Faking It (Losing It, #2)(57)

I pulled my hair around to the side and did a quick loose braid that left the other side of my neck and my birds completely visible. The shirt only showed the very tips of my branches, but the lines were dark enough such that they couldn’t be missed. I replaced the plastic retainers with my usual ear piercings.

This moment was years in the making.

I’d spent so much of my life, too much of it, altering myself to please other people. This was my crossroads moment, and nothing would be the same on this new road, including me.

Before I could change my mind, I went next door to the guest room and knocked.

Cade opened the door, already up and ready for the day. His hair was damp and curled around his face. I could smell the familiar, masculine scent of him from here. Last night came rushing back at me, and it took a serious amount of self-control not to throw myself at him.

He said, “Good morning.”

His tone was cautious, like maybe I had come to deliver an angry tirade of my own. But I wasn’t angry, just . . . on the verge of hyperventilating.

All the calm I’d woken up with disappeared upon seeing him. Somehow, he made it all feel real. My control crumbled, and my throat felt like it was going to close up. He must have seen the freak-out coming because he pulled me into his room and closed the door behind us. I turned my back on him and said, “Just give me a second.”

I pressed my palms into my eyes to try to stop the tears that were building there.

“Max . . .” His voice was soft and came from right in front of me.

“I’m okay,” I whispered without lowering my hands. I hated getting emotional, but nothing was worse than getting emotional in front of another person.

His arms circled me, and I sunk into his chest. My breath rattled in my chest, and I fisted my hands in the front of his shirt.

“You can do this,” he said.

There it was . . . the belief. He had far more in me than I had in myself. If nothing else good came of this, at least there was that.

“It won’t be easy,” he said. Understatement of the year. “But your parents love you, Max.” I laughed, even though nothing was funny. My throat was thick with emotion. He brought a hand up and pulled my hands from my eyes. “And if they can’t see how amazing you are, they’re blind.”

I swallowed, and my throat felt raw. I didn’t know what I’d ever done to deserve him. I didn’t know why he would come anywhere near someone as toxic as me, but I was thankful.

Silence filled the room, but it was the comfortable kind of quiet that Cade and I had had before everything had changed. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t need to.

He held out his hand, and I latched onto it like I was falling and he was the only thing that could save me.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Some of the tightness in my chest eased, and I nodded.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I don’t know why you’re thanking me.”

I remembered the way he’d put himself out there last night and said, “You faced your demons, and came out on top. So, maybe I can, too.”

He smiled and squeezed my hand.

“Come on, Fearless Girl.”

I was far from fearless, but knowing he thought I was provided me with half the courage I needed. We left the guest room, and descended the stairs together.

Dad was watching television, and Mom was messing with something in the kitchen when we came downstairs. Michael was on his phone, and the Antichrist was flipping through a Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Bethany saw me first, and her jaw dropped. God, it felt good to be the cause of that horrendous look on her face. I hoped it stuck that way.

She called, “BETTY!” Her face turned smug, and I thought back to Cade’s question the night before. Why did she hate me? Probably because, just like my parents, she liked her world nice and neat and clean. I wasn’t any of those things, with or without the tattoos.

Cade squeezed my hand, and I took the deepest breath that I could get. Mom came in from the kitchen drying a pan with a towel and said, “Yes?”

Bethany pointed in my direction. I took a few steps until I was all the way in the living room. Cade kept close by my side. Mom’s eyes settled on me, but it was several long seconds before she really saw me. She dropped the pan and it clanged against the hardwood floors. Her face passed through a spectrum of emotions that normally I would have found funny, except that I had no idea which one she would end up landing on. It was like Wheel of Fortune, only all the good possibilities had been removed. Dad looked up from the television just as Mom said, “Mackenzie Kathleen Miller, how could you do such a hideous thing to your body?”

It stung, but I kept my expression as blank as possible.

Dad asked, “What horrible thing?” He turned to face me, and I saw the anger wash over him. Out of the two of them, he was the}e” drink more unpredictable one. He stood slowly, his motions stiff and small. His eyes flitted between my neck and my ear piercings and back again.

“What in the name of God have you done?”

His tone was soft, but clipped. This was the scariest version of him—still and silent and like the calm before the storm. Mom came to stand by Dad, and he took her under his arm. She turned weepy and mopped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Why does she do these things to us?” she asked him.