Faith
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
If there’s a checklist for “How to Unravel a Person in Seven Days,” I’m pretty sure my father laminated it and handed it out to his staff.
Step one: remove all privacy.
Step two: remove all technology.
Step three: smile a lot, so everyone thinks you’re fine.
It’s been a week since Buckhorn. A week since Evan’s hands crushed my phone like it was nothing. A week since my father’s office became my cage and my name became a brand problem they’re trying to manage back into place.
And I haven’t been alone once.
Not the real kind of alone. Not the kind where you can stand in front of a mirror and make a face and let it stay there. Not the kind where you can cry without someone hearing it and logging it and reporting it like it’s data.
No. I’ve been accompanied.
Escorted.
Supervised.
If I so much as walk to the bathroom, there’s a pause at the door, the faint shift of weight, the sense that someone is just on the other side waiting to make sure I come back out again.
It’s subtle enough that if I tried to explain it to someone who hasn’t lived inside my father’s gravity, they’d say, Faith, you’re being dramatic.
But that’s the thing.
My father doesn’t do dramatic.
He does controlled.
He does polite containment.
And it’s worse. Because it makes you question your own instincts. Makes you wonder if you’re imagining it. If you’re just… being emotional.
I’m sitting at a desk in a glass conference room that looks like it belongs in a futuristic movie where the main character slowly realizes she’s been living in a simulation.
The table is glossy. The chairs are expensive. The walls are glass, but somehow that makes it feel even more suffocating, because there’s no real hiding. No real corner. No place to fold yourself into.
There’s a laptop in front of me, open to my father’s company dashboard. Analytics. Engagement rates. Brand tone guidelines. Scheduled posts. A million tiny boxes of information, each one perfectly arranged.
Like my father’s feelings.
Next to me sits Marilyn, my father’s assistant, who smiles at me the way you smile at a dog you’re trying not to startle. Pleasant. Careful. Like I might bolt.
She is not wrong.
“Okay,” Marilyn says brightly, tapping the screen with her pen. “We just need to adjust the caption tone. Your father wants it warmer. More personal.”
More personal.
That’s funny, because I have never felt less like a person in my life.
I nod anyway, because nodding is what I do now. My face is basically a professional nod machine.
I type. Delete. Type again. Try a few options.
A part of me, the part that used to color-code event seating charts and make thirty grown adults feel special with the right floral centerpiece, actually wakes up when I’m doing this.
The work is familiar. It’s the only part of the day that gives me a tiny, fragile spark of I know how to do something.
I pick an image. Crop it. Adjust the layout. Choose a caption that feels like warmth without being messy.
And for five minutes, I almost forget where I am.
Almost.
Then Marilyn leans in too close. Her perfume is sharp and expensive and sterile, like a hotel lobby. Like Evan. Like a room where no one is allowed to sweat or cry or be human.
“This is great,” she says. “Perfect. Your father will love it.”
My hands keep typing, but my stomach rolls.
Because I know what comes next.
Approval. Oversight. Control.
A second person comes in, another assistant, younger, clipboard in hand, and stands by the door like she’s guarding it.
The glass wall behind Marilyn reflects all three of us.
Me sitting at the desk.
Marilyn, watching.
The assistant, waiting.
It looks like a normal work meeting.
It feels like a hostage negotiation where I’m both the negotiator and the hostage.
When I finish, Marilyn reaches over and gently closes the laptop like she’s putting a lid on danger.
Then she slides it away from me. Of course I don’t get to keep it.
“Wonderful,” she says, standing. “Lunch with Evan at one. Then your father wants you in on the PR call at two. We’re aligning messaging.”
Messaging.
There it is again.
My life reduced to a sentence that needs polishing.
I stand slowly, legs stiff like I’ve been sitting too long. Like I’ve been holding myself too tightly for too many days.
I want to ask her for a phone.
I want to ask her to let me call my mother.
I want to ask if I can go outside by myself for five minutes without being followed like a suspicious package.
But my throat closes around the words.
Because I already know the answer.
And because asking will make them look at me like I’m about to become a problem again.
So I nod.
“Okay,” I say, because it’s the easiest word in the world when you’ve been trained to surrender.
We step out into the hallway. Evan is already there.
Of course he is.
He’s leaning against the wall like he belongs here, like this is his natural habitat. He smiles when he sees me.
It’s that smile again. The one he uses in photos. The one he uses on waiters. The one he uses when he’s being “patient.”
