Chapter 1
My mother is crying in the kitchen and pretending she isn’t. She stands at the counter with her back to me, slicing strawberries like it’s Sunday morning and not the day her only child leaves for California. The knife hits the cutting board in soft, steady rhythms. Too steady.
“Eat something before you go,” she says, voice careful. Gentle.
I nod even though my stomach is a knot of nerves and airport coffee.
My suitcase sits by the door. Two of them, actually. One full of clothes that still smell faintly like our laundry detergent. The other filled with books, notebooks, and the leather-bound Bible Dad gave me when I turned sixteen. It’s heavier than I remember.
Dad stands near the window, arms crossed, watching the driveway like Los Angeles might already be pulling me away from him.
“Remember who you are,” he says.
He said it three times this morning already.
I swallow. “I know.”
Do I?
I’ve never lived anywhere but Galena, Illinois. Never slept in a house that didn’t creak the same way at night. Never gone more than a week without sitting at church in the third pew from the front, right side, where Mom likes it because the light from the stained glass hits just right.
Now I’m moving to Los Angeles, California… The big LA, for Film school.
The Los Angeles Institute of Film and Direction.
The words still feel unreal in my mouth. I tell everyone it’s about storytelling, about art, about calling. It is. It really is. I fell in love with movies when I was nine years old and watched characters live their entire lives in two hours. I wanted to do that. To make people feel something holy through a screen.
But there’s something else too.
When I watch films, I don’t feel small. I feel powerful. That part I don’t say out loud.
Mom finally turns around, her eyes red but smiling. “God wouldn’t have opened this door if it wasn’t meant for you.”
I cling to that sentence. God opened this door. Not me. Not ambition.
Him.
Dad steps forward and places his hand on my shoulder. “Los Angeles is… different. There will be people there who don’t believe in what you believe. Don’t let them shake you.”
“I won’t,” I say too quickly.
I’ve never had alcohol. Never kissed a boy. Never broken curfew. I’ve built my entire identity on restraint. On obedience. On purity.
I am not weak.
I am not curious.
I am not tempted.
Mom hugs me last. She smells like vanilla and fabric softener and home. “Call me every day,” she whispers into my hair.
“I will.”
The driveway feels longer than usual. The sky too wide.
When the car pulls away, I watch our house shrink in the side mirror until it’s just a blur of white siding and green lawn and everything safe.
I press my fingers to the small gold cross hanging on my neck.
“Lord,” I whisper under my breath, “keep me close to You.”
The prayer feels solid here.
It feels easy.
*******
I unpack slowly. I hang my dresses. Fold my sweaters. Set my Bible on the small desk by the window. I kneel beside the bed before I even finish.
“Thank You for bringing me here safely,” I whisper. “Help me stay strong. Help me stay… me.”
The room is quiet. Too quiet.
Back home there was always something — the hum of the dishwasher, Dad’s footsteps, Mom humming in the kitchen. Here, it’s just the distant sound of traffic and someone laughing on the balcony across from mine.
I sit back on my heels and look around the apartment. It’s mine.
No curfew.
No one checking the clock.
No one asking where I’ve been.
The thought is both thrilling and unsettling. I stand and move to the window. The city stretches in every direction, glowing even before the sun has fully set. There’s something alive about it. Restless.
I press my fingers to the gold cross at my throat.
“I’m here for a reason,” I whisper.
I don’t say anything else, because right now, I still believe that reason is simple.
I lie down on the unfamiliar mattress and stare at the ceiling.
Tomorrow I start. Tomorrow I become the kind of girl who chases her dream, and that feels holy enough.
