Erasing Faith

by Julie Johnson

  “Here for vacation, school, or work?” I asked, thinking he didn’t look much like a tourist or a student.

  “That was two questions in a row,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “It’s my turn.”

  I huffed and motioned for him to get on with it. “Do your worst.”

  “You’re American, that much is obvious,” he noted.

  I glared at him playfully but didn’t disagree as he spoke on.

  “Based on the book-bag you were carrying the other day, I’m going to assume you’re a student.” His gaze drifted lazily across my features, moving from forehead to chin in such a slow study, I immediately had the urge to hide behind the curtain of my still-wet hair. “So, instead I’ll ask: why Budapest? Of all the places you could’ve chosen to study abroad, what brought you here?”

  I stared down at my teacup so I didn’t have to meet his gaze directly. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

  “Nah, I don’t buy that.” He shook his head and leaned across the table into my space. “There must be a reason.”

  I took a deep breath, then looked up to meet his eyes. “I guess I picked it for a lot of reasons.”

  His eyebrows quirked. “Such as..?”

  Sighing, I ticked them off on my fingers as I spoke. “Because I wanted to go somewhere with a rich history. Because my favorite professor coordinated this trip. Because it was the only program with a down payment I could afford.” I swallowed roughly and continued in a quieter voice. “Because I needed to escape my family for a year.” I stared into his eyes and took a deep breath. He waited, sensing I wasn’t finished. “Because, after a lifetime of stumbling around blindly, I need to figure out who the hell I am… and this seemed like a good place to start.”

  I sat back in my chair and expelled a heavy breath. I was stunned those words had just escaped my mouth. I’d spent two decades pretending self-doubt and loneliness didn’t bother me, yet here I was — in a café halfway around the world, spilling the beans faster than a freaking espresso machine to a man I knew nothing about.

  Maybe it was true, what people said — that blurting secrets to a stranger was always easier than confiding in your closest friends. But, as I waited for him to say something, anything, I found myself quaking under his suddenly solemn gaze. For a fraction of an instant, so fast I wondered if I’d imagined it, his eyes flashed with a dark emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Not quite sadness, not quite regret — something else entirely. Before I could figure out what the expression meant, it was gone.

  “Hell of an answer,” he murmured, his voice deeper than normal.

  “Thanks,” I whispered back, staring at him. “My turn?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you believe in fate?” I asked. “Do you think that — despite everything we set out to do in this life, despite our best attempts and intentions — we don’t control a damn thing, from the people we meet to the places we end up?”

  I blushed up to my hairline, immediately embarrassed. I’d known the guy all of thirty seconds and I was already peppering him with philosophical questions. Perfect. I might as well have asked if he believed in soulmates and love at first sight, while I was at it.

  He was totally going to laugh at me.

  Except, to my absolute astonishment, he didn’t. Instead, his face drained of color. I stopped worrying about looking like an idiot and started wondering if I’d said something to upset him – but, for the life of me, I couldn’t fathom what.

  He was silent for a long time, mulling over my question with an unreadable look on his face — eyebrows drawn tightly together, lips pinched in an uncompromising line.

  I fidgeted anxiously in my seat.

  Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke in a low voice. “You’re asking…” He pulled a deep breath of air through his nose and seemed to steady himself. “Do I think that a man who’s set out on a particular life course — one he may not like, one he may wish to escape — has no hope of ever changing, of ever redeeming himself, because some asshole higher-power decides it’s not in his cards?”

  I tried to respond but all that slipped through my lips was a nervous squeak as I attempted to formulate a coherent response.

  At the sound, he seemed to snap out of his somber reverie. His face blanked, his eyes flew up to meet mine, and an easy-going smile crossed his lips once more. I couldn’t help but notice that it seemed a little forced.

  “That’s bullshit, Red. We make our own fate. Forge our own fortune. Shape our own stories.” His eyes were still too serious as they stared into mine. “Sometimes, we shape other people’s, too.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I nodded anyway. Silence fell between us for a moment and I was afraid to shatter it, so I just stared at him.

  “My turn,” he said finally.

  I nodded.

  “Will you go out with me?” he asked, grinning.

  Laughter burst from my mouth, a strange sensation after the serious moment we’d just shared. “I don’t go out with serial killers,” I said regretfully, shaking my head in rebuff. I glanced out the window; the rain had stopped and the sun was shining weakly. “And I’d better go while the weather’s clear. Who knows when the downpour will start again?”

  His dark eyes trapped my skittish ones. “You’re really not going to tell me your name or give me your number, are you?”

  “Sorry, stranger.” I smiled and stood up. “First rule of stranger club, and all that jazz. Can’t break it on day one.”

  He blew out a puff of air. “So, I’m supposed to let you walk away and take the chance that we’ll never see each other again?”

  I paused, staring at him for a moment. “You might not believe in fate, but I do.” I grinned. “If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

  “That’s total crap,” he pointed out. “You do realize that, right?”

  I shrugged, still smiling as I slid my camera strap back over my shoulder. “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll never see you again. Have a nice life, stranger.” I turned to go.

  “You’re weird and stubborn,” he muttered under his breath.

