Chapter 53 - Faith #2
Ryker didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched me with those steady eyes that made me want to crawl out of my skin.
“I’m ashamed of her.” The words tasted bitter.
“She lied. She stole. She hit people.” I forced myself to meet his gaze, even though every instinct screamed at me to look away.
“After I aged out of the foster care system, I did whatever I could to become a good person again. I want to be a good person. I want to be as good as my brother, Blake.”
My throat tightened. God, this was so much harder than I’d thought it would be.
“But all that shit from my past?” I sucked in a breath that didn’t quite fill my lungs. “I’m so ashamed of it. I don’t want to tell people about it.”
Ryker leaned forward slightly, his weight shifting.
“I know.” I held up a hand, stopping whatever he was about to say.
“I know that sounds irrational to you. That I’d rather risk my life, risk my freedom, than come clean about it.
” A laugh bubbled up, sharp and humorless.
“But how would you feel? Seriously, how would you feel if the only way to exist in the new version of yourself—the one you built from scratch—was to expose your most shameful secrets?”
The question hung in the air between us.
“I wanted you to love me for the me that I’ve become.” My voice came out quieter now, scraped raw. “I didn’t want you to see that old part of me.”
Silence ticked on.
“Do you remember that night at Blake’s?” I asked. “When you found me outside, staring up at the sky?”
Something shifted in Ryker’s expression. I knew without him saying a word that he’d replayed that moment more times than he’d probably admit. The night he’d walked outside and found me alone in the dark, neck craned toward a starless sky. He’d been heading to his car, but he’d stopped. Stayed.
“You looked at me like you knew something was wrong,” I continued, my throat tight. “Everyone else had been laughing inside, having a good time, but you—” My voice cracked. “You saw through it.”
His eyes hadn’t left my face. That unwavering focus that used to unsettle me now felt like the only thing holding me together.
“Blake had been talking about saving lives that night.” The memory hit me hard.
“All these incredible stories about the people he helps every single day. And I just … I couldn’t breathe in there.
I felt like a complete fuckup by comparison.
” I swiped at my cheek. “So, I went outside to find the Big Dipper. This thing my dad taught me before he died. I needed to anchor myself. But in the city, you can’t see the stars.
Which is why I just stood there, staring at nothing.
I couldn’t even find my father in that moment. ”
“Faith …” Ryker started.
“I was trying to remind myself that I’d changed,” I continued, needing to get it all out before I lost my nerve. “That I was better. That I was someone Blake would be proud of.” My laugh came out hollow. “Guess I’m still working on believing that part.”
It looked like I’d punched Ryker in the gut. He probably replayed that moment, perhaps wondering if he could have said something to make me feel better.
But there was nothing he could’ve said. He did the one thing that I needed in that moment: he’d stayed without demanding explanations, without prying. Just close enough to let me know I wasn’t alone.
“Faith.” Ryker waited until I looked at him. “He is proud of you. Anyone with eyes can see that.”
“Yeah?” I stilled my breath, bracing for the question that had my heart racing. “What about you, Ryker? What do you see?”
“Everything,” he answered simply. “I see everything.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the tension in the room calm a bit.
“Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” His voice was quieter now but still edged with frustration. “Why make me find out from Wolfe?”
Fresh tears spilled over. “Because you pulled away.” The confession came out barely above a whisper. “The first time I told you about my history. When we were painting. About foster care. I saw something change in your expression. Just for a second. But I saw it. And it scared me.”
His brow furrowed. “I didn’t—”
“You did. And I kept telling myself I had time to tell you everything. That I’d wait for the right moment.
But there was no right moment.” My voice broke.
“I started to tell you. Told you I’d been changed by the system.
That I’d turned into a bad kid. But I kept chickening out before telling you the rest.”
I forced myself to hold his gaze, even as shame burned through me.
“I’m selfish and immature and reckless. I loved the way you looked at me, and I didn’t want that to change.
So, I stayed quiet, and I told myself it would be okay, that I still had time to tell you, that maybe it wouldn’t matter if Wolfe never found out.