“There you are,” he says, like I’m late to a meeting.
His hand comes to my elbow. Light. Possessive. Guiding me forward.
My skin reacts instantly, like it remembers the way his fingers ripped my phone away, the way his voice turned low and cold in the car.
I force my body not to flinch.
Because flinching is information.
“How are you feeling today?” he asks, like he cares.
I stare straight ahead. “Fine.”
He hums like that’s the right answer.
“Your father says your work has been great,” Evan continues. “He’s impressed.”
My throat tightens at the mention of him.
“I’m glad,” I say, because my mouth keeps doing what it’s been trained to do. Smooth, agreeable, manageable.
Evan guides me toward the elevator. His palm stays on my elbow.
I glance down at it, a wave of panic hitting so fast I almost stumble. They’ll never leave me alone.
Not here. Not anywhere. Not ever.
We ride the elevator down, the silence inside it heavy. Evan checks his watch. I stare at the numbers above the door like they might save me if I memorize them.
When we step outside, a driver is waiting.
Evan doesn’t ask if I want to walk. Doesn’t ask if I’d rather go somewhere else. Doesn’t ask anything.
He just leads.
The car door is held open for me, like I’m a VIP.
Like I’m fragile.
Like I’m property.
I get in.
The door shuts.
And the sound of it, thick and final, makes my stomach drop.
I stare out the window as we pull into traffic. The city moves around me, busy and bright and indifferent. People on sidewalks, laughing, carrying coffee, arguing into phones. Normal life. My chest aches with the sheer unfairness of it.
Somewhere in Buckhorn, the snow is soft and quiet. It smells like pine. My mom’s house smells like cinnamon candles and laundry detergent and safety. The McCoy kitchen smells like coffee and bacon and warmth.
Dallas’s voice still lives in my head like a bruise you can’t stop touching.
Lunch is at a place so fancy the menus don’t have prices, which always makes me feel like I’m in a social experiment: How long can you pretend you belong before you start sweating?
Evan orders for me, of course.
He always has.
“Salmon,” he says to the waiter, smiling. “And a side salad.”
I open my mouth. Close it again.
Because the last time I tried to order for myself, Evan had leaned in and whispered, Don’t be difficult.
So I sit there while he talks about “damage control” and “next steps” like my life is a board meeting.
I pick at the salad.
My appetite left my body somewhere around Day Three of being monitored.
“What’s wrong?” Evan asks, tilting his head like he’s a concerned boyfriend in a romcom.
Nothing, I want to say.
Everything, I want to scream.
I swallow. “I’m tired.”
He nods like he approves of that. Like tired is acceptable.
“You’ll feel better once we get everything back on track,” he says.
Back on track.
There’s that phrase again. As if I’m a train. As if the worst thing I ever did was derail.
“Your father had an idea,” Evan adds casually, like he’s discussing dessert.
My stomach knots instantly.
“What idea?”
Evan smiles. “A bigger wedding.”
The fork clatters lightly against my plate before I can stop my hand.
He keeps talking, unfazed.
“Not a redo,” he says, like he’s soothing me. “A reinforcement. A statement. Something that shows everyone we’re solid.”
My pulse spikes. My vision blurs at the edges.
“I’m not marrying you,” I bark back, like a match struck in a dark room.
Evan’s smile freezes. It doesn’t drop, not fully, but it tightens.
“Not here,” he murmurs.
I stare at him, heart pounding so hard it shakes my ribs.
“I mean it,” I whisper. “I’m not doing it.”
Evan’s eyes flick over my face, assessing. Calculating. Like he’s deciding whether to charm me, intimidate me, or punish me.
Then his smile returns, smoother than before.
“Faith,” he says gently, like I’m a child who said something silly, “you’re overwhelmed. That’s all.”
I laugh.
Not because it’s funny. Because it’s insane.
“Stop saying that,” I choke out. “Stop acting like I’m just having a mood.”
Evan’s hand comes across the table and rests on top of mine.
My skin crawls.
He squeezes lightly. “You need structure. You’ll thank us later, when you’re not emotional.”
I want to flip the table.
Instead, I stare down at his hand on mine, and I realize with a sick lurch of certainty:
This is the plan.
Keep me tired. Keep me watched. Keep me contained until I stop fighting.
Until “okay” becomes my whole personality again.
I pull my hand back slowly.
Evan’s expression doesn’t change, but his gaze hardens just a fraction.
The moment passes.
And we both pretend it didn’t happen.