Faking Faith (20 page)

I lay there and breathed for moment, calming myself.

“Okay, one last thing,” I said, and heard her sigh in exasperation. “Just one thing and then I’ll shut up, I
promise.”

“Fine,” she said. “What?”

“If you ever need help—if you ever need to get away somewhere and you feel like your family wouldn’t understand or let you come back here—even if you just need to take a little break,” I said, “you can call me. Anytime. Day or night, I don’t care if it’s ten years from now. Whatever the circumstances. And I will come get you.”

There was a long moment of silence, and I began to think she was just going to ignore me. Maybe she was thinking about how if she were in trouble, the absolute last thing she’d do is call on some crazy girl who’d lied her way into the Dean household and whose naked pictures were plastered all over the Internet.

But then I heard her take a shaky breath.

“Thank you, Dylan,” she said in a small voice. “I’ll remember that.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I
was packed and ready to go early the next morning. I felt like I’d come to terms with the situation, and that as long as I could say one last goodbye to Asher, I would be okay with leaving.

But when I went down to breakfast, Asher wasn’t there.

As I helped Mrs. Dean cook eggs for the last time, she gave me a little nudge with her hip.

“Daddy told me about what happened last night with you and Asher over by the barn,” she whispered. “Don’t you worry, Daddy’s all bark and no bite. And I’m sure he was just mistaken about what was going on.”

Maybe Mr. Dean had omitted the fact that he’d hit Asher when recounting the story to his wife. Since that would definitely qualify as a bite.

“Oh,” was all I could think of to say. “Okay.”

“I’m afraid we made some mistakes while we were raising that boy. He was just such a willful child,” Mrs. Dean continued in a low voice. “And he doesn’t quite have a handle yet on how to be an honorable man. I’m very sorry if he took advantage of you in any way, Faith, and I hope you won’t think badly of us when you leave.”

I blinked at her, stung on Asher’s behalf.

“He didn’t take advantage of me,” I said. “Whatever happened wasn’t solely his fault. I like him a lot and think he’s a great guy. I had as much to do with what happened as he did.”

Mrs. Dean turned to look at me with a shocked expression. “Well, goodness! Perhaps it’s a good thing you’re leaving, then. Although it wouldn’t matter anyway, since Daddy took Asher away early this morning.”

I dropped the spatula I was holding onto the stove and eggs splattered.

“What? Away? To where?”

Mrs. Dean looked at the stove with an annoyed expression, dabbing with a towel at the mess I’d made. “To stay with some of our family in Georgia. They have a job for him down there on their farm and he can work hard and reflect on his sins,” she said. “We should have done it long ago. He needs to get his head straight, Faith. As do you, it seems.”

“But … ” I said. I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t get a chance to see Asher one last time, that my last memory of him would be his dad hitting him, that we wouldn’t have a chance to process what had happened between us. I didn’t even have a phone number or an email address for him.

How could it just end like this?

Mrs. Dean shoved some plates at me. “It’s all in the past now, praise God!” she said in her little girl voice.

. . .

After breakfast, I said goodbye to all the little Deans. They crowded around me and looked up with solemn faces, while Abigail and Chastity watched with their arms linked.

“You’re the funnest teacher we’ve ever had,” said Jed, and I laughed.

“But I didn’t teach you anything!” I said, ruffling his hair and irrationally wishing I could take them all with me. Just load up the whole Dean brood and install them in my basement back home. “You guys taught
me
a lot more, you know.”

“Still,” Jed said, and sighed. “It was fun having someone new around. We never meet anyone new.”

. . .

Mrs. Dean drove Abigail and me into town so I could catch the bus.

I craned my neck around for one last look at the farmhouse. I couldn’t believe it had been barely ten days since I’d first seen it, riding in the truck with Abigail and Asher, experiencing the dawning realization of what I’d gotten myself into. It felt like years since then.

“I’m sure your mother will be happy to have you home,” Mrs. Dean said cheerfully. As I expected, she’d simply glossed over our interaction in the kitchen earlier, as if it had never happened. “You must be such a nice little helper to her.”

I thought about my house, how cool and dark it was and how rarely my mom was even there. I thought of Scottie always in his room, and Dad always down in his man-cave in the basement. How even when we went on vacation together, we always ended up doing our own separate things. Sometimes it just felt like we were strangers thrown into the same family.

Despite the many faults of the Dean family, I had to admit they did do some things so much better than my own family. They ate together, and talked to each other, and spent nearly all day working alongside each other. At the very least, all the Dean kids knew what their parents believed and what was expected. While so much of the time, with all my freedom, I felt lost.

Someday
, I thought,
when I have a family of my own
,
I’m going to try and do it better than any of them
.

“I try to be a good helper,” I said to Mrs. Dean. “But I might not be as big of a help as I could be. It’s hard sometimes.”

“We all have our trials and shortcomings,” she said kindly. “As long as you pray and remain faithful, God will show you what you need to do.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course.”

We were all silent for a few minutes as the car bumped over the rutted gravel road.

“Thank you both for having me,” I said. “I’ve learned so much.”

Abigail, who had been quiet the whole way, gave me an incredulous look. “Really?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Are you excited to share some stories with your family and friends back home?” she asked, in a slightly pointed tone.

“Maybe,” I said. “They’ll be interested in hearing about … some of the things. Some of it I’d just like to keep to myself, I guess.”

