How can I just sit here, drinking wine, neglecting what's going on around me. Neglecting the future, if there is anything that's worth being called a future. Neglecting the past. Fuck the past.
More wine. It tastes awful, actually. I hate wine, hated it all my life long. Why did I even open that bottle? Just because I found it downstairs, in a cabinet? Just because it was a welcome excuse to get away for a few moments, when talking to Audrey had become too personal?
Yes, that must be it.
Wine is great.
Every moment our conversation is getting down the wrong path I can just take a sip and think for a moment or use getting a refill as an excuse to get out of the scene.
She's been awfully quiet, anyway. The longer I stare out into the sunset, the less comfortable the silence feels. It was great first, when we got away from that huge topic of the past which is still between us, unspoken about, untreated, like an open wound. If you're having an open wound, it hurts at first. Then, if you just let go of it, if you don't move, it will get better, even though you're just lying there watching your own blood. And then, whenever somebody takes care of it, it will start to hurt again, brutally. When the bone of your open fracture is pulled back into place again. When the burnt skin gets scraped off before dressing the patch. When you're forced to move, just to get help.
Maybe I'm just lying here with an open wound. It'll heal slowly. Very slowly. The beautiful sunset and the silence and peace of the ocean don't make it any better. They just remind me of that open wound. Audrey doesn't make it any better. When she's here with me, like now, my thoughts constantly circle around the fear that she might even lay her finger into that open wound of mine.
Jack.
No, Audrey. Don't, just please don't.
I drink another sip of the wine. Five seconds that I can just occupy myself with something and not turn over to her. Stupid. What for? Stupid me. Yes?
She's at a loss for words, I realize. She just wanted to say something because she didn't like the silence. Audrey? She's staring right through me, into the nowhere.
I don't know… I'm sorry. I… I forgot what I wanted to say.
No, you didn't. I bet you didn't, Audrey. You just remembered to keep that promise that you've given me, earlier, not to talk about our past, especially about my past.
God, she looks worried. She's with me and yet she's still alone because I couldn't have acted any more distant. These beautiful eyes of hers. That face. I love every inch of it. This picture has burnt itself into my memory and it was always there, throughout the past years. Always. After every other hit that came down on me. Written on the wall of that moist, dirty, tiny cell in Russia. When everything hurt, her face was there, telling me to go on. She was the last thing I saw before blacking out.
Damnit. Turn away. This is taking you down the wrong road.
Back to the sunset. This is better. Neutral. How much would I give to erase these memories. Even at the price of accidentally erasing something good as well. There was barely anything worth living for, anyways.
Jack, are you alright?
Her hand is suddenly on my shoulder. She sounds worried.
You're shaking.
Oh, yes. Really. She's right. My hand is trembling, I suddenly see it when I look at the wine glass that I'm still holding.
I throw it away, dropping it into the sea. That doesn't make the trembling better.
Audrey is taken aback from my behavior, I can sense at least that.
Still she's trying her best to stick to her promise, not to ask. Thank you, Audrey. I don't want you to be worried about me, Audrey.
I am. You can't change that.
Don't. Everything's alright. It's a tremendous lie. Does that smirk on my face give it away? That I can't even conceal the lie? That I'll inevitably confess to myself and to the public that this is the biggest lie of all? That everything's alright? That smile should have been reassuring, placing some credibility into my statement. In the end it seems like I'm already laughing at myself.
Nothing is alright. How could it be, after all we've been through. How could it be, given the future that we're facing.
Why are you lying to me, Jack?
I am fine. She's making me angry. Damnit Audrey, I've done it all for you. I hadn't had a single reason to live anymore, but then I met you again. I was half a disaster myself and because of you I somehow managed to pull myself together to get you out. I've gone way over my tolerance limit for anything. I've pushed past my limits, I've even drawn on a credit. Then I held you in my hands and you were the same mess like me. You couldn't even speak and I bet you're still living through that trauma. You were hardly able to walk on your own. I had to do everything for the both of us. When I look back now, I have no idea how I managed to do that but somehow the mere presence of you gave me powers to move impossible things. You were so fragile, so weak, so in need for someone who meant only good. I needed to be there for you, no questions asked, without any doubts, without giving you the impression that you were still in danger. Somebody needed to be there for you, who'd give you the impression that you were protected. I could have screamed, shouted out loud and cried myself to sleep every other day when it creeped back into my mind what the world has done to me… and to you. But if that façade breaks, I'll just tear us both down into the land that I've fought so hard to get us out of.
I am ok, I repeat. What a big, crazy lie.
Clench a fist. Stop that fingers from trembling, damnit. That are just the side effects from getting off amphetamines again after four days of taking pills instead of getting a moment of sleep. Should have known better… Maybe I should have cut the dose to half instead of just going cold turkey.
These aren't withdrawal effects. There aren't any after only a few pills in a few days.
This is just the very normal way of my body to tell me that I've pushed the limits too far by everything that I've done lately. I'm fatigued. Gotta catch up sleep. Exhausted. Worn out. I can't keep up this pace for much longer.
I'm tired. That's it. That's all the truth you're gonna get from me, Audrey. No more. One of us needs to stay focused.
But I swear to god, I'm gonna get us through this. First of all, I'm gonna get you through this, Audrey. In just about two weeks time, me and Mark are gonna stage a fake exchange of ransom money and an hour later the CIA and Secret Service will be 'oh so glad' to have been able to snatch you back. It'll be the last time you'll ever see me. I'll run, if I manage to. And the future which lies ahead is still a blur right now.
Stop thinking, damnit, stop thinking.
No, I need to think about my options. Now or never. There aren't so many options where I can still go. Serbia… probably not, too dangerous now. Ukraine? Probably. Being a mercenary is always an option. Lying in a trench, in the rain and the mud, surrounded by machine gun fire, waiting until the first bullet hits. That's going to be cold. Maybe I'll make it there until winter comes, when the mud turns into snow and ice and you're suddenly not fighting the bullets but freezing to death becomes your worst enemy.
Jack.
Her words rip me out of these nightmares again. I turn back to her. She's still the most beautiful human being I could ever think of. No matter if seeing here will always remind me of our wicked past.
Thank you, she says.
What for?
You know what for. I am the reason why you are so tired.
She grabs my trembling hand and lies her fingers around the fist that I've clenched. I slowly release. She caresses my fingers with hers. She's careful. Soft. Sympathetically. She respects the lines that I've drawn earlier and refrains from revealing the scars on my arm or anything else.
Is being tired our new euphemism for what we've been through?
We both slip closer and at one point she's leaning against my shoulder, watching the sunset with me.
Let's just call it being tired.