Chapter 34
Micah
“I can’t do this anymore,” I pray. “I can’t keep pretending. Not with her.”
Silence answers me, pressing in from all sides. Heavy. Intentional. Like it’s waiting to see if I actually mean it.
I’m falling for her. Hard.
The thought isn’t audible, but it might as well be. It echoes in the quiet of my room, undeniable and two years in the making.
I can’t fake this anymore. Can’t keep pretending this is just an arrangement.
“I need wisdom here,” I say. “Because I don’t trust myself anymore. I’m saying yes to things I should say no to. I’m letting myself hope for something that isn’t mine to hope for. And I don’t know how to stop.”
The conviction settles over me—not crushing, but firm. The particular kind of clarity that only comes after you’ve stopped arguing with it.
I need to end it. Tell her the arrangement is over. Give her a proper reason or a vague one, doesn’t matter, just enough to create the distance I should have created weeks ago. Before I get any deeper. Before she figures out that none of what I’ve been doing has been performance.
Before I get hurt worse than I already am.
I pray until the panic in my chest slows into something that almost feels like peace. Then I push myself up from the floor and sit on the edge of my bed and stare at nothing for a moment.
Tomorrow. Church tomorrow. I’ll end it right after.
From the kitchen, I hear Biscuit knock something off the counter—a soft plastic thud, followed by the particular scrambling sound of a ferret who has done something and is not sorry about it.
I get up and check. He’s sitting beside the now-empty paper towel roll with the composure of someone who has no idea how it got there.
I refill his food bowl. He ignores me pointedly until the bowl is full, then ignores me with the addition of eating.
“Rough night for both of us,” I tell him.
He doesn’t respond.
I lean against the kitchen counter. The house is quiet in that specific Saturday morning way—not lonely, just still. I’ve lived alone long enough to know the difference. This is the quiet you can breathe in.
I’m still standing there with that thought when the doorbell rings.
I freeze.
It’s almost nine. No one comes over unannounced this early. Especially not to my house. Gray texts. My mom calls. leaves things on the porch and runs.
The doorbell rings again.
I pull the door open.
It’s her.
Harper stands on my porch like this is the most normal thing in the world. Wind-tousled hair. Oversized hoodie. Leggings. Sneakers. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, and she’s slightly out of breath.
“Hi,” she says brightly.
I blink at her.
“Hi,” I manage. “Why are you here?”
She shrugs, completely unfazed. “I was on a walk.”
“You live twenty minutes away.”
“Yeah, I was deep in thought.” She gestures vaguely behind her. “Just kept walkin’.”
I stare at her.
“And ended up at my house.”
“Yep.” She rocks back on her heels. “I realized I was like three streets over and thought, huh…Micah lives near here. And then I thought, I wonder what he’s doing. And then I thought, I should just go say hi.”
She smiles like this is airtight logic.
“You typically just show up at people’s houses?”
“Only yours,” she winks.
My heart stumbles.
Before I can respond, a blur of brown and white shoots between my legs.
“Ah!” Harper shrieks. “What is that?”
Biscuit skids to a stop at her feet, sniffing her shoelaces like she’s the most interesting thing he’s ever encountered.
“That,” I say carefully, “is Biscuit.”
She stares down at him. “There is a rodent on your porch.”
“He’s not a rodent.”
“He looks like a rodent.”
“He’s a ferret.”
She looks up at me slowly. “You have a ferret.”
“Yes.”
“And it just roams.”
“He lives here.”
She looks back down at Biscuit, who has now begun climbing her pant leg with alarming determination.
“Micah,” she whispers, eyes wide. “It’s climbing me.”
“He likes you.”
“Why does it like me?”
“I don’t know. You’re chaotic. He respects that.”
She snorts.
Biscuit reaches her knee and pauses, nose twitching. Harper hesitates for exactly half a second before crouching down.
“Oh my gosh,” she breathes. “Hi.”