I hoped she understood my meaning—that I didn’t intend to go back home and talk about Abigail and her secrets like she’d been an animal in a zoo. That I was going to try and be respectful.

“That’s an interesting idea,” Abigail said.

Mrs. Dean laughed. “You girlies sound like you’re talking in code! Heavens, won’t you miss each other so much?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “I hope that Abigail can come visit me sometime.”

“Oh, how nice!” Mrs. Dean said.

“Well, of course, I have a busy season ahead of me,” Abigail said, picking at her skirt. “With, you know, the courting and all. There won’t be much of a chance to get away.”

“I know,” I said. “But I still hope.”

She met my eye for a moment, and then looked out the front window.

We were driving through town now, nearing the intersection where the bus stopped. Mrs. Dean pulled over to the curb and turned to give me a short hug across Abigail’s lap.

“Be good, Faith dear. We’ll pray for your safe travels.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Dean,” I said. “You’ve been very nice to me.”

Abigail and I got out of the car and she stood there, her arms crossed tightly against her chest. She gave me an anxious look, seeming almost near tears. Her face was splotchy. It was so different from the first time I’d seen her, bouncing and happy, that I felt like my presence might have ruined everything.

“I guess this is it,” I said, setting my bag down on the ground.

“I guess so,” she said, and then furrowed her eyebrows. “I can’t figure out why it is that I think I’m going to miss you.”

“My winning personality and charming sense of humor, obviously,” I said, grinning.

“It’s true. I guess you can be pretty funny.” She gave me a small answering smile. “Are you going to keep blogging?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Honestly, I’m kind of confused about the whole thing.”

Abigail nodded, biting her lip. “It was kind of devious for you to lie on your site and make all that up,” she said. “But … you do have a knack with words, I’ll give you that. I mean,
I
totally believed you.”

I found this compliment to be far more thrilling than was really appropriate for the moment.

“Thanks,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry I lied to you.”

“You are?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Then please shut your site down,” she said. “It’s just … not a good thing to do. You know that.”

I took a deep breath, panicking for a moment about giving up Faith. But then a feeling of certainty overtook me and I knew she was correct. “You’re so right, Abigail. It’s wrong. I promise I’ll shut it down.” I paused, then smiled. “You might think I’m awful for saying this, but I don’t actually regret making it.”

“Oh?” she asked. “Even after all this?”

“No. Because I got to meet you. And Asher.”

“I have to say, you didn’t exactly improve our lives much,” she said with a laugh. “You basically just came in and shook everything up like a snow globe. I’m not even sure how it’ll all settle down again.”

Maybe that’s not a bad thing
, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. Abigail already knew I thought that.

I stepped forward and put my arms around her. She allowed me to hug her, but kept her arms crossed between us and didn’t reciprocate. When I pulled away I could see that her eyes were damp. Then she reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

“He left this for you,” she said, handing it over. And she turned away to go to the car door.

I looked at the piece of paper, confused. “Oh …
thanks.”

Abigail turned back toward me once more and smiled dimly. “I’ll pray for you, Dylan. I’ll hope that you find your way.”

“Bye, Abigail,” I said. “I hope the same. For both of us.”

As their car drove away, I opened the paper with trembling fingers.

It was a short message, written in pencil, obviously dashed off in a hurry.

Dylan,

As soon as I deserve you, I will come and find you.

Love, Asher

TWENTY-SIX

I
spent the first hour of the bus ride home in a sort of daze, my eyes closed, trying to transition my brain back into being Dylan again.

Then I took out Asher’s note, and it hit me and rolled over me like a tidal wave, all of the things that had happened in the past ten days. And the fact that it was over.

There had been such amazing highs. Finally feeling like I had a friend again, in Abigail—someone who judged me for who I was in the present, not for what I’d done in my previous life. And finally meeting a boy who didn’t scare me and make me clam up like a fool, who held me in just the right way and who I felt like I could trust.

And then there were the awful lows, the things that kept replaying in my brain like an inescapable horror movie. Being called out as a liar by Abigail and having to explain myself had been horrible and embarrassing, but nothing matched the squirmy wretchedness I felt watching her bind herself to Beau.

Or how horrifying it was to see Asher get hit by his dad. Because of me.

Or the way all of those kids were trapped in that house, thinking they had no other options. That they were making their God happy by living apart and being ignorant of the rest of the world.

I turned Asher’s folded note around and around in my hand, even put it up to my lips for a moment, willing myself not to cry. I didn’t know where to go from here.

. . .

The bus stop was in the middle of downtown Chicago, in a dense corporate area of towering buildings. I stepped off just as rush hour was beginning. Thousands of people in dark business clothes were crowding the sidewalks and rushing to catch trains back to their homes in the suburbs. I felt like a strange exclamation point walking among them in my long denim skirt and unstylish pink blouse. I caught people giving me sideways glances, as if trying to figure out my place in this bustling city.

After ten days on a relatively quiet farm, the noise and crush was almost overwhelming.

But eventually I got to the Metra train that would take me home. I sat next to a kind-faced woman in a red suit and bright white commuter tennis shoes. She talked quietly on her cell phone, asking the person on the other end what they were fixing for dinner.

I couldn’t help but smile. It felt like my perspective shifted. Here was normal.