Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
looked up again. “I’ve hated you, hated you so much I—” He broke off,
unable to say anymore.
Angel sat down behind the desk again, saddened. “You were right about
me in a lot of ways.”
Her words only confirmed what he now knew. He gave a bleak laugh. “I
never even came close. And I know why. That day on the road, I knew you
were right. You were right. I betrayed him.”
Her eyes filled. “I could’ve said no.”
“Did you know that then?”
She didn’t speak for a moment. “Some part of me must have known.
Maybe I just didn’t want to. Maybe it was my way to draw your blood. I don’t
know anymore. It was so long ago. I never wanted to think about it again, and
then every time I saw you, there it was. I couldn’t get away from it.”
She remembered the darkness in which she had lived. She remembered all
those months that Paul had stayed away and how his absence had hurt
Michael. She could imagine Paul’s pain at the separation as well, and his
shame. And the horrible guilt of it all. Hadn’t she kept company with her own?
It was on her head. She had allowed it to happen. For whatever reason.
What did it matter now? She couldn’t cast blame on anyone but herself. The
choice had been hers. She had never even thought of consequences. The
repercussions had been like a stone flung into smooth water. The splash,
then the widening circles. It was a long time before the water was smooth
again. And the stone was always there, lying cold and hard in the silent
pool. Michael. Paul. Herself. Ruptured souls desperate to be put together
again.
The torment and rift between Paul and Michael had grown wider, not
because Michael couldn’t forgive, but because Paul couldn’t forgive himself.
Wasn’t that just what she had felt most of her life? That everything that had
ever happened to her had somehow been her fault, that she was guilty even
of being born? She had learned in the last few years that she wasn’t alone in
those feelings. She heard them every day from other women who had experienced
the same abuses she had. Forgiving others for what they had done
to her had come far easier than forgiving herself. There were still moments
of struggle.
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