Page 106 of Trust

The meaning snaps into place, a lump rising in my throat.

I’m going home.

Chris is there when I turn, close enough to catch me if I fall. “Did I do something wrong?” The words sound small even to me.

“Of course not.” His voice is reassuring. He wraps his arms around me. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he murmurs into my hair. “We’ll all meet again. I promise.”

I search his face for any sign of a lie, for a flicker of guilt, but there’s none. He looks completely honest.

I mumble about needing a minute and slip away to the bathroom.

Hot water scalds down my face, punishment and comfort in one. I stand there, palms flat against the tile, letting the steam curl around me the way Cash’s arms did last night.

This was goodbye. My gut knows it. No matter how many times they say it isn’t, it is. It hurts in a way I don’t recognize yet.

I tip my head under the water and breathe in slow, deep pulls.

It’s messed up, but being here, locked up and guarded, I felt freer than I ever had.

I’m going back. Back to that house, that name, that man. That prison.

Here, I began to recognize the person I might have been if grief and neglect hadn’t hardened me. I found peace in a place I never expected. A place that held connection, safety, even desire. Real, physical sensation that didn’t come tangled in shame or survival. This, I am taking with me.

I pull myself together, dressing with the usual routine. It’s a hollow performance. My hands move on autopilot. Clothes, hair, teeth. One step at a time.

Downstairs, the living room is spotless, the night erased and folded away. As if it never happened. My body knows better.

Through the window, I catch movement on the porch. Chris sits on the bench, breakfast laid out in front of him. The sun is bright, and for a second it takes me back to my first real day here, when he got me out of the shed by offering me a deal. It’s only been a short while, but the distance between who I was and who I am now is measured in years, not weeks.

He looks out over the lake, his profile etched against the light. As I approach, the thoughtfulness gives way to the warm smile I’ve grown to love.

“Made you a fresh one,” he says when I step outside, gesturing to the steaming coffee waiting for me.

It’s colder than on the first day. He pulls a thick quilt over my shoulders as soon as I sit, the gesture so casual and gentle I have to bite back tears.

As always, the view steals my breath, but this time I know it could be the last time I’ll see it. The lump in my throat grows. I try to swallow it down with a forkful of pancakes—the same ones that tasted like sunshine the first morning I had them.

I’m going to miss this. Miss them.

Chris must sense it. He drapes an arm around me, letting me rest my head on his shoulder. We sit like that for a while. There’s a different edge to him today. Maybe he’ll miss me too.

On the table sits a black phone. It looks harmless, but it might as well be a live grenade.

I stare at the lake. “I don’t want to go,” I admit, my voice barely there. “But I have to.”

He studies me, then nods once. “I know.”

I believe him because he doesn’t try to talk me out of it, doesn’t try to fix it. He lets me say it.

Before Chris brought me here, I didn’t care about anything. My mind was either spinning around Mom’s death or whatever was connected to it. Usually my father. Everything was about avoiding him or finding a way to piss him off. All because I didn’t know what had happened to my mother, and I blamed him.

I made noise to get attention, broke things to stay in control. I hurt people before they got the chance to hurt me. Because they always did. My father, Holly, Gabe, or anyone at school. I made sure to get there first. I know that now.

The quiet thickens, heavy with things unsaid. The way Chris keeps his eyes on the trees instead of me. It’s unsettling. As if I’ve walked into the middle of a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear, just like this morning when I entered the kitchen and the two of them were talking.

We don’t speak. There’s nothing else to say.

Then the phone rings.