Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 134057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
I paused. For a long time. Long enough for those memories, for that pain to wash over me. Somehow fresh, somehow more powerful than whatever was before that.
As I was learning, there was always more pain with Liam.
“Then you died,” I whispered to the door. “But even then, I wasn’t alone. I was lonely for you. Fuck, was I lonely for you.” I tried to conjure up those days, the darkest of my existence.
But even with my newfound capacity to remember, to experience pain and still remain standing, my body wouldn’t let me go there. There were some things that your mind didn’t let you remember.
“I missed you with parts of me I didn’t know existed,” I said, still talking to the door. “With a pain I didn’t know human beings could conjure up without outside forces. I felt all of that. But not quite alone. You were there. Somewhere. Inside me. Outside me. Watching over me.” I shook my head, smiling wistfully.
I didn’t know where I found the strength, maybe it wasn’t strength, it was tiredness that had me meeting his eyes.
Another wave of pain at those emerald irises.
At the unmissable scar.
At the body, taut, wired, coiled.
“I used to talk to you,” I said. “I was convinced you were somewhere. You were with me. It’s what people do to survive death. Convince ourselves that it’s not just some yawning black hole, that the person who was once everything isn’t reduced to nothing but compost.” I didn’t move my eyes from his. “Though most people don’t have their dead ones come back to life. And you wanna know what’s funny? I’ve never felt more alone than when I saw you in that alleyway.”
He didn’t move.
But he flinched.
Somewhere deep inside that, I knew was the worst and most visceral kind of pain.
The most lasting.
I felt satisfied landing that blow.
Emptily satisfied.
I moved my eyes and my hand went to the doorknob. I waited. For what, I didn’t know. For him to stop me. Stop the pain.
He did neither.
So I walked through the door and closed it in his face.
The locks clicked.
On my side this time.
Every story that I worked that made a splash, that was real and good, was not purely a result of good reporting. Sure, I was a good reporter, but those stories were not made purely by my talent. Not by a long shot.
My career and my position in the industry was based largely on luck.
My first assignment in Afghanistan, I was allotted a ‘fixer,’ Dariush. Every foreign journalist was required to have one. They were designed to take care of our safety, facilitate our stay, help with visas, and transport us. Mostly they were employed by the government to make sure we behaved.
Dariush was different than most. He was intelligent, young, though married with two infants, incredibly sloppily dressed and spoke immaculate English. He also abhorred the state his country was in and went out of his way, while putting his life in danger, to help me. To help my story by putting me in contact with people who would give me the real scoop.
The same happened in every war-torn country I visited. With people who had little more than nothing, but information, and that was everything.
There was Uri in Israel.
Anatoly in Moscow.
Faheem in the Sudan.
Zamir in Iraq.
All men. I didn’t know if this was because I was a female, because men were the only one allowed to ‘fix’ things for reporters, especially female reporters. It didn’t much matter.
Each of these men worked constantly for terrible money, worse—read, no—benefits, in beyond dangerous circumstances, risking their lives for a foreigner, with the hope a stranger might help their country with some uncensored news coverage.
Which wasn’t the case often enough for my liking.
I wondered who my fixer was here.
If there was ever a chance of ‘fixing’ this.
Though I knew there wasn’t. You couldn’t fix what wasn’t broken, but you could break something so badly that there was no possibility of reparation.
That was me.
Beyond reparation.
Beyond redemption.
I was up early.
Because in my real life—or whatever passed for it—I was always up early. Constant sunrise bombings, alternating with calls to prayer didn’t exactly promote sleeping till noon.
I had been waking early since I’d become a reluctant resident here, but first I’d been confined to this room, so unable to do my morning routine, which usually consisted of a shitload of coffee, a quick yoga session and a bagel smeared with enough cream cheese to clog my arteries.
I didn’t much worry about calories since my life was pretty much lived on the edge of death. Fitting into my jeans never really bothered me. That and I’d seen people starving, actually starving, children dying, their malnourished bodies bloated and skinny at the same time. No way was I going to put myself on a diet, starve myself like so many women did. It certainly wasn’t helping those who actually starved, but it worked for my guilty conscience.