Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
After work the next day, Jon finally called.
“Where have you been?” Faith asked.
She’d unblocked his number to demand an explanation after the box had arrived. Yet there hadn’t been a single peep from him until right now. She’d actually started to worry something bad had happened to him.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been working to raise the startup money I need.”
Which she’d refused to provide. Faith ignored the subtle guilt trip. “I told you I wouldn’t store your stuff.”
“I know, but I didn’t have any other options. I’m saving for a storage unit. You know my credit is shit.”
And so is mine, thanks to you, she thought. But she wasn’t going to get onto that subject. It would only lead to an argument.
“Have you found a safe place to stay?” she heard herself asking. Gah, she didn’t want to care what he was doing. Why did she?
“Still in the truck. But thank you for asking. That means a lot, you know.”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But you could’ve trashed my stuff. Sounds like you didn’t.”
Tears pressed at her eyes. “I came to California to start over on my own. Please. Just let me do that. Let me go.”
There was silence on the line. She heard him sniffle.
“I’ll come pick up the box. I can do it right now.”
This was what she’d wanted. For him to take it back. But she was not giving him her address.
“I’ll leave it at the bus shelter on Ocean and Third.”
“The bus shelter? Why?”
“Take it or leave it. I’ll text you where to go.”
“Jeez…fine. I won’t bother you again.” He hung up on her.
She felt good about this small victory. But she knew better than to believe anything he said. Especially when it was what she wanted to hear.
Jon had been a one-night stand when she was nineteen.
It had happened after Sylvie left for California.
Faith had been too afraid to leave with her best friend, so she’d punished herself instead—hooking up with Jon Townsend, a boy she and Sylvie had both despised.
A bully from their high school football team, notorious for his antics at parties and for screwing anything that breathed.
Faith had been drunk. She barely remembered that night except for flashes here and there. The loud music, the sourness of the cheap beer. Jon’s fumbling hands. It had all been over in a matter of minutes. The encounter left her completely disgusted with herself. Exactly the point.
But less than a month later, Faith’s period failed to arrive.
She panicked and told her sister, which led to her parents finding out. Suddenly, she and Jon were sitting side by side, receiving tongue lashings. There wasn’t a question of whether they would get married, just a question of when.
Both sets of parents decided on a quick visit to the Justice of the Peace, before either of their children could think better of it and refuse. In a daze, Faith moved into Jon’s house with his family. At the urging of the pastor at their church, Jon promised to stay sober and get a steady job.
The strange thing? She and Jon turned to one another out of sheer loneliness.
They’d been cut off from all their other friends.
Over those months, as her stomach grew, Jon went to all her doctor appointments and spent time with her.
She thought maybe she’d been wrong about him, that he’d just needed a purpose to force him to grow up.
One night, he promised he would be a good dad and a loyal husband. I know you don’t love me, he said. But someday you will.
She’d wanted to believe it. And maybe it would’ve happened if their baby had lived.
After that terrible loss, their families closed ranks around them, offering support but also making clear that their marriage was a permanent arrangement. They both lay awake every night, crying for everything they’d lost. That anguish bound them together.
Jon did try to keep his promise to be a good husband, at least on the surface. For years, they coasted along. Faith resigned herself to never finding real love, but at least she had stability. A home. She focused on getting her Associate Degree in dental hygiene, starting her career.
But all that time, Jon hadn’t been okay. Not at all.
She remembered the first time she’d walked into the bathroom and found him shooting up between his toes. She’d turned right back around, walked into the yard, and thrown up.
Faith had insisted he get help. Once she’d understood how bad things really were, she’d done everything she could think of. Offering support. Yelling. Kicking him out. Trying, and failing, to leave. But he had a disease, and no matter what she said or did, it only seemed to get worse.
Looking back, Faith couldn’t believe she’d let it go on for so long. When she’d suspected he was dealing, she knew something had to change. Then that horrible man had appeared one night. Kyle. Hinting that Jon had gotten himself mixed up in something even worse.
Kyle had terrified her. Threatened her. While he’d been in her bedroom, she’d been convinced he was going to hurt her in the worst possible way.
Faith had almost called the police. But half the sheriff’s deputies were Jon’s old high school buddies.
So she’d made the decision to leave for good instead. Leave her job, her family, her life, and go so far away that nobody could force her back. All in the hopes of starting fresh.
Thank goodness she was in West Oaks now, surrounded by friends who cared about her. She refused to let Jon hijack her life again. Jon could come knocking all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to let him in.