She holds out her hand. Biscuit sniffs her fingers, then immediately climbs into her palm like he’s known her his entire life.
Her face softens in a way I’m not prepared for.
“Your kind of adorable,” she murmurs.
I cross my arms, leaning against the doorframe.
“You just called him a rat.”
“I was uninformed.” She looks up at me. “His name is Biscuit?”
“Yes.”
She gasps like I’ve said something holy. “That’s precious.”
“He’s named after a failed attempt at baking.”
She settles onto the porch step like she has all the time in the world. Biscuit climbs onto her shoulder, wraps around the back of her neck, and perches there proudly.
She squeals. “He’s wearing me like a scarf!”
“He does that.”
She turns her head slightly, trying to see him. “Hi, Biscuit. I’m Harper. I’ve heard nothing about you.”
Biscuit chirps softly.
“Oh, he talks,” she says reverently.
I watch her sitting on my porch, laughing at my ferret like this is the most natural place for her to be.
She fits here.
That realization hits harder than it should, specifically because I just spent forty minutes on my knees deciding to end this. There is a particular kind of irony available to a man who prays for clarity and then opens the door.
“So,” she says after a moment, still absently scratching behind Biscuit’s ears. “Random question.”
Of course.
I brace myself.
“My friend Becca is having a baby shower tomorrow,” she continues. “Just games and food and chaos. I was wondering if you wanted to come.”
“Aren’t baby showers for women?” I ask.
“Sometimes, but this one is a couples shower.”
Right. Collin. The whole reason any of this started. I almost forgot for a second, standing here on my own porch with her wrapped in my ferret, which tells me everything I need to know about the state of my judgment.
This is the perfect opportunity to say no. To end this fake relationship.
I just decided I was done.
I just prayed about it.
But I watch her instead. She’s still on my porch step, Biscuit now fully draped around her shoulders like he’s claimed her. She’s smiling at me, hopeful but not calculating. Not performing. Just Harper, asking me a question she actually wants the answer to.
“I—” My brain lags behind my mouth. “Yeah. I’ll come.”
Her face lights up.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She stands, brushing off her leggings. Biscuit clings stubbornly to her hoodie.
“Do you want coffee?” I hear myself ask, motioning inside my house.
She studies me for half a second, then shrugs. “Okay.”
I step aside and hold the door open.
She walks in like she belongs here.
And that’s a problem.
She kicks off her shoes without asking and pads into the living room, Biscuit still curled around her shoulders like a living scarf. I head to the kitchen to make our coffee. From the living room, I hear her voice drop into that soft register she uses with kids.
“Hi, Biscuit. You’re very dramatic.”
The warmth that spreads through my chest is immediate and unwelcome.
I pour the coffee slowly, willing my heartbeat to steady. It’s just a cup of coffee. It’s what friends do. There is nothing about this situation that requires me to feel what I’m currently feeling, and I would appreciate it very much if my chest got the memo.
I carry the mugs back in and hand one to her. Our fingers brush.
It shouldn’t feel like anything.
But it does.
She curls into the corner of my couch, tucking one leg beneath her. Biscuit immediately claims her lap like he’s been waiting for her to arrive all evening, which, knowing Biscuit, he probably has.
“He likes me,” she says smugly.
“He likes chaos.”
She grins at that. We sit in quiet for a moment. The lamp beside the couch casts everything in warm light. Outside, the neighborhood is still.
“Can I ask you something?” she blurts.
My guard rises automatically. “Sure.”
She stares into her coffee for a second, like she’s deciding whether to say it out loud.
“How do you actually feel it?” It comes out less like a question than something she’s been carrying around and finally set down. “God. All of it. How does it get from your head to the rest of you?”
That wasn’t what I expected.
I sit back in the armchair across from her.
“That’s a big question for a Saturday morning.”
“I’m serious.” There’s frustration in her tone. “I’ve been reading. Studying. Going to church. Volunteering with the kids. I’m doing all the things, Micah. But I still don’t feel it. Not the way Ivy does. Not the way you do.”
