Love & Lies

by Julie Johnson

  I got lucky, I suppose. Maybe by the time they popped me out, my parents had given up on the truly Looney-Tunes names at the top of their list and decided to pick something a bit more reasonable. I felt justified in making that assumption, given the fact that my license didn’t read “Starshine Love Morrissey” but instead, “Faith Moon Morrissey.”

  Still a hippie name, but at least passably normal.

  On the contrary, there was nothing even remotely normal about being the youngest of six siblings in a house with very little parental guidance. My entire childhood was spent playing one everlasting game of catch-up.

  My three sisters were eleven, nine, and seven years older than me, which meant that by the time I was formulating basic two-word sentences, even the youngest of them was filling out her training bra and gossiping about potential boyfriends. My interests — which mainly included teething and tinker toys — didn’t exactly leave us with a lot of common ground. I suffered through a decade of hand-me-down clothing and absent parenting, waiting for years to get older, to grow bigger. Praying for the day that things would finally change. And they did, eventually — just not in the way I’d been expecting.

  I wasn’t welcomed into the Ya-Ya Sisterhood with open arms. My sisters didn’t become my friends; they became three more mother-figures whose “sage” advice I may’ve needed but rarely heeded.

  Dylan and Lennon were closer to me in age — just five and three years older — but, as every little sister in history knows, there comes a point in every boy’s life when letting your baby sis tag along on your adventures is no longer acceptable. Plus, they were boys. I could play LEGOs and army tank with the best of them, but after ten years of scraped knees and tomboyish-tendencies, I was ready for a change.

  My teen years were lonely.

  All three of my sisters had moved out of the house, by that point — off at college or settling down with their own families halfway across the country, in places so far from our sprawling California farm house, years would pass between their oft-promised holiday visits.

  They left and the house was suddenly quiet — or, if not quiet, then at least quieter — and I could hear myself think for a change. There was no more of Saffron’s screeching into her cellphone at all hours of the night, no girly pop music blasting from Meadow’s speakers, no rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of Rainey’s field hockey stick in the back yard. Dylan and Lennon, typical teenage boys, were out partying with their friends half the time and passed out in a dead sleep the other half.

  There was silence at last in the Morrissey manor.

  And in that unforeseen quietude, I — for the first time ever — could finally stop playing that game of catch-up. I stopped rushing full-speed toward my siblings. I let them fade out of sight, around a distant corner, and I was abruptly alone on the empty, dust-swept road of childhood. I glanced around for a while, apprehensive at my sudden solitary state, before I realized there was nothing left to do but ask, now that they’re all gone…

  Who the hell are you, Faith Morrissey?

  The saddest moment of my life was when I realized I didn’t have a fucking clue.

  * * *

  By the time I turned eighteen, I was overdue for an adventure.

  I’d graduated from high school and broken up with Conor, my high-school sweetheart, who’d done the great service of divesting me of my virginity and walking me through all the typical teenage milestones: homecoming, prom, graduation. No one — not even me — fully understood why I’d ended things with him. He was the perfect, All-American guy — two years older, attending community college, and first in line to inherit his father’s car wash business, even if he secretly harbored greater ambitions. Being with Conor promised security: a safe little life with a big house and a bunch of kids, which never forced me to step foot outside the county I’d been raised in.

  But I didn’t want safe. Not anymore.

  So, I left a bewildered ex-boyfriend behind with no regrets, and found myself alone at California State University in Bakersfield — just another freshman with an “undecided” major and a case of severe skepticism about what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I’d figured that sensation of mystified self-consciousness would fade as I adjusted to life at school.

  It didn’t.

  CSUB was only a few hours from my parents’ house and, frankly, after putting five other kids through college and paying for two lavish weddings, it was the only option my parents could afford. I lived in a dorm with a part goth, part punk, full crazy girl named Cindy. She wouldn’t let me call her Cindy, though, insisting that I instead refer to her by her “paranormal” name — Crimson.

  ‘Cause, you know. Vampires. Blood. Red. Crimson.

  Yeah.

  She wasn’t exactly what I’d call an original thinker, let alone a friend.

  So, when I heard about the study abroad opportunity my favorite history professor was coordinating, I didn’t give a damn about the destination. Timbuktu, Athens, Tijuana, Amsterdam… name the city, and I’d be there. As long as it was anywhere but here, cloistered in a 10x10 foot cinderblock room with a girl who spent every weekend watching reruns of Buffy alone in the dark.

  Though my parents were fully supportive of my travel plans, they couldn’t contribute financially. I scrimped and saved for two years until, finally, I had enough money for the down-payment. And only when the check had cleared and I held the flight itinerary in my hands, did I allow myself to be excited.

  Senior year in Budapest.

  I still remember the giddy feeling I carried inside for weeks leading up to the trip, and the shit-eating grin I couldn’t quite keep off my face as I boarded my first ever plane, which would whisk me away from the only state I’d ever set foot in. I felt as though I was starring in a Hollywood movie version of my life — some glamorous jet-setter, heading off on a year-long European vacation with stars in my eyes.

  And the best part? The trip was mine.

