Fanfiction: Origin - Part Two
EMPTY APARTMENT
“Faith, open the door.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t make me ask again, Faith.”
With an irresolute sigh, the child reached out and opened the door. She did not look up at the towering figure standing in the doorway, preferring to turn her eyes towards the floor, willing herself to become invisible for the millionth time. The man started forward, and Faith barely restrained herself from shrinking back into the corner. Secretly pleased when Chris didn’t bother to greet her, Faith put on a neutral expression and watched as he strode forward to hug Jesse.
Slightly more than two years had passed since Chris had first shattered Faith’s world, and yet he was still a lingering presence in her life. For reasons Faith could never comprehend, her mother had chosen to continue to see Chris, despite the repeated alcohol-fueled fights and beatings. Nearly ten years old, Faith knew enough of the world to realize that Chris’s most violent tendencies only exhibited themselves when he got carried away with drinking, but that was starting to happen more and more frequently. Luckily, he only showed up about once a month when he got leave from his duties at the base, but Faith wanted him to stop coming altogether. Sometimes he made an attempt to befriend her, but she was understandably wary of the man who had consistently been a source of pain and suffering for her.
Even worse, Faith felt betrayed by her mother’s decision. Chris was not a good man, and he had proved as much on numerous occasions, but Jesse still allowed him into the apartment despite the danger he posed. Faith sensed that Jesse’s decision had something to do with the fact that Chris was a reliable source of income, albeit a violently alcoholic one. Whatever the reason, Faith could never forget—or forgive—that first night when Chris had attacked her, and she knew that nothing beneficial was going to come of his relationship with Jesse.
Trying to block out her own thoughts, Faith went to sit on the couch, hoping to immerse herself in some television. Winter break from school was only one day away, and that was a reason to be happy in itself, mostly because of a special event that happened every year on December 14th: Faith’s birthday. She would be turning ten this time, finally entering the double digits after nine years of waiting. Also, if there was no school, then she could spend more time with her mom, but Jesse had been slowly growing more and more distant as the months passed. Long gone was the mother who had taken Faith to the store on that autumn night; lately Jesse had become distant towards Faith, even callous. There were nights when Faith went to bed not knowing where her mom was; she frequently had to fix herself dinner and go dejectedly to sleep without the comfort of Jesse’s presence. Faith was still working hard in school, but Jesse no longer encouraged the good grades and intense studying that Faith had become accustomed to, yet another painful reminder that the relationship they’d once had could never be regained, no matter how many nights Faith cried herself to sleep in her little room, or how much she wished that Chris had never been born. She now relied on Kelly more than ever, for the little blonde girl had become the only constant source of contentment in Faith’s otherwise unhappy existence, and Faith had made sure to ask Kelly for her phone number so that the two of them could still meet over the long break.
Unable to continue watching Chris and her mother pour each other drinks, Faith flipped off the TV and started to get ready for bed. There was no reason for her to stay up, because neither adult was going to pay her any attention. After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she came out of the bathroom and stood unnoticed for a minute before speaking.
“Good night, mom,” she said in a tiny voice, immediately turning to go into her room.
“Faith!” Jesse called, preventing her daughter from closing the door. She didn’t sound mad, at least. “Tell Chris what you want for your birthday.”
Faith didn’t want to tell Chris what she wanted. She didn’t want to tell him anything at all. But she was still that obedient girl from years past, so she answered the question as politely as she could.
“I…I want a puppy.”
“Isn’t that just the cutest thing?” Jesse asked Chris, who nodded in response before taking a sip of his drink.
Feeling slightly reassured, Faith decided to continue speaking. “Mom, tomorrow is Friday…could you take me and Kelly to the park after school, please?” More than ever, Faith needed to use “please”, or Jesse got angry at her daughter for being “impolite”.
Jesse scrunched up her face in a look of near-confusion. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Thank you.”
With that, Faith closed her door, turned out the light, and crawled under the covers. The apartment had no heat, and with winter snow outside, Jesse had purchased a little sweat suit for Faith to sleep in. The thin walls did little to mask the conversation coming from the kitchen, and despite Faith’s best attempts to drown it out, she couldn’t sleep with all the noise, so she was forced to listen instead as she stared up at the dark ceiling.
“So are you actually going to get her a puppy?” Chris was asking. “They’re a lot of work, you know.”
“I know, I know,” Jesse replied, sounding somewhat irritated. “But I feel bad because I think I’ve been sort of, well, neglecting her lately.”
“You have things to do. You can’t here for her all the time.”
