Losing Faith

by Denise Jaden

  “It’s just with my family,” he goes on, but he’s having the hardest time getting the words out. I feel bad for him, and want to interrupt and make him feel better, but I know Reena could open the door any second. “Ree and I have learned to count on each other—”

  “Hey, let’s talk later,” I say. “You should probably get going.” I move to the side wall so I won’t be seen when he opens the door. But then I notice his face. He looks hurt. And maybe scared, now that he’s told me all these secrets. “I’d like to talk to you more,” I say, and it’s true, because in all this we didn’t end up talking about Faith at all. Now that the conversation has opened up, I do have hope that we will, though. “Can you meet me later today? After school?”

  He gets the blank look again, but only for a second.

  “Okay,” he replies, and then suggests a meeting location out behind the football field. I come up with a quick excuse of why I need to wait for Mr. Clancy and watch Alis walk out of the room, off to meet his sister.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon once again unable to concentrate on my schoolwork. I’ve had about two good days of classes so far. Not nearly enough to get me any passing grades.

  I sidle up to Tessa’s desk in art class that afternoon. “That was Alis,” I tell her, expecting her to be excited when she understands. “And we scheduled another meeting for later.”

  “A meeting?” She glares at me. “A date, you mean.”

  “We’re taking a walk.” I wave her off. “No big deal.”

  “Obviously he’s tracking you down for a reason, and I don’t think the reason’s your sister.” She looks me up and down.

  My face heats up at the suggestion. For a second I think she’s jealous. Of me, of him, I don’t know. But then it hits me what this is all about. I’m not inviting Tessa along, letting her be a part of the “investigation,” so she needs to make it my fault. But I really can’t picture Alis opening up in front of Tessa.

  “What are you talking about?” I try to dismiss it.

  She shakes her head. “It’s a good thing you’re cute.”

  “So, what? You’re saying he likes me?” Again, I feel a flush to my cheeks.

  Her right eyebrow raises in agreement.

  “Come on, Tessa. He’s just looking for a friend. He’s lonely.”

  “I’ll bet he is.” She reaches to the empty desk beside hers, grabs a piece of black construction paper, and folds the edge of it.

  I ball my fists and force some strength. “Give me a break. Look, we’re just friends.” I head for my desk.

  “Right, just friends,” she says from behind me. “Because that’s what friends do. Dupe each other and secretly spy on their siblings.”

  All I can think of the rest of the afternoon is whether or not I should tell Alis about the nursing home. It almost seems too late now. The first person he thinks might possibly be someone he can trust betrays him within the first week.

  chapter TWENTY-ONE

  Plan U: I need to tell him, I do.

  Alis stands exactly where he said he’d be, near the break in the fence across the backfield. He is a good-looking guy, I’ll give him that. But I’m not in the market for another boyfriend, thank you very much. Besides, if I have to pick a family to get cozy with, the Monachies aren’t exactly at the top of my list.

  “Hey,” he says when I’m close enough. “I’m glad you came.”

  Even though I feel a bit of weakness in my knees at his voice, I force a strong and casual tone. “I said I would, didn’t I?” But after the words leave my mouth, I feel a rush of guilt, because it implies I keep all my promises. “Your sister’s not around, is she?”

  “Nah. She’s at work.”

  “Yeah? Where does she work?” I feel like such a fraud, playing dumb, but I have to find a way to tell him gently.

  “Well, it’s not really a job. She helps out over at a nursing home on the East Side. You know the one?” He makes a rolling motion with his hand like he wants me to fill in the blank.

  “Um, no,” I blurt, and I don’t even know why.

  He leans his back against an intact piece of fence and eyes me. “Really?”

  My face heats up. “Well, I mean, my grandma’s in one.” This part, at least, is true.

  He turns to walk down the trail leading away from the school.

  Great. He knows. Stupendous job of being up front and honest, Brie.

  I rush to catch up. “I kind of ran into your sister by accident.”

