Author Note:

So, friends, I've re-written this chapter about six times.

Writing about Rwanda was harder than I could have ever imagined. I tried to explain all of it, but then it just sounded like a lecture… anyway, I checked the Wikipedia site and it's pretty accurate. I've got an academic paper on the genocide that I can send you as well if you're interested in all the nuances of what went down. Know that it was a mess and that every anthropologist that has ever studied it, just about, agrees that it was the fault of the colonizing countries.

It's an insanely beautiful country and politically stable now. I'd recommend going.

In other news, I hope you've learned to trust me by now that I'm not crazy and I know what I'm doing with them. Please review and let me know what you think…

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"Gabi," I took a deep breath.

"I guess that this is just so freaking out of the blue," she continued to ramble on. "I mean, you're dating Sharpay. You're even talking about marrying Sharpay. Sharpay. The girl who spent most of our high school relationship trying to break us up and now… well, I guess I'm just…"

"Gabi, do you want me to explain or do you want to just keep talking?"

"She's going to want to keep talking." I heard Andrew's voice come through the computer as well.

One of the beauties of modern technology is that I could have a conversation with a room full of people, as long as they all had access to the microphone and speaker on the computer.

"Shut up," she replied to her husband. "This is serious business. Troy doesn't just date people. If he's …"

"Gabi, he wants to tell us about the girl he's fallen in love with. Do you want to keep assuming the worst or trust our friend's judgment?"

"Guys," I yelled. "Do I need to be here for this argument?"

A few seconds later, they each replied with a 'sorry' and told me to continue telling them about Sharpay.

"Like I said already, Gabi, I need you to trust me that this is not the girl we went to high school with. She may have the same name and the same face, but she is not the same girl."

"I can accept that," Gabi responded. "I guess…"

"That you're just being overprotective?"

"I'm flipping you off right now," she replied.

"I expect nothing less," I laughed.

"So, you'll see each other when she comes out at Christmas?" Gabi asked.

"Yeah," I replied with more sadness in my voice then I intended. Sharpay and I had been fighting almost non-stop about her taking the job in California. I had made the mistake of looking up apartments in San Diego that were near my apartment. That had pushed her too far too fast and the past few days had been hell.

"As much as I love hearing about your love life," Andrew interrupted, "can you tell us quickly about Rwanda?"

I had really hoped that they weren't going to ask.

"Um, sure," I said shakily. "What do you want to know? I mean, I got good pictures and I did some interviews and…"

"Well, what was it like?"

Sharpay had said at one point that that would be my least favorite question ever. It was so open ended and people really didn't know what else to ask… but how did you possibly answer it?

"It was intense," I finally answered. "I mean, we stayed at Hotel Rwanda."

"What?"

"Yeah," I said, my voice slightly dead. I still wasn't sure that I had the proper emotion for that moment. "It was definitely surreal to sit at the edge of that pool and know…"

"That they had to drink out of it for water?" Andrew offered.

"Uh huh," I responded.

"Troy, is it too hard to talk about?" Andrew said, gently.

"No, I mean yes, but I need to," I replied. "I mean, if you don't think about it, Rwanda is just like any other country. It's absolutely beautiful and its people are beautiful as well. I loved driving through the countryside and stopping at the small markets and stuff."

"But then you remember."

"Exactly. You meet someone who doesn't have an arm or who has a gigantic scar down the middle of their face and you know. I mean, it's only been about twenty-five years. And realistically, their whole economy collapsed in 94, so their country is only twenty-five years old."

"How's infrastructure?" Andrew was always worried about infrastructure.

"Much better than it was when Sharpay lived here," I said. I went into some more mundane details until Gabi interrupted.

"Did you make it to the genocide museum?"

"Yeah, that was our third day. We took all day," I said. "I still don't have words for that day, to be honest. The pictures and the videos and the quotes… I don't understand how the international community could just turn their backs like that! I mean, Clinton and Kofi Anan, they had the data right there. They knew what was going on. And France? Sending more weapons? Seriously?"

"Yeah, it just sucks," Andrew replied.

"I think what makes me the most mad is that the Hutu/ Tutsi thing wasn't a big deal until the Belgians and Germans came and taught them to hate. It was like a class system before that and it … I don't know how to explain it exactly, but when colonialism took over, that's when all hell started to break loose."

"It's hard to stand in a war-torn country and know that they would have been just fine if everyone else had just stayed out," Andrew replied.

"When did we decide that different and other meant bad?" I asked.

"A long time ago," Gabi piped in. "That song is an old one."

"Yeah," I sighed. I noticed the time, "Hey guys, I'm sorry, but I've got to run. I'm getting picked up in a few moments."

"Okay, no worries," Gabi's reply came.

"Hakuna Matatta, Gabi!" I corrected her.

