Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Danny
I only know I’m on my feet because I’m still holding Christina’s hand.
Her arm dangles from where she’s seated on the couch, and I can sense in my periphery that she’s peering up at me, but I can’t take my eyes off this wide-eyed man who looks enough like Christina to twist my insides.
My blood is pounding in my ears, an echo of the anger coursing through my veins.
The anger hasn’t stopped building since he pulled her into a hug like nothing horrible had happened between them.
And when she hugged him back, so tight, I thought I might rip through this fucking parsonage.
It really is easy to forget that it’s only been a year and a half for her.
That only a year and a half ago, she was deep in this life with this man as her father and pastor.
She was on the church stage with him. She was practically engaged to a man just like him.
For Christ’s sake, she’s still got one week left at the batshit university where her father “found” her mother.
No wonder she doesn’t think she can ever trust herself or truly belong again. No wonder she’s scared of losing everything again.
I’ve talked to a lot of people in a lot of churches, but I’m not sure anyone has so perfectly walked the line of self-loathing and self-righteousness as “Pastor Edmondson.” I only now appreciate just how much work Christina did in therapy.
Even with the same conditioning, Christina was brave enough to embrace the world and love herself—while he continues plodding through his damaging sermons and hating himself.
I won’t have him spew vitriol over this light of a woman for one more second. I can’t.
When he lashed out at her, when he said her beautiful name in that ruthless tone just for using the words she needed to express herself, I thought I would kill him. Christina’s warm hand in mine was the only sensation that could cut through the blinding red.
Christina more than held her own. She doesn’t need me to protect her. But she shouldn’t have to hold her own against this man. She deserves better.
“You don’t know anything about her,” I repeat.
“You had this gift dropped into your lap—a daughter so brilliant and kind and fun. There is no one on this earth like her. And you didn’t even take two seconds to see her or appreciate her before you cut her up and cut her down. Even now, you’re not listening to her.”
Soft hands cradle my face, and then the most beautiful sight wipes the ugliness out of my vision. Christina is standing in front of me, eyes brimming with compassion.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “It’s not okay.”
She smooths my hair down both sides. “No, I guess it isn’t. But we can leave now.”
Anger still racks through my body, but I stare into the glittering depths of Christina’s hazel eyes to ground me. I nod.
Tom just watches us pack up the cameras in silence from his recliner. He doesn’t stand until we’re halfway out the door. “I’ll see you soon, Chrissy?”
She halts and turns to him slowly. Her face is a mask of cool calm. “I doubt it.”
We’re a full hour back down the highway before it hits me: She didn’t tell him to fuck off.
And I know, deep in my bones, that she isn’t going to choose me.