Fanfiction: Origin - Part Three
BREAKDOWN
Utterly broken-hearted, Faith watched with a sort of indifferent horror as her hopes and dreams were crucified, then slowly dismembered and tossed away as if they meant nothing at all. She hadn’t asked for much, but even that small request had been too great for her mom. Jesse continued to stay away from the apartment, only reinforcing Faith’s belief that she had somehow fallen from grace, but through no visible mistake on her part; she had done everything right, she had been the perfect daughter…the neglect was beginning to wear dangerously thin on Faith’s patience.
With Kelly still unavailable, no doubt busy doing things with her parents, Faith began to fall back into the monotonous routine of being essentially locked away in a space that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller every single day, a suffocating, crushing feeling that stifled her desire to behave as she had in the past. If her mother couldn’t invest the time and effort to make her daughter’s life interesting, then Faith would take matters into her own hands. In the days between her birthday and Christmas, she ventured outside more and more, eager to relieve herself of the burden that existed inside the increasingly cramped apartment. Outside, she could almost forget the heartache that seemed to follow her wherever she allowed herself to go, a shadow of disappointment that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She could feel it when she closed her eyes, the haunting presence of doubt that persistently told her that her entire life had been a waste. When had she ever done anything for her own benefit? Everything she had been, everything she was…it was all based on expectations that were not her own. Jesse had molded Faith into a perfect student, into a young girl with an eye for detail and success, but what about the things that Faith wanted? She had played her part quietly and obediently, striving to achieve the impossible task of making her Jesse into a better, more attentive mother. Faith had invested years of struggle and success, but it had all added up to nothing.
Maybe it was time for a change.
In those dead days between the 14th and 25th of December, Faith, now ten years old, spent more time away from the apartment than she ever had before. The vampire, previously so close to the forefront of her thoughts, was subconsciously pushed back and locked away within an unreachable corner of her mind. The cross necklace still accompanied everywhere she went, but she no longer regarded it as a weapon, merely as a piece of jewelry that sparkled in the fading winter sunlight. Moreover, the vampire did not make another appearance, at least as far as Faith could tell. She paid little attention to anything outside of her own mind, however.
By the time Christmas was almost upon her, Faith had changed dramatically. Having been cut off from human contact, with no one to speak to or play with, she had become extremely introverted, expending little to no effort towards anything that did not immediately interest her. She had seen Jesse only a handful of times in almost two weeks; Kelly phoned a single time; Lindsay Matthews was nowhere to be found. Tired of fighting, Faith gave up. She didn’t ask for a Christmas present. If you didn’t ask for anything, you couldn’t really be disappointed. Her small hands trembled constantly, so full of energy and discontentment, but she had no outlet. No outlet, that is, until Christmas Eve.
Jesse, perhaps feeling guilty, or perhaps with nowhere to go, stayed home on that night under the pretense of spending time with her ten-year-old daughter. On several occasions, she tried to open some sort of conversation, but Faith’s answers were clipped and rarely contained more than a few words. Not accustomed to getting such a cold response, Jesse gradually became a bit aggravated.
“What’s the matter with you, Faith?” Jesse asked loudly, getting to the point. They were eating dinner at the kitchen table, and Faith had not taken her eyes off her plate for at least seven full minutes. The TV was silent, and the question floated in the air for a few seconds with no response. Jesse half-slammed the table with her right fist. “Don’t ignore me.”
Faith finally made eye contact with her mother, but still did not offer an answer. She merely stared blankly, uncaringly, without any hint of emotion. Then she yawned, put a tiny smile on her face, cleaned her place at the table, and went into her room without even a single word. Jesse watched the door close and struggled to contain her anger. Without the influence of alcohol, she wasn’t yet at the point where she could physically harm Faith, but she could feel a smoldering sense of resentment towards her daughter for what had just taken place. Fuming, she almost broke her plate by literally throwing it into the sink, where it ricocheted around until eventually settling uneasily at the bottom.
Inside her room, Faith stood silently at the window, hands held behind her. She had flicked her light off, preferring to stand in total darkness, letting the cold weight of soundlessness rest on her tiny shoulders. A weak orange glow from some of the streetlamps below was all that illuminated the room, but Faith liked it that way. The world slowly passed by outside, carrying time inevitably forward, an unstoppable march towards oblivion that somehow left Faith behind. She could not move forward. She simply existed as she was, without thinking of the future, distancing herself from the past in an attempt to make herself dead inside. Feeling nothing was better than feeling everything; it spared your feelings, saved your heart from hurting at every single disappointment.
Breath fogging up a small portion of the window, Faith knew she had just done something she couldn’t take back. She had purposely insulted Jesse, ignoring her when asked a question. No doubt some sort of punishment would be doled out later, but Faith couldn’t bring herself to care. What could be dealt to her that she hadn’t already experienced? She had nothing that Jesse could take, either physically or emotionally; she had been slapped across the face, called names, been thrown to the ground and beaten; she had spent days alone, left to care for herself; she was a daughter that Jesse had never wanted and had no idea how to take care of.
She may have stood at the window for hours, or only for a few minutes, but she was jarred back to reality by a pounding at the front door. In the dead silence of her room, she could easily hear most of what was going on in the rest of the apartment. She heard Jesse walking, heard the door being opened…then she heard the voice of the one person she despised most in the entire world: Chris. What was he doing here? Rechecking her memory, Faith thought for sure that Chris wasn’t supposed to have leave from the base until around New Year’s Eve, which was still about a week away. Giving up her station at the window, she slowly went over towards her door and listened carefully for some verbal clue as to why the drunken bastard had come to visit.
“I couldn’t stand being on the base until New Year’s,” he was saying, obviously having moved into the living room. Faith heard the front door close. “I managed to convince my superiors to let me trade my leave dates.”
“You won’t get in trouble?” Jesse asked, not sounding very concerned.
“Nah, it’s all five by five. So should we get drunk, or what?”
There was a slight pause. “I’m not sure…Faith is acting really weird tonight. Earlier, she completely ignored me and went straight into her room.”
“Screw her,” Chris immediately replied, with a little too much vehemence for Faith’s taste. “Don’t let her ruin our night, Jesse. I didn’t go through all the trouble of having my leave changed so we could stay sober.”
After a few moments of tense silence, Jesse finally said, “All right. Let’s go out, though. I don’t really feel like drinking here tonight, especially with Faith acting up.”
