Free Found by Shelley Shepard Gray

coax her to tell him what she was really feeling.
    But when they started back home, Jacob leading the way and Deborah right on his heels, neither of them spoke.
    She seemed lost in thought, and he couldn’t seem to quell the guilt he felt. Guilt for how he used to treat her, and guilt for the way he’d recently lashed out at her. But mostly, Jacob couldn’t stem the feeling of despair that threatened to overtake him.
    Because one thing was certain . . . if Deborah ever discovered what had really happened between him and Perry, she would never forgive him.
    And he would never expect her to. Some things were unforgiveable.

Chapter 8
    â€œPerry was never really a part of our group. Sometimes I felt bad about that. But then, of course, I remembered all the reasons he let me down.”
    F RANNIE E ICHER
    L ong after she’d said goodbye to Jacob and had crept back inside her house. Long after she’d pulled off her tennis shoes, wiped off stray pieces of grass and leaves that had stuck to the side and had laid them under the bench by the back door. Long after she’d stealthily climbed the stairs and had washed her face and brushed her teeth, Deborah lay in her bed and thought about what had just happened.
    In the span of a few hours, everything had changed.
    She’d lived most of her life being afraid to show too much emotion and afraid to get too close to other people. Growing up with Perry, who’d been a champion of using her weaknesses to his advantage, made her that way.
    For the last year, she’d begun to trust Jacob less, too. At first it was because he seemed to be such a follower of Perry’s. She couldn’t understand why the man she’d always idolized had decided to blindly accept Perry’s faults. Deborah had ached to shake Jacob. Even though it seemed a betrayal to her brother, she wanted to make him see that Perry’s ideas and actions were foolhardy and dangerous.
    Later, her faith in Jacob faded when she’d learned what he had become. Sometime between following Perry and his disappearance, Jacob had become angry and intense. Whereas he used to talk to her patiently, he came to hardly even look her way. He’d snapped at her and it seemed as if they’d never been friends.
    Now he seemed to have changed into yet another man in her eyes. The last few days in his company had been a revelation, to be sure. It was obvious that Jacob had been hiding under a raised guard as well. Maybe he was afraid of getting hurt?
    Deborah heard her mother walk up the stairs, pause, then open the door to Perry’s room. She seemed to do that more and more. In the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep, her mother would open the closed door to Perry’s room and look at his things, crying softly.
    After an hour or so, her father would guide her out, and the door would stay shut for another twenty-four hours.
    As she heard the quiet echo of her mother’s tears, Deborah attempted to close her eyes. Tossing and turning in her bed, she tried to imagine a different life. What would it be like to live in a home where there was joy and laughter? Where people were honest with their emotions, and honest with her?
    Perhaps the only way to change her family was to change her own actions. The first step would be to help her mother, if she was brave enough.
    Was she?
    â€œYou can do this,” she whispered to the empty room. “You can take your future in your hands and cast away your fears. If you are strong enough.”
    That was a vow worth making, she decided. Pulling on a robe and slippers, she opened up her door and walked into Perry’s room.
    With a start, her mother looked up from her perch on the end of Perry’s bed. After a hasty swipe to her eyes, she blinked owlishly. “Deborah, what are you doing up? Did I wake you?”
    â€œI was already awake.” There was no need to admit that she hadn’t gone to sleep yet. “I