I left my own wedding.
A shaky laugh bubbles up and slips out. I clap a hand over my mouth, biting it down. “You’re insane,” I tell myself. “Completely insane.”
Maybe. But I’m also breathing.
The light turns green. I go.
The city at night is a blur of neon and Christmas decorations. Storefronts wrapped in twinkling lights, plastic reindeer perched on roofs, wreaths hanging from every lamppost.
Evan and I went to a tree lighting ceremony downtown last week. He took a call from a client halfway through the countdown and missed the actual lighting. I stood there, watching a hundred strangers cheer as the huge spruce blazed to life, and felt absolutely nothing.
Now, as I drive past the same square, I feel everything.
Fear. Relief. Guilt. A wild, dizzy excitement that makes me want to roll down the window and scream.
“What are you doing, Faith?” I murmur, but there’s no judgment in it. Just wonder.
My phone starts buzzing.
Of course. They’ve noticed by now. Evan. My father. The planner. Maybe even my mother and Charlotte, if someone thought to call them.
I glance at it. The screen lights up with my father’s name.
The sight of those letters,William Ross,makes my stomach drop. My fingers twitch toward the phone on instinct. Answer. Explain. Apologize. Be reasonable.
My grandmother’s words whisper through my head.Don’t let anyone talk you out of your own heart, sugar.
My heart is fragile right now, a fledgling thing that’s just realized the sky exists. If I let my father’s voice in, it won’t stand a chance.
The phone stops buzzing. Three seconds later, it starts again. It’s Evan this time. Then the wedding planner. Then a number I don’t recognize but can guess.
I can’t do this. I can’t make the big speeches yet. I can’t withstand the disappointment or anger or questions. I can barely keep my truck between the lines as it is.
A hot, frustrated tear slides down my cheek.
“Stop calling me,” I choke out, as if they can hear. “Just… stop.”
The phone buzzes again, relentless.
Without letting myself think, I roll down the window with a flick of my wrist. Cold slices in, snapping at my overheated skin, tangling in my hair. Snowflakes swirl into the cab, melting on my cheeks, my hands, the satin bunched in my lap.
The phone vibrates again, and I just hold it. This small rectangle of glass and metal has become a tether. To my father’s expectations, to Evan’s plans, to a life that looks perfect in pictures and feels like drowning.
My grip tightens.
Then I lean out the window and hurl the phone into the night.
It spins, a brief flash of screen catching a passing headlight, and disappears into the snowy darkness at the side of the road.
I roll the window up and let out a sound that’s half sob, half laugh. “Okay,” I say to the empty truck, to the locket against my skin, to the version of myself who finally moved. “Okay. No going back now.”
The highway signs loom ahead. One arrow points toward the airport, another toward downtown. A third, smaller sign angles off to the right, almost an afterthought.
Buckhorn – 127 Miles.
Home.
The word isn’t on the sign, but my heart supplies it anyway, slamming against my ribs in sudden, aching recognition.