“Maybe she just needs some discipline,” Chris responded, and Faith could just imagine the half-crazed look in his eyes as he said it. She heard footsteps making their way towards her door, but she didn’t budge, no longer caring enough to scamper away.
“Chris, let it go.” Jesse sounded tired, like she was as fed up with her pseudo-boyfriend as she was with her daughter. “She’s just moping, and it’ll only get worse if you give her another reason, so let’s just leave, all right?”
Since the sound of retreating footfalls didn’t immediately come, Faith figured that Chris was considering whether he should take Jesse’s advice or simply break down the door with his bare hands in order to get to her. Finally, Chris muttered something incomprehensible; the front door opened; the front door closed. Faith threw her own door open as hard as she could and raced into the middle of the living room.
“I hate you!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, almost wishing that Chris were there to hear her. She knew that he and Jesse were already out of earshot, but it felt good to vocalize her feelings for Chris, since she rarely got an opportunity to do so. “I wish you were dead!”
She yelled a few more insults before her throat began to hurt; not speaking to anyone for such a long time had taken its toll on her vocal chords. In her mind, she saw herself older, more powerful, finally being able to fight back against Chris and all his stupid bullshit. She would stand up to him and take her revenge for all the pain and suffering he had forced on her throughout the last few years; she would punch and kick until he was broken husk of a man; she would make him understand the terror that he had inflicted on a helpless little girl. Someday, she knew it would happen…but not today. Sighing, Faith tried to ignore the imagery in her mind that constantly replayed bloody scenes of triumph and went to watch TV, having nothing better to do.
Television seemed to be getting more and more boring these days, and Faith had difficulty finding anything decent to watch. Finally settling on some kind of old movie, she sat down, tried to clear her mind of anything overly negative, and turned her full attention to the characters onscreen. Despite her best efforts, some time later, she fell asleep on the couch, either due to lack of interest in the TV or exhaustion from having so much hatred within her small body. Her mundane existence made sleep seem positively enthralling, since her dreams usually took her to places far away, or at least to places that weren’t in the apartment, and that was good enough for her. The colorless movie quietly flickered in the darkened living room, projecting shadows and strange shapes onto the bare walls, washing over Faith’s sleeping form in a macabre slide show of twisting images. No other light was on in the apartment besides that which the TV was able to produce, and Faith slept more or less soundly for a few hours, until she was rudely awakened by the front door being loudly opened.
Half-heartedly opening a single eye, Faith watched as someone almost fell into the living room. Mind coming quickly into focus, she was able to tell that the form belonged to Chris, even though the room was almost totally wrapped in darkness. He was mumbling something to Jesse, who staggered in a few seconds later, apparently in much the same shape as Chris was. Faith knew they were both drunk; their actions literally screamed it, and besides, she’d seen enough of it in her short life to realize what was going on. Struggling between a decision to run to her room or stay put on the couch, she found that she was unable to muster the motivation to move, so she simply watched quietly as her two parental figures stumbled about confusedly. Chris was obviously the more intoxicated of the pair, as he ricocheted off the walls like a pinball, occasionally cursing while trying to regain some semblance of equilibrium.
“Why’s the TV on?” Chris slurred, finally giving up and sitting down in front of the screen.
Jesse, who had been unable to discover the light switch, shut the front door and then nearly tripped over Chris on her way to the kitchen.
“Beats me,” she said. “Faith must’ve left it on.”
Chris reached out and pressed the power button, plunging the room into near-total blackness. Faith couldn’t believe that neither Jesse nor Chris had even noticed that she was lying on the couch. They had reached a new level of drunkenness. Good for them. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the absence of illumination, and she was able to see shadowy shapes in the meek moonlight that crept in from the kitchen window, which effectively created a noir-like ambience that was a little disconcerting.
“What are you going to do about that damn kid?” This from Chris, still sitting on the floor in front of the dead television. He sounded angry, as if Faith had personally insulted him. “You can’t let her do whatever the hell she wants, you—”
“She’ll be punished,” Jesse interjected, still expressing some of the tiredness that Faith had heard earlier that evening. “I just don’t know what it should be yet.”
Chris was suddenly on his feet, and Faith shrank unconsciously back into the couch. She knew something bad was probably going to happen, but she had a mind to prevent it for as long as possible. Maybe she’d even get lucky. Maybe both of them would just pass out on the floor. “I know what it should be,” Chris sternly declared, and he swayed over to the left as he moved forward, trying to find Faith’s door. He finally did locate it, but unfortunately for him, Faith had left it wide open, and when he went to bang on the open air, he lost his balance and toppled straight into the room with a loud thud. There was an expletive of some kind, and Jesse laughed despite her best efforts to the contrary. Only a few seconds later, however, he was back on his feet and standing under the doorframe, his pride severely injured. “Where is that little bitch?!” he demanded, barely able to control himself.
Jesse didn’t respond, and Faith sure wasn’t going to offer a suggestion. The standoff continued for a while, and then Chris started tracking his head back and forth, searching the darkness for some sign of his prey. Several times, his gaze passed right over Faith, and she never took her eyes off of him, wanting to have a head start if she suddenly had to bolt for cover. The silence in the apartment was starting to become thick with tension, and just when Faith thought Chris had given up his quest, his head snapped back towards the couch, and without so much as a word, he was suddenly towering overhead, a look of pure malevolence plastered across his face.
As his hand shot forward, Faith managed to push herself to the side, avoiding capture. Seeing no real chance of escape, she did the only thing she could, and kicked her nemesis in the shin with all the power her ten-year-old body could produce. She felt her heel connect solidly with bone.
“God damn it!” Chris shouted, unaccustomed to being injured in such a fashion. “I’ll kill you!”
By this time, Faith had gotten to her feet and was standing in the corner of the room, only a few feet away from the safety that the front door might offer if she could wrench it open and run downstairs. But as soon as she even had the thought, Chris was back, effectively trapping Faith in her own hiding spot.
“Mom!” Faith yelled, hoping to elicit some sort of protective response from her mother. “Mom!” she yelled again. “Help!”
