31. Faith
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Faith
Evenings in this house always smell like they’re trying to comfort you.
Tonight it’s lavender detergent and whatever cinnamon candle Mom insists is “subtle,” even though it could probably be used to fumigate a small airport.
The heater clicks on and off with an attitude, the ceramic owl clock ticks too loudly on purpose, and I’m standing in my childhood bedroom trying to convince my hands to stop shaking long enough to put on mascara like a functioning adult.
It’s not working.
Because shame doesn’t care what time of day it is.
It waits. It gathers. And then, right when you’re trying to brush your hair and pretend you aren’t living inside a snow globe of consequences, it kicks the door open and dumps itself all over your floor like glitter.
I swallow hard and look in the mirror. My reflection looks dressed up.
Which is almost funny. Dark sweater dress. Boots. Bare face, eyes puffy and too bright.
A knock sounds at my door.
“Faith?” Mom’s voice is soft. Careful. “You okay in there?”
“No,” I say honestly, because I don’t have the energy for a lie.
The door opens slowly, and Mom steps in like she’s approaching a skittish animal. She takes one look at my face and sighs like she’s been holding her breath all day.
“You have dinner with Dallas soon,” she says. “That should take your mind off things.”
My stomach flips. “Yeah.”
She studies me for a beat, and I hate how easily she can read me. Like she’s got the map of my panic memorized.
“You want to back out?” she asks quietly.
I open my mouth and almost say yes.
Yes, I want to crawl under the bed and live there permanently with my dust bunnies and my childhood diary and the version of myself who still believed adults made sense.
But I don’t.
Because Dallas deserves more than me disappearing.
Dallas has already lost enough people to silence. To leaving. To a life that doesn’t ask permission before it takes.
And I can’t do that to him.
I shake my head. “No. I need to go. I just… I’m terrified.”
Mom’s face softens. “Of him?”
“No,” I whisper. “Of everything else.”
She nods once, like that’s the answer she expected.
“I keep thinking…” My voice catches. I clear my throat and try again. “I keep thinking my dad’s going to show up. Or someone with a camera.”
Mom’s eyes go sharp. Protective. “No one is coming through that door tonight.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she says, calm as a stone in a river. “Because if your father shows up here, he will have to go through me first.”
A stupid little laugh escapes me. It sounds shaky and not at all like laughter should.
Mom arches a brow. “Don’t underestimate how much I’ve been waiting for the chance to say ‘absolutely not’ to that man.”
That makes my chest loosen just a fraction, like a knot untwisting one strand at a time.
I sit on the edge of the bed because my legs suddenly feel like they’re made of paper.
Mom comes over with my hairbrush in hand.
“Okay,” she says, brisk now, like she’s putting on her mother armor. “We’re doing your hair.”
I blink. “You’re doing my hair?”
“I am,” she says, and her mouth curves. “Because it’s been years since you last let me. Sit still.”
I obey, mostly because arguing would require energy I no longer possess.
She starts brushing, long strokes from crown to ends, gentle but efficient. The sensation nearly knocks the air out of me.
It’s so normal.
So safe.
The kind of touch that says you’re still my baby even if I’m twenty-something and technically a grown woman who has committed the sin of not being manageable.
I stare at the posters on my wall. Barrel racers, vintage movie quotes, the faded corkboard with ribbons I won in high school. Evidence that I used to be a person with interests instead of an accessory to my father’s success.
I swallow hard. “Mom?”
“Mhm.”
“What if Dallas… What if he thinks I used him?”
The brush pauses for half a heartbeat, then resumes. “Dallas McCoy is not going to think that.”
“You don’t know—”
“I do,” she interrupts, gentle but firm. “Dallas knows the you underneath all this. And he’s not the kind of man who confuses survival with manipulation.”
My eyes sting. I blink fast, but it doesn’t help.
“And,” Mom adds, quieter, “because he’s been through real loss. He knows what it looks like when someone is just trying to stay afloat.”
I breathe in, shaky.
Mom twists half my hair back and pins it so the rest falls in soft waves. Simple. Pretty. Like I’m going to dinner in Buckhorn, not stepping into a courtroom.
When she’s done, she comes around and tilts my chin up with two fingers.
“There,” she says. “That’s my girl.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t feel like her.”
Mom’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Then you go anyway. You show up anyway. That’s how you find her.”
I swallow. “What if he wants to talk about… everything?”
“That’s the point of dinner,” Mom says dryly.
A weak smile pulls at my mouth.
Then my phone buzzes, even face down, like it’s trying to remind me that the world outside this house exists.
My whole body flinches.
Mom’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Hey. Look at me.”
I do.
“You are safe here,” she says, low and certain. “And you are allowed to have one good evening. Even if the internet is being cruel. Even if your father is being your father. Even if your past is loud.”
My eyes burn again. I nod, because I can’t speak without cracking.
“Now,” she says, standing, brisk again, “go get your coat. And breathe.”
I grab my coat from the chair, tug it on, and immediately feel the walls closing in.
It’s like my brain realizes I’m about to leave the bubble.
My heart speeds up. My palms go cold.
“I need air,” I blurt.
Mom points toward the door. “Porch. Go.”
I head down the hall and out the front door, and the cold hits my face like a reset button.
The porch light glows warm. The street is quiet. Peaceful in that Buckhorn way. Like even the silence knows your name.
I inhale.
My breath fogs in front of me, and I can almost convince my nervous system to stop screaming.
Then my mind betrays me, as always.
Dallas’s hands. Dallas’s voice. Dallas’s mouth.
The memory of him, of us, hits like heat under my ribs, sharp and disorienting.
I wrap my arms around myself and stare at the driveway, willing time to move faster.
You’re doing the right thing, I tell myself. You’re showing up.
Tires crunch on snow.
Headlights sweep across the yard.
Dallas is coming.