“But I haven’t been here for her at all lately, Chris. She’s a smart little girl, and I’m pretty sure that she’s feeling a little lonely right now,” Jesse said. “I haven’t taken her to the park, or picked her up from school, or even been home to make her dinner recently. Does that sound like I’m being a good mother?”
Chris was silent for a moment before responding. “That’s not my choice to make. I’m not her father. I think you worry about her too much, to be totally honest. If she’s as smart as you claim, she shouldn’t have trouble taking care of herself.”
“Maybe,” Jesse said, sounding disheartened.
The conversation turned to a different subject. The voices got louder and louder as Jesse and Chris continued to drink, and Faith tried desperately to will herself to sleep. She had to be up early for school tomorrow morning. After another hour or so, the voices disappeared altogether, and Faith knew that they had gone into her mom’s room. Finally alone with the silence of the apartment, yet continually haunted by her thoughts, Faith watched snowflakes drift slowly by her window, and gradually fell into a fitful sleep.
The alarm clock woke her up at six the next morning. Yawning, she pushed her covers aside and rubbed her eyes as she walked towards the window, to see what the weather was like outside. The entire block was covered in absolute whiteness; there was no inch of ground that didn’t seem to be coated with at least a half-foot of fresh snow. Faith couldn’t decide whether she was pleased or not. On the one hand, snow was fun, and she and Kelly had recently started to have some enjoyable snowball fights, but on the other hand, snow was hard to walk in, and Faith would have to leave even earlier than usual in order to make it to school on time. Gathering up her clothes for the day—underwear and socks, a plain white t-shirt, her blue snow jacket, faded black pants, and her little snow boots—she made her way into the bathroom, ran the shower for several minutes until the water was warm enough, and then stepped inside.
Twenty minutes later, she’d finished her shower, combed her hair, dried it, brushed her teeth, and gotten dressed. Before going to get cereal from the cupboard, she neatly folded her sweat suit and placed it back in her dresser. Barely even registering the fact that Jesse’s door was still shut, Faith busied herself with making breakfast, gathering a bowl, cereal, milk, and a spoon. The apartment was deathly silent on mornings like this; Faith couldn’t turn on the TV or the cheap stereo she’d received last year for Christmas, lest she wake Jesse—or Chris—and have to face the consequences. So she ate her cereal in complete silence, wondering what the day would hold for her at school. It was the last day before winter break, after all, and that usually meant fun in some form or another.
After she had finished breakfast and cleaned up after herself, Faith checked the time to make sure that she was still on schedule, and then prepared herself a completely mundane meal of a sandwich and some crackers for lunch. She also found one last, forlorn juice box in the fridge, and she shoved it into the brown paper bag, too. Taking the bag lunch to her room, she placed it inside her backpack, the very same one from second grade. It was degenerating into a loosely-assembled collection of fibers and zipper parts, but Jesse kept saying that it was still good. Faith didn’t mind the backpack; what she really wanted was that puppy. Hopefully her mom wouldn’t forget.
Throwing her backpack over her shoulder, Faith grabbed her little blue beanie in order to keep her head warm outside in the cold, checked the time once more, then locked the front door on her way out. The only other person she saw on her way down the rickety stairs—which creaked even worse when the temperature dropped—was an old man struggling to climb to the fourth floor. Faith passed him without incident, preferring to keep to herself instead of offering a greeting of any kind.
Finally stepping outside into the perfectly white, smooth street, Faith was immediately glad that she had brought the beanie along, because it was freezing. Sticking her hands into the jacket, she watched with childish fascination as her breath came out in little clouds, sailing up into the air and dissipating back into nothingness. Stepping slowly along, sinking down into the snow with every step, she was enraptured with the serenity of everything around her. She spotted a few other people trudging along, but there were no cars on the streets. Everything was still.
Even the city itself didn’t look so bad this morning. The dirt- and graffiti-lined walls seemed brighter, more cheerful; the tired buildings, usually appearing to sag under the weight of time gone by, today appeared to stand a little taller; all the litter on the streets had been completely obscured when the snow had covered everything. Maybe things will start to get better now, Faith thought to herself. School’s done after today, mom said she’d take me and Kelly to the park, my birthday is almost here, and best of all, Chris shouldn’t be there to ruin it.