There was no response, save for the drunken laughter that escaped Chris’ lips. Now there was going to be no escape; Chris was stronger and faster. Suddenly, all the bloody beatings came flooding back into Faith’s consciousness, parading a seemingly endless montage of suffering and hurt within her mind. She saw herself thrown to the ground. She saw a fist cracking against her head. She felt a glass beer bottle collide with her back. She saw everything that she had experienced at Chris’ hands, and in that moment, something within her broke loose of its cage. With a total emotional breakdown, her hands, pressed flat against the wall, clenched into fists, and she sprang forward with unexpected speed, driving her shoulder into Chris’ stomach. No words came from her mouth, only an animalistic snarl as she did her best to defeat her biggest enemy.
She had been a victim for so long. That time was over. They had pushed her mentally and physically, they had beaten her and called her names, they had left her alone and friendless. Now they could deal with the consequences.
Putting all her energy into her rage, Faith kicked out again, catching Chris once more on the shin. His surprise was apparent in the fact that he didn’t immediately retaliate, so Faith launched herself at his leg, grabbing hold and nearly bringing Chris to the ground. In the eerie silence, the two shadows moved about the living room, bumping into the furniture and colliding with the walls. There were no words, no sound at all save for frantic breathing. Jesse looked on with glassy eyes, unable to process what was happening. She felt dizzy and the room seemed to spin about her.
Finally regaining his balance, Chris reached down and grabbed Faith so hard by the hair that she was forced to release her hold on his leg. Enraged that a little girl had nearly gotten the best of him, he literally lifted Faith several feet off the ground by her hair alone, and she screamed in pain, scratching her fingernails along Chris’s bare arms in an attempt to free herself. Surprised again by such ferocity, Chris let Faith drop to the ground, where her head cracked painfully against the floor. She suddenly felt sick, and her eyes wouldn’t focus. Unwilling to stay down and be an easy target, she somehow managed to get to her hands and knees before a fist flashed out of the darkness and connected with the side of her face, sending her sprawling to the ground once more. A trail of blood weaved its way out of her mouth as she lay there, panting, trying to will herself back up. But she had been hurt too badly; her body wouldn’t respond to the commands of her dazed mind. She spit up some blood onto the carpet as she curled into a ball. She wanted to call for Jesse again. She wanted to get up under her own power and fight back. But her mouth was filled with her own blood, and her mind was ablaze with pain. The carpet felt oddly soothing, softer than the blow she had just received.
Chris finally spoke as he reared back his leg, getting ready for a kick. “I’ll teach you to fight me, you little piece of shit!” With that, he kicked Faith squarely in the back, causing her to give a horrible cry of pain in response. Her eyes were screwed shut so tightly that her tears were unable to escape, and she merely gave a small moan of agony. “Not so tough now, are you?” Chris taunted, getting ready to kick again.
Faith wrapped one arm around her head and put the other over her back, but the blow never came. The last thing she heard before she passed out was Jesse’s voice screaming something in the darkness.
The next morning, Faith struggled to open her eyes against a searing pain that raked barbed wire across her mind. Eventually giving up and going back into her pitch black world, she yawned and immediately regretted it; her jaw ached as if it had been crushed with a sledgehammer. Even her teeth ached, a dull pain that would certainly have given her a headache if she didn’t already have one. Unfortunately, she remembered the events of last night with crystal clarity, when she would prefer to just forget the whole ordeal and force herself to believe that perhaps she had simply fallen down some stairs. That was certainly a much nicer scenario than the one she had to live with.
Slowly, she ran her small hands over her face, feeling the painful bruises and cuts. Upon further inspection, she noticed that the inside of her mouth was cut nearly to shreds, a result of the powerful blow she had taken directly to the face. Her teeth must have literally ripped into the skin of her cheeks, which would explain the blood she remembered spitting onto the floor as she had lain there, helpless, against an enemy she could not possibly hope to defeat. She knew that she had made matters worse by fighting back against Chris, but she didn’t care. Yes, she had taken a terrible beating, but she was still breathing, and soon, she would be standing.
Finally snapping her eyes fully open, ignoring the impulse to immediately close them again, Faith rolled over and was instantly frozen in place by a scorching pain that shot up her spine, obviously caused by the vicious kick that Chris had given her. Part of her wanted to go into the bathroom and see how bad she really looked, and part of her was a little afraid of the dead little girl that might stare back, a bloody, bruised shell of the Faith she used to be. Once more, she felt the familiar anger building, an anger that was much more useful than the despair she could have felt if she had had any real emotions left. With a grimace, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet in one smooth movement that did little to express the utter agony she was experiencing. As much as she wanted to go back to bed, to lie down again on the soft, inviting mattress, she forced herself to stand upright without swaying, despite the pain.
Outside, she could see that the sky had fittingly decided to snow its heart out all over Boston, sending the sun running for cover and blanketing the entire city in a thick sheet of pristine, perfect white. Sunny days were gone, blue skies were gone. Faith remembered a poem she had read in class before Winter Break, and she silently mouthed the final lines to herself.
It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage…
If there was to be an age of darkness, there was little she could do about it, being only ten years old and somewhat helpless, but she would do everything in her power to survive. And not only survive, but conquer. Her right hand clenched into a trembling fist as she considered the slowly drifting snowflakes. So unique. So oblivious.
So pointless.
Finally tiring of watching the world, Faith took tiny steps to her door, and only then did she realize that she had not walked to her room under her own power last night. Had Jesse really cared enough to pick up her own bleeding daughter and place her on the bed? Faith would be touched if she could summon enough energy to care, but her mother’s effort was too little, too late. She could have made a difference a thousand times over, but she had waited and she had watched, never coming close enough to make Faith feel anything but disappointment. However, despite not really wanting to, Faith did feel thankful that Jesse had saved her from any further injuries.
Pulling the door open, Faith stepped into a disaster of decor. The couch was upside down, the coffee table was resting against the television set, and chairs in the kitchen were overturned. It looked like a war zone, or at least an area where two burly men had wrestled each other to the death, not a scene where a young girl had literally fought for her life against someone infinitely more powerful. Still feeling like one big bruise, Faith allowed herself to sit down on the floor. She saw bloodstains on the carpet, blood that had undoubtedly come from her own mouth, her own face. The stains could never be removed; they were permanent. She almost laughed when she considered what strangers might think when they considered the blood-splattered carpeting. Would they ask where it had come from? Would they stand and wonder what accident had caused such a mess? Whatever they did, they would probably never realize the terror that those stains represented, a driving, unconscious terror that Faith was to carry with her for the rest of her life.
