Finding Faith (33 page)

I woke the next morning feeling
even worse. I couldn’t help but hope she came back to work so we
could talk things out. Obviously, there were lies floating around.
I figured that out when she mentioned the letter I’d written to
her. I never wrote her letter. Honestly, I hadn’t even known where
she was even if I wanted to send her a letter. If there really was
a letter out there from me to her, it wasn’t a real one. And if
hers wasn’t real, who’s to say the letter I got from her wasn’t
real either?

My brain was practically smoking I
was thinking so many things. Finally, I had to climb out of bed and
move or I was going to make myself crazy. I needed to stop thinking
for just a second and take a few deep breaths. Things were getting
chaotic in my mind, and I didn’t want to have a
meltdown.

I went into the kitchen and pulled
open the fridge. Orange juice spilled down my chest as I downed it
straight out of the carton. After finding a Pop-Tart in the
cabinet, I sat on a barstool and devoured it. Anything that made me
feel better at that point was my friend—food was my
friend.

It was then that I noticed her
purse sitting on the counter. I looked around to see if maybe she’d
come in when I wasn’t paying attention, but she was nowhere to be
seen. Everyone else was still in bed so the condo was completely
quiet. If she was anywhere cleaning, I would’ve heard
her.

I pulled the purse over to me and
unzipped it. It was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help
myself. There were so many things I wanted to know about
Faith—things about the last four years of her life that I couldn’t
help but wonder about. Had she been in any other relationships? Was
she in one now?

It wasn’t a big purse, so I was
surprised when I pulled out a full-sized journal. Smiley faces and
crosses covered the outside cover. The binding was unraveling it
had been opened and closed so much. It sounded like it was cracking
when I opened it, and the pages all looked as if they’d been wet by
some dark liquid.

I flipped through the pages quickly
and landed on a page with a dried flower stuck in the center. The
flower was old and cracking. I wondered briefly if maybe a
boyfriend had given it to her. I felt bad for that thought when I
read the passage and realized the flower was from Amanda’s funeral.
The words on the page told how Faith had felt when Amanda died and
how she wouldn’t have made it through without me. I felt tears
sting my eyes. I could remember how she came to me and how badly
I’d needed her, too.

I slipped the flower back inside
the book and moved on. Flipping through the pages, I found my name
a few times and every time, it had been something sweet written in
there about me. I smiled to myself when I got to the page where she
talked about being with me at the beach. When I found the page
about the night she’d given herself to me, I had to wipe tears from
my cheeks.

It was wrong to read her journal,
but it was so insightful. It made me angry that I’d missed so much
of Faith’s life when she was such a big part of mine. If I went by
these words, I was a big part of hers, too.

I flipped through a few more pages
until I didn’t think I could read another word. There was so much
truth. She had so much love for me, yet she had walked away to keep
me from going to jail. It had killed her to walk away from me. I
could see that in the painful words that were written for me,
blurred by stale tear drops on the old paper.

When I flipped through the pages
again, a folded-up piece of paper fell out. Unfolding the paper, I
looked down at the words scribbled across the page and felt shocked
at what I was reading. It was a letter from me, except it wasn’t.
I’d never written a letter. It wasn’t even my handwriting. Not to
mention, the words that were written across the page were words I
would’ve never said to Faith. I loved her—I still did. I would’ve
never hurt her that way, and I was already feeling shitty about the
way I’d been treating her.

The jagged handwriting that swept
across the page looked familiar, and I was positive I knew where
I’d seen it before. Rushing back into my bedroom, I grabbed my
wallet and pulled out Faith’s letter. I ran back into the kitchen
and laid the two side by side. As I suspected, the handwriting was
almost exactly the same.

Just like that, everything became
so clear to me. Someone was hell-bent on keeping Faith and me
apart, and I was positive I knew who that someone was. The preacher
man, as holy as he pretended to be, had spun so many lies around
Faith and me that we no longer knew what to believe.

I hated that bastard for taking
away the only woman I’d ever loved. I hated him for taking away a
future that I’d longed for my entire childhood. Not that I wasn’t
happy with Blow Hole, but had I been with Faith, things would’ve
turned out much differently. I could’ve had a
family—kids.

I’d thought a lot about finally
having kids and being there for them the way my father never had
been. I’d give my kids the life I never got. I’d be in their life
no matter what. At least one good thing had come from being a
foster kid when I was younger. Because of my time in the many
foster homes, I knew exactly what not to be when I had children of
my own. I knew that no matter what, I’d be a damn good
father.

All of that seemed like an
impossible dream. There was no way to make it better. Too many bad
things had happened over the years—too many bad memories. I’d said
too many things that I couldn’t take back, and I wouldn’t blame her
if she never wanted to see my face again. My chest burned when I
thought about never seeing her again. I’d lost her again, and this
time I had only myself to blame.

The fact was I loved her. I’d never
really stopped loving her, and when I wasn’t too busy hating her, I
could see that. Faith was all I ever wanted, and I was going to try
with all my might to get her back.