  Just mine. It wasn’t a repurposed, out-of-fashion prom dress or a second-hand pair of shoes one of my older sisters was no longer interested in. It wasn’t the inherited, old bicycle Dylan had no use for anymore, or the beat-up, twenty-year-old SUV I finally got to drive after Lennon left for college.

  Budapest belonged solely to Faith Moon Morrissey, and no one else.

  I’d wonder later, after it all fell apart… if I’d known how it would turn out, would I have ripped that plane ticket into pieces? Would I have stayed in my quiet little life, married Conor, and chosen never to meet the man who’d splinter my world — and my heart — into fragments?

  I still didn’t know the answer to those questions.

  And, at the time, I had no idea that Budapest, that the fantasy I was living, wasn’t real.

  It was nothing more than a dream — the kind so perfect, so detailed, it feels more authentic than any reality. The kind you never want to wake up from.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  Because while Wes Adams may’ve seemed like a dream come true…

  He was actually my own worst nightmare.

  Chapter 3

  Weston

  THE LITTLE PRINCESS

  * * *

  Her smile was so white it could blind you, but that didn’t stop her from grinning at every stranger she passed on the street. She had a tiny crescent-shaped scar on her left temple, but you could only see it if the light hit her face just right. She walked with a near-giddy bounce in her step, like there was a fountain of energy and excitement welling within her, always threatening to spill over. She couldn’t wait to explore this faraway city she’d come to – greeting the world with enthusiasm, seeing promise in everything and everyone she met. Her existence was a series of blissful moments, with each day better than the one before.

  If she were anyone else, that exuberance for life would’ve driven me up a wall.

  As a general rule, I avoided happy people. They had a way of making everything in my world seem even blea
ker. People were always spouting shit affirmations about the power of positivity and the influence of others. They’d smile and stitch throw-pillows with quotes by goddamn Oprah on them, and carry on with their carefree lives.

  Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher.

  What a load of shit.

  First of all, Oprah Winfrey has more money than King Fucking Solomon, so perhaps her life lessons would be more accurate if they said, Surround yourself with giant piles of money until you forget how shitty life can be. Secondly, as any truly miserable human being knew, surrounding yourself with people who walk around with their heads in their asses, holding onto bullshit beliefs that life is unconditionally beautiful and that people are inherently good to one another — no matter how many shitty things have repeatedly proven otherwise — didn’t make you any happier. In fact, it usually served the opposite purpose: highlighting and increasing your own misery by comparison. Because you’d never be as happy as those delusional dumbasses — it was a waste of time to even try.

  But this girl…

  There was something about her that was different. Though I was almost positive she had an embroidered inspirational wall-mural somewhere in her apartment at this very moment, even that wasn’t enough to make me hate her. Maybe it was because she was beautiful.

  Not the makeup-heavy, airbrushed perfection most girls strived for. Her beauty was elemental. It radiated from beneath her skin, painted her in color against a grayscale world.

  It made me uncomfortable. Set me on edge. Put an unfamiliar ache in my chest and triggered an all too familiar tightness in my jeans.

  I dismissed both sensations as I rose from the small, outdoor table I’d been watching her from for the past hour, tossed down a few colorful forint bills to cover my fare, and slipped back onto the street. Not a single other patron looked up as I left.

  People were predictably self-absorbed. They walked through life like horses trussed in blinders, only looking ahead to their next meal, next screw, next satisfaction.

  It made my job so much easier.

  They didn’t see me, but I saw them — every facial structure, every move they made.

  Having a photographic memory was helpful, but I didn’t need it. Recall, attention to detail… they were learned skills. Like disappearing in plain sight — with enough practice, anyone could make themselves invisible.

  I’d been doing it for so long, I wasn’t sure I could stop if I wanted to. It was second nature.

  The girl had finally closed her sketchbook, finished with her drawing of the popular Kiskiralylany statue — better known to tourists as “The Little Princess” — and was moving down the promenade at an unhurried pace, taking in the sight of the Danube and the immense, imperial Buda Castle which dominated the opposite bank. The sun was setting fully now, and the bronze-sculpted statue, perched on a railing overlooking the river, gleamed dully in the weak evening light.

  I left a healthy distance as I trailed the girl back toward her apartment. A twenty-minute walk would bring her back to Corvintas University, where she’d enrolled for summer classes three weeks ago. I knew from last night’s surveillance run that her apartment was only a handful of steps from campus.

  Totally unaware of the eyes on her, the girl smiled to herself as the wind blew a lock of dark hair across her face. It was the color of rich mahogany — deep brown with the faintest touch of auburn. Thick, shiny — the kind of hair you wanted to run your fingers through, because you had to know what it would feel like.

  I watched her push a strand behind one ear and that tight feeling was abruptly back in my chest. A jab to the ribs, a voice in my head — pushing into my thoughts, questioning my decisions for the first time in as long as I could remember.

  Not her. Anyone but her.

  The voice pissed me off.

  Pick someone else.

  What was this shit?

  Was I finally developing a conscience?

  Honestly, it was little late, at this point.

