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Phew! Rescued by Rafferty, who had unknowingly stepped between herself and Pamela. Her cousin wouldn’t dare say or do anything in front of him.
Pamela didn’t take her eyes off of Faith. She sent Rafferty a plastic smile, one Faith had seen a hundred times over the years. “I wanted to surprise you. But I’m the one who’s surprised. What are you doing here, Faith?”
“Shayla invited me.” Faith had no intention of saying anything more. Pamela didn’t need to know she and Shayla were developing a friendship. It was none of her business.
Pamela narrowed her gaze as she gave Faith the once over. Although her spirits had been high before her cousin’s arrival, they began to plummet. She felt like a wilted flower next to Pamela’s cool and crisp appearance. As always, not a hair was out of place or a bead of sweat on her forehead. Her face was fully adorned with makeup. In her bright blue summer dress, she looked as fresh and pretty as a daisy.
“Hey, I’m going to go head back to the game,” Rafferty said. “Come and check it out, Pamela. My team is winning.”
Pamela flashed him another dazzling smile and squeezed his bicep. “I sure will.”
The moment he jogged away Pamela turned back to Faith and hissed, “What’s this about you and Shayla Donahue becoming friends? It feels as if you’re trying to infiltrate my life. Is that what you’re up to?”
“What are you talking about? You asked me to be in your bridal party, not the other way around.”
Pamela took a step closer. “I didn’t ask you to buddy up to the Donahue family. In case you didn’t know, they’re like family to Rafferty. These are his people!”
Faith let out a ragged sigh. There was no way she could ever win with Pamela. She was narcissistic and mean spirited. It was always about her. Her life. Her wants. Her needs.
She got up from her chair and moved toward the porch. “I need to go to the ladies’ room. I don’t have time for petty nonsense.”
“Don’t you walk away from me,” Pamela said as Faith walked away and up the porch stairs on to the deck. She let herself into the house and breathed a sigh of relief to be away from the scene her cousin was making. Thankfully, no one had been in earshot. It would have been humiliating.
Faith walked down the hallway toward the bathroom when she felt herself being roughly grabbed by the arm and spun around.
“Ouch!” she cried out as she came face to face with Pamela. “What are you doing? Let me go!” She pulled away from Pamela’s grasp.
Pamela scrunched up her nose as if she’d smelled something foul. “Why aren’t you covering up?” Pamela asked. “Put something over your arms.”
“Pamela, what difference does it make? Why do you care?” she asked, genuinely baffled by her cousin’s histrionics. On a normal day, Pamela was edgy and caustic, but right now she was acting as if she might explode with fury. Had she and Rafferty had a fight? Were there tensions between them? Surely this was about something other than her presence at the Donahue house.
“You’re embarrassing me,” she hissed. “How dare you waltz in and make a fool of me. No one wants to look at those disgusting scars.”
Faith was in shock. So many times in the past Pamela had tried to make her feel small and ugly and awkward. She’d said some hideous things to her as a teenager, but as an adult, Faith had assumed her cousin would have matured into a kinder, more gentle person. Faith wasn’t a confrontational person. Not in the slightest. She walked through life with a gentle spirit, hoping others would treat her as she treated them. Deep in her heart Faith had known her cousin was still the same nasty person she’d always been, but she had stuffed those reservations down in order to get along with Pamela. Now, her cousin had crossed a line in the sand that couldn’t be undone.
Faith took a deep breath and recalled all the times Pamela had treated her like a bug underneath her shoe she wanted to squash. And that’s exactly what she had done, time after time. Nothing Faith did had ever been good enough for her cousin. And she’d taken delight in being cruel to her. Faith had blocked out a lot of the memories, unwilling to torment herself by reliving them. But there were plenty she remembered—being told no one would ever want to marry her, calling her skin crispy, asking her if she’d set her own home on fire—and so much more she wanted to forget. If she didn’t say something to Pamela in this moment Faith knew she would regret it for the rest of her life.
“Back off, Pamela,” she said through clenched teeth. Pamela’s mouth opened and her eyes widened with shock. “You have everything in the world at your fingertips and you still aren’t happy, are you? You’re beautiful and smart. And you’re engaged to a wonderful man who truly seems to adore you. But all those blessings still aren’t enough to fill up that gaping hole inside of you. That’s so sad to me.”
Faith continued. “I was willing to be bullied by you when I was a helpless teenager, but those days are gone. I won’t let you demean me. I won’t let you bully me. And I’m certainly not going to allow you to push me around and tell me what I should do with my own body. My scars are my scars. You have no right to say a single word to me about them. I don’t know what your problem is, but I suggest you take it down a few notches. I won’t be spoken to like this. Not anymore.”
Pamela took a step toward her so that there were only a few inches between them. “You don’t belong here, Faith. This is my world. Leave. Go. Away. No one wants you here.”
“That’s enough, Pamela.” The sound of Micah’s low, deep voice was the most welcoming sound Faith had ever heard in her life. He was standing in the doorway, having made a soundless entrance into the house. Clearly, he’d heard her comments or at least a portion of them.
Pamela looked as if she might cry. “Micah! You didn’t hear what she said to me.”
“I heard enough!” he snapped. “And it made me sick.”
Pamela reached out and touched Micah on the arm. “Don’t let her sweet act fool you. She’s a nasty person. Always has been. You have no idea what I went through when she moved in with us after her parents died.”
Faith let out a shocked sound. She swung her gaze toward Micah. More than anything, she didn’t want Micah to believe a single word Pamela was spewing. She cared deeply what Micah thought about her, as well as Shayla and the rest of the Donahue family. It would be such a heartbreak for her if they thought the worst of her based on Pamela’s lies.
“It’s not true, Micah,” Faith said in a firm voice. She turned toward her cousin. “You’ve walked all over me for years, but I refuse to let you malign my character.”
Pamela sputtered. “You’ve been jealous of me our whole lives! Now you’re trying to play the victim? You make me sick and you have no right to be here!”
Micah’s expression radiated shock. His lip curled distastefully as he glared at Pamela. He took a step closer to Faith. It was a gesture Faith appreciated. He was none too subtly telling Pamela she would have to barrel through him to get to her. Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes. No one had ever protected her against Pamela’s venom.
