Hope and Faith

THREE: FAITH

She enjoyed the smell of cigarettes. Lilies, candles, and freshly baked pies simply couldn't compare. She would close her eyes and inhale the lit tobacco, breathing it in, allowing it to consume her lungs. Her parents told her it was a disgusting habit. They also told her that marriage was forever.

Faith sat on the floor of her new bedroom of her new house. It was a nice house, she had to admit. But it wasn't her house. It wasn't her family's house that she had grown up in, grown accustomed to, fallen in love with. This new house was strange and unfamiliar. She didn't know which floor boards would creak when she stepped on them. She had to think about which direction the door swung open before reaching for the handle. The locks were difficult to close. The kitchen cabinets smelt weird. And most notable of all, when she looked out the window, she did not recognize a single thing.

In her old bedroom, she had a view of the backyard. They had an in-ground pool and a garden and a trellis with ivory that climbed the side of the house. She would close her eyes at night and listen for the pebbles hitting her window, only to rush out of bed and find Sebastian scaling her house. She'd open the window and let him inside. He'd always bring her something, whether it was dandelions he picked on the way, or freshly baked cookies from his mother's pantry. He'd smell of peppermint and she would bring his face to hers and inhale him all at once, her mouth on his. But when she looked out this window, Sebastian wouldn't be there.

Faith got into the habit of smoking cigarettes when she was fourteen. She had just started secondary school and was trying to discover who she was. As though smoking tobacco would somehow unveil some mystified characteristics she never knew. But the smoking didn't reveal anything. It only made things worse. Well, not necessarily worse. But she easily became addicted. She was always leaving class to go outside and light up a cigarette. She constantly carried packs of gum on her so that her breath wouldn't be tainted of raw staleness. She looked in the mirror daily, examining her teeth, heart pounding through her chest in fear that her gorgeous pearly whites would turn grey and dull.

She was fifteen when she finally decided to quit. Although, her replacement habit wasn't much better. Albeit, the health effects of marijuana have proven non-lethal, and even medicinal. No one had ever died from smoking weed. And the high was psychedelic. It made her feel powerful, as though she could do anything. So she packed her greens and stored her papers and miniature bong in the closet. It was better than cigarettes, she told herself.

Faith moved towards the open boxes that sat on her floor and began pulling things out. She never realized how much stuff she truly owned until she had to pack it all away into boxes. She wondered what her father was doing right now. Was he all settled into his new apartment in the city? Was it a bachelor pad? A high-rise? Did he have a balcony? Was he lonely?

The decision was a difficult one for Faith and Mike. But in all honesty, it wasn't theirs to make. Their parents had already decided for them, conversing in secrecy before the conversation of divorce had even taken place. Meadow would be best for them, William had told his wife. There was a school. And churches! How could anyone forget the churches? And it was a peaceful, quaint town with a zero percent crime rate and a stunning lake that kept the kids busy all summer. The city was no place for teenagers, William said to Claudia. They needed somewhere stable. They needed a home. Claudia agreed. So while they posed the question as if it were up to Faith and Mike to decide, their fates were already sealed.

Faith didn't mind all that much. She despised both of her parents equally at this point and didn't quite care which prison she ended up in. To her, it was a death sentence either way. So she accepted her fate and did so with indifference. She would hurry through the next year of her life until she graduated from high school, turned eighteen, and could move out and be on her own for the first time. Mike was turning eighteen this November and she envied him greatly. He had just finished his final year of high school, but would be taking a 'victory lap', as they called it, to raise his grades. Which meant that come September, both of them would be starting school at Meadow Secondary. He had a head start on her. He'd be eighteen, free to do whatever he pleased. Although, knowing her brother, he would be too lazy to find a job straight after he graduated. He would probably sponge off his parents for as long as he possibly could before saving up enough cash of his own and finally moving out. And with Mike gone, it really would be hell.