  He stops and swings around, his face suddenly pale.

  “She doesn’t know who I am or anything,” I add quickly.

  He doesn’t move, just stares at me. “Where did you see her?” His tone sounds angry, nervous, but at least he’s giving me a chance to explain.

  “I was, uh, visiting someone at the Bertram Senior Center.” Okay, well, maybe not complete honesty, but at least I’m coming close now. “I saw Reena at the front desk, and I recognized her from Faith’s Facebook page, and also from—”

  “When you were outside my house.” Alis says the words before I can, like he’s in too much of a hurry for this story.

  “Anyway, we sort of got to talking,” I say. Alis shoots me a look like his heart just stopped. “I mean about religion and stuff. Not about Faith.” I can’t figure this family out. Is he really this afraid of her? “When she asked my name, I gave her a fake one, and I really don’t think she recognized me. She didn’t come to Faith’s memorial service, did she?”

  He shakes his head. “Reena didn’t want anything to do with you or your family. At least that’s what she said. Didn’t want to meet you because you weren’t a believer and didn’t want to attend a service at a ‘lukewarm’ church. I can never tell what she’s really thinking or how she’ll react.”

  He gets quiet after that and I’m not sure if he’s mad or just wants to get away from me. He keeps leading the way through the trail, which becomes denser with leaves and branches. Unfortunately, from my view all I can concentrate on is the silver nub sticking out of his back pocket. His knife. And I wonder just how stupid this is to be following this armed guy who may or may not be angry with me.

  He stops and peers through a portion of brush where I can hear the rush of a stream. After stomping out some of the lower branches, he tries to break one right up near his face to get through. It’s thick though, and he struggles with it.

  Before I can think, my mouth opens and I confront my fear. “Why don’t you use your knife?”

  He glances over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised like he didn’t quite hear me. But then a second later, he reaches for his back pocket and I suck in my breath.

  When he pulls it out, I can see that yes, it is a knife. Dad has one that looks almost identical that he keeps in his fishing kit. Alis flips it over a few times in his hands and then pulls at one side of it. When that does nothing, he flips it over and tries the other side. A serrated blade pops out.

  I try to relax at the fact that he doesn’t seem to even know how to use the thing. Alis doesn’t strike me as the type to carry a knife in the first place. But I study his profile as he saws away at the upper part of the branch.

  “Why do you carry a knife?” I force out, a wobble still in my voice.

  “My mom gave it to me for my last birthday before she died. Since she’s gone I like to carry it around.” He passes it to me, which settles my nerves dramatically. And he doesn’t seem angry anymore. Not at all.

  I immediately recognize the inscription on the side as a Bible verse Dad’s read to us before. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” I read aloud.

  “Not sure exactly what it means, but it was a big deal to Mom when she gave it to me. Probably would’ve been more appropriate for Reena. She’s more of a fighter.”

  “So your mom was pretty religious, huh? That must be where Reena gets it.” I stop and cringe. “Oh, sorry, are you religious too?”

  He laughs. “Not especially. I have more questions than anythin
g.”

  “Yeah, me too.” It’s probably my turn to open up a bit more. I bite my lip, trying to decide where to start. “I guess the most likely answer is that Faith committed suicide. There are verses highlighted all over her Bible about martyrs and sacrifices and stuff, but I always thought she was too trusting, like she’d be willing to wait for God’s timing on things.”

  “Hmm,” Alis says. “That seems more like my sister to not want to wait for things.”

  “Yeah?” I’m surprisingly relieved that he changed the subject back to Reena.

  “She has obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

  “Really?” OCD had always been kind of a joke around school. I didn’t think of it as an actual affliction that real people suffered from.

  “It wasn’t so bad when we were younger, but when she turned about thirteen, it got pretty severe. We all went to church, but Reena suddenly got extra involved. My parents stopped going because they thought they should rein her in, but she went the other way and started reading all sorts of religious books and watching those evangelism shows all day on Sundays. Maybe we all would’ve been better off if my parents had kept her in a church setting after all.”

