19. Chasity
CHASITY
By the following weekend, the town’s collective memory seems to have misplaced my status as a visitor. I am no longer the “Possum Princess” or the runaway bride; I am just Chasity, a person who apparently needs a lot of unsolicited advice.
“You look for a man who knows how to stack his firewood tight,” Martha, a woman whose wrinkles hold the town’s entire history, informs me in the canned goods aisle. Her hand closes around my arm with the grip of someone who has wrestled bears. “Loose stack means a loose man. Can’t be trusted.”
I just nod, adding her wisdom to the growing pile.
Dottie from the bakery pressed a hand-knitted scarf into my hands—a deep, forest green—muttering something about the wind picking up.
Yesterday, Ellen cornered me outside the post office to discuss the Christmas pageant planning committee, adding my name to a list without ever asking if I’d still be here.
A strange warmth grows through my chest, a feeling that settles in my bones.
Here, belonging isn't something I have to earn. It’s just given.
The charity fundraiser for the little league field, damaged in the last storm, becomes the town’s singular obsession. Naturally, I find myself standing in the middle of the community hall with a clipboard, a pen behind my ear, and three different conversations happening around me.
“The bake sale table needs to go by the entrance for foot traffic!”
“Who is picking up the raffle prizes from the hardware store?”
“My grandson refuses to wear the squirrel costume unless it has a fluffier tail. Can you do anything about that?”
My head swivels from the baker to the high school volunteer to the distraught grandmother. I juggle decoration deliveries and a colour-coded volunteer schedule that took me three hours last night. My phone buzzes with a text from Taven about the sound system.
Rosa, the owner of the diner, claps a flour-dusted hand on my shoulder, her laugh booming through the hall. “See? I knew it! You’ve got event-planner blood in your veins, sweetheart.”
I jot down a note—Find more fluff for squirrel tail—and feel a smile pull at my lips. For the very first time in my life, organizing this chaos doesn’t feel like a tightrope walk over a pit of failure. It feels like building something. It feels like it matters.
The double doors of the community hall swing open and Lachlan saunters in, a box of donated tablecloths balanced on one hip.
“Fear not, the professional folder of linens has arrived.” He drops the box onto a table, the sound echoing in the cavernous space. His eyes scan the chaos, a grin spreading across his face. “Alright, people, let's turn this amateur-hour tragedy into a Broadway spectacle!”
Within minutes, he has a crew of teenagers laughing as they drag tables across the floor in a synchronized, ridiculous dance he choreographs on the spot.
Then comes Ben. He slips in so quietly I almost miss him, a toolbox in one hand.
He just nods in my direction. I point to a string of lights that has been flickering obnoxiously for the last hour.
He gives a short nod, walks over, and five minutes later, the lights burn steady and bright.
He doesn’t say a word, just moves on to the next silent problem—a wobbly leg on the silent auction table.
Taven is the last to appear, walking in with the tired, purposeful stride of a man entering a battlefield he knows all too well. He takes one look at the group of middle schoolers bickering over balloon colours and a deep sigh escapes him.
“Okay, listen up.” His voice cuts through the noise, low and firm. The kids fall silent. “Green and gold. School colours. End of discussion. Now go.”
They scatter like disciplined mice. He catches my eye from across the room and gives me a look that says, this is my life.
They move through the hall in three distinct currents of energy, yet they all flow back to me.
Lachlan appears with two cups of coffee, placing one on my clipboard table.
Ben materializes beside me just as I wobble on a stepladder while hanging a banner, his hand finding my lower back to steady me.
Taven shows up with a stack of raffle ticket books, dropping them where I just cleared a space.
The three of them form a strange, undeniable gravitational pull around my little command station.
And the town sees it. I feel their eyes. I catch Martha giving Ellen a pointed, knowing look over her half-eaten scone when Ben’s hand lingers on my back a second too long. I see Rosa hide a smile behind her hand when Taven appears with the exact box of supplies I was about to go search for.
Late in the afternoon, Dottie shuffles over from the bake sale table, pressing a plastic cup of lemonade into my hand.
“You look like you need this.” She leans in, her voice a stage whisper that carries across the entire room. “That poor girl’s gonna need a scheduling assistant for all these handsome men.”
The lemonade goes down the wrong pipe. A sharp, sour burn floods my sinuses as I cough, my eyes watering.
A few feet away, Lachlan, who was trying to sneak a brownie, doubles over.