  I shoved the voice away, determined to remain unaffected by this girl I hadn’t even met yet. Any attraction I felt now would fade. Beauty like that was never matched by what was on the inside — once she opened that perfect, pink-bowed mouth, she’d reveal herself as a vain, vapid little girl. Which was fine — better, actually — for my line of work.

  Having a totally egocentric mark always made things easier. No questions, no feelings, no strings.

  It doesn’t have to be her.

  The voice was back, nagging, as if I didn’t already know I could target someone else. Any of the girls who worked at the courier service would do. The agency didn’t care who I chose, so long as I got the intel. Which I would, without question.

  No — it didn’t have to be her.

  But it was.

  As soon as I’d locked eyes on Faith Morrissey, I knew she was my mark.

  The only option for me.

  I didn’t allow myself to question why as I followed her home, keeping to the shadows and ignoring the fact that my eyes were a little too intent as they memorized the way her hair fell in a lush reddish wave over her shoulders and midway down her back.

  Chapter 4

  Faith

  SIXTY STRANGE SECONDS

  * * *

  Wes Adams and I didn’t meet. We collided.

  Hard.

  On the day I turned twenty-one, amidst the throngs of Hungarian locals and fellow tourists crowding Heroes’ Square in hopes of snapping a few photos of Budapest’s most popular statues, my flimsy sandal caught on a loose cobblestone and I landed in the strong, waiting arms of a man who, unbeknownst to me, was about to flip my world on its head.

  It wasn’t a graceful collision. This was no corny, cliché, out-of-a-movie encounter between star-crossed strangers. No iconic, elegant, swept-off-your-feet embrace, like that famous photo of the V-J Day Kiss in Times Square.

  We hit like opposing air fronts. Clashed like hot and cold. Two total contradictions — a high-pressure system and its low-pressure polar opposite — converged and created a massive atmospheric disturbance.

  A lightning strike.

  My head bonked ungracefully against his, setting off an explosion of sharp pain inside my temple. Stars swam in my eyes and I surely would’ve collapsed to the ground if not for the muscular, well-tanned forearms that banded around my midsection and hauled me upright.

  Without even realizing it, that one, tiny, insignificant action — tripping over my own feet, crashing into a stranger — set off a chain of events that forever altered the course of my life. One freak accident changed everything.

  Well, at least at the time, I believed it was an accident. Months later, when I finally learned the truth, I’d realize that our meeting had been carefully planned, that each word he spoke and gesture he made had been orchestrated with meticulous precision.

  But, in that moment — face to face with a beautiful stranger, his calloused hands gently gripping my forearms and steadying me in the sea of camera-toting globetrotters — the only thought in my head was that the archangel Gabriel’s handsome sculpted profile, captured for eternity in the statue I’d come to photograph at the square that afternoon, was a dull visage of beauty compared to the man before me. He was so appealing, it was almost aggressive. A visual assault that stopped my breath and made my heart skip a beat.

  Not classically handsome — something more than that. Handsome was too refined a word for him. He held a more primitive, more savage beauty — all sharp edges and angles. High, prominent cheekbones and a chiseled jawline framed a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. Stark raven eyebrows slashed across a broad forehead, over a set of deep, dusky eyes. Rimmed with a fan of long, inky lashes, his irises were so dark they seemed entirely black at first glance. A second look revealed a thin ring of brown around ebony pupils — darker than the super-expensive, bittersweet chocolate the vendors sold at the upscale candy shops on Váci Street.

  Unusual e
yes. Unconventional eyes.

  They seemed to pierce my skin with the sheer intensity of their gaze, lingering on my features like a physical weight. Memorizing my every feature. Taking the measure of my soul.

  His gaze was personal… Intimate even. Five tiny seconds under his gaze and I felt stripped bare, reduced to my most basic elements.

  I shivered, despite the intense summer heat.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled like an idiot, feeling the blush rise to my cheeks. “I tripped.”

  Thank you, Captain Obvious.

  As soon as the words escaped my lips, I wanted to smack an open palm against my forehead.

  The stranger’s mouth lifted at one corner in the sexiest, crookedest half-grin I’d ever seen in my life. Despite my best intentions, I found myself watching his lips, mesmerized by their movement like some lovesick preteen meeting her celebrity crush.

  People moved around us in a constant stream, their cameras held aloft. Ceaseless chatter in many different languages filled the air. Seconds ticked by on the small silver watch cuffing my wrist. High overhead, a cloud meandered across the sky and drifted in front of the bright summer sun. Generally speaking, the rest of the world carried on.

  But we didn’t move.

  The stranger still held me in the circle of his arms and, for some reason I could never fathom when I looked back on it later, I let him. We didn’t shift or breathe or speak. We just stood face to face, the only point of stillness in an ocean of moving chaos, taking each other in with an intensity typically reserved for longtime friends and lovers.

  Finally, after nearly a minute, belated clangs of warning began to sound in my head and I took a hasty step back. I’d seen all the PSAs and read all the pamphlets cautioning naive young tourists against all manner of less-than-law-abiding citizens before I set off on my study abroad trip. This guy could be anyone — a pickpocket, a con artist, a serial killer.