She looks almost embarrassed admitting that, and something in me softens immediately.
“What are you looking for?” I ask gently. “Like, what would make it feel real to you?”
“Connection. Something that reaches past my brain and actually lands. I can know all of it and still feel nothing, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“You’re trying to think your way into it.”
“Well, yeah.” She crosses her arms. “That’s how I process everything. I need to understand something before I accept it.”
I nod slowly.
That’s Harper. Brilliant. Analytical. Perpetually building a case.
“You can study theology until your brain hurts,” I say carefully. “You can memorize Scripture, understand the historical context, read every commentary that’s ever been written. But knowledge isn’t the same thing as relationship.”
She looks up at that.
“Then what is?” Her voice cracks slightly. “Because I feel like I’m standing outside looking in. Watching everyone else experience something I can’t access.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees.
The honest answer surfaces quickly, the way it does when you’ve been turning something over for years.
And underneath it, quieter and less comfortable, is the awareness that I am sitting here about to tell her that faith requires surrender—that you have to stop white-knuckling the outcome and just let go—while I am doing exactly the opposite with every feeling I have in this room.
Praying for clarity with one hand and reaching for more time with the other.
I know what surrender looks like. I’ve just been avoiding it too.
“Can I be honest?” I ask.
“When are you not?”
A faint smile pulls at my mouth.
“Faith isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about surrender. Letting go of control and trusting Him even when it doesn’t make logical sense.”
She flinches slightly. “But that’s terrifying.”
“I know.”
“You think I’m overthinking it.”
“I think you’re brilliant,” I say immediately. “Your brain is one of your greatest gifts. But God doesn’t need you to figure Him out, Harper. He just needs you to stop holding Him at arm’s length.”
Her eyes glisten.
“What if I don’t know how to stop?”
“You can learn. But you have to stop trying to earn it. Stop trying to prove you’re smart enough or good enough or faithful enough.” I pause. “Just be. Let Him do the rest.”
She goes quiet at that.
“I don’t know how to surrender,” she admits.
“Start with honesty. Tell God you don’t know how. Tell Him you’re scared. Tell Him you want to feel close to Him but don’t know how to let go.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She huffs out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is simple. We’re the ones who complicate it.”
She looks at me then, and I can feel the shift in the room.
This isn’t fake. This isn’t performance.
This is her letting me see the part she doesn’t show anyone.
Which is the exact thing I told myself I was going to walk away from, and I am sitting here in my own living room completely unable to do it.
She sets her mug down eventually and stands.
“I’ve got a long walk back.”
“I can drive you.”
“No,” she pauses, then smiles. “I always do my best thinking on walks. I want to sit with this a little.”
I walk her to the door and pull Biscuit off her shoulder, which he objects to by making a small sound of protest that Harper finds deeply moving.
“Bye, sweet little squishy thing.” She pets his head with complete sincerity. “I’ll miss you so much. Make sure Micah gives you extra treats.”
She hesitates at the door. Something moving through her expression that she doesn’t quite say.
“Harper.”
She turns.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, meaning every word of it, “I think you’re closer than you think.”
Something moves across her face. Not certainty. But openness — the particular kind that happens when someone has stopped arguing and started actually listening.
She nods once. “Bye, Micah.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I wait in the doorway until she reaches the corner, and then I close the door.
The house settles around me. Biscuit, denied his new favorite human, drapes himself across my feet with quiet drama.
She showed up at my door. Walked twenty minutes because she was thinking and her feet brought her here without asking the rest of her.
I close my eyes and lean back against the door.
One last thing. One last performance. After the shower tomorrow, I end it, and then I figure out how to be her friend in a way that doesn’t cost me everything, which I am told is possible and currently cannot imagine.
I push off the door and head down the hall.
“God,” I mutter quietly. “You really have a sense of humor.”