All That Really Matters

by Nicole Deese

  Not a chance.

  Molly was as much a part of The Bridge as I was now. Her presence was irreplaceable.

  I knocked on her door, impatience thrumming in my veins with each passing second. I needed to see her. To touch her. To tell her that despite whatever she might believe, she wasn’t at fault.

  But when she opened the door, all previous thoughts were overridden.

  Her damp skin was pink, her hair twisted into a towel atop her head, her body clad in the same gray sweatshirt I’d given her this morning.

  A sight that had me actively remembering how to breathe.

  Quiet surprise lit her eyes. “Silas.”

  “You left.” The only two words I could drum up, apparently, after a thirty-minute car ride where I’d had nothing but time. To think. To pray. To plan out my next steps.

  But I got the feeling that Molly had also been planning out some next steps of her own. Something was different about her. And I couldn’t discern exactly what it was yet.

  “I thought it would be best,” she said. “After everything that happened.”

  “For whom?”

  She swallowed, turned her head, her eyes everywhere but on me.

  “For whom?” I repeated, stepping toward her. “Because I’ve been calling you since I got out of my last meeting. Glo said you didn’t say good-bye, didn’t tell anyone where you were going. We’ve all been worried.”

  She didn’t respond, just continued to stare at a spot in the yard beyond me.

  “Molly.” The fear that had gripped me for most of the day gave way to hurt as I stared at her clean face. “Talk to me.”

  “Is she all right?” she asked. “Is Wren . . . okay?”

  “Yes, she’s back home now. She’s asked about you.”

  It was the slight tremble of her bottom lip that undid me. I’d been polite and professional and every kind of patient as the cops searched each nook and cranny of Fir Crest Manor, asking questions I chose not to be insulted by for the sake of our program. But here, now, with Molly . . . I was done with the pretense and the pleasantries. I didn’t wait for her invitation to come inside. The sweatshirt she wore was invitation enough.

  The heat from her shower-steamed skin warmed my hands as I clutched her face. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to Wren. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Her eyes were slow to meet mine. “Didn’t the police tell you?”

  “They told me a lot of things.”

  “I mean about the deal I made with Sasha.” The pain in her eyes shot through my chest. “I thought I could help her, Silas. I thought that if she confessed everything to you this morning that her consequences wouldn’t have to be so extreme. That maybe we could find a way for her to stay in the program.” She shook her head. “Instead, my neglect made Wren a target.”

  “Listen to me. Neither you, Glo, or Clara neglected the welfare of any of our residents last night. You all did exactly what I would have done given the same scenario and circumstances. I’ve said that at least six times today, and I’ll keep saying it for as long as I need to. As much as I’d like to hope we can control all the variables, we can’t. It’s just not possible.” I waited until her gaze lifted to mine. “Your job last night was to protect Monica. And you did that.”

  “At Wren’s expense.” She closed her eyes, a single tear escaping down her cheek. “I should have told you about the box. I should have told you about the stolen property and the promise I’d made to Sasha.”

  “Yes, you should have.” I’d struggled with that. For longer than I cared to admit. That Molly had kept pertinent information from me regarding the house and the residents was a blow to the gut. But knowing about Sasha’s indiscretions or the box of stolen property ten hours sooner wouldn’t have changed the outcome, because I never would have sent her away without a formal exit strategy and plan. “But even still, Sasha’s choices were her own.”

  “How long will the house be under investigation?”

  “The investigation is a formality more than anything. It sounds scary, but anytime there’s an assault or criminal act of any kind, they need to do a walk-through and open a report. In the long run it’s what’s best for the continued safety of our residents and staff. Based on the confessions and the evidence they found today, my guess is they will close the case fairly quickly.”

  “And . . . what about Sasha?”

  I smoothed my hands down her neck to rest on her shoulders, debating how much I should say now versus later, when Molly was in a less vulnerable state of mind. Then again, after all the interviews and confessions I’d sat through today, I was more inclined than ever to speak the fullest version of the truth whenever possible.