” A sob caught in my throat. “But it does matter. And I’m sorry.
God, Ryker, I’m so sorry, but for the record, I wasn’t going to continue to keep it from you. ”
I took a deep breath and did something I should have from the beginning of this fight.
I walked to the end table, pulled out a drawer, and retrieved the letter inside.
“For a long time, I was hoping no one would find out. But after what you did for me and Rainbow …” I handed it to him.
“I decided that if I was going to be with you, I owed you the whole truth. I wrote down my entire past. Everything. Every dark sin that I’d been too chickenshit to say out loud.
It’s all in here. I wrote it down so I couldn’t chicken out again. ”
Ryker looked at the handwritten letter. Then me. He stared at me, chest heaving, emotions warring across his face. The anger was still there, but beneath it, I could see something else breaking through. Understanding. Maybe even the beginnings of forgiveness.
Rainbow’s sharp bark cut through the tension. She’d been hiding under the coffee table, but now she scrambled out, whimpering at the raised voices. Without thinking, I bent down and scooped her into my arms, my fingers automatically finding the spot behind her ears that calmed her.
“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” I murmured against her fur, even as my own world was falling apart. “Everything’s okay.”
When I looked up, Ryker was watching us.
Watching me. His eyes tracked the way my hands gentled the trembling dog.
He watched how I tucked her against my chest to make her feel safe, even when I felt anything but.
Something in his expression shifted, softened, like he was seeing something he’d missed before.
He took a step forward. Stopped. Ran his hand through his hair again, slower this time. Processing. Calculating. That brilliant legal mind of his sorting through everything I’d said, everything I hadn’t said, everything that lay between us now, like shattered glass.
“I can’t do this without trust, Faith.” His voice was rough. “I can’t love someone who won’t let me in.”
“I know.” The words came out broken. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
He stepped closer, and I could see the exhaustion in his eyes.
“If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to be together, I need all of you.
I will always love every part of you. The good, the bad, the parts you think are too ugly to love.
Even if you did things you’re not proud of.
Even if you made mistakes. Even if you fought dirty to survive.
” He reached for me tentatively, and when I didn’t pull away, his hands cupped my face.
“I’ll still love you, Faith. But I need the truth. I need your trust.”
“You have it.” I covered his hands with mine. “All of it. I promise.”
“Tell me the rest,” he said softly, setting the letter down. “Everything Wolfe has and everything he doesn’t.”
So, I did.
The words poured out like poison being drained from a wound. The vandalism. The relationships I’d used for shelter. The money I’d stolen. Every shameful compromise, every moral gray area, every desperate choice.
I told him about the foster dad who’d locked the refrigerator, how I’d learned to pick the lock at two in the morning just to eat.
About sleeping in a storage unit for three weeks after aging out because it was safer than the shelter.
About the time I’d pretended to love someone, just to have a roof over my head, and how sick it made me feel every single day.
With each confession, I watched his face. Waited for the disgust. The disappointment. The moment he’d pull his hands away and tell me I was exactly what he’d feared.
But through it all, Ryker stayed.
When I finally ran out of confessions, when every secret had been dragged into the light, I sobbed into his chest. He held me through it, solid and steady and there.
“I love you,” he said when my sobs finally quieted to hiccups. He tilted my chin up so I had to meet his eyes. “Trust is everything to me. Okay? No more secrets. No more hiding. We face everything together.”
“Together,” I repeated, the word feeling like a promise.
“Together.” He kissed my forehead, soft and sure. “Now, let’s figure out how to beat this bastard at his own game.”
Standing there in his arms, feeling seen for the first time in my life and still wanted, still chosen, something inside me finally shifted.
He chose me. Not despite my broken pieces, but with full knowledge of them. Not the chameleon. Not the survivor.
Me.
The realization hit like lightning: Love wasn’t about being perfect. It was about being known.
Vulnerable enough to show them all of you. Even the bad parts.
And for the first time in my life, I was both.