There were so many things Steve admired about Faith: She was sweet and funny, with a sexy TV voice. She was smart, a science nerd; he liked science nerds. They were the same age and had grown up just two towns apart, something that kept them bonded. She had a sister, so did he. Each new thing he learned about her only cemented his love and admiration. There was no one else he wanted to be with, no one else he ever even thought of. She was the only woman for him.
If only she would return his calls, emails, Facebook messages, and letters. It was starting to piss him off.
That first time they touched he had stood in line to meet her for almost an hour. She was shaking hands and kissing babies at Greekfest. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. When he got close to the front of the line his heart started to race, his face flushed, and he felt a boner coming on. Quickly he thought of an ugly neighbor to make it go away. His palms were sweaty and when he was the next person in line to greet her he wiped them on his shorts.
“Hi, thanks for watching Channel 9,” Faith said, extending her hand to him. He took it and felt that brilliant energy pulse between them. Yet, the phrase was also the same one she had delivered to everyone else in line. Didn’t he deserve more? Couldn’t she see the love shining in his eyes, feel it radiating from his chest?
He was so flustered by her looks that he could barely stammer two words together. He thinks he remembered saying, “You’re welcome,” but her eyes were already past him to the next person in line as she was saying, “Hi, thanks for watching Channel 9.” No matter. That magical touch of their hands was all he needed.
He watched every forecast of hers to see when she might be out at another event. When she announced that she would be greeting people at the Belle Isle Art Fair, he arrived three hours before her scheduled time so that he could be first in line.
She didn’t seem to recognize him from the first time, but he had more confidence to speak at this event. He told her his name, plus the thing he had wanted to say for months, if not years:
“You’re beautiful.”
She looked away in that bashful way and said, “Thank you.” He would have said more, but there was a family behind him in line totalk to her and the kids were jostling each other and one bumped into his leg hard, pushing him slightly to the side. He glared at them. Faith knelt down to the kids’ eye level and gave them a huge smile, saying, “Hi, sweeties—how old are you? Do you like watching the weather?”
She could have asked him those things, he thought. She could have called him “sweetie.” He was starting to turn away but caught sight of a hint of cleavage down her station-issued polo shirt, and with her kneeling practically in front of him another hard-on started. He had to hightail it to the bathroom to tuck it up under his belt. Then he watched her from afar for the rest of her visit.
There were lots of ways to reach her—direct messages on social media, an email address on the website, old-fashioned letters sent to the station—so he started trying all of them. When she didn’t respond and, in fact, blocked him on X, he knew it was time to amp up his game.
Across the street from the station’s gated parking lot were a gas station and a restaurant. It was easy to act nonchalant in his car and use his binoculars to see what kind of car she drove and the direction she turned in during dinner breaks or after work. He would stay a safe distance as he followed her.
Steve had a mix of emotions as he did this: He looked at himself as her escort, for safety. He didn’t want any crazy people getting ideas. He was there to protect his baby. But he also thought about the image of overpowering her himself, of forcing his body on hers until she gave in to how perfect they were together. If he could have tied her up, he would have. She just needed time to learn to love him.
Steve would follow her all the way to her apartment building in downtown Detroit. It was called Three Diamonds andlooked like just the kind of place he would want to live with her. They could stroll to the coffee shops in the area, hand in hand, looking for a great breakfast spot after their marathon session of morning sex.
She had to get to know him, it was as simple as that. True, he didn’t have a job and was living with his parents, but that was just a placeholder. He had so much love to give the right woman, and she was the right woman. They were connected via their minds, he knew that. He would send her mental messages about what color she should wear each day, and sometimes she listened to him. When she did, it got him so excited he would pleasure himself right during her forecast.
But he wanted a real date, wanted to touch her hand again. When she kept ignoring his letters, messages, and even calls to the weather center (it always went to voicemail, where he would leave long messages), he decided to let her know that he knew a lot about her. So he sent her a letter with a picture of three diamonds crudely drawn on it.
“You look like three diamonds. I can make you feel like five diamonds,” he wrote beneath his drawing. He figured she would then get the hint that he knew where she lived, that he meant business about being her boyfriend. Maybe it would get her to return a note to him.
If not, he might have to go even a step further.
CHAPTER SIX
Kelly
January
Kelly had a tuna sandwich in one hand and was scrolling her phone with the thumb of the other. She had five new emails, four of them junk. But the last one… no way. She froze, the sandwich halfway to her mouth. It was from Faith Richards.
Warily, Kelly lowered the sandwich and clicked to open the email.
Hi Kell—it’s been a long time. I still feel terrible about what happened. I’m at the point in my life where I’m trying hard to make amends with people for some of my past mistakes. I think about things I did to you all the time and I feel sick about them. I would like to meet you for lunch, and I have a gift I made for you myself. Would you please accept my invitation?
—Faith
Kelly sighed. She was on her lunch break at work, a tiny sliver of time, twenty minutes if she was lucky, in between grading and kids stopping by with questions. She was trying to wolf downthe food she hastily made that morning. She had to get ready for fifth hour.
Teaching high school Spanish was exhausting, especially when you had to deal with kids who were forced to be there because it was a requirement and couldn’t give two shits about Spanish. She didn’t have the mental energy to deal with Faith right now. Plus, why was Faith even reaching out to make amends? Didn’t she have enough friends, as loved and adored as she was in Detroit?
But the bigger question was why should Kelly go anywhere with her, given their history? Faith had two strikes, two big, giant ones, plus Kelly was busy—new house, this new teaching job, Joel—and felt she didn’t need drama in her life.
After packing up her lunch box and putting the leftovers in the staff fridge, Kelly headed back to her classroom. She had to go over complicated verb conjugations with the class in prep for a test in a few weeks. This required her full attention, so she compartmentalized Faith into a closet in her brain and focused.
After the last bell rang and the nonstop banging of metal lockers in the hallway finally subsided, Kelly sat in the stillness of her classroom. It was her favorite time of day, a chance to organize her lesson plans and take a deep breath or two. In yoga they preached taking “conscious breaths,” but Kelly found she only had time for a conscious breath after the school day was over.