  “Silas?”

  “The story is much more involved than you or I could have realized. After you left, Monica came forward and gave a statement to the police and to Glo and me as well.” I pictured her even now, hands over her eyes, shoulders heaving, inconsolable with guilt—over Wren’s assault, and over Sasha’s actions. “She admitted that for nearly three months, Sasha and Monica had been stealing. From unlocked cars in unpatrolled parking lots, from their college break room, from the girls’ cottage at Fir Crest. Anything they thought they’d be able to sell for a profit, they stole. They had a whole system—one was the lookout while the other was the thief. They’d made a pact to move out together and get a place on their own after they graduated from The Bridge. Apparently, the money was going to be their deposit on an apartment.”

  Molly’s eyes rounded, her mouth opening without sound.

  “I know. It was a surprise to all of us. They stored the stuff in Sasha’s trunk for a long time, but then Monica started to get more involved with the program and with D&D and small group. When she became close with Wren, Sasha gave her an ultimatum.”

  Molly closed her eyes. “To choose Wren or choose her?”

  “Yes, pretty much. But as Monica felt more and more convicted to come forward with what they’d been hiding, Sasha convinced her that the truth would only get them both evicted from campus.”

  “But what about the other evidence I found? The condoms?”

  “Alex.” I shook my head, an equal mix of disappointment and frustration surfacing over his confession once again. “When Sasha could no longer trust Monica, she moved on to Alex, trading sex for whatever he could add to her stockpile. He admitted to cutting the wire to the security camera that faced the west garden.” I took another breath. “Alex will be transferred to an all-male residence called Mercy House for some intensive counseling for the next several weeks, and Monica will stay at The Bridge. She’s agreed to some extra accountability steps and to cooperating with the officers working the investigation.”

  I wiped away a tear from Molly’s cheek. “As for Sasha, there’s a pair of older sisters in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, who take in young women with a history like hers as a ministry—actually, I got their contact information from your brother. They attend his church. They returned my call as I was driving here, said they have an opening for Sasha as soon as she’s released from custody. Glo’s already been in contact with them.”

  “You called Miles?” she asked.

  “I did. I was hoping he might have an idea where you were.”

  She shook her head. “He’s out of town at a conference.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, he was as worried about you as I was when I told him what had happened.”

  But instead of showing any sense of relief, the heaviness masking her countenance increased. “But that’s the thing, Silas. You shouldn’t have to be worried about one of your leaders—not after all that happened today. I’ve obviously been way more of a distraction than a help to you or the residents these past few months.”

  The raw edge in her voice stunned me. I’d seen Molly vulnerable before, I’d seen her remorseful and apologetic, but I’d never seen her like this. Willing to lay it all out without any qualifiers mixed in.

  “A distraction?” The very ide
a of her believing such a mistruth made my stomach churn. “Is that really what you think you are to me?” And then a new revelation. “Is that why you left without saying anything?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes and then slowly tracked down her cheeks. “When you kept me away from Wren this morning, it felt like a punishment for all I did wrong last night. I thought you must have figured out that I couldn’t handle this part of the job—the hard part that comes with serving others, with loving others. I don’t do that well, Silas. I’m not good at loving people. It’s what I’ve known about myself for so long and yet never wanted to accept. I’m not spiritually deep like Miles or my parents. I’m not compassionate like Clara, and as you saw today, I’m not level-headed like Glo. I wanted to believe I had something else to offer the house, the staff, you . . . but I don’t think I do. I only made the mess even messier.”

  “You left because you were afraid I thought you were unfit to comfort a girl who so obviously adores you?”

  Her silence thrummed through me.