Getting back up, with no intention of trying to fix the hellhole that was the living room, she stood up and gingerly stretched, being careful not to hurt herself in the process. Almost ready to face her reflection in the mirror, she began walking towards the bathroom, but then her eye spotted a white envelope near the door, one that had apparently been pushed underneath sometime during the night or early morning. Curious as to who had left it, she picked it up and saw her own name in pretty handwriting. She tried to think of someone who would go to so much trouble to give her a letter, but she gave up after several seconds of half-hearted pondering and simply tore the envelope open, somewhat eager to read whatever was inside.
After a minute or so, Faith let the letter fall to the floor. She went to get some clothes for the new day, moved into the bathroom, and shut the door. The letter had been from Lindsay Matthews.
Faith,
I have been unexpectedly called back to England. A crisis is shaping up over there, involving vampires and a few other things I did not have the chance to tell you about. I wish I could stay, but I have to go. Take care of yourself, remember what I taught you, and hopefully I will see you again someday soon.
Sincerely,
Lindsay Matthews
As the steam filled the bathroom and the warm water cascaded down, Faith didn’t know why these things kept happening to her. It wasn’t like she had greatly depended on Lindsay for much, only having met with her a single time to discuss the vampire, but Lindsay had been the only decent adult role model in Faith’s life, and now she was thousands of miles away, unreachable in another country. Who would she be able to go to now if something bad happened? Certainly her mother would be a terrible choice, and her fourth grade teacher probably couldn’t help. Sighing, she stared at the ceiling and felt that perhaps crying might help her release some tension, but she just didn’t have enough emotion within her anymore to warrant tears. The water stung the marks on her face and back, but the pain was better than feeling the emptiness inside.
The days continued to pass, leaving Faith in their wake. School was almost upon her again, and she was looking forward to having an actual excuse to get away from the apartment and all the negative feelings it brought her. At least at school she could have something to distract her always-busy mind; it would give her a focus that she had sorely missed of late. Being alone was fine, up to a certain point, but after that, it became a mental chore to constantly face the same tired silence day in and day out, the same monotonous white walls within the same boring apartment within the same stupid building. Faith wanted out. When Jesse was around, she wouldn’t even look her daughter in the eye. It might have had something to do with the fact that Faith still looked atrocious, with bruises up and down her face, or it may have been pure, undiluted indifference. Faith didn’t know, and she really didn’t care.
Finally, in early January, a mere day before school was to start again, with snow placidly falling outside, Faith was watching her nightly TV programs when the front door opened. She didn’t even acknowledge Jesse as she walked through the door, but she did express surprise on her face when someone else came inside, too, calmly closing the door behind him.
And it wasn’t Chris.
Jesse caught Faith staring at the newcomer, and she gave the sort of extremely exhausted smile that only she could produce as she regarded her daughter. The bruises were gone now, and Faith looked just like any other little brown-haired girl, wearing the new outfit that Jesse had purchased for her birthday.
“Faith, this is Joey. Come say hi.” Jesse motioned for Faith to get off the couch.
Still stunned at this new development, Faith just sat still and continued to stare. The TV was forgotten. Whoever this Joey person was, he didn’t bear a shred of resemblance to Chris, and Faith was inclined to give him some points just for that. Whereas Chris wore a military haircut and always stood rigidly upright, Joey had shaggy brown hair and stood with his hands easily in his jean pockets. He rocked back and forth a bit on his heels, waiting for Faith to acknowledge him. A black jacket with a few random holes was tied around his waist, and he was wearing a red t-shirt with some sort of logo on it.
Glancing over at Jesse, Joey said, “You didn’t tell me your daughter was a mute.” Turning his attention back to Faith, he walked around the little coffee table and crouched down. He put on his best smile and held out his hand, apparently expecting Faith to grab it and give it a big shake. “My name’s Joey, kiddo. Nice to meet you.”
Faith’s cynicism was so ingrained in her mind that she had trouble trusting anyone at this point, let alone a complete stranger that her mom dragged home, but something about Joey’s demeanor made her feel safe. Cautiously, she stretched out her tiny hand and put it in Joey’s.
“Hi,” she quietly said, taking her hand back.
“Not very talkative, huh?” Joey reached up and scratched his head, brown hair flying everywhere. Then his eyes lit up, and he grabbed something from his pocket. “Okay, how about this?”
Watching somewhat intently, Faith saw Joey move his empty right hand back and forth in front of her, for some reason that she couldn’t understand. Then he took his hand, put it behind her ear, and suddenly he had a quarter! It was one of the simplest children’s tricks, but no one had ever done it for Faith before, and she was enthralled.
“Look, a quarter!” Joey exclaimed, acting surprised. Behind him, Jesse smiled. Faith’s mouth dropped open slightly, and she touched her ear, trying to figure out where the quarter had mysteriously appeared from.
“You can do magic?” she excitedly asked. She had seen magicians on TV once or twice, but she had never met anyone who could do it. With a grin, she moved closer to Joey and said, “Do it again!”
Pleased that Jesse’s daughter was beginning to come alive, Joey put the quarter on the coffee table and miraculously performed the same feat again, producing a half-dollar this time. Faith snatched it from Joey’s hand almost before he had a chance to show it to her. She turned it over, examining it.
“Wow, a fifty-cent coin!” she said, grinning. Her brown eyes were animated, displaying none of the lifelessness that they were so recently accustomed to showing. “Thanks!”
“No problem, kiddo.” Joey stood up, and Faith noticed that he was a little shorter and a bit thinner than Chris. Definitely less intimidating. “Maybe we can play a game later or something, yeah?”
Still clutching her new coins, Faith nodded from her seat on the couch.
“Joey will be staying here for a while,” Jesse said, putting her arm around her new man’s waist. “So try to be nice, okay?”
“Sure, mom.”
As Jesse tugged Joey into the kitchen, Faith wondered what she had done to warrant this amazing stroke of good luck. What had happened to Chris? It had been a long, long time since Jesse had brought anyone else into the apartment, and Faith couldn’t help imagining wonderful scenarios that would explain this turn of events, scenarios like Chris getting hit by a bus, Chris piloting his helicopter straight into a mountain, Chris looking up just as the Space Shuttle landed on him…maybe this was where things turned around? If Chris was really out of the picture, then Joey might replace him, and Joey seemed really nice.
Faith wasn’t accustomed to trusting strangers, but no one could be worse than Chris, so she was inclined to think of Joey as her savior.
