. It was people in the church who let you down, not God, but you placed that blame on him. And that’s understandable. You went through a lot—way more than someone your age should have had to—but not everyone is like your grandparents. Some people have the faith they say they do.”
“Yeah?” I ask bitterly. “Like who?”
Without warning, she stands and tugs on my hand, pulling me to the kitchen window over the sink that looks into her backyard. Then she points to where Campbell stands, talking to two older women who look like they may swoon at his feet. “Like him, sugar. His faith is much bigger than even he knows. He’s the same person on Monday as he is on Sunday, and he was also a victim of the same people who hurt you. The difference is thathe knew God gave them free will. He didn’t change, even when those people did.”
Something shifts inside my chest, like a thorn that’s been festering for far too long finally being pulled, but the relief is a different kind of pain because it leaves a void behind that I’m afraid to fill.
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“I can’t believe I let you talk me into coming to this. I think I’m getting hives from just being here.” Willow glares at Campbell’s back as we walk up the bleachers at the high school football field, but there’s a fondness in that glare that she can’t hide. She doesn’t hate it. She just wants him to think she does.
“That’s probably the thickness of your eyeliner that’s giving you hives,” Campbell quips back at her, still climbing the bleachers to the top right-hand corner—the place I always used to sit. It shouldn’t surprise me that Campbell remembers—not after the paintings—but I still find myself falling again and again every time he does something like this.
We slide into our seats, with Willow sitting between us, and I give them both a look.
“Would you two quit bickering?” I chide before Willow can throw an insult back at him. “I’m going to separate you.”
“She started it.” Campbell pouts, leaning over Willow to place a chaste kiss on my lips.
Willow throws her hands over her eyes and screams. “They burn. They burn.”
Smiling against Campbell’s mouth, I soak it all in. This feeling of being a family. The rightness of it all.
“Okay, Romeo,” I say, pushing Campbell. “Stop traumatizing Willow.”
Campbell gives me a cheeky grin, bouncing his brows up and down at me like that’s exactly what he’d intended to do. I shake my head, loving the light shining in his eyes.
“Hey, guys,” MJ says, huffing a little as she climbs the bleachers.“I’m so glad you guys could make it. Campbell, we’ve missed seeing you on the field.”
Campbell smiles, standing to offer her his arm and help her up the last couple of steps. “Hayes had it handled,” he says once she’s settled. “I had better places to be this year.”
He glances back at Willow and me, and MJ gives him a knowing smile. “Yeah, I think you did, too.”
Campbell sits back down beside Willow, and as the bleachers start to fill up, she pulls out her phone and makes a face when she glances at the screen. I look up at Campbell, who is watching her with a look of concern, but when he sees me looking at him, he smiles and shakes his head, playing it off as if it’s no big deal.
