Free Out of Heaven's Grasp by V.J. Chambers

father. “Now, not another word. I mean it.” He glared at us.
    My mother folded her arms in her lap.
    I hiccuped.
    “Try to be happy, Abby,” said my father. “If God wants this for you, he has a reason. And, after all, you were disobedient in running around with that boy. You brought this on your own head.” He left the room.
    I bit down on my lip.
    My mother took several deep breaths.
    Neither of us said anything for several seconds.
    Then she turned to me and pasted a bright, happy smile on her face. “Well, we’ll have to make your wedding gown, sweetheart. Won’t that be fun? You’ll be a beautiful bride.”
    I started crying again.
    * * *
    Jesse
    My father stopped the truck. He and my mother had driven me out about five miles from the community. I had a backpack full of clothes and a little bit of food. But no one had spoken to me since my father had given them the news. I was now cast out, and I wasn’t considered part of the family. In their eyes, it was as if I had never been born.
    All that was left was to get rid of me.
    My body still hurt from the beating that father had given me, but I hardly noticed the pain, because I was too stunned by what had happened. Things at home had never been a paradise, but I knew that my mother loved me, and that my father, in his own way, cared about me too. Now, they were barely acknowledging me.
    “This is it,” said my father. He leaned over the back of the seat and gestured towards the door.
    My mother buried her face in her hands, and her shoulders started to shake.
    I swallowed. I put my hand on the door. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. Maybe one last assurance from the two of them, a heartfelt goodbye, something.
    But my mother just cried in the front seat without looking at me, and my father’s eyes narrowed.
    “Don’t make more trouble, boy,” he said. “Get out.”
    I opened the door. Slowly, I got out of the truck and shut the door.
    My mother raised her face to look at me. She put her hand against the window. Tears were streaming down her face.
    I started to feel a little choked up too.
    But then the truck sped away—just like that—kicking up dust behind it, and leaving me all alone on the side of the road.
    I stared after it, watching it disappear into the distance.
    Just like that, huh? My whole life gone? Everyone I’d ever cared about gone?
    I couldn’t believe it.
    I didn’t move for what felt like ages. It was as if I was frozen, too stunned to function anymore.
    The worst thing about all of this was how little sense it made. I had heard that Abby had been assigned to marry Bob Carroll—who already had three wives. And I could hardly believe that, because Gideon had seemed so convinced that I’d had sex with Abby. When I’d denied it, he’d called me a liar. And he’d cast me out because he thought I’d lied.
    Or because…
    If he really thought that Abby and I had sex, then he wouldn’t be marrying her off. She’d be tainted.
    That meant that Gideon had just thrown me out because he felt like it.
    And I hadn’t liked the way he’d assumed the worst, or the eager way he’d asked questions about what I’d done with her. He’d seemed almost excited by it.
    So, if he knew that I was telling the truth, why was I being kicked out?
    Suddenly, my sadness switch off.
    One minute I was confused and hurt. The next I was angry.
    It had never been about me, had it? It had been about making sure that I didn’t have Abby, so that he could give her to some old man. Some guy who didn’t need any more wives.
    I didn’t want to let Bob Carrol have Abby. Not at all.
    I was supposed to keep heading away from the community. I could get to Melville, the nearest small town, if I kept walking.
    But back in the community, I had my own truck, and I wanted it back. I’d saved up money for that thing and bought it myself, because it was the only way my father would let me get a vehicle. I was the one who paid the insurance every month. I knew