And Faith still hasn’t turned up.
I sit at a stop sign longer than necessary, exhaust puffing into the night, and finally admit what my gut’s been trying to tell me since I opened that diner door.
This isn’t just a missed connection.
I turn the truck around and head back toward her mom’s house.
The porch light is still on when I pull in, and that shouldn’t make my chest tighten the way it does. I park faster this time, don’t bother sitting to collect myself. When I knock, the door opens almost immediately, as if she’s been waiting behind it.
Her mom’s face tells me everything before she even speaks.
“You didn’t find her,” she says quietly.
I shake my head. “No, ma’am.”
She steps back without a word, letting me inside. The house smells of cinnamon and something baked earlier, but the warmth doesn’t reach all the way in tonight. There’s a tension in the air now, thin and brittle.
“She hasn’t called,” her mom says. “Or texted. And that’s not like her.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “She didn’t say anything else before she left? Anyone she might’ve gone to see?”
“No.” Her voice tightens. “She was anxious, but she didn’t say where she was going. Just that she needed air.”
That word again.
Anxious.
I shift my weight, feeling too big in the small living room. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately, hasn’t she?”
Her mom exhales, long and tired. She’s been holding this in all evening. “She’s been getting some abuse, weird photos and texts sent to her.”
Sickness bubbles up in my stomach. I remember the look on her face the day she ran out on me. Is this why? Did she get a message that freaked her out?
“What sort of photos?”
“Photos from her wedding day. And her life here.” She meets my eyes. “I guess her father figured out that she came back here.”
She types something on her phone and turns the screen toward me.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m looking at. My brain stumbles, trying to make sense of it. Faith in her wedding dress. Faith getting into her truck. Faith here.
My chest goes tight, breath locking halfway in.
“She didn’t tell me.”
Her mom gives a sad smile. “Faith has spent her whole life learning how to carry things alone.”
That lands harder than it should.
Silence stretches between us, thick with possibilities neither of us wants to say out loud.
Finally, I ask the question that’s been circling since I got back in my truck. “Do you think she ran?”
Her mom’s shoulders tense. “I don’t know.”
Not knowing is the worst part. If Faith had decided to leave, to bolt again, overwhelmed and cornered, I could almost understand it, even if it tore something out of me. But the other option sits there too, heavy and dark.
“So her father knows she’s here,” I say slowly.
