“Oh, we don’t need—”
“You better get going,” Emmalyn urges.
Guilt swims in my gut at our deception as I lead April out of the clubhouse.
Chapter 5
April
I sigh as we pull out of the parking lot, so wound up that I can’t even enjoy the luxury vehicle Nate helped me into a minute ago. My mind is at war, the confession for my lies a bitter poison that’s going to eat me alive burning my tongue.
I guess it’s a small grace that Cara and Javier are in a separate vehicle.
“Thank you for telling them to take a different car,” I mutter as he begins to accelerate down the road.
“I knew you wouldn’t have been comfortable with them riding with us, and I’m sure they’re glad they have a little privacy to formulate a plan to talk you out of getting married.”
“Me?” I scoff. “I’m sure Javier is more concerned about you making a mistake than me.”
He shrugs but doesn’t verbally respond. Silence fills the SUV, the space around us cavernous, the doubt and questions louder than the noise the tires are making on the road.
The entire drive feels like a bad omen, like I should speak up and tell him we can’t do this. I don’t of course. Instead, I bite the inside of my cheek, the pain enough to keep me from opening my stupid mouth and ruining the only chance I have.
It may seem like it, but this isn’t a hasty decision for me. I knew the second my grandparents told me they wouldn’t abide a whore living in their house that I had to take action.
Nate was the first person to come to mind, and the plan was formulated during the nearly eighteen-hundred-mile trek on the bus to get here. I never thought he’d actually agree, but I’m glad he did because I don’t have a plan B.
I can’t go back to California. My body and soul are spoiled now, the touch of a high school boy making me unworthy of marriage to Charles. Not that I’d ever choose that. Living on the street sounds like a much better option but doing that with a baby would be unfair to any child. I can’t imagine giving this precious human up for adoption. Abortion was never an option. My faith, even with as unsteady as it feels most days, won’t allow for it.
My grandparents made it very clear that if they never see me again, it would still be too soon. As religious as mother is, she had both Cara and me out of wedlock. Her sins were forgiven by Charles which in turn means God forgave her, but those raised in his church aren’t given the same allowances. My mother’s salvation was protected because she didn’t know any better. I can’t use that excuse because I knew the rules before my virtue was taken. My impurity will still lead me to Hell, but I want to live as righteously as possible before I meet my end, not that I think it will change the outcome.
“You’re sure about this?” Nate asks, turning in his seat to face me as best he can after putting the SUV into park.
“Yes,” I say, but I can’t meet his eyes.
Doesn’t he know I’m not sure about anything any longer? I was sure about Cory. So sure that I confessed how things were at the compound, how I needed a way out. He’s the one who made the promises. He’s the one who built my dreams about moving away together and spending the rest of our lives in bliss. He’s the one who said he would marry me. He’s the first to say those three words I can’t seem to stomach these days.
But it was me that went back on my faith and gave him what he wanted. He spoke of the pain he was in. How my body made his react in a feral way. He convinced me that suffering that pain, allowing it to happen when I held the power to stop it was a sin. How could it be wrong if we loved each other so much? How could what we shared be anything but divinity in the Lord’s eyes? Making love was the ultimate gift to give him and waiting when we could share that magic right then and there would be a sin in and of itself. So I caved. I gave him that gift, and at the time, I didn’t even regret it because I thought he was right. What was the point in waiting when our futures were already so intertwined that the scale of time and schedule of events didn’t matter? He was going to be my husband and pleasing one’s husband should be my only focus.
He had a silver tongue, and I believed everything that came out of his handsome mouth. He loved me so what purpose did it serve to lie?