He jerks his head toward the hallway. “Come on. You look like you’re about to keel over.”
He’s not wrong. The adrenaline that kept me upright is long gone, leaving me bone-deep tired. Every muscle aches. My brain feels like someone stuffed it with cotton.
I stand on legs that feel as strong as cooked spaghetti, gather up my dress from the bathroom, and follow him down the hallway, socked feet silent on the wood. The house hums softly around us: the refrigerator, the hallway clock, the faint whoosh of the heater kicking on.
He pauses outside a door near the end of the hall and opens it quietly.
“This was the playroom for a while,” he says. “Now that we’re older, it’s a guest room.”
I step in.
The room is small but cozy. A double bed sits against one wall, covered in a faded quilt. There’s a dresser, a nightstand with an old lamp, and a crooked poster of some rodeo event half peeled from the wall. The window looks out over the side yard, snow pressed up against the glass as frosting.
“It’s perfect,” I say, and mean it.
I cross to the simple wooden chair in the corner and dump the bundled dress over the back of it. The satin slumps there in a sad, sparkly heap.
He reaches for the lamp and clicks it on. Soft yellow light fills the room, pushing back the shadows.
“I’ll grab you an extra blanket,” he says. “It gets cold back here.” He hesitates, hand on the doorframe. His gaze skims over me again, taking in the too-big flannel, the way my shoulder bumps the dresser because I’m listing a little. “You gonna be okay?”
I manage a tired smile. “Not how I thought today would end,” I admit. “But I think I will be. Eventually.”
He nods once. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. After you sleep.” He starts to step out, then pauses. “And Faith?”
“Yeah?”
“Sounds like you did the right thing.”
The words hit harder than I expect. My throat closes up.
“You don’t even know what my father’s going to say when he gets his hands on me,” I croak.
He shrugs one shoulder. “I know what it looks like when someone’s walking toward something that’s gonna break them,” he says. “You looked like that when I saw you tonight. You don’t now.”
Tears sting my eyes, hot and sudden. I blink them back.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He gives a brief nod and disappears, leaving the door slightly ajar. A minute later, he returns with an extra blanket and a pillow, setting them at the foot of the bed.
“If you wake up and the house smells of bacon, don’t freak out. That’s just Mom. She gets up at the crack of dawn on Christmas.”
“Good to know,” I say, a little dazed.
He steps back into the hall. “Night, Faith.”
“Night, Dallas.”
The door clicks softly behind him.
For a long moment, I just stand there, listening. To the distant creaks. To the wind brushing against the window. To my own heartbeat, slower now, settling into a rhythm that doesn’t feel like panic.
I crawl into the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight. The sheets smell faintly like detergent. I pull the quilt up to my chin and curl around it, the way I used to curl around myself onthe couch in this house when I fell asleep watching movies with the McCoy boys.
As my eyes drift closed, the day plays back in jumbled flashes: my father’s fist on the bridal suite door, Evan’s card, the lights, the white blur of snow on the highway, the skid, the impact, Dallas’s face looming over me in the steam and dark.
This morning, I woke up believing I was going to be Mrs. Evan Carter, dutiful daughter and corporate wife, living a life that photographed well.
