Snowflakes In Autumn (A Novella)

Seven

Faith had barely eaten any of her dinner. All of it just tasted like ash in her mouth after the confession and overwhelming information he'd bulldozed her with. So she went to her room and  removed all the photographs she'd brought with her from her suitcase, laying them all across the bed.

She'd always wondered why she'd blocked out her entire childhood. Even things after the accident were missing from her mind. At the age of twenty-one, the earliest age her memories were consistent were probably eleven or twelve. That couldn't have been normal. 

As she looked at the photos one by one, she noticed most with her mother in them seemed to be posed. The few that were candid showed a darkness in her mother's eyes Faith had grown to know well. 

So many of these photos felt like a lie the closer she looked at them. Lies couldn't give her the truth she sought, making most of them useless to her. Or did she even need the truth anymore? If the truth of then was so similar to the truth of now, was it so important to dissect?

Faith's hope in coming here was to remember the happy family they once were, to feel like she was loved once by her mother, or that she was loved at all. She'd wanted to reconnect with her former life, but so far all that had brought was pain, disappointment and confusion. 

Faith's hope. That's what she had to remember. She didn't just come here for herself. She'd come here to learn more about Hope and her father and to remember them. 

The pile of photographs were arranged into two piles; the posed lies and the candid truth. Then she went through strictly the candid once more, closing her eyes between each of them and committing them to memory as if they could all vanish in the blink of an eye. 

It was eerie seeing her brother this way, so young and full of life. All this time Faith thought he'd been protecting her from something, but based on Noah's theory, he'd been following her mother's orders until Faith was so desperate he could no longer take it. 

She'd always thought that her sister was beautiful based on the photo used in the article, but she was plainer in real life. Her eyes didn't sparkle as much as she thought and there was a dullness to her hair that the article didn't show. Still pretty, but not as big as life as Faith somehow made her out to be. 

Her father was incredibly handsome, with this rugged yet studious look, and soulful eyes that reminded her of Noah's. The photos taken of the two of them had a charm about them and they appeared to have a bond much like father and son.

Faith placed a rubber band around both the stacks to keep them separate and placed them on the small table beside the bed, then changed into her pajamas. 

A light tap on the door caused a creek as it cracked further open from the impact, Faith unaware she'd left the door ajar at all. She quickly pulled her tank top all the way down, but he must have seen at least a little based on the angle she'd been at. 

When Faith turned to face him, she saw Noah's eyes directed to the floor. "You can look now."

"Sorry," he muttered before returning his eyes to her. "I didn't see much."

Something about him being flustered amused Faith and she smiled at him. At the very least, he'd  seen the profile of her breast. There was a few men who'd seen a whole lot more of them after knowing her for less time. Then again, they hadn't dated her dead sister. 

"At the airport, I thought you recognized me because I looked like Hope, and you told me that you recognized me because of me. Was that true?"

Why it was important to her, Faith wasn't certain. 

Noah crossed his arms and stepped into the room. "Yes."

"So you don't think I look like her?"

He shook his head. "Just the round shape of your face. Your eyes and hair are darker than hers. And she always tweezed her eyebrows into a thin line, which you obviously don't do. You have your father's nose and she had her mom's." Noah then walked in further yet, until he was standing directly in front of her. "Why do you ask?"

Faith didn't know why she'd asked until he spoke those final words. "This is going to sound harsh, especially given who she was to me, but I need to know that when you look at me, you see me, not your dead girlfriend."

She'd spent so long feeling like the only person her family saw when they looked at her was Hope. Despite Noah's alternative theories about her mother, Faith wanted to know she was being seen for the right reasons. 

Noah's hand came up and cupped her cheek, his eyes appearing more the subtle green than green-gray. "I just see you, little snowflake. That's a promise."

The feeling of just being seen at all meant everything to her. She'd spent her life as invisible. Her brother always said she made it that way by shutting everyone around her out. But Noah was like an open door she'd unknowingly stepped into. 

Then his hand fell from her and Faith immediately missed it. Something about him made her feel not just seen, but cared for and safe. It'd been so long since she felt any of those things, probably not since she'd last seen him. It was all a distant memory trapped on the other side of the world. 

"Describe me like a character in one of your books," Faith asked, again uncertain of why the words escaped her. 

He waited until she laid herself out on the bed, then sat on the edge and studied her for a solid minute before he laid down beside her and closed his eyes. "Faith was like the four seasons. She was nature coming to life in the spring, and a warm summer's breeze. She was the colors of autumn and the sparkles of fresh snow in winter. Faith was as wild as the untainted pieces of earth, as spirited as the wind, as beautiful as the flickering flames of a fire, and as relaxing a silent water."