I took a shower and got dressed.
When everyone woke up and left for the day, I stayed and waited for
Faith. Even if she didn’t come back to work, she’d have to come
back for her purse. That was another thing… Her working for me had
to stop. She was the girl I loved, and I wasn’t going to have her
scrubbing toilets anymore.

Hours went by and still no Faith. I
was starting to worry and bite my nails, which I never did anymore.
I thought I was about to come out of my skin when I heard the front
door open. I was sure it was probably the guys coming back, but
when I turned around, I saw Faith standing there with my folded
T-shirt and boxers in her hand.

She stood there like the weeping
willow I’d always pictured her as. Her hair flowed around her
shoulders and her big brown eyes looked wounded. I hurt her. She
was hurting and it was my fault.

“
I forgot my purse,” she said as
she turned and went toward the kitchen.

“
Faith, wait. We need to
talk.”

“
I think you said enough
yesterday,” she said with her back to me.

Again, I felt awful for everything
I’d said to her from the moment we ran into each other again until
the day before when I’d all but cussed her in the
hallway.

“
I’m sorry,” I said
easily.

Sorry had never been an easy word
for me, but I truly was this time. I was so sorry for everything
I’d ever said and done to her, and I wished I could take it all
back.

She turned and looked at me, her
eyes pulled down in confusion. “What?”

“
I said I’m sorry for everything.
I was an asshole to you. You didn’t deserve that and I’m
sorry.”

Tears filled her eyes and she wiped
them before they could escape.

“
I just want you to know some
things. One: I didn’t sleep with Jenny. I was drunk and passed out.
Thinking about it now and knowing that you came back and I didn’t
know you did makes me sick to my stomach. The last four years have
been hell for me.”

More tears came and she didn’t stop
them from falling.

“
For me, too,” she
whispered.

I pulled out the two letters and
handed them to her.

“
And this is number two,” I
said.

She unfolded each one and read
them. When she looked back up at me, she started crying. Pulling
her into my arms, I held her close to me.

“
Don’t cry, baby. Everything’s
okay now.”

She felt so good in my arms. It was
as if the last four years never happened—like we’d just picked
right up from the night she left. I’d take care of her. I’d make
sure no one ever hurt her again. I had the ability to make
everything perfect in her life, and I was determined to do
it.

She pulled away and continued to
cry.

“
Everything’s not okay, Finn.
There are things…” She stopped. “You know what? I can’t do this
right now. I need time to think. I need to go and
think.”

She took off with her purse in hand
toward the front door. Following behind her, I grabbed her hand
before she could leave.

“
Don’t do this to me again, Faith.
I need you,” I said honestly.

She placed her forehead against the
door and took a deep breath. When she turned my way again, I held
my arms out to her and she melted into my chest.

I breathed her in and rubbed her
back. She was everything I ever wanted. She looked up at me and I
leaned down and softly kissed her. She kissed me back and moaned
sweetly in my mouth.

Things were going great until
suddenly she pulled away again. Tears streamed down her cheeks and
she sniffled. I used my thumb to wipe away her tears.

“
Whatever it is, we can fix it,” I
whispered in her hair.

That was the trigger. She pulled
away completely and turned toward the door again. As she reached
out for the knob, I watched her shoulders droop in
defeat.

“
It can’t be fixed,” she said
sadly.

Then a thought hit me. Maybe she
was already with someone else. Maybe he was good to her and she
loved him. If that were the case, then my chance to find happiness
would never come. If she was already taken, then I’d never be with
another woman the way I was with Faith.

“
Is there someone else?” I asked.
The words choked me as they came out.

My chest ached with my words. I
couldn’t stand the thought of another man having what I
wanted.

Her face went pale as she stared
back at me with big brown eyes. “Something like that,” she
said.

And then she turned away and left.
This time she slammed the door behind her. A picture of a guitar
fell from the wall next to the door and broke all over the
expensive flooring. It shattered into pieces exactly the way my
heart did… again.

Twenty-Seven

Faith

I cried the entire drive home.
Things were so screwed up and I didn’t know what to do. Finn was
basically trying to mend things with me and I wanted it—I wanted to
be with him so bad. The only problem was I knew the minute I told
him about Jimmy, he would hate me again. Either that or he’d try to
take Jimmy away.

As badly as I wanted everything
Finn was offering me, I couldn’t take that chance—not when my child
was involved.

I felt bad because Finn deserved to
know about Jimmy. He deserved to be a parent just as much as I did.
All the reasons that we weren’t together were lies spun by my
father to keep me away from Finn. Neither of us was theoretically
in the wrong, and if we started pointed fingers, technically, I was
the one who walked away from him.

Another thing I had to worry about
was work. No way could I continue to work for the boys. I couldn’t
clean up for Finn, knowing everything that happened since we
reunited. Plus, the more I went around him, the more likely I was
to tell him about Jimmy. I just didn’t know what to do. I was stuck
between a rock and hard place.

When I walked in the front door,
Mom was sitting on the couch. Jimmy was napping on his dinosaur
sleeping bag on the floor in front of the TV.

“
What’s wrong? Did something
happen?” she asked when she saw me crying.