"Sorry!" she laughed. "We love you and we'll see you in a few days!"

I said my goodbyes as well and signed off of the computer. A few days and I'd be back in America.

Back to the land of fast-food and cable TV and the ability to drive myself wherever I wanted.

Why wasn't I completely thrilled?

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He was in a mood.

Oh, how I loved it when Troy was in a mood.

"Troy," I said gently.

"I'm fine," he snapped.

Right. And I'm a tarantella dancer in Spain.

"You know, we've been together for twenty-seven days straight. If you think that I don't know that you're lying, then you've been seriously underestimating me," I replied with a raised eyebrow.

He glared at me. "Sometimes, people tell you that they're fine because they don't want to talk."

"Sometimes people who don't want to talk could just say that instead of lying and saying that they're fine," I retorted.

We are fighting like preschoolers.

"Fine, then," he snarled, placing extra emphasis on the word 'fine'. "I'm not fine, but I don't want to talk about it."

What the hell had brought this on?

"Do we need to not be here today then? Because I do not need you teaching my favorite class of kids if you're going to be a bastard."

We were spending Troy's last day "on the job" at the Olympic School in Kibera. It was run by Vincent, Badi and Christine and was one of those places that lived hand to mouth. They were endowed by a group of graduate students in Texas who just couldn't let them close their doors, but the three administrators rarely had enough money to live. They volunteered their time to teach the ever-growing group of precious elementary school aged students.

I had taught fourth grade… or form five… for them last year and completely loved it, so I dropped back in every once and a while to visit. Troy and I had visited a few weeks ago and he had fallen in love with them all. He had asked while we were in Rwanda if he could go back and I had arranged for the two of us to take a day of teaching the form five students.

But now, I'm not sure I want to let the monster before me around people. He's beyond grouchy.

"I'll be fine once I see the kids," he replied.

"Well, I don't know if I want to take that chance," I replied.

"Well, I'm paying you to do whatever I want, so back off."

Why I do feel like he just called me his whore?

We had already been talking in hushed tones so that everyone else in the van couldn't hear us, but with what I was about to say, I wanted extra insurance. I leaned into him and wrapped my fingers around his forearm. I gritted my teeth and snarled into his ear, "Listen, you elitist yankee jackass, I don't know what the hell has gotten into you or what stunt you're trying to pull here and I don't care how much you think that Andrew paid Yusef for me to chauffer your ass around Kenya, but none of it matters right now. Right now, you are about to walk into a classroom full of real children with real lives and real problems and if you give any less than everything of yourself to them, so help me God I will kill you with my shoe. Do you understand me?"

He clenched his jaw and nodded. It was only then that I could feel that his breathing was completely erratic and his eyes were full of tears.

But I was too pissed off to care.

"I don't care if this is your shitty defense mechanism, Troy," I continued. "You have got four days left. Four days. This is your last day in Nairobi. You have got to lean in because saying goodbye early is just not an option. I will not allow you to disengage, do you hear me?"

His head snapped around and he wrenched his arm away from my grasp, "Excuse me, fount of wisdom and knowledge, but it hurts like hell. You're the one who gets to be here and live here and not have to deal with the shit in America and go back and try to put into the words the fact that you're different and everyone expects you to be the same. You could have, ten years ago, but instead, you just ran away."

Bastard.

"Maybe I did," I whispered back, praying to any deity that would listen that my tears would hold out. "But it wasn't because I was too scared to go back. It was because I wasn't done. I have never run from something because it was too hard. I have run towards things because they're what I have to do."

"Then move to San Diego."

"What?"

He turned to face me fully, "Move to San Diego. If you're not scared to go back, the run towards what's next."

I stared into his eyes and saw everything that I had fallen in love with. Why do I feel like my conversations with him are constantly going places that I don't want them to go. This one shifted completely. I thought we were fighting about one thing and we're fighting about another… it's like dating a woman.

"I cannot move to San Diego," I said. "We've talked about that. There's still so much to do here."

"There are other people who can do this work!"

"There are other people who can live in San Diego!"

It was out of my mouth before I could think and I could see his heart shatter. He turned away from me and stared out the window. "There is no one else that I'm in love with."

Dammit.

He wants me to move to San Diego just because he's in love with me? Just because I'm in love with him? I can't imagine my life outside of my work and I'm supposed to just pack up my life and move to California because we love each other?

Dammit.

Is it possible that I've completely screwed this up less than two weeks into it? That has to be a freaking record. I'm amazing.

All he's asking is for me to take an amazing job in Southern California, live miles away from the beach and never have to ration out my water ever again. Like that's such a big sacrifice?

As the van slowed to a stop and the kids ran to greet us, I knew the answer to my own question. Their smiling faces and sing-song voices answer the question for me as the smile they always produce spreads across my face.

It's the biggest sacrifice I could ever make.