“I didn’t know I was coming,” she admitted. “Not until I got off the plane. I kept thinking I’d turn tail and run again. I’m sorry I did that before.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You did what you needed to do to protect yourself. I understand that.” He hesitated, swallowing hard as the worry in his eyes gave way to hurt. “I guess I don’t understand why you needed to protect yourself from me. What—” His voice faltered and he had to clear his throat. “What did I do wrong?”

Mercy’s eyes stung again. No, you will not cry. That wouldn’t be fair to Gideon. “Nothing,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It was me. All me. I didn’t know, Gideon. I didn’t know why you’d left Eden.”

Gideon’s expression flashed from surprise to sadness to resignation. “I figured that you didn’t know the day we Skyped with that kid from San Diego.”

The young man who’d known an Eden escapee, who’d loved him, and who’d grieved him when he’d committed suicide out of misplaced guilt. During that Skype session, the young man had raged that Eden had preached against homosexuality while their leaders raped young men. It was at that moment that Mercy had understood the truth.

“Did you ever . . .” Mercy had trouble even saying the words. “Did you ever want to, you know, end it?”

Gideon’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean end my life? No.” Then he sighed. “Yes. Back in high school. But it was fleeting and Rafe got me through it. Did you?”

She nodded. “Farrah got me through it. Got me into therapy. Her family is a lot like the Sokolovs.”

Relief shone in Gideon’s eyes, so like her own. So like their brothers’ and sisters’. Tell him.

“So you did have a family?” he said, oblivious to the fact that he had one, too. A biological family. And that’s my fault. “I’m so happy to hear that. I was worried that you had no one.”

Because she’d allowed him to believe that. She drew a breath and slowly let it out. “I have a family. The Romeros, sure. But I also have another family.”

He frowned, confused. “How? Who? Are you married?” He asked the last question with a kind of horror.

Which wasn’t too difficult to understand. His best friend had a thing for Mercy, and Gideon didn’t want Rafe to get hurt.

“No, I’m not married. I’ve never had an actual relationship. Not one that’s lasted more than a few weeks.” Which had made her attachment to Rafe so much scarier than it should have been. She’d fallen hard into “like.” It wouldn’t have taken much more time to fall into an even deeper, more binding emotion.

“Then how do you have another family?”

“I aged out of the system when I was eighteen,” she said, noting Gideon’s surprise at her abrupt subject change.

“I know. I tried to find you for a long time, but you’d vanished without a word and your old foster family had moved to another state.”