"But what did I know? What does anyone know about anyone...? You see their lives, hear them, only in fragments...The pieces of their lives enter your consciousness, become as much a part of you as your own life. But in the end, you can only imagine what's in their souls, even if it is unimaginable." - Gayle Golden
Dear my love, haven't you wanted to be with me
And dear my love, haven't you longed to be free
I can't keep pretending that I don't even know you
And at sweet night, you are my own
- "Anywhere" by Evanescence
1: The Right Questions
"Do you remember that song I sang to you a long time ago?"
They'd been on the phone that night two years ago, and he had asked if he could sing to her. He'd been pretty horrible at it, but she'd kept her laughter at bay until he'd finished. She hesitated at first when he told her it was her turn. She only ever sang in the shower after all, where the white tiled walls made her voice echo like a rock star's. Privacy guaranteed confidence. But there he was breathing on the other line waiting patiently for her voice. Swallowing her anxiety, she was relieved that he couldn't see her squirming as she sang only the first verse. Afterward, she waited for his laughter. None came. There was only a quiet awe, which made her even more embarrassed.
She'd sung one of her favorite Evanescence songs. But now the song could no longer be casually listened to. Now, it took courage to even read its name. It took courage to get past that first verse, to listen to Amy Lee's haunting voice manipulate the notes into something that made her heart ache every single time she heard it. Because every single time, she thought of that night and of him.
It's rarely the lyrics that moved you; it was the memories the song stirred. Astounding how a mere song could instantly take you back to a moment in time, to a feeling, whether you welcomed it or not.
"Of course I remember that song," he snapped. "How could I forget it? I don't know why you're saying this to me. Why you're being so damn cold."
"How can I not be cold when I never know what's going on inside your head? I have to guess, to make assumptions, and only when I make the wrong ones do you ever fucking talk!" she exploded.
Unable to respond, he could only avert his eyes from hers, because he knew it was true. They both knew that he talked all the time. He just never said anything about himself, and those facts, those small and dangerous conversations, were the ones that mattered the most.
"Why don't you argue with me? I want us to argue. Be angry with me! Tell me what's going on!"
He gave her a small, sad smile. "I lack the ability to get mad at you, Julia. I can only get…irritated."
At that moment, she began to realize that the only thing they'd ever had in common was their love for one another. How that ever happened still baffled her to this day.
"You're unbelievable," she sighed.
It was a retreat, a temporary surrender. She'd lost again, and he remained an enigma. But, she wasn't one to give up, especially on the ones she loved. It just required a different strategy. It would require patience.
It was one of the first pushes, but certainly not the last.
"Chang, you still want that story about the Italian 'waste spill?'"
"I do. I thought we established that this morning at the meeting, unless Saoru wants someone else."
Gregorio leaned over his cubicle and handed Julia a stack of papers with plane tickets stapled to the corner.
"You'll be landing in Milan. The Mishimas are doing some crazy shit over there, I tell you," the editor smirked, clicking away at his computer keyboard. "You know we're not sending you over there for a tiny story about the environment, though I know you wouldn't mind that either."
"Nah I wouldn't, but thanks," Julia replied, casually flipping through photos and police reports. Jin Kazama scowled from behind sunglasses as he entered a dark van. Men in white lab coats transported huge crates of who-knew-what into Mishima headquarters. Same old, same old.
"You'll be under the guise of a tournament participant," Gregorio reminded her, uploading an ancient photograph of Julia on his computer screen. It depicted a twenty-one-year-old Navajo-Chinese fighter in full-blown combat regalia during the sixth Iron Fist tournament: jeans mini skirt, cowboy boots, turquoise, eagle feathers and the fiercest look she'd been able to muster. Julia's eyes widened, a warm blush creeping over her cheeks. Her editor stared up at her, shaking his head in mock disapproval.
"You know, tampering with photos is unethical," she said coolly, clearing her throat, and Gregorio guffawed, unable to keep up the charade.
"I dunno where the hell you got that, but I got my eye on you, Greg," Julia said with a grin. "Lucky for you, I don't have to play up the part much."
"Yep, you're the real deal. It's only been what, three years since that photo?" Gregorio asked, navigating away from the picture, to Julia's relief.
"Five."
Her editor paused, brow furrowed. "Can I ask you somethin'?"
"Is this off the record?" Julia teased.
Gregorio grinned. "Always."
"Then shoot."
The news editor gathered his thoughts, searching the Native woman's face. He felt like a father to her and had been amazed with her talent the day she'd been hired three years ago.
"You told me once that you studied archaeology in college. So why did you become a reporter?"
The woman paused; experience told Gregorio that she was thinking deeply about the question. Being patient was best if he wanted an honest answer.
"I wanted to help people," she finally replied. "And I liked knowing the truth. I liked finding it."
"And when you don't find it?"
Julia smiled briefly. "I will. I just have to ask the right questions."
"Not every question has an answer, but every answer has a question. You just have to figure out which ones to ask."
This was what her News Writing professor told her after Julia had expressed concerns about interviewees reluctant to share information. These words tormented her as she'd studied him up close; from a distance; when he was looking; when he wasn't looking. When he lied, when he was sweet. When he retreated into that dark heart of his and brooded. When he took her into his arms and held with a quiet ache. When he thought everything was all right between them.
She knew she wasn't asking the right questions.
When she realized that she knew nothing about him, she understood that she couldn't trust him. Every time she tried to see inside him, he used silence or perfectly concocted stories to stop the questions.