  “I promise you, my decision to have you stay back was based on efficiency and experience, nothing more. Clara has taken trips to the hospital on our behalf several times, so she knows the protocol and formalities involved. She’s filled out the insurance forms and filed the necessary reports. She’s clear-headed in a crisis, and that’s what this morning was. A crisis. You weren’t being punished. We needed you at the house. I needed you.” My hands slipped farther down her arms and I squeezed them lightly, hoping the gesture would solidify the truth in her mind. “This is one of the complications we’ll have to work through, together. I don’t always think about the personal or emotional impact of the decisions I make at the house, but that’s why I have the staff I have. You’re not a distraction, Molly. You’re an asset.”

  Without hesitation, Molly encircled her arms around my waist, pressing her face to my chest as I rested my chin on her turban-style towel. I took a long breath to fill my lungs once again. “Have you eaten today?”

  A tiny shake of her head.

  “Me either, and I think I’m gonna need some food before I drag you back to the manor with me.”

  She pulled away, the towel on her head tilting to the side and exposing a crown of familiar blond hair. “I’ll make us something, although I’m not sure what all I have on hand. I haven’t done much grocery shopping recently.”

  “We could grab something on the way?”

  “No, I’d like to cook.”

  “Then I’d like to help.”

  As she turned toward the kitchen, the towel began to slip even more and she stopped it abruptly with her hand, freezing in her tracks. But I saw something, something peeking out from the bottom of her towel. A short tuft of hair I couldn’t quite make sense of.

  I came up behind her, her hand still supporting the leaning tower of terrycloth as I gingerly touched the isolated lock of blond at the nape of her neck.

  “Silas, it’s . . . ” Her voice wavered.

  I slid my hand up the length of her arm and gave a gentle tug at her tight grasp, a curious question more than a demand. For a full five seconds her hold on the towel remained firm, unyielding, as if she, too, were contemplating something she wasn’t quite sure of. Finally, she exhaled and loosened her grip enough for me to pull the towel free of her head completely.

  And as I did, as I saw what had been hiding underneath, the towel dropped from my hand.

  Slowly, she faced me, her eyes wide and braced for rejection. “Say something. Please.”

  But there was too much emotion lodged in my throat to speak a single word. All her hair, all her gorgeous, creatively styled hair, had been chopped off. Not a few inches, but dozens of inches. To her jawbone.

  Just like Wren’s.

  I raked my hands through her damp, shorn locks, pulling the raw ends through my fingers. Then, with one finger, I tilted her chin to mine and stared into her eyes with a look that left little doubt how I felt about her in this moment. How I felt about her, period. The heated charge in my blood warred with my fight for control, with my convictions, with my need to make her understand.

  I crushed my mouth to hers, the cool of her lips melding to the heat of mine and stoking an internal fire with each exploration of our kiss. She gripped the counter behind her back with one hand as I pressed in close, unable to pull away. Unable to stop touching her. As if everything in me needed everything in her to know the whole and unbiased truth.

  That I wanted her in a way I wanted nothing else.

  After seconds blurred to minutes, Molly placed a gentle hand to my chest, causing me to slow, to still, to be grateful for her sweet breath still fresh on my lips. I reached for another lock of her mostly dried hair and wound it around my finger. “Don’t you ever say you’re not good at loving people again.” I planted one more undoubtedly telling kiss on her inviting lips. “Because I think you’re outrageously good at it.”

  31

  Molly

  Even though it had only been twelve hours since I left The Bridge, a lifetime of events had occurred since then. Not only had something significant taken place with Silas in my kitchen, but something even more significant had been taking place in my heart since the moment I emerged from my shower. Or perhaps, from the moment I snipped off my first lock of hair.

  As I followed Silas back to Fir Crest Manor, past fir trees and through neighborhoods and then finally into the darkened parking lot, I spoke to the God I’d believed in as a young girl. Back before my family had gone our separate ways. And back before I’d felt disqualified by my lack of ministry vocation. My words were far from eloquent, and yet an unfamiliar peace seemed to quiet my anxieties as I pulled up to a house that had become a home in more ways than one.

