Tonight isn’t about pushing forward.
It’s about making space.
If she needs me to step back, I will. If what she needs is a friend, someone calm and familiar who isn’t asking for more, I can be that. I want to be that.
I don’t need everything.
I just don’t want nothing.
And if all I walk away with tonight is her still in my life?
I’ll count that as a win.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Faith
January 23rd
Eveningsin 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.
