Free Taking Faith by Shelby Fallon Page B

front of the screen and pulled a speaker to set on his window. He turned and grinned at her. "What do you want to see?"
    She laughed. "I think anything they played here is long gone. Why did this close down?"
    "Well," he laughed once, "when the men aren't interested in dating their wives, it doesn't make much sense to have a drive-in. I came here once when I was about six with Alex and his mom, but it closed down soon after that. The only ones who would use it were teenage boys and we were too busy being groomed to be stellar husbands to watch movies." He laughed again and shook his head.
    "Well…" she mused, "I bet it was nice while it lasted."
    "I guess. "
    The y sat in comfortable silence for once as they both looked at the screen and imagined what it was like to have one normal thing like this in the lives of these people. "Your mom never brought you here?" Amy asked.
    He scoffed. "Uh, no. I told you my mother was prickly."
    "Yeah, but she was still your mother," Amy countered. His mouth tightened. "What?" she asked. "You can tell me."
    His pause was loaded. "My mother hated me."
    "Roger, that is not true-"
    "Would you love the thing that was implanted in you against your will by the man who kidnapped and beat you?" he said harshly.
    She caught her breath. Oh.
    He went on. "She hated everything about me. She hated him and she hated me for being born and forcing her to be responsible for me."
    "Oh, Roger…" He jerked his gaze to hers at her sympathetic tone. "You want to know the saddest part of all of this?"
    "Yeah, lay it on me," he said sarcastically, but his eyes never left hers.
    "The saddest part…is that you actually believe that to be true."
    He looked away and closed his eyes. After long, silent minutes he finally said, "Why?" When she looked at him in question he repeated, "Why? Why are you doing this?"

    "Doing what?" she breathed.
    "Trying to get me to feel something for you," he answered steadily.
    "Is that what you think I'm doing?" He nodded. "Then I take it back. This is the saddest part of it all." She stared him down with a serious gaze. "That you think that no one can show you any amount of humanity without an ulterior motive."
    "I know what humanity is."
    "Do you?" she asked back, her voice harder. She had to make him see, to break through the barrier the community had planted in him.
    "Yes!" he said, exasperated. "Of course! My father…may not have been the kind I wanted, but he had my best interests in mind."
    "Roger, you can not be serious!" she yelled and worked to lower her voice. "He abused you! Not only have I seen the scars on your back and stomach, but I've seen him hit you with my own eyes and you're a grown man! I hate to think what he d id to you when you were a child, " she said, her voice strangled.
    Roger stared straight ahead and breathed slowly. He didn't rebut or defend and Amy was grateful. He had to see the hypocrisy of what he was saying, right? Eventually he got out of the car, taking the keys with him, and walked around the car to lean on the hood.
    She left him alone, but knew she needed to turn it up a notch when she got home. Home … She gulped and corrected herself; when she got back to his house. She waited for him to finish his think or freak-out or whatever it was that he was doing up on the hood. She'd never been abused or anything , but tried to imagine being told and thinking that was the proper way to be brought up only to realize way into your life that it wasn't? She couldn't imagine the kind of turmoil your mind would be in.
    When he finally got back in the car he didn’t say anything. He just drove them home. When he pulled into the garage, he reached over Amy to open the door for her. She sucked in a startled breath and held it as his face sat a half inch from hers. He flicked the latch with his hand and then smiled a little as he sat back. "Sorry. Isn't that what a gentleman does? Opens the door for his wife."
    She nodded. "Thanks." Then she tried not to roll