  I giggled and glanced back at him for a fleeting instant.

  “Have a little Faith, will ya?” I called, chuckling at my own inside joke as I headed for the door and left him behind for the second time in a week.

  Chapter Six: WESTON

  WRECKING BALL

  My fingers were aching and swollen after two straight hours.

  My knuckles were raw, ripped to shreds, bleeding through the tape.

  My fists struck the bag in a ceaseless bombardment, a steady blitz of punches and uppercuts that left behind a smattering of four blood-red circles with each hit.

  I embraced the pain like an old friend.

  The girl’s face entered my mind again. I pounded the bag with renewed intensity, despite my screaming muscles.

  She’s an idiot.

  She’s beautiful.

  She lives in a delusional, fairytale world.

  She’s honest and innocent and everything I’m not.

  She’s a foolish little girl with silly, inconsequential dreams.

  She’s refreshingly real in this bleak life of deceit and deception.

  I hated her for it. For this.

  For making me feel.

  For making me question everything about my existence which, until this point, I’d been perfectly content with.

  Never stopping, never settling.

  No friends, no family.

  Avoiding attachment, uprooting every few months.

  It’s how I’d lived, how I’d survived. Not just since I took this job, but for as long as I could remember. Since the day I realized they were never coming back, no matter how long I waited on that cracked asphalt gas-station stoop.

  I’d been alone for an eternity. An old man since I was a child.

  Twenty-five years was a lifetime when you spent it in total solitude.

  Exhausted, I collapsed against the punching
bag. My breaths were coming quick and my pulse was pounding beneath the skin, faster than I was comfortable with. Breathing deeply through my nose, I counted the seconds it took to regulate my heartbeat again.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  And, just like that, I was back in control.

  The tense coil of anxiety unfurled deep in my chest. I welcomed the pain radiating from my battered knuckles. I’d rather feel that than this other shit. Physical pain — at least it was manageable. You could overcome a fractured finger or a bruised bone. Lacerations could heal, bullet wounds could be stitched closed or cauterized.

  But pain in your head? Pain in your heart?

  That was the shit that fucked you up permanently.

  When I was first recruited to the agency, I thought things might finally be different. For the first time, someone wanted me. Needed me.

  I wasn’t just joining an organization, I was joining a family.

  Yeah. It took me about three minutes on the job to realize that was just another line they fed potential recruits. They didn’t seek me out because I was special, or unique, or because they recognized some kind of latent possibility within me that they wanted to tap.

  I fit a profile.

  Loner. High IQ. Unemotional. Unattached. Aptitude for weaponry combined with a lethal appetite for vengeance. Enough anger at the world and its shitty circumstances to channel into something productive.

  Nothing more than another shiny, savage tool in their arsenal.

  I suppose I couldn’t put all the blame on their shoulders. After five years of doing what I did best, they offered me a desk job. Back in the States, filing paperwork and handing out orders. I could’ve had a life, a family, if that’s what I’d wanted. No more of this covert, chameleonic, undercover bullshit.

  Most guys I know would’ve jumped at the chance for a little stability, considering our work circumstances. The job paid well, sure. I had more money than I’d ever know what to do with. But it was also notoriously hazardous to one’s health. Too many of my comrades had learned the hard way that you can’t exactly spend that heaping fortune from six feet under.

  So, when you finally got your chance to get out, you took it. Unless, of course, you were me.

  I didn’t want the stable life, with the sprawling mansion and the Stepford wife. I didn’t want to be Agent Weston Abbott, settled nicely in a corner office at Langley.

  I had no use for that life, or for him.

  People with permanent positions at the agency, who’d never done deep cover missions or stepped so much as ten feet from their comfortable desk chairs, didn’t — couldn’t — understand.

  It must be exhausting — leading a double life, they’d say, shaking their heads in sympathetic disbelief. Constantly putting on a show, never letting your mask slip.

  But it wasn’t. It was a million times easier to live my life as someone else. To look in the mirror and see a total stranger. To slip into a new skin and slither around for a while, only to shed it for another when the time inevitably came to move along.

  I liked my new life of limitless identities and ever-changing characters better than I’d ever enjoyed being Wes Abbott.

  So why did one stupid, insignificant, staged conversation with Faith Morrissey have me wishing I could, just for a single moment, be him again? To look into her eyes, to talk to her, as the real me, rather than the asshole who was about to take a wrecking ball to her life?

  Disgusted by my own weakness, I took a step away from the punching bag, lifted my aching fists, and began another round, hoping this time it might drive her from my thoughts for good.

  Chapter Seven: FAITH

  WORK UP A SPARKLE

  When I arrived back at the office to collect the parcels for my last run of the night, I was covered head to toe with a thin sheen of perspiration and in desperate need of some water if I wanted to avoid falling off my bike while cruising through Vörösmarty Square. Dismounting, I headed through the Hermes side entrance — the double-wide doors and dual access ramps had been designed specifically for speedy bike departures and, as an added bonus, using them meant I didn’t have to see Irenka when I was in and out a million times a day, refilling my black messenger bag with small parcels, documents, and packages for delivery.

