Page 75 of Swerve
This time, it is Knox who runs his hand across my hair, one finger tipping my chin up so that I have to look at him. “A human one,” he says quietly. “It’s normal to want comfort from someone who understands. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
My psychiatrist mind knows he is right. But there’s more that I want from him. That’s the part that makes me wonder how that could possibly be when the vast majority of me is in the worst kind of mourning for what has happened and the unbearable question of how it will end.
“Here’s something I know,” he says, no longer touching me, as if he doesn’t trust himself. “Human beings aren’t one dimensional. Life isn’t one dimensional. Even when we’re experiencing something we don’t even know how to process, we need to feel alive, be reminded all is not completely insane.”
“Was it like that for you in Afghanistan?”
“Yes. We somehow had to compartmentalize. Head out on a mission where we might end up losing civilians who weren’t supposed to be in the line of fire. And then play cards that night before bed and try not to be shocked by our own laughter. Life is never all good or all bad. On a daily basis, it’s a never-ending switching back and forth between the two. Somehow the blend is bearable most of the time.”
“But the two of us right now . . .”
He gives me a long, layering look. “You know what I really want to do right now?”
I hesitate, not sure I need to hear what he’s going to say. But I can’t help it. I want to hear it. “What?” I ask, the word barely audible.
“Pick you up. Carry you into my room and make you forget about everything going on in your life right now except the fact that I am inside you. Make you certain with every move of my body that I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
A sharp intake of breath tells us both I have just visualized him doing exactly that.
And then he says, “But I’m afraid that’s a recipe for regret on your part. And I’ve caused enough regret in my life.”
I get up from the sofa then, walk to the door on shaky legs, turn the knob. Without looking back at him, I say, “I’ll wait for you outside.”
It isn’t until I reach the Jeep that I allow myself a deep breath and the reluctant admission that I am in way over my head.
Emory
“To perceive is to suffer.”
?Aristotle
I FEEL LIKE this is going to take us nowhere.
What is the likelihood that something the Colombian guy mumbled in his sleep is even real? Maybe it’s a place where he grew up, or who knows what?
We’re about to take the exit off I-66 for Route 29 when I spot a truck ahead, loaded with chickens in wire crates. Feathers are flying out of the truck and floating onto our windshield.
I let out a long sigh, and Knox looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“I hate those trucks,” I say.
Knox lets off the gas, but the truck has slowed down too, and we’re close enough that I can see the poor things flattened inside the crates, unable to stand. Tears spring to my eyes and start down my cheeks. I wipe them away, looking out my window to avoid seeing the picture ahead of us. But it’s emblazoned on my eyes already, and I can’t hold back the sudden urge to sob. Nor can I stop the scream that rips from my throat. “I . . . hate . . . this . . . world,” I say, crying so hard now that I can barely get the words out. “Everywhere you look . . . there’s cruelty.”
“Hey,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing softly. “They’ll be out of sight in a minute.”
“Does that change what’s going to happen to them? Does my not seeing it mean they won’t be slaughtered?”
“Do you want me to pull over?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “We need to get to the next place. What if Mia is in a cage somewhere? What if someone is planning to do something awful to her?” I am outright sobbing now, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s as if a hole inside me has been ripped open, and all the pain I feel over Mia’s disappearance, all the empathy I’ve ever felt for people and animals not in control of their own fate, comes pouring out of me, a tidal wave of emotion that flattens me.
“Oh, shit!”
I look up just in time to see one of the crates flying off the back of the truck. It bounces in the center of the lane in front of us. Knox slams on the brakes, and I just know we’re going to hit it. Somehow, though, it’s air-bound again, landing in the pull-over lane and skidding across the asphalt into the grass at the edge of the pavement.
Knox whips the Jeep off the road and comes to a tire-smoking stop. Without saying a word, we’re both out and running back to the spot where the crate is tipped up on one corner.
“Oh, my gosh!” I say. “Are they okay?”
