Out of Heaven's Grasp (31 page)

“You know,” I said in a quiet voice, “I might… maybe… sometime kind of want to try it.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Not now,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem as bad with you.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Not for me. Anyway, I’m sorry, but I think I want you to be a little more excited about it than just saying it’s ‘not as bad.’”

I flushed. “Well, I mean, everything with you is… really nice.”

He kissed me again, and then he settled down next to me, lying on his side.

“I guess I just…” I fingered the sheets, trying to figure out how to talk about it. “It’s so gross.”

He laughed. “Gross?”

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s all these body fluids and everything’s all sticky and… yuck.”

He considered. “Maybe I do remember that there was kind of a yuck factor. But I think it would be different if it was
your
body fluids. Because you’re
you
, and I like you, so maybe it wouldn’t be gross at all.”

I turned to look at him. “You did it with someone else.”

His gaze flicked away from mine. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” I said. That bothered me. I didn’t know why it bothered me. I’d been raised to believe that my husband would have other wives besides me, and there wasn’t any reason that Jesse couldn’t have been with another woman while he was gone. But I didn’t like the thought of it at all. I sat straight up. “Was it a worldly girl?”

He shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah.”

Then another thought occurred to me. A worse thought. “Did you do it with more than one girl?”

“No, just her. It was only a couple of times.”

Oh. More than once, then. “Did you… like her?”

“Uh…” He sat up too. “Let’s not do this, Abby. I mean, you haven’t told me all the things that happened with you and Bob, and I don’t want to—”

“That’s not the same,” I said. “I didn’t have a choice with Bob. No one forced you to have sex with that girl out there.”

“Okay, true,” he said. “But still, I don’t think—”

“Did you like her?”

He heaved a huge sigh. “Maybe. Kind of. But it doesn’t matter, because she didn’t like me.”

“Well, she had sex with you. She must have liked you.”

“No, she didn’t. She just wanted the sex, not… me.”

My jaw dropped open. “That’s a lie.”

He drew back, offended. “It’s not.”

“No woman does it just because she wants the sex. That can’t be true.”

“Worldly women do, okay? It’s possible to like sex, Abby. You could like it.”

“Right.” I got up. “That’s what you want from me. You want me to be more like that girl, then.”

“No, I don’t. At all. I don’t want you to be
anything
like her. And this is why I really don’t think we should talk about this.”

“Fine,” I said. “We won’t. Because I’m leaving.” I threw myself through the bedroom door, slamming it behind me.

“Abby, wait!” he called after me.

* * *

Jesse

God damn it. I got up and went after her, throwing my shirt on.

Everything with Abby was confusing. She told me that she wanted to leave the community, but she wouldn’t actually leave. Every morning, usually before I woke up, she disappeared back to Bob’s house. Even though she claimed she hated him, she always went back to him. When I tried to get her to agree to a time line to getting out of there, she waffled back and forth and then changed the subject.

She was adamant about never having sex with me, but she slept in my bed every night, and she kissed me and touched me and drove me absolutely insane.

It was good. It was better than being away from her.

But sometimes I felt like I was losing my mind. Was anything any better for her than when I showed up? Was she ever going to leave? What if she decided that everything that was going on between us was nothing more than a sinful mistake? What if she decided she never wanted to see me again?

I didn’t think I could handle that. If I lost her for the second time, I thought it might crush me.

She was at the door to my apartment, shrugging into her coat.

I grabbed her. “Abby, wait.”

“Let go of me.” Her voice was shrill.

Damn it, she had to say it like that, didn’t she? And right then, I didn’t want to let go of her. Right then, I was starting to feel kind of angry with her. Right then, I was feeling a little bit like shaking her.

But I let go, maybe only because we’d been talking about Erin, and I still remembered the way I’d put my hands on her and called her names. I wasn’t my father, and I never wanted to hurt Abby.

So I backed away from her, but I clenched my jaw to keep from speaking, because there were words flying through my brain.
Worthless. Lousy. Stupid.

My father’s words. Not mine.

She yanked the door open.

I tensed. I wanted to grab her and force her back inside. I wouldn’t allow myself to move.

She went out and slammed the door.

I shut my eyes. I was shaking. I forced myself to take deep breaths, trying to calm down.

I will not hurt Abby. I will not yell at Abby
.

The door opened again. She was crying.

Her tears undid me. I held out my arms to her.

She ran to me.

I held her and she cried, her face buried in my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish I hadn’t been with that girl.” Honestly, it had caused me nothing but pain.

She clung to me. “I had a miscarriage.”

What? I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say, how to respond. I tried to pull away, to look at her face.

But she held tight, and she wouldn’t let go. “When I first married him, I let him do it all the time, because I thought I had to. But I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it. And then, after a while, I knew I was pregnant, because I was tired. I was so tired all the time. But I didn’t want to believe it. I kept hoping that it wouldn’t be true. I didn’t want to have Bob’s baby. I just didn’t want to. And then one day, I started bleeding and I… well, I lost the baby. And it was awful. It was really painful and scary, but… I was glad. Really glad. But then Bob got mad at me, because I was being disobedient, and he hit me. He hit my face, and then he wanted to have relations, and I told him I was bleeding, and he knew that I’d just had a miscarriage. But he said the baby died because I wasn’t submitting to him, so he pushed me down on the bed and he pushed my skirt up and then he just did it. And after that, I never let him touch me again. I fought him off. I ran. I wouldn’t let him.”

