The Inbetween

Faith was once again watching her family through the small portal underneath of her own tree, and it worried Jimmy. She had been spending more and more time watching them as the weeks had passed since she had opened up to him and told him about the two of them, and he couldn’t help but wonder if in some small way, she was back-stepping the progress she had seemed to make before he had come here. He had never seen her the way she was now. The Faith he was seeing now was a completely different Faith. And Jimmy wasn’t sure he liked it.

She spent more time now just watching the two of them, and he knew that she often got lost in old memories. Sometimes, he could see her cry, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and give her a hug. The more worried he became for her, the less he thought about his own family down on Earth. He knew that Leana was a fighter; that she was a survivor. He wasn’t so sure about Faith, though. She didn’t seem to be surviving well, and that scared him more than anything.

He was scared to lose her, and that was the bottom line. He had a feeling that things would change drastically for him if he couldn’t help her let go of Tyson. He knew it would be hard, especially for her since it was her son and she had been jerked away from him so early in life. He would have no memories from her. All he would grow up with were some photographs that would fade with time and a name that wouldn’t cross his mind every day.

He knew that it broke Faith’s heart to have to watch her son grow up and not know who she was. He could see it in her eyes; hear it in the way she talked about him. She still wasn’t over her death, no matter what she had told him. And that worried him. If she wasn’t over it by now and she had been here for a year longer than he had been, he knew that she was probably going to get pulled out of the Inbetween. And if that happened, she was going to be pulled away from him. He had already lost too much; he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep whatever small piece of sanity he had retained from humanity if Faith wasn’t there with him to answer the questions that had no answers.

He had started to attend to the humans on earth that needed their help by himself, but he knew that it was for the best that he learn how to help without having Faith there with him. He had always been the practical sort of man, and he wasn’t going to stop now. He didn’t want to be unprepared to face having to deal with the Inbetween by himself, but he needed to know how to do it in case it happened. Today, he was still trying to recuperate mentally from someone he had helped the night before. Before arriving here, he had never known how truly sick and fucked up the world could be, but now, it seemed, he saw it all.

A little girl, eight years old, had held her father’s gun to her head. At first, Jimmy had thought she was just playing some horrible game. He knew that little kids got a hold of their parents’ guns all the time in the world, and that sometimes, it ended in tragedy. But when he had seen the thoughts floating through little Vanessa’s head, he had known that it wasn’t just a freak accident that had her picking up a loaded Colt .45.

She had wanted to die. He had seen everything so clearly it was like she was painting a vivid image for him, even though she wasn’t consciously aware that he was there with her. She had known what that gunshot would do to her, and she had wanted that end result. She didn’t feel as though life were worth living on Earth anymore. And when he saw her story, his heart had broken for her.

She was a victim of child abuse, a girl who’d never known a day of peace in her life. By day, she went to school and underwent harassment from the school bullies who teased her for wearing long-sleeved dresses and kept her hair down to hide the bruises and slap marks. By night, she would return home and her parents would take turns hitting her, as though she was some kind of miniature punching bag designed for their blows. She never said one word; she never shed one tear, and it was all too much for Jimmy’s heart to bear. He had cried when he had seen the bruise on her neck from where her father’s teeth had clamped down viciously. He had seen the bruise on her arm that was so black it could have been mistaken for a paint mark from her art class. But most of all, he had seen the lack of life in her clear, hazel eyes.

He hadn’t known what to do. He knew that it was his duty to save her life, but he honestly didn’t know what would be better—for her to stay alive and stay in a situation like that, where she was constantly being beaten down and thrown around, or a life where she could live in peace in Heaven, just like Jared. He had turned around expecting to see Faith there standing ready with an answer on what he should do, but she wasn’t there. The call was his to make; the little girl’s life was in his hands, and he could either save her and damn her to abuse, or let her die and be welcomed into a more loving embrace.

In the end, he knew that saving her life was what he’d needed to do, and he had talked her down. He’d felt so damn conflicted; so hurt, and so broken when he had finally convinced her to take the Colt and put it back where she’d found it in her father’s gun cabinet. He hadn’t left her that night; not like he would have for others. She was alone as it was, she had no comfort.

He had watched as Vanessa had pulled out an old, dirty teddy bear before crawling onto a thin mattress with a blanket, and he’d watched her cry herself to sleep. He had a feeling that was how she fell asleep every night, and there was no doubt in his mind that she awoke with the same tears in her eyes. It was a vicious cycle and he wanted to break it for her. He wanted to give her a better life, but he knew he couldn’t. She needed to do it for herself if she was going to find a way out of the hellhole her parents had borne her into, but he had made a promise to himself. He was going to remember Vanessa, and he was going to keep an eye on her.

Once he was sure that she wasn’t going to try and off herself, he had gone back to the Inbetween to find Faith sitting beneath his tree, looking at him in concentration. She had a foreign look on her face; a look he hadn’t ever seen on her features before. It had worried him, and when he had asked what she was thinking, she had only answered him vaguely before returning to her own tree. Her words made him think that she was almost preparing him for an absence of herself in his life.

“You can’t let the living take over your life, Jimmy. They have their own lives to lead,” she had told him. He hadn’t known fully what her words had meant, but it was clear to him now, as he looked over at her sitting beneath her tree and looking down at her family.

She was preparing to leave the Inbetween. He could see it in her eyes, and it pained him. He wanted her to stay. He thought he needed her to stay. He didn’t know if he could manage to function without her. She was such a major part of his day to day life now. She taught him so much through everything she said and did, and to lose her would almost be like dying all over again.

She seemed to feel his eyes on her, and looked up at him with a small smile before she stood up to make her way over to him. He was almost surprised, since she hadn’t taken the opportunity to sit next to him for awhile, but it made him feel good nonetheless.

“What’s going through your head?” She asked him softly, touching her hand delicately to his knee with a gentle smile on her face. It was a look of wisdom that crossed her face, and he knew that she already realized what was going through his thoughts.

“I can’t lose you, Faith,” was all he told her, keeping his voice quiet as he looked up at her. A look of softness formed on her face again, and she raised her hand to touch his lips before she shook her head.

“You can’t lose someone who’s already dead, Jimmy.”

Before he could reply to her, she stood and walked over to her space again, and he sighed in frustration. He was becoming more and more desperate to find a way for her to come to terms with his death. It was a two-way street, he knew, but he needed to find a way. Because losing his life and then losing Faith on top of that wasn’t something he could handle. And even if she said he couldn’t lose her, he knew that’s exactly what would happen if she let herself be taken away from the Inbetween.