Things changed dramatically in the next few weeks. Faith returned to school and began seeing Kelly more frequently. It was a little harder without Lindsay Matthews around, but with the new addition of Joey to her life, Faith felt like she had turned a corner. Jesse was happier, Faith was happier, Joey was always happy, and apartment 314 ceased to be such a downtrodden hellhole. A few times, Faith almost mustered enough courage to ask Jesse the reason why Chris was suddenly out of the picture, but she always changed her mind at the last second, feeling that perhaps it was wiser to leave his name completely out of the picture. The only thing that mattered was the fact that things were looking up, and Faith wasn’t willing to jeopardize her newfound luck by bringing up past mistakes.
They say time flies when you’re having fun, and in Faith’s case, the saying was definitely true. Days and weeks blurred together, and eventually, without realizing it, summer was almost upon her again. She would enter fifth grade next fall, but that was still many months away, and she preferred to dwell upon her summertime activities instead. With Joey around, Faith had finally experienced something akin to a normal family relationship; there were no beatings, no name-calling, no sleepless nights. Sure, Joey and Jesse did get drunk every once in a while, but unlike the influence alcohol had on Chris, it seemed to make Joey even livelier, even more friendly, so Faith didn’t mind. His influence on Jesse was striking, too; the premature age she had seemed to carry around for ages was finally lifted from her shoulders, and she was suddenly young again, the mom that Faith used to hold so dear. Things were definitely better.
One night, a few days before school let out for summer, Faith was sitting in her room, doodling with some colored pencils on a white pad of paper, when Joey politely knocked on the open door and stepped inside. Faith tore her attention away from her drawing for a moment.
“Hi, Joey,” she said, holding up her paper. “Like my drawing?”
As usual, Joey was smiling the same goofy grin that he always wore, and he gave the paper a thorough examination as he sat down on the bed next to Faith. She had drawn herself, Kelly, Joey, and Jesse all standing together underneath a large, yellow sun. Some clouds were floating by overhead, accompanied by some lines that Joey figured were probably birds. He handed the drawing back.
“An obvious masterpiece,” he told the ten-year-old, pleased that Faith had taken such a liking to him in the past months. From little things that Jesse had accidentally said during their time together, he knew enough about Faith to feel a bit sorry for her. No child should ever have to deal with neglect and abuse on the scale that Faith had experienced, so he always did his best to make her life better in any way possible. “If you want to, I was thinking that maybe you and your friend Kelly might want to come with me to the old quarry outside of town to go swimming this weekend?”
“What’s a quarry?” Still eager to increase her vocabulary, Faith was forever asking about new words.
“It’s a place where big stones are taken out of the ground,” Joey explained, taking Faith’s paper and sketching a little diagram with the brown colored pencil. Then he took the blue pencil and drew some water. “This one isn’t in operation anymore, and it’s filled with water, so you can swim in it. Wanna go?”
Faith had been swimming all of two times in her entire life, and the chance to do it again sounded fantastic. She loved the freedom of being in the underwater world, away from the turmoil of normal life, and even though she wasn’t the most experienced swimmer, she was a natural at most athletic events due to her inexhaustible energy supply and willingness to practice something until it was perfected. Joey’s proposal sounded absolutely great, and a gleeful smile crept over her face, an expression she had been showing more and more often in the months since Joey’s arrival.
“Sure!” she enthusiastically agreed, struggling to keep herself from quivering out of sheer excitement. “I’ll talk to Kelly at school tomorrow.”
“Great,” Joey replied, reflecting Faith’s smile right back at her. He got up, intending to go into the living room, but Faith stopped him before he could get past the door.
“Joey?”
Stopping with one hand on the door frame, Joey looked over his shoulder with one eyebrow slightly raised. “What is it, Faith?”
Smile still glued to her face, Faith hopped off her bed and ran to Joey, giving him the biggest hug her small ten-year-old frame could produce. “Thank you,” she said, holding on tight.
The next day at school, yearbooks were handed out to all the students. Since yearbooks were usually expensive, and therefore a luxury that Jesse could never afford, Faith had never actually received one before. But ever since Joey had made his first appearance back in January, everything had improved so steadily that now there was actually a small surplus of money, and so Faith finally got her first yearbook in her fourth grade year. She didn’t have the wealth of friends that some other kids had, and thus lacked a critical mass of signatures, but she had Kelly and a few other acquaintances, and that was enough for her.
“Look at this picture!” Kelly exclaimed, nudging Faith and pointing to her yearbook as the two ate lunch together under Boston’s blistering summer sun. “So ugly!”
Faith, dressed in uncharacteristically light colors in a futile attempt to diminish the midday heat, stopped chewing her sandwich long enough to glance at the random picture her best friend was pointing to. “Eww, you’re right,” she agreed, brushing back a stray hair from her eyes as a pitiful summer breeze started up and abruptly died. “Have you seen the one of Mr. Clemens yet? It almost gave me a heart attack!”
Kelly quickly flipped to the appropriate section and nearly fell off the bench as she burst out laughing. The yearbook from South Boston Elementary wasn’t as nicely done as those from other schools, but it provided plenty of entertainment to the generally underprivileged children who were unlucky enough to attend SBE. Since Kelly had arrived, over two years ago, the school hadn’t improved one bit. It got dirtier and more rundown nearly everyday, but it was such a gradual deterioration that most kids didn’t even notice. The school’s pathetic status was just accepted as fact, and no one really bothered to question it or wonder why.
“Hey, you wanna go swimming with me and Joey this weekend?” Faith asked, flipping through her own yearbook as she continued chewing. “We’re going to a place with big rocks and water. It sounds pretty cool.”
Kelly looked as if she was about to make an additional comment about a picture she discovered in the yearbook, but she only said, “Sure, I love swimming. Maybe we can even jump off some of the rocks. That would be awesome.”
“Yeah,” Faith agreed, finally finishing her sandwich and taking a sip from her juice box.
With the necessity of eating out of the way, Faith and Kelly spent the rest of the lunch period turning pages in their respective yearbooks, pointing out pictures here and there and gladly writing polite messages for the small number of kids who desired memories of the pair. Though she was an unarguably attractive little girl, Faith still managed to find flaws in her appearance. Her straightforward class picture bothered her with its plainness; an action shot of her and Kelly passing a basketball back and forth was irritating because she didn’t like the outfit she wore on that particular day; a close-up taken at her desk showed the light dusting of freckles she exhibited every spring and summer, a feature she had little love for. She was moderately jealous of Kelly’s striking blonde hair and easily-attainable tan, for even at her young age, constant exposure to television programs had convinced her that blondes were more desirable, somehow better than brunettes.
