1. Faith #2
My chest hurts. My fingers go prickly, like I’ve stuck them in snow without gloves. I press my palms together hard, trying to ground the sensation, but it just makes them shake more.
The edges of the room blur. My vision tightens into a strange tunnel. Somewhere distant, as if I’m underwater, I think I hear music. Soft piano through the closed door, guests murmuring.
I’m supposed to go out there. I’m supposed to smile. I’m supposed to say I do in front of all of them.
I can’t breathe.
I reach for the only thing that ever made me feel safe when the world got too big.
My fingers find the locket again, the silver warm from my skin. I clutch it hard, pressing it into my palm until the edges dig in. It’s real. It’s solid. I thumb the tiny hinge, flick it open, forcing my clumsy fingers to move.
Her face looks up at me again, the picture small and slightly faded from years of being opened and closed and opened again.
My grandma had laugh lines so deep they looked carved into her skin, and a way of looking at you like you were the only person in the room.
No one else has ever looked at me in that way since she died.
“Don’t let anyone talk you out of your own heart, sugar.”
Her voice is so clear in my head that, for a second, I swear I can smell her kitchen. Cinnamon. Coffee. The faint scent of wood smoke from the old stove that never seemed to stop burning in winter.
She would hate this room. She would hate this wedding. She’d take one look at the ice sculpture shaped as a monogrammed wreath and say, “Well, that’s pretty, baby, but where’s the soul?”
A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat, then twists into a sob. I clap a hand over my mouth, shoulders shaking.
I miss her. I miss her so much, my chest aches with it.
I miss my mom, who’s at home in Buckhorn right now because she couldn’t bear to sit through my father’s show.
I miss Charlotte, who texted me a picture of a thrift store dress she found last week and said, “This looks more like ‘wedding Faith’ than anything on .”
They should be here. My mom fussing with my hair, Charlotte cracking jokes about how she’s going to trip on purpose just to see the look on my father’s face. They’re not here because they didn’t want to be complicit in something that felt wrong.
And what does it say that I’m the only one still pretending it’s okay?
“You’re making a mistake,” Charlotte had said, while we sat on Mom’s tiny porch the last time I was home. Summer was thick and hot, and the air smelled of dust and dry grass. “You know that, right?”
I’d flinched. “Evan is a good man.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t,” she’d replied, picking at the chipped paint on the armrest. “I said he’s not your man.”
But all I could really hear in the back of my head was my father’s voice: “Faith, this is going to be the event of the year. Everyone will be talking about it over the Christmas period.”
I didn’t argue. I never do. I just went along the way I’ve been going along for years. One small compromise at a time until I’m here, in this room, wearing a dress I didn’t pick in a ceremony built to impress people I don’t know.
I drag my gaze back to the mirror. My face is pale under the makeup now, eyes glassy, chest heaving. I look less like a bride and more like someone about to bolt.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper to the woman in the glass.
The admission is slipping off a mask.
My heart stutters, then surges, pounding, trying to burst out of my chest and drag me somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Lights blur in the mirror as fresh tears fill my eyes. They spill over, tracking down my cheeks in warm streaks, carving through the flawless foundation. The makeup artist would have a stroke if she saw.
Good.
Because I am not fine. I am not perfect. I am not ready.
Another muffled knock hits the door.
“Faith?” That’s my father this time. “What’s going on? It’s time. People are waiting.”
My spine locks. For a moment, habit almost wins. I nearly smooth my dress, swipe my cheeks, paste on a smile, and say, “Coming, Daddy.”
But the idea of opening that door makes my vision tilt again. I can’t picture myself taking those steps down the aisle without my legs giving out.
I picture my father’s face if I tell him I can’t. The disappointment tightening his jaw. The way he’d step in close, lower his voice, and murmur, “Don’t be ridiculous, Faith. It’s nerves. We’ve put too much into this for you to have one of your moods now.”
We.
As if this is his wedding as much as mine.
The panic spikes, sudden and blinding. My fingertips go numb. The room shrinks to the door, the mirror, the way my pulse throbs in my neck.
“Faith?” He knocks again, harder. “Open this door.”
I can’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut, clutching the locket.
“Gran,” I hiss through my teeth, half prayer, half plea. “I don’t know what to do.”
And then, in the middle of the noise in my head, a small and clear thought cuts through.
You do know, sugar. You’ve always known. You’re just scared.
