Oh. God.
She knew the ass on-screen. And she knew it well.
David. It was David.Naked.With ... with Pastor John’s wife.
At ... That was the pastor’s house. She’d been there. She had seen the painting of Jesus on the cross behind the purple velvet couch where her husband was filming himself getting ...taken thereby the pastor’s wife.
Everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.
Everything.
This was the text but sent to everyone. This was the secret of who he was, playing out in full color in front of all the people who had told her how good he was.
The screen went dark.
But everyone had already seen it. Everything seemed to slow down as she looked around her, at the shocked reactions of all the congregants, at the swell of outrage. Some people were yelling. Some were laughing uncomfortably. Some, she realized, had no idea it was more than random internet porn.
John came rushing out onto the stage, his face red, frozen in shock. She knew a moment of real sympathy for him. Because she’d felt that shock, right in these pews only a few weeks ago.
But no one had cared when it was her.
Would they care now?
Soraya looked over at Stephanie, who was frozen in place while chaos swirled around her.
Then Soraya turned back to look at David, who was standing in the sound booth looking down at the chaos below, his shock, his rage, palpable even from down there.
Then he found her, their eyes making direct contact.
Good luck playing the hero now.
She smiled. Slowly. Deliberately.
She smiled, because she knew.
The noise around her had reached deafening proportions. The growing chaos mirrored a slow-motion action sequence in a war movie.
Soraya turned away from all of it and began to walk toward the back of the sanctuary. The crowd parted for her like the Red Sea as she moved with ease through the uproar.
Vindicated. Smiling.
She felt a hand on her arm, and she stopped, looking directly into Kristi’s eyes. Her Bible study leader was clinging to her shirtsleeve, her gaze apologetic.
Soraya didn’t say anything. She just pulled away from her and continued to walk out, with that same chorus that had signaled his downfall playing in her head.
He was cheating on her with the pastor’s wife.
Now everybody knew. Everybody.
They might have all told her that what David had done to her was something she should forgive, but no one wouldevertell Pastor John he needed to forgivethat.
Maybe she should feel bad that he’d been dragged into all of this. But she didn’t. They’d all made their own beds. Including her. She had been married to, lived with, a man she didn’t really know for years. This was the consequence. This whole mess.
But it was all out in the open now.
What are spells but prayers men don’t like?
Of course, her husband would not like this spell. This prayer. But it had come home to roost either way.