  I entered, deposited my bike in its designated rack near the far wall, and nodded at Istvan, the beefy security guard who ensured that only employees made it through the back entrance. Hurrying toward the sorting room around the corner, I mourned the fact that there was no time for a leisurely pace or a sip of water. In the past five years, Hermes had overtaken the competition as Budapest’s largest courier service, which meant there was rarely a dull moment for anyone who worked here, from the bike messengers to the sorting staff.

  I ignored my strained muscles as I walked through the doors and tossed a smile at Konrad, one of the young Hungarian teenagers who worked in the stock room on summer breaks and weekends. After three weeks on the job, I still found myself taking in the chaotic space with wide eyes. The sorting room was always a blur of activity, with new packages arriving every few minutes. Konrad and four other young men worked nonstop in the sweltering room, plotting the best delivery routes, clustering packages, and restocking the returning bike messengers.

  Parcels headed to the same general neighborhood were grouped together and given to a single messenger for maximum efficiency. Speed, productivity, and number of deliveries were logged to ensure every courier was pulling her weight. It was strenuous and sweaty and more stressful than any other job I’d ever had.

  If not for the pay, I would’ve quit after my first shift.

  My only saving grace was the fact that Hermes couriers were exclusively young women about my age, so I wasn’t competing with the delivery times of super-speedy muscle-men. When I was first hired, I thought this all-female staff was strange and rather sexist, but within an hour on the job I’d figured out why the company would adopt such a business model. Pretty girls delivering packages in form-fitting, brightly colored uniforms was the crux of what made us the most popular parcel service in the city.

  Hermes girls were something like cultural celebrities. Tourists snapped pictures with us, smiling policemen stopped traffic to help us through particularly jammed areas of the city, and the clients receiving their packages were always happy to see us on their door stoops.

  In short, despite our smaller statures and our tendency to get lost in the city’s many twisting avenues, a cute, feminine courier in a helmet got things done ten times faster than a brooding Hungarian man with a backpack.

  And, anyway, each bike was rigged with a built-in GPS screen between the handlebars, to guide us while we were out making deliveries. Our helmets were bluetooth-enabled, so we could easily receive calls from headquarters without fumbling for a cellphone in our bags. Constructed of the lightest carbon-fiber, the bikes weighed less than fifteen pounds and whipped along faster than any cycle I’d ever ridden back at home. They also each cost more than I’d made in my first two weeks of work.

  “What do you have for me this time, Konrad?” I asked, grinning when I reached the young man’s station.

  His head lifted, a wide smile already on his lips. “Only three, Faith.”

  I cast my eyes heavenward and pressed my hands together, as if in prayer. “There is a God.”

  Konrad snorted. “Don’t thank God, thank me. I just gave Sara the seven-parcel run that should’ve been yours.”

  “My true savior,” I drawled, grinning at him and batting my eyelashes coquettishly.

  “Yeah, yeah. You gonna go out on that date with me, now?” His brown eyes lit up hopefully.

  I laughed. “Call me in ten years, Konrad.”

  “I’m almost sixteen!” he protested. “Only four years younger than you!”

  “Five,” I amended. “My birthday was last week.”

  “Happy birthday, Faith.” His smile was w
arm as he handed over the packages.

  “Thanks.” I winked and turned away from him, loading the three small parcels into my backpack with a bounce in my step.

  Konrad had ensured that my last run of the night would be quick, which was a good thing considering my thigh muscles had begun to ache somewhere around hour three of my shift and, in the time since, had worsened to a steady burn. I’d have to ice them later.

  I’d zipped my backpack, grabbed my bike from its rack, and was wheeling it toward the exit when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, loser,” Margot called breathlessly, pushing her bike through the opposite door. She’d just returned from a run, by the looks of it.

  “You’re a sweaty mess,” I called back, grinning at her.

  “I don’t sweat, I sparkle!”

  Istvan’s muffled laugh was audible across the room. I rolled my eyes as I wheeled my bike onto the exit ramp. “See you in a few!”

  “Drinks after shift?”

  “Count on it!” I tossed over my shoulder, smiling as I clipped my helmet tightly beneath my chin. I programmed my route into the GPS, slung my messenger bag firmly across my back, and pedaled off into the sunset.

  ***

  The bass thrummed through the speakers so loudly, I had to watch Margot’s lips if I had any chance of making out her words. The song, Dark Paradise by Lana Del Rey, was familiar to me, but it still came as a bit of a surprise to hear American music blasting at a club in Hungary. The DJ put his own spin on strains I knew by heart, remixing it with a pounding dance beat, and the crowd of revelers around us contorted their bodies in time with the pulsing bass.

  Clutching Margot’s hand firmly in mine, I tugged her petite frame behind me as I cut a path through the throng. Our venue of choice tonight was Iguana, a huge, multi-level ruin club at the heart of the city. Ruin clubs were fantastic and totally foreign to me, but in Budapest they seemed to be all the rage for tourists and locals alike. Birthed from the ruins of abandoned buildings and redesigned to create the ultimate festive atmosphere, each club had its own unique design and vibe, but they all had one thing in common — they were always packed to capacity.