Despite the imaginary imperfections she created, Faith did not consider herself unattractive. On most days she was content with who she was and how she appeared to others, and besides, she was quite sure that most of the other kids at SBE wouldn’t even notice her amongst all the other classmates’ pictures.
When the bell finally rang, Kelly and Faith parted ways, each going back to her respective class. Hopefully next year they would be in the same fifth grade class together; chances were good, especially since there were only two fifth grade teachers, but Faith had learned over the years that despite all probability, things had a way of turning sour whenever she had her hopes set highest.
The final days of school passed in a blur. Gone were the long days of waiting and wondering that Faith had been so accustomed to in the past. With things almost perfect at home, and with Kelly’s constant companionship at school, time flew by in a muddled collection of happy images and memories. Faith was old enough to understand cliches, and again thought that the old phrase about how “time flies when you’re having fun” certainly held more than a smidgen of truth. Apparently, just because something was cliched didn’t mean that it wasn’t true.
Before she knew it, the day arrived when Joey’s highly anticipated quarry visit was to occur. Faith was waiting outside when Kelly’s parents dropped her off at ten in the morning. After quick greetings, they drove off again. Kelly was toting a small bag full of things one would need at the beach, since she figured anyplace with water would naturally necessitate beach-related materials.
“You smell like sunscreen,” Faith mentioned as they climbed the stairs together.
Kelly gave a small sigh, and without looking back, Faith could tell that she had just rolled her eyes. “My parents were like, ‘We don’t want you getting burned, pumpkin!’ I told them I could do it myself, then they just attacked me with it before I could get away.”
Faith puffed out her chest a bit, laughing, and said, “Stand still, we must bathe you in sunscreen. Stop wiggling around. We know you like it. You love it. You need it!”
“It was almost exactly like that, I swear.”
“You could probably slide back down the stairs if you just sat down.”
After getting inside the apartment, they found Joey watching cartoons on TV and smoking a cigarette. Faith had become accustomed to Joey’s abnormal habits, such as watching cartoons instead of adult shows. She guessed that he was just a little kid at heart, despite his grownup appearance. He already had his swimsuit on, bright red shorts that had a slightly shiny look to them.
Exhaling a small puff of smoke, he got up to flip off the TV. “You two ready for some fun?”
After the girls both nodded, Kelly asked Faith why Jesse was nowhere to be found, figuring that the quarry expedition was supposed to be a family affair.
“She’s at work today, right, Joey?” For the first time that Faith could remember, Jesse actually had a real job that didn’t involve something shady or underhanded. She waited tables at a reasonably nice restaurant in the more upscale part of town, and while it wasn’t akin to winning the lottery, it brought in money and tended to keep Jesse focused. When Joey responded affirmatively to Faith’s question, she glanced at Kelly and said, “My mom got a job in a restaurant.”
“That’s good,” Kelly replied, glad to see that Faith’s tumultuous home life seemed to be normalizing itself slowly but steadily.
“Go get your stuff, Faith,” said Joey, catching a few last seconds of his cartoons before turning the TV off. His hair appeared even shaggier and more unkempt than usual today, if that was at all possible. As Faith rummaged through her things, gathering the ones she would need for swimming, Joey directed his attention over at Kelly, who gave a smile in return. “You smell like sunscreen, you know that?”
Kelly uttered a sigh of exasperation.
The way Joey wrestled his beat-up, dark green Chevy Nova along the road, it didn’t take long to reach the quarry. With the windows down and stereo turned up, he swerved in and out of traffic like the world was about to end, singing at the top of his lungs and barely managing to maintain a fragile hold on his dwindling cigarette. The girls were both crammed next to him on the front seat, hair whipping to and fro, somehow enjoying the near-death experience that was driving with Joey in a car that was little more than an engine with seats.
“Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games!” Joey sang, passing a car that was only traveling at a pathetic 60 miles per hour. “We got everything you want, but we know the names!”
Faith, in the middle of her friend and her newfound father figure, tapped Joey on the shoulder.
“Yeah?” Flicking his nearly-done cigarette out the window, where it no doubt flew backward and collided with a slower-moving vehicle, Joey turned his attention to Faith.
“What band is this?” Faith yelled, struggling to be heard over the music and wind. She already had a decent appreciation for music, but did not personally own any albums. With the increased prosperity in the apartment, Jesse had purchased the Extended Cable TV package, which came with dozens of new channels for Faith to peruse. In particular, she stole tiny peeks at MTV whenever Jesse wasn’t around. Music, she had found, was a release that actually helped her get through life. The silence had slowly killed her in the past, but nowadays, if she could get away with listening to boisterous music like Joey’s current choice, she would.
“It’s Guns ‘N Roses!” Joey yelled back, wisely turning his eyes back to the road and away from Faith. “Hardcore! Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here everyday! Learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play!”
The music was wild. Very wild. Throughout her short life, Faith hadn’t heard much music, mostly just 80’s pop tunes that were on the radio, and this new band was insane by comparison. It made her want to…to…jump up and throw a rock through a window, really. The intensity appealed to her, and so did the name; it was catchy. Bobbing her head in rhythm with the drums, she turned to look at poor Kelly, who was almost cringing and holding her hands against her ears. Faith just grinned and sang along with the chorus, playfully giving Kelly a little shove.
Twenty minutes later, well outside the main part of Boston, the Nova skidded to a halt in front of a rusted chain-link fence, sending a cloud of dust upward as it did so. At least ten other cars were parked in a loose configuration; Faith figured that Joey wasn’t the only one to appreciate the quarry’s secluded swimming areas. Turning the blaring stereo off, Joey opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, the cue for the girls to do the same. Grabbing the assorted supplies from the trunk, Joey gave some to Kelly and the rest to Faith, taking the heavier chairs for himself.
“All right, time for some fun,” he said, stripping off his t-shirt and tossing it into the trunk before giving it a hearty slam. He noticed Kelly’s slightly shocked face. “You okay there, kiddo?”
“Uh…uh-huh,” Kelly replied, unable to completely shake the dazed stare away.
