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He enveloped her with his arms and held her while she tried to hit at him.
"Debbie, don't go crazy on me. It's not what you think."
"Let go of me, let go of me before I scream rape and get your sorry ass thrown into jail. I should do that anyway. Keep you from killing yourself."
But he wouldn't let her go and finally she stopped struggling.
"You're going to do it, aren't you?"
"The company has contacts and they think they can get me into the country with an experienced war correspondent/journalist. The guy is good, from what they say, and has been in and out of a dozen war zones without getting a scratch. If we can interview 'The Saint of the Flowers' and her followers, get pictures, we can write our own tickets. It's a joint enterprise. He'll have his clients for short articles and I'll be contracted to get a book out of it. It could make me a pile of money. Enough so I wouldn't have to work again if I didn't want to."
She pulled away from him and the vision of Bill covered with blood filled her mind.
"Or you could end up a rotting corpse in an African field with a spike up your ass and crows eating your eyes out and hyenas fighting over what's left. Are you insane?"
He reached out and touched her face gently.
"I know part of this is because of what happened with Bill, but I'll be with experienced people and people get murdered on the streets of Jacksonville. I don't intend to die in an African field. I intend to walk away with a book that will get me on The Morning Show and Today, and probably Oprah."
They held each other in the center of the bed and she could hear cars faintly as they roared past on the highway. It was hard to believe there was a world that could hold butchery and Saints outside this room, but it was real.
After awhile he said, "I shouldn't be more than a few weeks or a month or two but, whatever happens, I'm not coming back here."
"Why?"
"You remember when we talked about you and Bill and not having closure. You reminded me that I seem to be hung up on a woman who cheated on me and died nearly 20 years ago. I got to thinking about it and you were right. It's been almost two decades and I've never had a serious relationship with another woman. There's something wrong there."
The moment stretched out.
"When I come back, and I will come back, I'm going back to Palatka. I never said goodbye properly. I was too hurt. I'm going to put a really nice tombstone up in her memory and try to say goodbye. And then look around for someone I can love - the way you loved Bill."
He just smiled at her.
"Don't say it. We're friends. We're good friends, but that's all you feel for me and all I feel for you. I want more. I want what I had. I'm going back to Palatka and I'm going to put up a tombstone that reads, 'Here Lies A Most Beautiful Lady,' from the Masefield poem, and I'm going to move on with my life."
They were lying together and after awhile she told him, "Turn the lights out. I changed my mind. Do you mind if I stay the night?"
As they lay together in the darkness and she eventually felt him relax in sleep, she wondered how it had happened.
She'd always had men in her life, attracted them without effort. And now the man she'd loved for half her life was in another bed, the man she'd left her husband for was halfway across the country, and a man who was probably the best friend, male or female, that she'd ever had was going to go off a half world away and get himself killed.
In the darkness she wept quietly for everything that had been lost and would be lost.
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- COMMENTS
Anonymous24 days agoYou're story is great. However, given the number of different but significant situations you continue adding, you're dragging things out too much. You've done a great job thus far with resolving each one, but as the story is coming to an end, you may have a lot of loose ends. That would be very disappointing in itself given how good a story you have so far.
AceAurelia29 days agoWonderful story but it really dragged with the legal stuff. It took you a tad bit too long to progress the story (timeline wise) the first 4 chapters were 4 weeks…that’s RIDICULOUS
Anonymous3 months agoIt would be at this time that Bill would be put on a leave of absence (PAID) until he would be cleared to return to work. It would be at this time that most ANYONE would leave that job and find a safer job. After all....he has kids.
Bill would have PTSD from the gunshot. He WOULD be having severe issues with it. Nightmares, flashbacks, etc...
tsgtcapt7 months agoMaybe, just maybe, Debbie is learning that she is not the rising sun?! Thank you.
Anonymousabout 1 year agoIt only took you about 19 chapters to have Debbie wrestle with any serious pain like the shit she's heaped on Bill. it's not enough though, with only two sections to go, I'm not hopeful she'll ever come to grips with her selfishness, self-absorption and complete delusional understanding of herself and love. Still absolutely zero about her to think anything other than distain.