Smiling at these unusually positive thoughts, Faith’s dark hazel eyes sparkled as she continued onward, reflecting the light that was shining everywhere around here. Amazingly, there were no clouds in the sky despite the storm that had occurred last night, and even though Faith wasn’t generally one to have hope anymore, she felt that the cloudless, sun-filled sky and the pretty snow could surely only be a good omen. Content and secure with the world for the first time in months, Faith walked hopefully towards South Boston Elementary, which had just come into view. The school, too, was covered in snow, and would make a perfect winter playground at recess and lunch. Entering the front gates, Faith looked around hopefully for Kelly, intending to talk to her best friend for at least a minute before she had to get to class. Wandering over the playground in her jacket and beanie as other similarly-dressed children went to their rooms, Faith eventually found Kelly sitting down on the snow, building some sort of castle with a bored look on her face.
“Hey, Kelly!” Faith said excitedly, flashing a cute smile and setting down her backpack. It would probably get soaked sitting on the snow, but it was heavy, especially with all the big clothes she was wearing this morning, and she didn’t feel like carrying it anymore. “Whatcha makin’?”
Kelly squinted upward at her friend, trying to block the sun from her eyes. Her blonde hair tumbled down out of a beanie similar to Faith’s. “It’s a snow-castle. I was bored. What’s up with you?”
“Not much. Are you glad that school’s almost over?” Faith sat down next to Kelly and started adding her own interpretations to the miniscule castle. She had no gloves, though, and her hands quickly got too cold to continue. She wished her mom would buy her some nice ones like Kelly had.
“I don’t know,” Kelly said, her attention focused on her work. “I guess I’m happy that school’s done, but my grades were sort of bad this time…I think my parents are going to be mad at me.”
“What kind of grades did you get?” Faith asked. “I think I got all A’s again.”
“Don’t make fun, okay?” Kelly said, gazing at Faith with her blue eyes. “I got mostly C’s.”
“Why? You know the homework all the time,” Faith said, confused.
“I do know the homework. I can do it pretty fast, too, but this semester I’ve been really bored with my class. My teacher goes through the lessons too slowly, and I don’t like him. None of the other kids seem to mind, but I just couldn’t make myself care for some reason.”
“Oh,” was all Faith could offer in reply. She had never thought of it that way before. Was her class too easy, as well? Faith had always been encouraged to get good grades, and she just hadn’t considered that anything else but A’s could be possible. Jesse had stopped pushing her to excel, though, so maybe there was something to Kelly’s point of view. “That sucks. But anyways, my mom said she’d take us to the park near my place after school. You wanna go?”
“Sure,” Kelly said, sounding a little bit more upbeat. “I’m not really looking forward to going home with my grades, so I’d rather hang out with you.”
“All right, cool. Talk to you at recess, then?”
“Yep.”
Still in a good mood, Faith picked up her backpack and walked off to class, leaving Kelly to work at her castle for a few more minutes before the bell rang. On the way, she waved to Mrs. Matthews, who was still her favorite teacher. Faith remembered things; just as she could never forgive Chris because she remembered that first night, she also remembered the kindness that Mrs. Matthews had exhibited throughout her second grade year. The teacher waved back, a smile on her face. Faith returned the smile and then entered her own class, hoping that there wouldn’t be any real work to complete.
Luckily, the only work for the day consisted of watching a Christmas movie and coloring, both of which were rather enjoyable. The time moved quickly. Class, recess, and lunch blurred together, and before Faith was even aware of it, the school day was over, ushering in a full two weeks away from any academic concerns. All the kids rushed through the doors as soon as the final bell rang, some of whom forgot put on their jackets and immediately regretted it when they fell face-first into the gradually melting snow. As Faith put on her beanie and stepped outside, she noticed that the sky was starting to turn overcast again. Either the previous night’s storm was returning, or this was an entirely new one. But it didn’t matter, because school was out!
Kelly’s spirits seemed high when Faith caught up to her by the front gate, and the two laughed together as they began walking towards Faith’s apartment, eager to get to the park and have a snowball fight. The bright sunshine had ruined some of the better snow, causing it to run in watery rivulets all along the streets and into gutters, but there was still enough to have a decent snow war.
“So what do you want for your birthday?” Kelly asked, kicking some snow from the curb and into the street.
“I’m asking for a puppy,” Faith said with a grin. “I hope I get it.”
“What kind of puppy?”
“I don’t really care, any kind would be awesome. I think my mom has enough money this year to afford one, too.” Faith had wanted a puppy for a while, but this was the first year she had ever blatantly asked to have one. A puppy would never abandon her, or hurt her feelings; it would just always be her friend and furry companion.
Kelly thought for a moment before replying. “Are you having a party?” She’d known Faith for a little over two years now, and realized that Faith’s mom never let her have parties, but she always thought it polite to ask, just in case.