The rage was rising in me again. I gritted my teeth together. What the fuck was wrong with Bob? How dare he treat her that way? I shut my eyes, and I cupped the back of her head with one hand. “I want to kill him,” I rasped.

“He did other things,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard me. “He made me put his penis in my mouth, and it gagged me, and I—”

I shoved her away from me, and her words died. I stalked to the door, reaching for my coat. “I’m going to kill him now.” I opened the door.

“Jesse?”

I didn’t pay any attention to her. Anger was coursing through me now. It was red and hot, and I didn’t think I could turn it off now. I was going to drive back to the community, go into Bob’s house, and slam my fists into his face until he bled just as red and hot as this fury that was rushing through me.

I opened the door and a blast of cold wind hit me in the face. I pushed through it, tugging on my coat.

“Jesse, what are you doing?”

I headed for my truck. There was a metallic taste in my mouth. I was thinking about how good it would feel to hit Bob.

“Stop!” She grasped my arm and tugged on me.

I shook her off. “Worthless bastard doesn’t deserve any better,” I muttered and kept moving.

“Jesse!” She wedged herself between me and the truck. “What are you doing?”

I was face-to-face with her tearstained cheeks now, and the sight of her shattered something in me. I let out a breath, but it sounded more like a sob.

“You can’t go after Bob,” she said. “You can’t go back to the community. If Gideon sees you there…”

My whole body shook. “Someone should hurt him,” I said in a strangled voice. “After what he did to you. After what he took from you. After what I let him…” I balled my hands into fists. “I should never have left you, Abby. I left you to him. God damn it.” I drove my fist into the door of my truck.

The metal groaned and buckled.

My knuckles stung.

Abby backed away, hugging herself. There was fear in her eyes. The same fear that I’d seen in my mother’s eyes when my father started to yell.

I thrust my hands into my hair, and I turned away.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

“No,” I said, laughing harshly. “No, you’re really not.”

“Jesse, please go back inside.” There was a tremor in her voice.

Shit. I didn’t mean to scare her like that. I was supposed to be saving her, helping her, not frightening her. I dragged my hands over my face and turned to face her. “I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have told you,” she said.

“No, it’s okay. It’s…” I drew in a shaky breath and then I went back inside.

She followed me, closing the door.

We were both quiet.

I struggled to get my breathing under control, to let the rage drain away.

She came over to me and put both of her hands on either side of my face. “You don’t have to do things like that for me. You don’t have to get angry.”

“I know,” I said. “I get too angry. Sometimes it feels like I can’t stop.”

“You can,” she said. “See? It’s okay. You’re doing it now. You’re stopping.”

I kissed her. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed her first—I promised I’d always let her make the first move. And maybe I kissed her too fiercely. But I needed to kiss her then. I needed something soft and good to drive away the anger.

She opened her mouth to me, and I lost myself against her.

* * *

Abby

I was late leaving Jesse’s house the next morning. I slept too long, and when I woke up, the sunlight was streaming through the windows. Panicking, I ran for my jeep and tore out of the parking lot. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I got back, but I thought it was likely that the wives might be awake when I got there. If they saw me coming back, they might assume that I’d been out all night.

Which was, of course, the truth.

But before I left Melville, I thought of a plan. I was responsible for making lunch that day, and I decided to stop at a grocery store to pick up a few cans of chickpeas. I could claim that I wanted to make hummus wraps or something, and that I needed to go out and get supplies. I’d say that I’d wanted to get it done early in the morning, which was why I’d left and gone out.

Generally speaking, we bought beans and chickpeas in bulk—dried. They’d need to soak before they could be used to make hummus, so it sort of made sense that I’d go out to get cans, since it would make the entire process easier.

I wasn’t sure if the story would fly or not, especially if Bob got wind of it. He knew that I left the house at night, at least on the nights that I was supposed to spend with him. But I was certain that he didn’t suspect I was spending the night with another man. If he did, he would hurt me.

But as I was driving into the community, the sun cheerily in the sky, I saw Gideon’s truck coming the opposite way.

My heart began to thump in my chest.

Gideon pulled his truck across the road, blocking my path.

I screeched to a stop.

He got out of the truck and came over to my jeep.

My heart sped up even more. Warily, I rolled down the window.

Gideon smiled in at me. “Well, hello there, Abigail.”

I tried to smile too. “Good morning, Gideon.”

“It’s awfully early for you to be out and about, isn’t it?”

I gulped. “I, um, needed to go into Melville to go to the grocery store for lunch supplies.” I pointed to the grocery bag, which was sitting on the seat next to me.

Gideon peered in. “Ah, I see. What did you buy?”

“Chickpeas,” I said in a tiny voice.

He was still smiling. “Can I see?”

“You want to see the chickpeas?”

“If you don’t mind.”

He thought I was lying. He was checking up on me. He didn’t trust me. I willed my hands not to shake as I reached into the grocery bag and took out a can of chickpeas. I held it up for him.

He nodded slowly. “I see.”

I put it back in the bag.

“Is there a reason why you used the disposable bags, Abigail?” He was still smiling.

I swallowed. Whenever we went to the grocery store, which wasn’t often, we always brought our own reusable cloth bags. Waste not, want not. I gave him a tiny shrug. “I guess I forgot.”