by Jamie Blair
Numb.
If I could just get my mind to shut down like my emotions have, I’d be set. But it won’t. Right now, it’s picturing me back at school next month. My senior year. There’s no way I can go back there. I just don’t fit in anymore.
I don’t fit anywhere.
I used to fit with Chris.
I still ache for him.
So much for being numb and emotionless.
I make my hands tug a T-shirt over my head and yank underwear up my legs. My feet walk me over to the bed, and I crawl in next to Addy.
This could be our last night together. I’m not sure. Will they want to keep her tomorrow?
I pull her close. She fits against my stomach, a little comma-shaped pillow of baby for me to cuddle with. She lets out her sigh and gurgle and starts moving her mouth around like she’s carrying on a dream conversation. I wish I knew what she was saying. I wish I was going to be around for her first word.
• • •
I wake crying. Morning wasn’t supposed to come this fast.
Addy’s happy. She’s making little humming, yelling, almost singing noises, and kicking her feet in the air. I wonder if she knows she’s hitting the jackpot today.
I can’t lift my head off the pillow. There are too many heavy thoughts weighing it down. After I hand her over and they take her away . . . then what? Where do I go? With all my attention focused on keeping Addy fed and making sure we have a place to sleep, I haven’t had to think about myself. She was my driving force. When she’s gone, what happens to me?
I just want to pull the covers over my head and cry all day. Maybe I should just have them come and take her to get it over with. Then I’ll lie here, comatose, until the hotel kicks me out.
Addy doesn’t like my plan. She wants a bottle. I shuffle over to the minifridge and pull out her second-to-last one. “Guess this really is it, Add. They can buy formula and even baby food. You’re going to be their princess.”
After I give her the bottle and bathe her, I dig through her clothes, looking for the best of Emma’s hand-me-downs. There’s a pink dress with a butterfly on it that has matching leggings. “I think this is the one,” I tell her. “Your new mommy will love you in this.” My voice cracks, and I swallow hard.
She kicks while I pull on her leggings, and squirms when I tug the dress over her head. Then I crash back down on the bed and let her roll around on the floor, making her last few passes over the hotel carpet.
I feel like a turnstile with everyone in my life shoving past, leaving me spinning in circles. I hardly have time to recover before someone else speeds through. I can’t take it anymore.
I don’t want to live like this.
I’m so hungry. I’m trembling with the effort of getting out of bed. It takes all my strength to pull on jeans and brush my hair and teeth. I don’t need to look perfect. It’s not me they’re adopting.
Addy lies beside me as I stuff my clothes into my duffel bag. Hers I leave separate. They’re not coming with mine anymore.
Saying good-bye this time isn’t something I can wrap my head around. Before, when I thought she was going with Angel and Dave, there was a slight chance I’d see her again.
This time, good-bye is for keeps. I won’t ever see her again.
She pats my leg with her chubby hand. Then she lays her head on my calf.
“Are you tired, baby?” Just before taking her in my arms, I anticipate the feel of her little body. I have to make sure I’ve got it right and commit it to memory.
I hold her against me and lean back against the dresser. If I close my eyes and squeeze her tight enough, maybe I can wish us out of this mess.
• • •
This might be an out-of-body experience. I’m honestly no longer inside my own head. It’s like watching myself from someone else’s eyes.
Faith swings Addy’s diaper bag over her shoulder.
Faith takes one last look around the room she’s lived in for the past week with the baby she’ll never see again.
Faith hears a knock on the door and stares at it like it’s playing a cruel joke. Nobody’s out there. She’s hearing things.
Two steps forward brings Faith to the door. She leans against it and peers out the peephole.
He stares back at the peephole with his blue-green eyes.
I slam back inside my head. Maybe I imagined the knock. My heart races, until I remember nobody’s after me. Nobody cares enough about me or Addy to send the cops after us. We’re not wanted—by the police or anybody else.
But I would swear I saw his blue-green eyes through the peephole.
What if he came to find me—to find us?
Addy squeals, breaking my stare at the door. I glance down at her, watching for a few seconds, making sure she’s real, that this isn’t all a dream. I pick her up, then reach out and turn the doorknob, ready to face whatever is on the other side.
acknowledgments
Like the Little Engine That Could, Leap of Faith has had a long journey into readers’ hands. If it wasn’t for a fantastic author and friend, Kathleen Peacock, this novel would be only a manuscript saved in a file on my laptop.
Faith’s story had the extraordinarily good fortune to be read by the best agent a writer could ask for, Emmanuelle Morgen, while, coincidentally, Emmanuelle was in Jacksonville, Florida. It was meant to be!
Leap of Faith’s editor, Alexandra Cooper, spent so much time and attention to every detail and facet of this story, it wouldn’t be what it is without her. Editor Kristin Ostby took over at the finish line with the smooth and graceful transition of a seasoned professional to get Leap of Faith released into the wild. I’ve been very fortunate to work with both of them.
I couldn’t imagine a more perfect cover for Leap of Faith. Krista Vossen and Shasti O’Leary Soudant surpassed all my wildest dreams.
Annie McElfresh, you are Faith/Leah and Chris’s number-one champion. I can’t count the number of messages you sent in a year’s time, urging me to keep believing in their story. Thank you for that!
Several talented writers have read Leap of Faith and given me invaluable feedback and encouragement: Jen Alexander, Rebecca Rogers, Jennifer Wood, Debra Driza, and Kristin Otts, to name a handful. Also, a big thank-you to everyone who read and cheered me on during Teaser Tuesday snips!
I’d be amiss not to mention the online writers’ community on Absolute Write, where several authors gracing the shelves of bookstores learned the ins and outs of the industry. I was fortunate to stumble into the AW Water Cooler and meet a group of women who have been insanely supportive over the years. Cheers, Lit Bitches! You’re an amazing group of women.
Lastly, a huge hug and thank-you to my family, who never stopped believing that I could find my way onto the shelves of bookstores. Claudia and Ethan, you are my treasures.
photo © Kellie Marochino
Jamie Blair lives in northeast Ohio with her husband, their two kids, and a cat that broke into their house and refused to leave. She won a young author’s contest in third grade, but it probably shouldn’t count since her mom wrote most of her entry. Leap of Faith is her first novel. She promises her mom didn’t write one word of it. Visit Jamie at jamiemblair.com
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An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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Simonandschuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any refe
rences to historical events, real people,
or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events
or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Jamie Blair
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Book design by Krista Vossen
Jacket design by Krista Vossen
Jacket photo-composite by Shasti O’Leary Soudant copyright © 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Jacket photographs (left to right) copyright © 2013 by JonPaul Douglass/Flickr/Getty Images; Fotosearch/Getty Images; Klaus Vedfelt/Riser/Getty Images
The text for this book is set in Sabon LT Std.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blair, Jamie M.
Leap of Faith / Jamie Blair. — 1st. ed.
p. cm
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Faith shepherds her neglectful, drug-addicted mother through her pregnancy and then kidnaps the baby, taking on the responsibility of being her baby sister’s parent while hiding from the authorities.
ISBN 978-1-4424-4713-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-4715-8 (eBook)
[1. Kidnapping—Fiction. 2. Runaways—Fiction. 3. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 4. Parenting—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B53783Le 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012043125
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Acknowledgments
About Jamie Blair
