Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Oh, there are so many things I want to do to him and against him, with my mind still reeling from the poisonous words that Jessica threw my way—
You married her to lure me back. You thought I’d come back to save her. You used the prenup as bait.
And my heart still broken because all of them, dear God...
All of them were true.
He never wanted me!
He never wanted to marry me!
Because he’s always wanted Jessica, not me.
“Please, Wednesday. I’m begging you. Please let me love you.”
But as my lips part to refuse him, I remember...
Philippians 4:13.
The first time I read it, I thought the Father was telling me to do something.
But now I realize...
His words...
Those words could also give me the power not to do anything.
To forgive like He’s forgiven me endlessly.
To love like He’s loved me unconditionally.
And when I look at Gavine again—
All I can suddenly remember is all the times that he had tried to push me away for my own good—
Don’t imagine this means anything between us. You’re just here because your sister thought she could take the money and run.
I remember all the times he tried to be cruel to keep me from hurting even more, like the time he asked me why I was so kind to him when he was only giving me scraps.
I remember all these things, and a wobbly laugh escapes me because as misguided as he was all those times—
It was true.
He didn’t know it then.
But he’d fallen in love with me already, and the moment I realize this—
The truth shall set you free.
Gavine falls back into the mud-soaked ground as I throw myself at him, but he doesn’t notice, his dark eyes only on me, his expression taut with tension.
“Wednesday?”
Oh, my love.
Now that truth has opened my eyes, I can’t believe how much pain has blinded me, and how his gaze has been shining with so much love for me all this time.
“I f-forgive you...”
I haven’t even finished talking when his own eyes brighten with desperate hope, and oh, my heart...
It just aches more and more. It doesn’t give me pleasure at all that I’ve driven him to this point.
“I love you,” I choke out. “I love you so, so—”
I can’t say anything else, with Gavine pulling my face down, his mouth covering mine in a kiss so deep that it’s not just our hearts that meet but also our souls. Our futures, our everything.
“I love you,” he says hoarsely against my lips. “I love you, Wednesday Launcelot.”
And then he sets me away, asking, “Will you do me the honor of marrying me again—”
Yes, I end up crying again.
“And this time be my wife for all the right reasons?”
Gavine
THREE WEEKS.
It’s been three weeks since I knelt in the mud and begged my wife not to leave me, and somehow, miraculously, she’d found it in her heart to forgive the bastard who’d used her as bait.
Three weeks since Jessica broke down and confessed everything. Her addiction to gambling. Her spiraling debts. And ultimately, the loan sharks that had pushed her to steal from me and disappear.
She didn’t care about the consequences. Didn’t care about Wednesday. And that was probably why Jessica had found it so hard to believe when the woman she never saw as a sister...started to cry because Wednesday had been hurting for her.
I wish you had told me. I wish you had let me try to help.
That was just how my wife was.
And she was so incomparably kind that for one second, Jessica and I had actually looked at each other, and both of us discovered something in common.
We don’t deserve her.
And indeed, we don’t.
But such was the goodness of God, that it seemed He had given Wednesday to Jessica and me because she was the only person on earth He had designed to have enough kindness and love in her heart to forgive people like us.
Wednesday had asked me nervously afterward if I had any plans about Jessica, and it wasn’t hard at all to read between the lines. Frankly, even if she hadn’t asked, God had already told me what I needed to do, and at this point in my life, I’d be an even bigger idiot if I wasted arguing with the God who created me.
To live a life without following Him, it would be like buying an Android device but going to whoever Steve Jobs’ successor was and asking if I could have the user manual for an iPhone.
The Creator knows best, always. And so, to cut the long story short...
I paid all of Jessica’s debts in exchange of her commitment to entering rehab. None of us made any promises beyond that, but it was also easy to see that both women shared an unspoken hope. That maybe one day, they could finally be sisters for real, the way they had never been their entire lives.