45. Faith
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Faith
The police station smells like old coffee and disinfectant, and a faintly metallic scent that makes my stomach roll the second we walk through the door.
It shouldn’t feel this hard to stand in a building that’s meant to help people.
Mom’s hand is warm around mine, steady in the way only a mother’s hand can be. She doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t pull. She just stands with me at the edge of the room while my breathing catches up to the moment.
“You ready?” she asks softly.
No, I want to say.
Not even a little.
But readiness has never been something I get to wait for.
“I am,” I say anyway, and my voice doesn’t shake as much as I expect it to.
We check in at the desk. My name gets written down in someone else’s handwriting, and watching it happen feels strange, like I’m being transferred from one version of myself to another. The woman behind the counter is kind without being pitying, which I didn’t realize I needed until it happened.
She tells us where to sit.
The chairs are hard plastic, bolted to the floor. The walls are beige in that institutional way that suggests neutrality but somehow feels judgmental anyway. A TV murmurs in the corner, tuned to a morning news show where everyone is smiling too much.
I keep thinking about Dallas’s kitchen this morning. The smell of coffee. The way the light came in through the window. The way he kissed my temple and told me he’d be right there when I was done.
I hold onto that like a rope.
A female officer calls my name.
Hearing it out loud makes my chest tighten. For a split second, my instinct is to stand up straighter. To perform. To make sure I sound reasonable. Polite. Not difficult.
Mom squeezes my hand.
I follow the officer down a hallway that feels too long for how quiet it is. Our footsteps echo softly, rubber soles against tile, the sound too loud for a place that’s supposed to feel calm. She opens a door at the end and gestures us inside.
The interview room is small. Neutral. A table bolted to the floor, three chairs, a box of tissues already placed within reach.
That alone almost breaks me.
The officer waits until Mom and I are seated before she sits too, folding her hands on the table instead of reaching for the folder right away.
“Before we start,” she says, “I want you to know this is your pace. If you need a break, we stop. If something doesn’t make sense, you ask. Okay?”
I nod. It’s easier than trusting my voice.
She opens the folder slowly and turns it so it faces me. Not like she’s presenting evidence, but like she’s offering information I’m allowed to understand.
“Restraining orders come in a few parts,” she says, sliding the first page forward. “This section is about contact. That means phone calls, texts, emails, social media, and messages sent through other people. Any attempt to reach you.”
She taps the page lightly with her pen, then looks up. “If this is granted, they’re not allowed to contact you directly or indirectly.”
I swallow and nod again.
She pulls out the second page. “This one is proximity. Physical distance. It sets clear boundaries. How close they’re allowed to be to your home, your workplace, anywhere you regularly go.”
“How close?” I ask, the question slipping out before I can stop it.
“Typically a few hundred yards,” she answers immediately. “Enough that if they’re nearby, law enforcement can step in without needing interpretation.”
That matters more than I expected.
She adds a third page to the stack. “This outlines enforcement. What happens if either order is violated. Who you call. What we document. What consequences follow.”
She doesn’t rush through it. She pauses after each explanation, watching my face, letting it settle instead of pile up.
My fingers trace the edge of the papers. They’re thick. Official.
“So,” she says finally, resting the pen. “We can file these separately or together.”
She turns the folder just enough that I can see the names already typed at the top of two different forms.
My father’s name.
Evan’s name.
“You can start with one today and add the other later,” she continues. “Or we can submit both at the same time. There’s no wrong choice, just what feels safest to you.”
The room goes quiet again.
“Yes,” I say, surprising myself with how steady it sounds. “Both. At the same time.”
The officer nods once, like she expected that answer.
“Okay,” she says. “We’ll start with your father.”
My chest tightens. Then loosens.
She clicks her pen. “I’ll need you to explain why you’re requesting the order. Take your time. I’ll ask follow-up questions if I need clarification, but this is your statement.”
The room feels suddenly very still.
