Then she says, “Lila.”
Instantly, my throat goes tight.
“She’s… wonderful,” Faith says. “The sweetest kid I’ve ever met. You’re doing an amazing job with her.”
Heat creeps up my spine. “She is everything. My whole world.”
“She adores you,” Faith says quietly.
My chest warms painfully. Her voice is so tender it nearly undoes me.
“She’s getting so big,” I murmur. “She’s curious. Always asking questions. Belinda loved that. She thought education was everything and wanted Lila to learn, explore, grow.” I smile faintly. “I try to keep that alive for her.”
Faith’s expression softens, tender and knowing. “Belinda sounds like she was incredible.”
I nod once. “She was.”
Snow swirls around us as we walk past the courthouse. Our shoulders brush again, and this time our hands swing close.
We’re too close now, close enough that my knuckles skim the edge of her glove. A bolt of heat shoots up my arm, fierce and fast and blinding, like my body remembered something my mind is still trying to deny.
Her breath catches.
Her fingers twitch.
For a second, our hands move toward each other as magnets finally remembering how to work.
I pull back.
Too fast.
Too obvious.
She swallows hard, and I pretend not to notice how her eyes drop to the ground.
The disappointment that crosses her face is a punch to my sternum.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she whispers.
But the moment stretches taut between us anyway. It could snap or pull us closer. I don’t know which scares me more.
We reach the far side of the square. Faith breaks quietly through the cold.
“Do you miss her?”
Belinda.
I breathe out. “Every day.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
But I want to. With Faith, I want to.
“She was bright,” I say. “Messy. Brave. She dragged joy into every room with her. When she got sick… it felt like the colors drained out of everything. I kept thinking if I pushed harder, prayed harder, held on tighter…” My voice drops. “But some things don’t care how tight you hold.”
Faith’s hand brushes my sleeve, light as snowfall. It’s the gentlest touch, but it lands as heat straight to the center of my chest.