“She probably didn’t like your music too much.” Faith moved a bit closer to her friend. “But all that wind was good for one thing, at least.”
“What?” Kelly managed, attempting to wrestle her bag into a higher position.
Faith leaned over and made an exaggerated sniffing action. “You don’t smell like sunscreen so much anymore,” she said with a completely straight face.
Blonde hair framing her face, Kelly tried to put on a grimace. “I hate you guys,” she jokingly said, allowing a smile at the very end of her statement.
With a forward wave of his arm, Joey imitated a military officer and said, “Forward, troops!”
The girls marched obediently forward through a moderate-sized hole in the fence. There were sporadic signs that read “No Trespassing” and “Violators Will Be Prosecuted”, but Joey dismissed these with an additional wave of his hand.
“No one ever comes out here to cause any harm, just to swim, so it’s not like any authorities actually care.” He paused. “Besides, trespassing is fun!”
As the trio made their way forward, the trail they were following gradually sloped downward, actually seeming to bury itself in the surrounding rock. At its highest point, the walls on either side appeared at least ten feet tall. Continuing down, they eventually came to an extremely large open area. Blue water sparkled and shifted at the bottom, and Faith saw a teenager leap off an outcropping of rocks straight down into the water. It looked like fun.
“This is why you have to take the trail,” Joey told the girls, finding some flat ground overlooking the quarry and setting the chairs down. He pointed upward. “Even though you can see the water from ground level, falling from that height wouldn’t be pretty.”
Faith and Kelly set down their things and gazed up at where Joey was pointing. They had apparently been winding steadily downward ever since entering the trail, and now the walls were towering high above them. Glancing across the quarry towards the other wall, Faith thought she saw a few other trails going up, but there certainly weren’t many ways to get down to the water. Currently, she stood about ten feet above where the water was, and its shifting form was highly appealing on such a smoldering day.
“How do we get down into the water?” Kelly asked, peering over the edge of their small area of land.
“Only one way to get down there,” Joey said, stretching his arms over his head. Then without any further warning, he gave a yell and leapt off the edge, doing a clumsy front flip before colliding with the water ten feet below.
Cringing at the massive splash Joey’s awkward landing had caused, Kelly turned to Faith. “That looked like it hurt.”
Faith nodded, watching Joey swim around. After a few more seconds, he lifted himself out of the water and began climbing back up the rocky wall. The face of it wasn’t smooth at all, and he had no trouble finding many blunt areas where he could easily go upward without much effort. It only took a minute or so for him to complete this activity, and then he was standing in front of the girls, dripping wet.
“See? Fun.” He noticed that Kelly appeared a tad apprehensive about the whole ordeal, while Faith had a mischievous look in her eyes, the one that usually signaled trouble of some kind. “Just one thing before you guys jump in and kill yourselves, all right? You can see the rocks down below, close to the wall. You don’t want to hit those, so make sure you jump out and not just up. Get a running start or something. The water down there is really deep, so you won’t hit bottom.”
Sounds drifted out across the quarry, splashes and yells. The few people Faith noticed were sporadically dispersed throughout the rocky areas, each group seeming to have claimed a small jumping spot for themselves. Comparing her ledge to the others, she was disappointed to note that almost all of them were taller than her own, but it would be foolish to search for a bigger ledge before trying to jump off the small one.
“I’m ready,” Faith announced, taking out a small, black hair-band. She quickly tied her long hair back into a ponytail and took off her shirts and t-shirt, revealing a baby blue single-piece swimsuit. With a last glance at Joey, just to make sure she had permission to jump, she prepared herself and then gave a flying leap off the edge. A childish scream of joy escaped her lips as she fell through the air, landing feet-first in the water and surfacing moments later. “It’s so awesome, Kelly!” she yelled to her friend, treading water. The sunlight danced on the water around her, sending abstract reflections this way and that across the rock walls. “Come on!”
“Yeah, okay,” Kelly shouted back, getting rid of her t-shirt in favor of her swimsuit. “Get ready for this!”
Joey watched up top, playing the part of the wary guardian, as Kelly threw herself out over the water, then did a perfect dive straight into the depths. Faith couldn’t believe her eyes; just moments before, Kelly had almost seemed ready to decline the opportunity to jump. But she had done a perfect dive, and from so high up!
Splashing some water in Faith’s direction as she resurfaced, Kelly gave the best aquatic shrug she could muster when she caught Faith’s astonished stare. “Swim lessons since I could walk,” she offered by means of explanation. Treading water, she turned her attention to the ledge she’d just left. “That was really fun.”
Joey joined them in the water seconds later, easily jumping past their position and creating another huge splash, this time with a cannonball maneuver.
It didn’t take long for Faith to become bored with the small ledge, and she set about searching for a more suitable launching pad. There were plenty of places scattered all throughout the quarry, which was fairly massive, probably at least the length of a football field and equally as wide. She noticed kids and adults jumping from decently perilous heights, but her sense of pride forced her to find a ledge so high that no one would be able to compete. There. High above the waterline, Faith saw a suitable location: a ledge of stone she guessed was at least thirty feet tall, projecting far out over the rippling water. Having a clear objective in sight, she swam over to Joey.
“I want to jump off that.” Pointing and treading water simultaneously, she watched as Joey searched for the spot, found it, and promptly turned slightly pale.
“You can’t jump off that!” Joey exclaimed, scrutinizing Faith’s innocent face. “It’s probably forty feet high! You’ll kill yourself!”
“Don’t be such a sissy,” Faith argued back, eager to prove that she had courage beyond that of anyone else in the quarry. She decided to prod Joey’s ego. “You can hold my hand if you’re scared.”
“Psh, me scared?” Joey retorted, eyeing the ledge again. “I’m not scared, kiddo. I just don’t think jumping off something that high is a real good idea. If you landed wrong, you could really hurt yourself.”
“I’m going,” the ten-year-old declared.
Joey shook his head. “You’re not. Your mom would kill me.”
“I’m going.”
“Look, I’ll buy you something at the mall if you stay away from the ledge.”
“I’m going.”
Joey sighed, sank below the water’s surface, and reemerged. “You are without a doubt the most stubborn little girl in the entire world.” He was silent for a moment as he continually glanced at the ledge and back at Faith, as if trying to determine if the gravitational forces of such a feat would crush her small body on impact. With another sigh, Joey said, “Fine, go ahead. But if you die, it’s all your fault.”