But he didn't know her either. She was just as good as he was at holding back. He didn't know that she would have accepted him regardless of whatever secrets he kept – as long as his answers were honest the first time she asked her questions. He didn't know that she was like water; she was even more enigmatic, as she took all of its shapes, learned to master all of its forms. She could be liquid, as she was now, adaptable, ebbing and flowing with whatever change and conflict met her along the way. She was like ice, a hard, emotionless, impenetrable fortress that solidified as it wished when times became cold.
And she was vapor, able to simply vanish without a trace when things became unbearable. She'd pulled such disappearing acts on him before, and he'd been devastated in those brief periods without her. But, eventually, she would become water again, his again, flowing in and around his fire, the river that kept the impulsive flames of vice and devastation at bay.
Now, when she thought about it, she found it ironic that she worked in an industry of truth, yet had allowed herself to live in lies for two and a half years.
It was true that she wanted to help people, to give a voice to the voiceless. The truth was indeed liberating.
But, she also never, ever wanted to be so badly duped again.
The flight to Milan would take ten hours. Julia fidgeted in her seat, flipping absentmindedly through magazines and through notes she'd taken the night previous about the Mishima case, wondering what Italy held in store for her.
Her cameraman, a new hire from Oxford University, wouldn't stop talking. The man insisted on sharing every detail he knew about the Mishimas and about Italy. He was lucky she was patient and found his enthusiasm endearing. Still, the rugged-and-masculine-yet-cultured-art-snob didn't suit him. Steve Fox was just an intelligent jock, an oxymoron in itself; Julia smiled to herself. That was all right. She enjoyed contradictions, as she was one herself.
"How come I never saw you at the tournaments? We competed in a lot of them together, and I never once saw you," Steve asked, his blue eyes shining.
"I dunno. Strange, huh?" she replied, staring out the plane window. Maybe he'd take a hint; he didn't.
Finally, three hours later he was drooling in slumber, the blond head drooping so that his chin touched his chest. Julia reclined his seat to save him from a sore neck.
"Can I get you something to drink, Miss?"
She looked up.
Five years gone and he still hadn't changed his hair color.
It shouldn't have hurt.
She should have been happy that, after all of his misery, he was back on his feet. He'd landed a job at a travel agency.
Despite his deceit and his heartache-long silences, despite her former naïveté and the salt-in-the-wound memories, she should have been happy.
Did he love her? She shouldn't want to know. How old was this woman? Was she beautiful? Smart? Could she carry on a good conversation? What did she sound like when she spoke, when she laughed? Would she listen to him and comfort him when he came to her, destroyed and grief-stricken?
Or was he merely doing the right thing after that one night stand breathed life into a consequence made of his eyes, feet, hair and hands?
She knew she should stop tormenting herself with questions that were irrelevant to the story. It wasn't newsworthy. What mattered was that it was never meant to be, that their lives had been on different paths, in different worlds, since the beginning. She should stop wondering about what could have been and just focus on the truth, "inverted pyramid" style: the most important facts always come first. The fact that they never talked anymore. The fact that they were miles apart. The fact that he was a liar. The fact that she'd tormented him with enough scathing words to obliterate his already obsolete self-esteem. The fact that she'd once believed in him.
But, sometimes she remembered his tenderness instead, or the easy way he accepted her exactly as she was. These were important too, weren't they?
A reporter's job was to seek the truth. And with him, she did find the truth. It took months. It took several heartbreaks, vicious conversations and late long distance calls. It took for her to become colder and viler than required. But she got it.
You gotta be pushy, her editors and professors said. If you don't push, you'll never know the truth. It's amazing what some people would say or do to keep the truth from you.
And so she pushed; he pushed back with silence. But she knew that he would eventually surrender, and it hurt her to know the kind of control she could wield over him if she possessed enough tenacity – or rage. She also knew that, this time, he had not merely surrendered; he had broken.
She prided herself on her detached compassion, on her objectivity, on her at once practical, logical mannerisms and her flighty but genuine ability to love and care deeply without getting too obsessed. She wondered if she suffered from a mild case of attention deficit disorder when it came to relationships. It made her feel heartless.
But with him it was different. With him, she lost track of herself. And she was a goddamn journalist now. Blunders were excusable when she was seventeen, but now, belly deep in her first career as a reporter, she was supposed to have her shit straight. She was supposed to be rooted to reality. To logic. To facts.
But, now and again, she found herself drifting back to memories she'd thought she'd swept away. Maybe she should have pursued a career in acting. Life seemed like one big stage sometimes, and maybe it was. Maybe everybody was just masquerading in the dark.
He's getting married. He has a daughter. He's traveling the world.
Without you.
Those were facts.
It shouldn't have hurt.
Then she'd imagine that she was in his future wife's shoes, or in his two-year-old daughter's shoes – little pink Nike sneakers that curled around her toes too tight. She imagined how their lives would be.
Getting married so soon? Does this not only reinforce the fact that the man you loved is an emotional and psychological nut job who was never dealt a normal hand in life's cruel card game? You know he's a liar. Could you really have been happy had he chosen you, waited for you, knowing about all the problems he has? And would you have chosen him if you had known his circumstances--his truth--before you had known his heart?
She'd rather imagine that that little girl was hers and his. He always liked to talk about having children one day. Well, one day was today. She just wasn't the mother.
Maybe she did like some pain after all. It was always inspiring.
Things are always more romantic, more beautiful, when they don't exist. When you let your mind run wild with it. Because, in you heart, you know that you can't have it ever at all.
