Finding Faith (6 page)

“
No, I don’t think—”

“
Please, Faith, just let me do
this.” He cut me off. “I’ll feel like shit if you’re found on the
side of the road in the morning.”

The blue of his eyes seemed to glow
in the darkness around us as he silently cut me with his
expression. His aggravation was apparent. He had the ability to
make me feel like a small child being chastised. As if I didn’t get
enough of that at home.

Dogs barked unmercifully, and in
the distance, a car alarm began to ring out. I looked over to my
right and three strange men stood on their front porch and stared
over at Finn and me. One wore a creepy smile that made his gold
tooth visible.

What had I been thinking? No way
did I want to end up missing or murdered on the side of an
abandoned road. Finn wasn’t safe, but I didn’t think he’d harm me
physically.

“
Fine. Thank you,” I said as I
stepped around him and started to walk back to his driveway. “Could
you please tell Amanda you’re taking me home?”

“
Will do.” He smiled
sarcastically.

He was hard to feel out. Either he
was being friendly or he was annoyed by me. I was pretty good with
people, but I didn’t like how off center he made me feel.
Especially since the more I looked at him and the more he spoke to
me, the nicer looking he got. He was more of a gentleman than he
let on. The ladies at church would probably disagree, but only a
nice guy would care about whether or not I made it out of this side
of town alive.

I stood alone in his driveway for a
minute while he ran inside to get his keys and let Amanda know what
was happening. I hated leaving her there like that, but that was
her scene, not mine. Actually, I didn’t really have a scene, unless
you included church. Church was definitely my scene. Not that it
was my choice.

Inside the garage, I could hear his
friends complaining that he was leaving. I couldn’t hear his
response, but I felt awful for taking him away from his little
gathering. I could still smell the pungent odor of that stuff they
were smoking. I assumed it was marijuana, which only made me want
to go home even more.

“
All ready to go?” Finn asked as
he came out of the garage swinging his keys around his
finger.

I followed him over to an older
white Jeep Cherokee. He opened the door for me, which was also
unexpected, and I got in. He ran around to the other side and got
in before cranking up the engine. The atmosphere around us
lightened the farther away from his neighborhood we got.

At first we were quiet, not really
knowing what to say to each other. It wasn’t like we had anything
in common. We were from totally different worlds.

“
Thanks for the ride,” I finally
said to break the ice.

He looked over at me and grinned.
His light irises glistened from under dark lashes. I was really
beginning to like his eyes and I was seriously starting to enjoy
his knowing grins a little more than I should have.

“
No worries. We don’t want a
pretty thing like you getting kidnapped.” He looked back at the
road as if he didn’t just give me the biggest
compliment.

I couldn’t remember anyone ever
calling me pretty before. It made me feel funny. I can’t say that I
hated it. Actually, I kind of loved it. I could remember my mom
telling me I looked nice once, and memories of my dad calling me
his princess when I was a toddler still lingered, but now that I
was older and feeling pretty really mattered, no one ever said
it.

He turned to face me again and I
felt my cheeks catch fire. I looked out the window so he couldn’t
see. A soft, manly chuckle sounded from his side of the car,
letting me know he didn’t miss my embarrassing blushing. The rest
of the ride was uncomfortable. Every now and again I’d give him
directions, but other than that we stayed quiet.

“
Please be extra quiet,” I said as
we pulled up to my house.

He chuckled again and I gave him
the evil eye as he snuck the car up to my house and put it in park.
He turned in his seat and silently watched me as I twiddled my
fingers in my lap. When his eyes were on me, I felt breathless. It
was if he had some sort of freaky spell over me.

I needed to get away from him and
get some sleep. The night had taught me one valuable lesson: I had
no business sneaking out of my house or hanging around people who
were nothing like me.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and popped
my door open. I was about to thank him for the ride when the porch
light turned on. It was only then that I noticed the living room
lights.

Time stopped when my father stepped
out on the front porch in his pajamas and then, with quick, angry
strides, made his way over to Finn and me.

“
Oh shit,” Finn said.

I didn’t bother correcting his
language since I’d secretly been thinking the same exact thing. One
night out and I was already having impure thoughts.

My dad took one look at me and Finn
and his face transformed into something angry and red. His eyes
looked at risk of popping out and the vein in the side of his neck
ticked. The way he looked at me made me feel dirty, as if I’d been
out all night doing the many things that Amanda had disgustingly
told me about.

“
Faith, I want you to go inside so
I can have a talk with our friend Finn.” He spoke calmly, but I
knew what calm meant. Calm meant there was a storm
coming.

It wasn’t right for Finn to get in
trouble simply for being a gentleman and making sure I got home
safely.

“
Daddy, Finn was just—”

He held up his hand to stop me.
“That’s enough, Faith. Please go inside with your mother. I’ll be
in there to deal with you in just a moment.”

Deal with me. I didn’t even want to
think about how he was going to deal with me. I clutched my cross
in preparation for the night’s lesson. It was going to be a bad
one.

“
Pastor Warren, this is my fault,”
Finn said boldly. “I wanted to surprise Sister Francis with some
special flowers in her flower bed and I talked Faith into helping
me. You know how much she loves Sister Francis. There was no way I
could’ve gotten it done before church Wednesday if she didn’t help
me.”

