Yet Javi wasn’t convinced that there was a plan, and he wanted to believe that humans had more agency than mere cars on a track assembled by God. But he couldn’t deny the consolation that came with faith, the clandestine relief of the confessional stall, of absolution at the hands of the priest. Javi wondered now if he should confess to the switch, to the lies he shared with Jack, seizing his mind at all times. Perhaps it would ease his conscience. Truthfully, though, Javi was much more worried about his potential punishment on earth than about any divine repercussions. Military discipline was all too real, the standards notoriously scrupulous. Javi could still recall his third month at the academy, when seven cadets were expelled for cheating, and he watched the boy in the neighboring dorm room shamefully pack his belongings.
Javier sighed and stood up slowly, examining the wooden door to the chapel. His legs were still wobbly from sprinting down the cobblestone streets and forgetting to stretch, distracted by his anger. No matter how hard he trained, how sturdy his muscles, his body still had its limits.
“God never gives us more than we can handle,” Javi’s mother often recited.
Was that what she would say now, if Javi told his parents the truth about his string? That Javi was strong enough to handle this? That they could handle this?
Javi suddenly felt compelled to reach out his hand and tug at the door, slightly surprised to find it unlocked, and he entered the chapel, just as the final rays of sunlight streamed through the royal blue and crimson red panes of the stained-glass windows above the altar. But he didn’t want to step much farther inside, so he lingered in the back, near a rack of votive candles, wondering if he had any right to be here, given his current feelings.
He was angry at God, of course he was. Hadn’t God given him his short string?
A solitary nun arrived just behind Javier, offering him a nod and a restrained smile as she walked past, before sitting down in one of the rows of chairs. The creases across her tan skin, the cheerful crinkles by her eyes, the pair of spectacles slipping down her nose—almost everything about the woman reminded Javi of his grandmother, who had lived with Javier’s family in his infancy, but whose early passing meant that most of Javi’s memory of her appearance stemmed from the photo on his mother’s nightstand.
“That’s your abuela,” his mother would say, holding the picture before him, desperate for her son to remember what he was simply too young to recall.
“She used to live here, with us, but now she lives in Heaven, with God,” Javi’s mother explained. “Which means that, someday, we’ll both see her again.”
Javi leaned against the wall behind him, his eyes beginning to sting.
He knew that other religions had their own theories about the afterlife—the belief in rebirth, in karmic rewards and second chances, seemed like a particularly appealing alternative to him—but Javi had always found Heaven, much like the act of confession, to be a remarkable comfort. To die was still frightening, of course, but so much less dreadful with the faith that there was something beyond this world. The end of his string didn’t have to be an ending if it was the start of something else, something eternal. His father and mother and grandmother certainly believed it to be. Perhaps, when Javi left home, when he stopped attending Mass, when he was surrounded instead by stoic soldiers, he had forgotten that he, too, believed.
All at once, Javi missed his family fiercely, much more than he ever had during his years at the academy, with his goals and his drive and his best friend to guide him. He had just watched Anthony Rollins twist his short string into some devious political ploy, using Javier’s fate as an anonymous prop in his campaign of fear and hatred, and Javi had never felt so alone.
He stared at the back of the nun’s habit as she bowed her head in worship, and without even thinking, Javi turned to the small altar beside him, adorned with a few low-burning candles, and knelt down.
When he laced his fingers together, he realized that he hadn’t prayed in quite some time, not since the boxes had arrived. The last time Javi had prayed, he had asked for a long string.
“Dear God,” Javi said quietly, “I know it’s too late to change things for me, but I need to know that my family will be okay. That you’ll guide my parents through this.” He felt his voice quiver, weighted down by desperation. “Please help them, God. Don’t let them fall apart.”
Javi’s body slid even farther toward the cold floor beneath him. “And please give me strength,” he said.