Fox ~upd~: Tricia

She opened her mouth to tell him about the bruise. About the empty cafeteria table. About the night she turned fifteen and cried into a pillow because she realized she had invented so many friends that she no longer remembered how to make a real one.

Ellis was new to Pender’s Hollow—a quiet, watchful man with the kind of stillness that made other people nervous. He ran the antique shop on Maple Street, the one that smelled of old paper and regret. Tricia was nineteen by then, working at the diner across the road, and she noticed that Ellis never lied. Not even the small, polite ones. tricia fox

Because he believed her. Of course he did. She was too good at this. She had spent so long building the beautiful, false version of herself that she had buried the real one so deep it might never dig its way out. She opened her mouth to tell him about the bruise

But even that, she knew, was a lie she told herself to feel brave. Ellis was new to Pender’s Hollow—a quiet, watchful