“I don’t think so. My mom didn’t say I could have one.” Faith wasn’t upset by the lack of parties, mostly because she’d never had one, and therefore couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Kelly always had a tiny party with her parents for her birthday, and Faith thought that those were nice, especially since she was invited to attend, but she didn’t feel any real desire to have a bunch of strange kids over to the apartment. “It’s not important, anyways. I just want my puppy. What do you want for Christmas?”
“I haven’t thought about it, actually,” Kelly said, shrugging. “It’s weird, because I usually have a list written up in November, but I’ve been thinking about my grades, I guess.”
Faith frowned a little. “That sucks.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll think of something soon.”
The two friends reached Faith’s apartment a short time later, as the sky became totally obscured by dark gray clouds. It would be perfect at the park if the sky started sending down brand new snowflakes, and the possibility excited both girls. They literally ran up the stairs to the third floor, racing each other in a friendly competition. Faith won, naturally, but she had climbed the stairs countless times before, and so had a rather unfair advantage over Kelly, who only trailed by a few steps. When they got to the end of the hallway, Faith took out her key and opened the door.
“Mom?” she called, letting Kelly inside before closing and locking the door. There was no immediate answer, so Faith asked again. “Mom?”
Wandering over towards Jesse’s room, Faith saw that the door was wide open, so she poked her head inside. Not seeing Jesse anywhere, hoping that her mom hadn’t forgotten the promise about the park, Faith timidly entered the room, something she hadn’t been allowed to do in over a year. Everywhere she saw empty bottles, and some that were still half-full. Some of them were even tipped over sideways, their contents slowly dripping onto the carpet. There were unclean clothes in crumpled piles in almost every corner; the room stank of something that Faith couldn’t identify for certain, but it smelled…dirty. Not able to stand the sight of so much disorganization, or the knowledge of how her mom lived from day to day, Faith unconsciously moved backwards out of the room, somehow unable to take her eyes from the scene.
“Faith? Are you okay?” This from Kelly, still standing by the door, hands in her pockets.
“Uh…I…my mom isn’t here,” Faith finally said, tearing her gaze back to her friend and away from the disheveled mess of Jesse’s private life. “She promised to take us to the park…but she’s not here. I’m sorry, Kelly.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Kelly moved closer to Faith, who looked to be on the verge of tears. “It’s no big deal, Faith. Really.”
Faith’s brown eyes reluctantly glanced sadly up at her friend, and then shamefully back towards the ground an instant later. A single tear had barely escaped down her face before she quickly wiped it away, sniffling and trying to forget the promise, forget what she had just seen, forget how this day was supposed to have been a good one. She had asked nothing of her mom recently. She had her good grades in her backpack. She had made every attempt to be the perfect daughter for an imperfect mother, and yet Jesse couldn’t even be there to fulfill a single promise. There was no note of apology anywhere to be seen; Jesse had completely forgotten about making her daughter’s day brighter.
“Sorry,” Faith offered once more, wiping at her eyes again.
“It’s all right,” Kelly said, feeling awkward. Her parents might get down on her for bad grades this semester, but she never doubted that they would be waiting for her when she came home. She had seen that Faith’s mom was never reliable, always putting her own interests before her daughter’s, and it had only been getting worse recently. Faith’s demeanor had changed as she got older, changed from one of youthful innocence to one of jadedness. Jaded already, and not even ten years old. “Hey, I have an idea. What do you say we go to the park by ourselves?”
“What?” Faith responded, slightly taken aback by the suggestion.
“We can go have our snowball fight by ourselves,” Kelly repeated, trying to get Faith’s mind on something other than her home life. “It’s only a short walk from here, right?”
“Yeah,” Faith slowly answered, “but I don’t think my mom would like it if I was outside alone. She says the park is dangerous.”
“You wouldn’t be alone, silly. You’d be with me!” Kelly put on her most charming grin, intending to coerce Faith into going along with her plan. “We can get there, have our snowball fight, and be back in an hour.”
“I don’t know, Kelly.” Faith’s mind struggled to consider the situation from all angles. If they could be back before sunset, then Jesse probably wouldn’t be mad, but going to the park alone was against the rules, and that meant punishment. She had never directly disobeyed one of her mother’s rules before, and the prospect rather frightened her. But Jesse had neglected to fulfill her promise, and Faith could still feel the lingering disappointment and anger within herself, and those emotions cried out for a release of some kind. She let out a sigh and said, “All right, let’s go.”
“Great!” Kelly enthusiastically replied.
The girls put their backpacks in Faith’s room, having no use for them at the park. Faith locked up the front door and stuck the key into her pocket, and they started to walk towards their destination.