  I’d taken only a few minutes to dress before we left my house, adding a couple strokes of mascara to my lashes and slipping into some cropped leggings and flats. I still wore Silas’s hooded sweatshirt—which I warned him he was never getting back. The usual pressure to be perfectly presentable and polished . . . that was absent now. And I wasn’t sure if it would ever return.

  Truthfully, there was still a lot I wasn’t sure about.

  Silas walked beside me on the cobblestone path to the cottage, so close I had to stop myself from looping an arm around his waist and leaning into his side. But instead, he placed his hand to the small of my back and led me to the familiar door.

  “Are you good?” he asked.

  I nodded, a nervous flutter alive in the base of my belly. I was good, yes, but I was also aware that Wren was only a few rooms away from where I stood, and that I had no idea where her headspace was at in this moment. What if she was angry with me? What if she blamed me for what happened? What if she asked questions I couldn’t answer? What if I couldn’t be who she needed as a mentor?

  I tugged the hood farther over my head as Silas peered down at me.

  “You planning on wearing that over your head all summer?”

  “No.” I sighed. “I just want to be sensitive to her, and . . . I’m not sure what she needs yet.”

  “You,” he said confidently. “She needs you, Molly. A friend. A confidant. A loyal authority figure who shows up and presses in to the messy and the difficult. That’s what you’re giving her tonight—your presence and support.”

  I rubbed my lips together, trying to stop the tingle in the tip of my nose. “Okay.”

  He offered me that half grin I’d come to love. “It’s after hours, so technically that means I shouldn’t be around the cottage.” Because even though he was the program director of the entire campus, he was abiding by his own rules: no males on the cottage premises after seven. “After I check in on the guys, I’ll be in my office. Want to come up when you’re finished here?”

  “Sure, of course. I’ll see you later, then.” A bit shakily, I reached to twist the doorknob when he stopped me with a touch to my shoulder.

  “Molly. You can do this.”

  I briefly closed my eyes and exhaled on
e last time before pushing inside the same cottage that only yesterday had rumbled with laughter as Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds duked it out on screen, the smell of sugary treats and dry shampoo filling the air. But this evening it was quiet. Several girls sat on the L-shaped sofa as I closed the front door behind me, their acknowledgment of me somber yet respectful.

  As I started down the hallway toward the second door on the right, Amy cleared her throat behind me and pointed to the door with a shake of her head. “She’s not in there.”

  For a second, panic got the best of me, my mind racing back to that bloody image of Wren being wheeled out of the lobby into an ambulance. I shook my head to stop the spiral. “But Silas said she was here. That he saw her, talked to her—”

  “Oh, no, she’s here!” Amy backpedaled quickly. “I meant, she’s just not in that room anymore.” A sheepish smile curved her mouth. “Sorry. They traded beds earlier today. Monica didn’t think it was right that Wren would have to go back to the same bed where, you know . . . it happened. Glo let us move everything over while Wren was at the hospital.”

  Relief and something like pride coursed through me. Monica had done that. For Wren. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Amy nodded and touched my arm before she headed back to the living room. I knocked lightly on the door at the end of the hall—Monica’s old room.

  “Hello?” I said as gently as I could, bracing for what I might find. Tears? Anger? A full catatonic state of numbness and shock?

  But as the door opened fully, the same nineteen-year-old girl who had been curled up on a stretcher this morning was now chuckling softly at something Monica had said. They both looked up at me, Wren’s eyes locking with mine.

  “Molly?”

  And just like that, the sound of her voice made something inside me both collapse and rebuild all at once. Within seconds, I’d wrapped my arms around her in an embrace I’d ached for since this nightmare began. “How are you?”

  “So glad you’re here,” she said.

  I pulled her in, cradling the back of her head as my mind struggled to accept the lack of plaited hair against my palm. Seeing Wren without one of her signature braids was going to take some time to get used to. I perched on the edge of her mattress and then reached for Monica’s hand, giving her fingers a squeeze. “Thank you for being such a good friend to her, Monica.”