"You're welcome." Piper linked arms with her and started walking toward the fire. "Dad says his hotdogs are artisan charred. I think he means burned. Pastor Ben made hot chocolate but I'm ninety percent sure he used instant, which is basically a crime. And Reagan told me you were doom-spiraling, so I'm glad you're here."
Cara swatted her gently with a fundraiser flyer someone had pressed into her free hand. "I was not doom-spiraling."
"You absolutely were." Piper's grin was unrepentant. "It's okay. We all do it. Last week I spiraled about collegeapplications for like four hours straight until dad made me eat pizza and watch trashy television."
"Did it help?"
"The pizza did. The television was questionable." Piper released her arm to grab another flyer off a nearby table. "But the point is, community is the antidote. That's what Pastor Ben says. Something about not being designed to carry burdens alone."
The words hit deeper than Piper probably intended.
Cara had been carrying burdens alone her entire life. Being a fugitive only upped the pressure. The weight of secrets and lies and constantly looking over her shoulder had become so familiar she barely noticed it anymore.
Except she did notice. Every single day.
"Cara." Pastor Ben's voice cut through her thoughts. Warm. Gentle.
She turned.
He stood beside the chili pot, wooden spoon in one hand, his weathered face creased in a smile. "Got a minute?"
Piper gave her a little push. "Go. I need to boss some freshmen around anyway."
Cara crossed to where the pastor was ladling chili into bowls for a line of teenagers. He handed off the spoon to a volunteer and gestured toward a piece of driftwood set back from the main chaos.
They sat.
He didn't speak right away. Just watched the fire crackle and the kids laugh and the waves roll in beyond the light.
Cara's hands twisted together in her lap. She forced them still.
"Sometimes," he said finally, "God gives us a little light at the end of a heavy day."
Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
This man had no idea how heavy her day had been. Yet somehow his words still hit the cracked places anyway.
He nodded toward the teenagers clustered around the fire. "Joy is contagious if you stand near enough. I think that's part of the design. We're supposed to catch it from each other when we can't find it on our own."
Cara swallowed hard. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For this." She gestured vaguely at the bonfire. The community. The normalcy. "For letting me be part of it."
His expression shifted to something softer. Understanding without prying. "You're always part of it, Cara. It’s what it means to be family."
Family.
The word lodged somewhere behind her ribs.
She hadn't had real family since…ever. Dom felt like a father figure, but she wasn’t sure he’d be eager to claim a woman with her sketchy background… or her equally, sketchy future.
Adulting she could do. Had since she was in grade school. But being part of a family, however loosely defined? Not in her skillset.
But sitting here on a driftwood log with woodsmoke in her hair and teenagers arguing about the correct marshmallow-to-chocolate ratio, something in her chest loosened.
Enough to remember why she'd wanted this new life so desperately.
