Page 15 of Redeemed

I nod. My cheeks feel warm, and that tingly sensation between my legs hasn’t gone away yet.

“C’mon.” As he stands, he takes me with him. “Let’s get you back to your dorm.”

Speechless, I follow. None of the men at Cornerstone cared about how much sleep I got—or didn’t get. Not my father, not my brothers, not my husband. I slept once my work was done for the day, and I was expected to get up earlier than Isaiah to make him breakfast and coffee before work.

How is it that a boy I just met is taking better care of me than the men who promised me they would? My father, Pastor Beckham, my husband… none of them would do something like this.

A feeling of safety settles over me. I’m not sure if I can trust it, but as Colton leads me onto the main pathway, I don’t pull back. If anything, I let myself move closer to him as his hand slides into mine.

With a tentatively full heart, I glance up at the sky. It’s not until I’m greeted by pure darkness that I realize I’m looking for some kind of assurance that I’m not making a big mistake. As if God or some other entity would spell it out for me in the stars.

My gaze shifts to Colton, who’s already watching me closely. Maybe I don’t need a sign. Maybe I can trust myself with this, too. And maybe I can trust Colton to be a person who looks out for me.

As we near the dorm hall, I open my mouth but then instantly close it. Isaiah would mock me for what I want to ask. But I’m not at Cornerstone, and the blond boy holding my hand isn’t my husband.

You can do it,I tell myself.

So I close my eyes and blurt out, “Are stars real?”

Colton makes a strange sound, and I must’ve caught him off guard because he pulls me to a stop.

“What?”

My throat gets all tight at the shock in his voice, but he doesn’t sound like he’s judging me, so I force myself to meet his eyes. “The stars. You know, the ones in the sky? They’re real, right?”

The way he’s staring at me has me wondering if I’m stupid for ever believing they’re real. It’s just that I saw them almost every night at Cornerstone. I don’t even know how Beckham could’ve faked it, or why he’d bother.

No. No, they can’t be fake. The sun is still in the sky. So is the moon.

“Of course they’re real.” He’s still frowning at me, and I don’t particularly like the way it makes me feel. “What… why on earth would you think they’re not?”

“Because I can’t see them.”

He gives me a bewildered look. “You’ve never heard of light pollution before?”

“Light… lightwhat?”

“Fucking hell,” he mutters, and then he rubs at his face. “It’s harder to see the stars when there’s a lot of light around. It affects your eyes too much or some shit. I honestly don’t really remember how it works. Got too many other things to keep in my head.”

“Oh,” I say, and for some reason, I find that answer comforting. “So they’re still there, even though we can’t see them?”

“Yeah. Here.” He pulls me away from the dorm hall and onto a patch of grass that expands to the next building. “Close your eyes for a few seconds.”

I do, scrunching them as tight as possible until he tells me to open them again.

“Now look up at the sky and focus really hard.”

“All right, but wh—oh!”

A single star appears in the sky, and then a second, and then a third. It’s not nearly as many as I could see at Cornerstone, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a relief to be able to see any of them.

“See? Still there. And very, very real.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I whisper. “I don’t want to live in a world without stars.”

He smiles down on me like what I just said was cute. “Neither do I.”

Slowly, we meander back the way we came. His arm is wrapped around my shoulders now, and I can’t help but notice that I fit perfectly tucked into his side like this. He’s quite a bit taller than I am, and it gives me plenty of room to nestle into him.

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