I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. My throat closes like it’s trying to protect me from my own words.
Mom shifts closer, her knee pressing gently into mine under the table.
“I…” I try again. Stop. Breathe. “I don’t feel safe.”
The words sound small, but the officer doesn’t flinch.
“Can you tell me what makes you feel unsafe?” she asks.
And so I do.
I talk about being isolated. About my phone being taken.
About not being allowed to leave without explanation.
About being watched so constantly that I started to forget what privacy felt like.
I talk about decisions being made for me while everyone insisted they were helping.
About learning that saying no came with consequences that I wasn’t always brave enough to face.
“When did this start?” the officer asks gently.
“Years ago,” I say. “But it got worse when I tried to make my own choices.”
She writes everything down. My words. Not summarizing. Not paraphrasing.
I talk about how fear doesn’t always look like screaming or bruises. Sometimes it looks like compliance. Like shrinking. Like learning how to disappear in plain sight.
No one interrupts me.
No one tells me I’m being dramatic.
No one asks if I’ve tried harder to understand his intentions.
Then she sets that form aside.
“Now Evan,” she says softly.
My stomach twists.
Saying his name out loud in this room makes my skin crawl. My hands start shaking again, worse this time, my fingers curling into my sleeves like I can hide in them.
“Take a breath,” the officer says. “You’re safe here.”
I nod, even though my body doesn’t quite believe it yet.
I talk about the yelling. The way he followed me. The photos. The way he broke my phone like it was nothing, like destroying my lifeline was an inconvenience to him. I talk about the car, about freezing, about how his anger wasn’t explosive at first but controlled, calculated.
“When did you feel the most afraid?” she asks quietly.
“In the car,” I say without hesitation. “Because I realized he wasn’t listening anymore. He had already decided what he wanted me to do.”
My voice breaks there, and I hate that it does.
I hate how part of me still wants to apologize for taking up space with my fear.
Mom reaches over and presses her palm between my shoulder blades.
I keep going.
By the time I finish, my chest feels scraped raw, like I peeled myself open and exposed it to air. I’m exhausted in a way sleep won’t touch.
The officer slides the paperwork toward me.
“Take your time,” she says. “Read everything. Ask questions. This is about protecting you.”
The forms are dense. Legal language stacked on legal language. Final.
I read every line anyway.
Because this time, I want to know exactly what I’m agreeing to.
My name appears again and again.
So do theirs.
Restrained from contacting.
Restrained from approaching.
Restrained from interfering.
The words look powerful on paper.
My hand trembles as I pick up the pen.
Doubt creeps in.
He’s your father.
This will make things worse.
You’re overreacting.
The voices are familiar.
They don’t get to win anymore.
I sign.
Each signature feels like cutting a cord I didn’t even realize was still wrapped around my ribs.
When I’m done, the officer collects the paperwork and explains the next steps. Timelines. Enforcement. What to do if either order is violated.
I nod. I listen.
But mostly, I’m floating.
Outside, the winter air hits my face like a wake-up call. Cold. Clean. Sharp enough to make me feel real again.
I stand on the steps of the station and realize my shoulders aren’t up around my ears anymore.
I’m breathing all the way into my lungs.
Mom turns to me, eyes shiny. “You did so good.”
My chest caves in at that.
“I was so scared,” I admit.
“I know,” she says. “And you did it anyway.”
That lands deeper than she probably realizes.
We walk to the car slowly. I glance back at the building once, half expecting regret to hit me like a wave.
It doesn’t.
What I feel instead is relief.
Not joy. Not peace. Not yet.
But something steady.
Like I’ve placed my feet on the ground and decided which direction I’m walking in.
When we pull onto the road back toward Buckhorn, I text Dallas. It’s done.
The reply comes almost immediately. I’m proud of you.
My eyes burn.
I let myself feel it. Grief for what I lost, anger for what I endured, and a quiet, growing pride for what I chose.
This isn’t the end of healing.
But it feels like the end of running.