  “Why? Did something happen?”

  “Well, yeah.” We make it to the stream and he stares down into the water for several seconds before going on. “My mom drove over a curb and into a lake. We all thought it was an accident, until we found her suicide note at home. Actually, it wasn’t much of a suicide note. More like a love letter. To Jesus.”

  I can’t think of any kind of response. I’d always thought of my own family as crazy, overboard religious, but they suddenly seemed like the median of spiritual mediocrity. “But I thought your parents weren’t that religious. Not like Reena?”

  “That’s what I thought too, but Reena explained to me that Mom had been suppressing her feelings about God for quite a while.”

  I nod, trying to connect all these new details with the girl I’d met in the senior center.

  “Reena’s rituals got kind of weird after Mom’s death. She tried to teach me stuff about the Bible in homeschool, but I asked questions on so many things that she didn’t want to answer, and eventually she said something about not wanting me to taint her beliefs. She never brought up the lessons again and never invited me into her special group. She locks me out of her religious life just like she locks me out of her room.”

  I can tell he feels jilted by his sister. It makes sense, since she’s all he has.

  A few seconds later, he regains the evenness to his voice. “That’s why I was so glad when the group started meeting at our house. I thought they’d help Reena sort out any delusions she had about God. Especially your sister. Even though I wasn’t allowed into the meetings, I could tell Faith stood up for herself and what she believed. I knew she’d be good for Reena.”

  But was Reena good for my sister? I couldn’t help but question it. Faith always thought she could help everybody. But how much had Reena changed Faith? “Do you think Reena could, um, hurt anybody?”

  “Uh-uh. Not Ree.” He jerks his head to me. “Wait, you don’t think—”

  “No,” I say. Even though I’m not completely convinced about anything at this point, his quick reaction does calm my suspicions a little. Reena might keep him at arm’s length when it comes to her little spiritual group, but otherwise they seem pretty tight. Alis would know if his sister were some kind of bloodthirsty psychopath.

  I shiver, and he must notice because he places his hands on both sides of my arms and rubs them.

  His hands feel warm and nice, but I remember Tessa’s scowling face and suddenly feel determined not to think of him like that. “We should probably head back soon.”

  He turns, slides his arm around me and pulls me close to him as we start back for the school. A millisecond later, he drops it. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean …”

  I wonder what he did mean, because something about it felt more than just brotherly. “No, it’s okay,” I say. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets.

  The crunching of the leaves under our feet is the only sound for a long time. But a comfort grows between us. After all he’s told me, I feel stupid about the one little lie I told him.

  “Look,” I say. “I don’t know anyone in the Bertram Home.”

  He glances over at me, then ahead to the path in front of us.

  “I saw Reena downtown and followed her because I wanted to feel closer to Faith. I wasn’t going to talk to her, really I wasn’t, but—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. Then he looks at me. “I trust you,” he says. “I don’t know quite why, but I feel like we can understand each other.”

  He’s right. I know he is. And it feels so good, necessary even, to have someone who understands me right now. “You get where I’m at with my sister, then?”

  He nods.

  We get back to the school, and Alis says he’ll call me if he can, and suggests we meet on Monday when Reena’s working. He’ll walk me home from school.

  While I watch him walk away, I consider my new social circle. Alis. Tessa.

  Who’d have thought?

  chapter TWENTY-TWO

  mr. Poindexter’s Art room is more like an experimental color lab than an actual classroom. Rainbow paintings are slathered across every wall.

  Tessa and I don’t share the intent of Art class or anything. She’s private about her creations. Now I realize she seats herself at the back between two empty desks because she’s so serious. I sit in the middle because I’m so not. I approach art like my poetry. I just kind of smush color on the page and if it looks like something recognizable by the end, yippee.

