In Chap­ter Forty-Six of “If These Wings Could Fly,” Leighton wakes up with a stom­achache, sur­round­ed by her family—her mom and sis­ters. She notices her father’s truck is not parked out­side, indi­cat­ing he like­ly stayed at his work­place, a trail­er for Barnes Con­struc­tion, where oper­a­tions are slug­gish in win­ter. Despite the morn­ing’s famil­iar com­forts, an aching sad­ness envelops her, which she can’t quite iden­ti­fy.

Her mom, appear­ing exhaust­ed, pre­pares cof­fee with a hint of weari­ness. They engage in a nos­tal­gic game, mix­ing idioms and metaphors, an activ­i­ty that once brought them joy but feels strained now, reflect­ing the ten­sion with­in their fam­i­ly. The under­ly­ing issue looms: the unde­ni­able need for a restrain­ing order against her father upon rec­og­niz­ing the dan­ger they face. Leighton’s insis­tence on this mat­ter esca­lates into an argu­ment; her moth­er, while acknowl­edg­ing the recent dis­tress, refus­es to act hasti­ly, empha­siz­ing her mar­riage.

Leighton, frus­trat­ed and feel­ing respon­si­ble for her younger sis­ters, decides she can’t stay home and choos­es to stay with a friend instead. Despite the ten­sion, her moth­er clings to the notion of fam­i­ly uni­ty, frus­trat­ing Leighton fur­ther. After an emo­tion­al­ly charged exchange, Leighton packs her things, aware that she must dis­tance her­self from the chaos.

Lat­er, she encoun­ters her friend Liam, who offers her shel­ter over the week­end, under­stand­ing the tur­moil she’s fac­ing. As they dri­ve to school, Leighton opens up about her family’s trou­bles, dis­cov­er­ing Liam’s sup­port, yet also feel­ing a sense of frus­tra­tion that he has not expe­ri­enced the ongo­ing insta­bil­i­ty she knows so inti­mate­ly.

At school, she takes refuge in the news­room to research pro­tec­tion orders, feel­ing the weight of doubt and fear as she reads about domes­tic abuse. She grap­ples with the con­cern that her father’s rep­u­ta­tion might over­shad­ow her truth, pon­der­ing the cost of fear that many women face in soci­ety. The chap­ter encap­su­lates the com­plex­i­ty of fam­i­ly dynam­ics, the trau­ma of domes­tic issues, and the des­per­ate search for safe­ty amidst chaos.