As soon as the lie left his mouth,
I turned and looked at him like he was crazy. First of all, there
were no flowers planted yet, and my dad would know that the minute
he stopped by the church for paperwork the following day. Secondly,
I was amazed at how quickly and easily he was able to lie. I’d
never seen anything like it and I was secretly jealous of his
fabulous talent. I could’ve saved myself from the belt a few times
if I were capable of such a thing.

“
Is that true, Faith?” my father
asked.

I didn’t want to lie to him, but I
really didn’t want to get in trouble and I really didn’t want Finn
to get in trouble either. Regardless of what we were doing, I was
still out past a decent time when I wasn’t supposed to be. I was
still going to hear it, but somehow saying I was planting flowers
for Sister Francis sounded so much better than I was at a party
with a bunch of stoners and band boys.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the
lie wouldn’t come out. Instead, I shook my head yes and silently
prayed for forgiveness.

I felt sick doing it. I hadn’t lied
to my father since I was a little girl. My throat felt tight and
cold chills wracked my body, causing me to wrap my arms around
myself.

“
You should’ve asked first and
you’re still going to be on restriction for sneaking out past your
bedtime,” my dad said adamantly. “As for you, Finn, I don’t want
Faith falling into your sinner ways. I’d appreciate it if you
stayed away from my daughter outside of church.”

My dad grabbed my arm and pulled me
toward the front door. His fingernails dug in, pinching the soft
skin. I looked over my shoulder at Finn and caught him glaring at
my dad’s back. Before I stepped inside the front door, I looked
back again as he pulled away.

I got the worst beating ever that
night. For the first time, Daddy lost control and his belt hit
other places on my body instead of just my legs. When I went to
bed, my back ached and my arms and legs stung. I barely made it
into bed before the tears came. I never cried during the
beating—I’d never give him that satisfaction—but I’d almost given
in to the pain.

On top of the belt beating, I got a
month’s worth of restriction, which didn’t matter much to me since
I practically lived on restriction as it was. I finally fell asleep
two hours later with stale tears on my cheeks and anxiety for what
would happen the following day churning in my stomach. It was only
going to get worse once my dad got to the church and saw there were
no flowers in the flower bed.

Four

Finn

I fucking hated flowers. I spent
the rest of my night working on that damn flower garden, and I’d
spent my last ten bucks on those damn over-scented weeds. I’d never
been more thankful that Wal-Mart stayed open twenty-four hours or
that I could flirt my way into the lawn and garden department after
hours.

By the time I got back to my house,
I was covered in dirt and exhausted. Everyone was gone and so was
all the beer, which pissed me off pretty good. Instead of sitting
around bitching about it, I went straight to my bathroom, got a
shower, and crashed.

The next day, I slept way into
noon. I’d decided to skip senior year and go straight to work for
Uncle Lester, my dealer. He didn’t even have any nieces or nephews,
but everyone called him uncle. The best thing about Uncle Lester
was he dressed like a pimp from the seventies and had a porn star
mustache. He worked it, though, and he was the man when it came to
the ladies. He was a strange man, but he always made sure I had a
full supply of wacky dust. It wasn’t honest pay, but it was
pay.

With a busted head gasket and a
blown tire, I needed whatever work I could get to get my car back
on the road. In my mind, the band was my meal ticket, but if the
worst happened and my band did nothing, I’d end up taking care of
my mom and working some shitty job somewhere. I was born and bred
for struggle.

I fixed myself a bowl of cereal in
one of mom’s mixing bowls and sat on the couch, deep in thought.
Faith. I couldn’t seem to get her off my mind. I wasn’t sure why
I’d lied for her. Maybe it was because I’d seen her welts, and the
thought of her getting more made me sick to my stomach. Or maybe it
was because her dad seemed to piss me off all the time. It wasn’t
that he was doing anything, but it was his “I’m the pastor so I’m
better than you” mentality. He wasn’t better than me. Actually, I’d
give the ounce of cush and the eight ball in my top drawer to say
he was probably more crooked than I could ever dream of
being.

I fixed my mom some lunch and made
sure she had her pills. She was having an especially painful day,
which meant she wouldn’t want to be bothered. Instead of sitting
around and babying her to death, I smoked a bowl in the garage and
headed out to get lost around the town.

It was days like that when I wished
I had an actual job. I’d talked about it with my mom before, but
she swore she needed me home more than she needed help financially.
I understood and even though the thought of having money that I’d
made legally sounded great, I couldn’t take the chance of not being
there for her if she needed me.

Later that afternoon, the boys came
over and we practiced for the rest of the night. We’d been invited
to play at a new underground club called The Pit and we wanted to
make sure we sounded kickass. It wouldn’t pay to play a shitty
show, and we always had the hope that someone important would see
us and take us out of our fucked-up situations.

I sang my heart out as Kevin, the
lead guitarist, crushed my garage with his rips. I’d known him
since the first day of middle school. He was the first friend I’d
had for more than a few months. That was one of the worst things
about being in the system and getting moved around so much. I never
made any lasting friendships. I’d spent my life being passed by
strangers and it was nice to have some loyalty in my
life.