His laughter is a loud, wheezing sound that makes the dessert table shake.
He points at me, tears of mirth streaming down his face, completely useless.
The fundraiser unfolds beneath strings of lantern lights that cast a warm, honeyed glow across the park.
The crisp autumn air carries the sounds of a local band’s slightly off-key country music and the constant, happy hum of conversation.
I watch families spread out on blankets, kids chasing each other with sticky, candy-apple faces.
Taven is locked in a ridiculously serious cornhole tournament with a group of his students.
Ben leans against a maple tree, a quiet smile on his face as he watches the scene, while Lachlan is working the small beer and wine tent, making everyone who approaches laugh.
At last, I feel a part of the wallpaper in the best possible way.
No one is watching me to see if I’m performing correctly.
No one is assessing my value. Dottie presses a brownie into my hand with a conspiratorial wink.
Martha gives me a thumbs-up from across the lawn.
They don’t want anything from me. They just seem glad that I am here.
The realization is a sharp, painful ache in my chest, a feeling so potent it almost brings tears to my eyes.
This is belonging. Not the transactional, conditional version I’ve always known, but something real and solid.
The fragile peace shatters with a buzz against my hip. Then another. And a third. I pull my phone from my pocket, the screen’s cold blue light a harsh intrusion. A wall of notifications greets me.
Mom: You need to call me. This has gone on long enough. When are you coming back to deal with this disaster?
Aunt Carol: I hope you know the non-refundable deposit on the flowers was over three thousand dollars. Just devastating.
Cousin Sandra: Are you and Jason talking? Everyone is so worried.
The air in my lungs turns to ice. Suddenly, the warm night feels suffocating, the happy chatter of the crowd a mocking roar in my ears.
The old, familiar wire loops around my throat, pulling tight.
Fix it. Apologize. Smooth it over. Make everyone comfortable again.
My hand trembles as I shove the phone back into my pocket.
I take a step back, then another, retreating from the circle of lantern light and into the cool shadows by the edge of the park.
The urge to run is a physical force, a primal scream building inside me to just get in my car and drive until none of this can touch me again.
My breath hitches, each inhale a sharp little shard of glass.
I press my back against the rough bark of an oak tree, letting the shadows swallow me whole.
The music and laughter from the fundraiser feel like they’re from another planet.
My world has shrunk to the cold, dead weight of the phone in my jeans.
Disaster. Devastating. Worried. The words are a familiar chorus, the soundtrack to my life before I hit the possums.
A figure detaches from the glow of the lanterns.
It’s Ben. He doesn’t call my name or rush over.
He just walks toward me, his boots crunching softly on the fallen leaves.
In his hand is a bottle of water. He holds it out.
I take it, my fingers brushing his calloused ones.
He doesn't ask what’s wrong. He doesn't demand I talk.
He just leans against the tree a few feet away, a silent, solid presence in the darkness, a quiet guard against the encroaching panic.
Moments later, another shadow lengthens. Taven’s purposeful stride eats up the ground between us. His gaze is sharp, cutting straight through my flimsy attempts to look composed. He glances from my face to the phone I’m clutching like a weapon.
“You don’t owe them an answer.” His voice is low, blunt. “You don’t owe anyone immediate access to your life just because they demand it. Your healing doesn't run on their schedule.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, his words a shield. Not a soft comfort, but a hard truth, something I can actually hold onto.
Then Lachlan finds us. He approaches with a slower, gentler gate, his easy smile softening when he sees my face. He stops facing me, his eyes full of a kindness that makes my throat tighten.
“Don’t let them convince you that you broke something that was already fracturing.
” He gestures vaguely back toward the faint lights of the highway, back toward the life I fled.
“You’re allowed to build something new. Something that you actually want, not just something that looks good from the outside. ”
They stand there, a strange and steady constellation around me.
Ben, my anchor to the quiet present. Taven, my fierce defender of boundaries I’m just now learning to draw.
Lachlan, the champion of a future I’m terrified to imagine.
The warm lantern glow from the park spills over us, catching the concern in their eyes.
Standing here, bathed in the soft light, I realize it with a clarity that steals my breath.
This is what it feels like. This patient, honest, unwavering care.
It’s not the exhausting performance of my old life, the endless tap dance of managing someone else’s expectations.
This is quiet. It is solid. It is real. And the thought of it, the simple, beautiful, terrifying reality of it, makes my heart pound against my ribs.