Sliver Of Truth

“It can’t follow us into the trees!” Jake screamed back at me, pointing to where the wall ended and a thick wooded area began and ran all the way down to the highway. We could move through the sloping tree cover all the way down to the Henry Hudson. His voice sounded like a whisper in the deafening sound of the helicopter, but I heard him and nodded. We ran balls out toward what I prayed would be safety. When we reached the corner where the south wall hit the east wall, he climbed it quickly and then helped me up.

Not easy. I fell once and tried again, finally made it over the top. I think if it hadn’t been for the sheer adrenaline of terror, I never would have made it over at all. I kind of climbed and then fell off the wall on the other side. Jake dropped down more gracefully beside me. We heard the copter retreat but stay close by. We listened. No voices, no footfalls.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m sorry I brought us here.”

“No, Ridley. I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? You were just trying to protect me,” I said, looking up at him. He dropped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. I turned and wrapped my arms around him, rested my face against his neck.

“I’ve realized something in the last few days,” he said. His voice sounded so grave and serious. “Ridley, I can walk away. It’s nothing more than a single choice. We can both do it. We don’t need all the answers to live our lives. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

He put his mouth to mine and he tasted so good. I could taste all the delicious possibilities of our life together. In that moment, I believed him. I believed he was right.

“If we get out of this,” he whispered in my ear, “I promise you everything is going to be different. I swear to you, Ridley. I swear it.”

We held each other like that until something started to slice the air around us like a razor through fabric. We stood to run but I watched as Jake’s shoulder jerked and red seeped through his jacket, then through his pants leg. He reached out to me as he fell backward. I screamed his name and stretched for his hand. Then I felt a searing heat in my side, fell forward with as much force as if someone had shoved me hard from behind. I saw his face grow pale and still. I tasted blood and dirt in my mouth.

I AWOKE WITH a start and a sob in my throat. The car was moving fast; we were on a highway.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Who?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. The road was surrounded by blackness. We must have left the city far behind.

“Jake.”

“I don’t know, Ridley,” he said softly.

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. I really don’t know.”

THERE ARE ALL kinds of death in this world. The death of the body is the least of them. The death of self, the death of hope-now, that’s the hard stuff.

I’ve never been one to fear my own death. Not that I want to die, of course. I’ve just always seen death as a lights-out proposition. You’re gone. Either it’s the end of you…or it’s a beginning. Either way, I don’t imagine there’s much looking back. I’ve never bought the whole fire-and-brimstone thing, the concept of reward or punishment at death. The idea that a tally has been kept of our good or evil or mediocre deeds, and that the soul is filed away accordingly for all eternity, just doesn’t ring true. Humans judge that way. I tend to think that God probably doesn’t. He or She just keeps doling out the lessons with endless patience until you finally “get it” in this life or the next.

I suspect that grief is worse than death. When someone you love has died, it’s almost impossible to get your head around it. The totality of it, your utter helplessness against it, makes you feel as if you could burst into flames from sheer emotional agony. When Max died, I hurt so much that I couldn’t believe I was still walking around, going through the motions of my life. I actually found myself wishing that a car would hit me or that I would fall from some medium height. It’s not that I wanted to die. I just wanted to be in traction. I wanted my body to be as wrecked as my spirit so I could just lie down and heal.

I’m not afraid to die. I know there are far worse fates.

I was thinking this as Dylan drove on the dark highway and I lay in the backseat.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace where we’ll be safe for a while until we figure out what to do. I need to think.”

“You’re going to tell me what’s going on. Right now,” I said.

No answer. He turned off the highway and pulled onto a small road. There was nothing for miles but darkness, punctuated by the yellow lights of house windows, few and far between and off in the distance. I could smell grass and manure. He made a right onto a narrow dirt road and we drove slowly down a drive edged with tall trees. At the end, there was a dark stone structure. A house. It had the look of emptiness, of abandonment.

“This was my family’s summer house.”

“Was?”

“I don’t have much family left. I guess it’s mine.”