“Thanks, Joey!” Faith gave him a watery hug and began swimming towards the rock wall, intent on climbing to her new destination.
“I’ll stay down here to remove your corpse from the water!” Joey called, still trying to deter Faith’s unstoppable pride. At that moment, Kelly swam over and asked Joey what all the fuss was about, blonde hair dripping water over her face. “Oh, Faith just decided this afternoon would be a good time to kill herself.” He pointed up at the ledge Faith had picked out.
“Holy shit,” Kelly disbelievingly said. Joey was so caught up in Faith’s progress that he barely even registered Kelly’s language. Not that he would’ve cared. “She’s crazy.”
“Yep. I’ve never seen anyone, let alone a small girl, with as little fear as your friend there. I hate to think what she’ll be capable of in another few years if she’s trying stunts like this at ten.” There was a measure of admiration in Joey’s voice, for although he thought the jump was a truly bad idea, he had to respect the absolute insanity it represented.
Above the water, Faith was gradually making her way closer to the ledge, getting higher as she hopped from rock to rock. The heat coming down from the sun was intense today, so hot that even the rocks she stepped on were extremely uncomfortable. After a few minutes she felt like she’d been climbing forever, but when she looked up, her goal was in sight. Scrambling across the last few rocks and lifting herself onto the ledge, she almost had a heart attack when she saw exactly how far down she was about to fall.
Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all…
Everything seemed so tiny from four stories up. She could easily spot Kelly and Joey, but both of them were so small that their facial expressions were unclear. Joey yelled something about how Faith was going to wind up in the hospital, still trying to deter her. Turning slightly and looking out over the quarry, she could see that most, if not all, of the people were now frozen in place, having been alerted by Joey’s playful screaming. The majority probably thought she was stuck with no way to get down; after all, what sort of ten-year-old child purposely put herself in that kind of situation?
Faith, naturally.
Amidst much pointing and loud conversation down below, Joey and Kelly glanced at each other, both slightly worried at what was about to happen, and prepared for the worst.
High above the water, high above the people, high above almost everything, Faith crept to the edge, feeling her toes wiggle in the open air. With the sun staring unflinchingly downward, Faith took a deep breath, jumped off the ledge, and followed the sunbeams down to the water.
Later, Joey and Kelly would relate just how miraculous it was that Faith didn’t kill herself. She remembered nothing of the fall, aside from the truly horrifying sound of wind in her ears and the impossibly fast onrush of water as she plummeted straight towards its blue surface. By simple mathematics, she had been traveling at what Joey kept referring to as “Ludicrous Speed”, but she neither understood the word “ludicrous” or the apparent joke it contained. All she knew was that it had been fast.
Really fast.
Upon entering the water feet-first, she had plunged a good distance under the water, and thus took some time to resurface. Joey, fearing that he had inadvertently allowed a small child to commit suicide, had immediately gone under, too, in an attempt to bring Faith back to the surface. But she did it all under her own power, still a bit lightheaded from the fall as she swam upward. After coming up and clearing her eyes, she focused on reality enough to hear scattered applause and a few whistles from the other people in the quarry. Kelly, shaking her head and smiling in true bewilderment, expressed some sentiment about how Faith was going to die young, and Joey echoed the feeling.
But no one could take away the incredible rush that she had felt. She had done something that no one else wanted to try, and that knowledge burned within her, a glowing ember of success over incredible odds.
After a couple more hours of swimming and assorted cliff-jumping -Faith had had enough of falling and did not attempt to repeat her performance -the trio climbed out of the water, gathered their things, and got back into Joey’s car. The late afternoon drive home was somewhat more subdued than the Guns ‘N Roses-fueled journey earlier in the day; the girls were both tired and crammed into the back seat, and Joey was content to listen to some old 70’s classics. The Nova thundered down the road, engine roaring, and before long, Joey pulled up in front of the apartment complex.
Letting the girls out, Joey asked, “So, did we have fun today?”
Faith and Kelly both nodded their agreement and thanked Joey for taking them to the quarry. Everyone was satisfied that the trip had been a success, and Faith had thankfully not killed herself, so all was well with the world. The trio climbed the stairs slowly, but Faith was the first to the top, as usual. They found Jesse sitting at the kitchen table when they entered the apartment, and she looked up from her magazine with a smile. Since the disappearance of Chris, Jesse appeared more beautiful than she had in years. Without heavy drinking and physical torment, she had become less hard, allowing her natural beauty to shine through. She was still dressed in her waitress outfit, so either she had just returned from work, or she had neglected to change into something more casual.
“Hey,” she said, shutting the magazine and standing up with a stretch. “How’d it go?”
“Awesome!” Faith answered, first to get any words in. “It was really fun.”
Kelly nodded adamantly, and that left Joey to talk more in-depth about the events of the day. “We all had a good time, Jess. I really wish you could’ve gone with us.” Jesse gave a small shrug. “Anyways, I had to watch your daughter pretty closely…you’ve been raising a little maniac.” He chuckled.
Jesse raised an eyebrow and directed it towards Faith. “What’ve you been up to, Firecracker?”
Faith, sensing an opportunity to convey her own achievement before it was toned down by Joey, launched right into an explanation. “It was so great! I climbed this huge rock wall and got way higher than any of the other kids wanted to go, and Joey said it was forty feet in the air, and I jumped off, and the —”
“Take a breath, kiddo. I see you’ve been a handful for poor Joey, huh?” Jesse spied Joey making a fainting motion as Faith continued with her story.
“And after, everyone clapped. It was so great,” she repeated, obviously pleased with herself.
“She’s crazy, Ms. Lehane,” Kelly added, tilting her head in her friend’s direction.
“Oh, I’ve known that for years,” Jesse responded affectionately, as Faith ran over for a hug. “One of these days it’ll be the death of me, I swear.”
The rest of the day was absolutely perfect in Faith’s opinion. Jesse and Joey took the girls out to eat for dinner, and they all watched a TV movie later. Jesse said it was okay for Kelly to spend the night, and Faith was convinced that this new life was her reward for suffering through so many years of anguish. With Joey around, they could almost be a real family, and there was nothing Faith longed after more than a sense of love and care that she’d been so desperately in search of during the past years. As she went to sleep that night, with Kelly on the floor beside her, Faith’s last conscious thought was that her life was finally perfect.
But it was not to last.