  Because I can’t make sense of the angle I’m supposed to draw my still life at today, I play around with words instead. First my name, then anything I can come up with to rhyme with it. One reason I’m thankful for my cheesy name: Brie, sea, tea, bee … the list goes on and on.

  My mind wanders to Alis. Does anything rhyme with Alis? Hmm. Oh, wait. Malice.

  Uh-oh.

  Mr. Poindexter walks my way so I flip my paper and draw a big oval with a squiggly line through the center. It looks nothing like the artifact at the front of the class. Looks more like I’m in the third grade. But Poindexter doesn’t stop, not even a glance in my direction. I haven’t produced anything awe-inspiring so far this year. I’m sure he doesn’t expect that to change.

  By the time the next bell rings, I’ve added a bit of color, but it still looks like something Celeste’s little brother could have drawn.

  This thought makes me realize I still haven’t heard anything from Celeste. Not that I’m surprised after the way she acted at Starbucks. Tessa heads my way, so I quickly flip my drawing over and place my hand on top to hold it down.

  “How was yours?” I ask.

  She tilts her head with a half scowl, staring at my desk. I follow her eyes to the back of my paper.

  “I knew it!” she says. “You’re hung up on the guy.”

  I’d written my name and Alis’s about a million times, trying to come up with rhymes.

  “It’s not what you think,” I start to say.

  But she’s already gone.

  The next day, I avoid Tessa for most of the morning. Of course, I’m also trying to steer clear of Amy, Dustin, and Steph, and it would be more than I could possibly expect to avoid them all.

  I’m taking a shortcut past the library toward my history class when I catch sight of Dustin’s sandy-colored hair and red Stanford sweatshirt leaning against a wall near the library doors. I keep my eyes straight ahead, but hear a giggle from his direction. A giggle that’s not Amy’s.

  Part of me wants to look and feel the satisfaction of seeing him cheating on her. But the other part of me wonders if I could be reading things wrong again. I decide I’d rather live in my bubble, think that maybe I’m not the only one Dustin’s ever been a jerk to, and move on.

  That afternoon when I finally do run into Tessa,
she wears a pink turtleneck under the black trench coat she takes off at her locker. Soft, baby, never-consider-using-a-four-letter-word pink.

  “Nice shirt,” I say.

  She shoots me a look, warning me not to say another word.

  “So, this Alis guy is pretty cool,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean I like him.”

  Her eyes don’t show the anger I expect. Instead, they light up. She’s almost as interested in my life these days as I am. “So what’d you talk about?”

  “I wasn’t going to, but I told him the truth. About everything.”

  “Huh.” She drops her backpack with a thud in front of her locker. “Was he pissed? Did he ditch you again?”

  “No. He seemed to get it. I think he understands why I can’t just move on.”

  She shoves her backpack inside and shuts the door, not bothering to extract any books.

  “We mostly talked about Faith. And his sister. Just some weird stuff about their meetings and—”

  “Weird stuff?” She grabs my books and throws them into my locker. Shuts the door and clicks my lock on. “Let’s go to Wendy’s. We have to talk about this.”

  “But I’ve got English.”

  She doesn’t even look back.

  And the truth is, this is all I want to talk about anyway.

  Wendy’s is deserted, so we sit in a corner where we can see the parking lot through the windows. She asks me questions about my conversation with Alis, and I do my best to answer her. But because Alis trusted me, I only give her half truths about their family situation.

  Tessa catches on that I’m being evasive. “Come on. What is it? You’re obviously into him.”

  “Why am I obviously into him? I’m not in the space where I need any of that crap right now.” The more I talk like this, the more I’m convincing myself. “Will you get off me about it already?”

  “‘Not in that space.’ Phtf. It’s written all over your face, Brie. You want him.”

  “I don’t want him.” But my face heats up at the words. Well, maybe I don’t.

  “You’re shittin’ me.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “You’re shittin’ yourself.”