I don’t know if it’s memory or imagination or just my subconscious finally clawing its way to the surface, but it’s enough.
My body moves before my brain catches up.
One step back. My heels sink into the plush carpet, the satin of my skirt whispering against my legs. Another step, toward the side of the room where a narrow door leads to the service hallway. The one the staff has been using to bring in trays without bumping into the bridesmaids.
My father knocks again, the sound sharper, angrier. The doorknob rattles. “Faith, open this door right now.”
No.
I take another step, my knees shaking so hard I’m amazed I stay upright. My fingers close around the knob of the side door. It turns easily, unguarded, forgotten.
I glance back once, just long enough to see the room I’m supposed to be married in.
The vanity, the velvet bench, the spray of roses that don’t have a scent strong enough to cover the reek of my fear.
The dress in the mirror is beautiful, but it’s on the wrong girl.
The girl who slings her denim jacket over her shoulders, grateful to feel her phone in her pocket. Her lifeline.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though I’m not sure who I’m apologizing to.
My dad. Evan. The guests outside. Myself.
Then I pull the door open.
The service hallway beyond is narrow and cool, lit by harsh fluorescent lights. The contrast makes my eyes water anew. I slip through, gathering my skirt, and let the door fall shut behind me gently, so no one hears.
It smells of detergent and coffee and something frying. My heels click on the tile, too loud in my own ears. I move anyway, forcing my legs to keep going, following the sound of distant chatter toward an exit sign glowing red at the end of the hall.
I pass a couple of hotel staff members who blink at me, mouths falling open as I sweep by in a cloud of tulle and panic. One starts to say something, then seems to think better of it. I don’t slow down long enough to find out what they might have asked.
My heart is still racing, but the panic has turned, sharp and wild, into momentum.
Exit.
The red sign might as well be a beacon.
I shove through the heavy metal door beneath it, and the winter night hits me like a slap.
Cold knifes across my cheeks, burning the tear tracks there.
My lungs seize, then open, dragging in a breath so crisp it hurts.
The narrow alley behind the hotel is slick with patches of snow and ice, the brick walls looming on either side.
Somewhere out on the main street, traffic hums, distant and indifferent.
Snowflakes drift down from a sky the color of old pewter, catching in my hair, on my lashes, on the shoulders of my denim jacket. The dress swirls around my legs, satin and lace soaking up wet from the ground. My heels sink into a slushy patch, and I nearly go down onto my knees.
I grab the back of a dumpster to steady myself, laughing a little, high and breathless. I must look insane. Some runaway Snow Queen who took a wrong turn at the ceremony and ended up in a loading dock.
But the air. The air tastes of freedom.
I press my hand to my chest, feeling my heart thunder under my fingers. It’s still beating too fast, but it’s different now. Less trapped rabbit, more horse that’s finally broken through the open gate.
You don’t have to go back in there.
The thought is quiet but electrifying. It zips through me, lighting up every nerve.
All I have is my dress, my jacket, and my phone.
A wild, slightly hysterical giggle bursts out of me. Thank you, past self, for that one tiny act of paranoia.
I shuffle out of the alley, the hem of my gown dragging through dirty snow.
When I turn the corner, I spill onto the side street where the hotel’s valet stand glows under a string of white lights.
A row of expensive cars sits along the curb.
Sleek black sedans, a silver sports car, a couple of SUVs.
The main entrance is around the corner, windows blazing, bodies moving inside like shadows in a snow globe.
The valet, a teenage boy with a red nose and a too-big coat, gawks as I come toward him. “Uh, ma’am? Do you… Are you okay?”
No. Not even a little.
“Yes,” I say, because the word is a shield. “I just… I need my car, please.”
He glances over my shoulder like he’s expecting a cameraman to jump out. “Are you… the bride?”
I bob my head, breath puffing white. “Faith Ross. Blue pickup. Well, navy.”
My voice wobbles.
Dad had sneered at the idea of me “driving that thing up to a luxury hotel,” so I parked in the underground lot myself and handed the keys to the valet with a smile. “I’ll tip you double if you don’t mention this to anyone for five minutes.”
His eyes widen. “Double?”
The sound of someone’s laugh floats faintly through the revolving doors, and panic nips at my heels again.
“Triple,” I blurt.
He snaps upright. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll just, uh, grab that for you.”
He jogs off toward the parking entrance, leaving me alone under the hotel awning.