Everly After (30 page)

I smile at the backhanded compliment, looking up from my boxes stacked on his dining room table.

“Leave it unlocked. I’ll come by later and lock it myself.”

I wave to her, only to hear the door shut instead. She leaves without saying goodbye.

It’s startling when I first notice it. The apartment is almost bare, except for a few boxes here and there. The furniture that’s left looks lonely without the rest. The books are gone. The stacks of papers in his room are missing. The photographs have been taken down.

It feels like he’s left me for real now. Like he’s decided to take his things and move out of my heart. I get nervous at that thought, at the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s taken twenty-one years, but I realize it now—the importance of waking up in the morning. I’m tired of breathing just to get through another day. I’m here because of him, and I need to be thankful for that. I need to be thankful for what he’s done for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss him. I’m not sure I’d be good for him now, even though I’m sober. I’m afraid I’m too much of a distraction.

I go through my boxes, trying to decide what to do with them and where to go next, and then I see my ticket to Naples from Hudson and the camera tucked down into the bottom of the box, a small brown envelope next to it. I open it and find the first photo I took of Beckett, standing surprised in his doorway. I’m surprised he went through the trouble of printing these. That was the start of everything, the first time I really, truly saw him without getting in my own way.

I miss him looking at me like he did in this photo. I miss everything.

I don’t look at the rest. I tuck them back into the envelope and grab the plane ticket. I don’t know a lot of things, but I know you can’t rely on someone else to fix you. I have to do this myself.

I make my way down his stairs without crying, whispering a long goodbye until I hail a taxi. Then it’s just me again, a girl with a plane ticket, in search of a new start.

Beckett

I thought I was in hell before, but no, Syria is fucking hell. I have Ollie’s uncle to thank for the invitation and my own stupid mouth for accepting.

It’s been two months since I’ve started freelancing for his new media company again, and I think I’m finally losing my fucking mind. I live each day like I’m being hunted because I am. I have no support, no one to fall back on. If I’m caught and held for ransom, I’ll either rot waiting or be killed.

I thought having deadlines again might help. I thought the adrenaline rush might piece my fractured mind back together, but I was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong. I’m reporting in a place where madness permeates the foul air. There’s such a frantic desperation that gnaws at me, clawing me until some nights I’m too tired to care. I report about ghosts. If they’re not dead, they will be soon. Food is so scarce, people are salvaging for weeds.

My stomach growls at the thought. I haven’t had much to eat in the past few days, either. I’ve been on the move. The village I wanted to stop at last night asked me to leave. I’m a risk to them and their safety. I’m a risk to everyone here in Syria, including myself.

I know it in my gut that leaving Damascus was a mistake, but I couldn’t ignore this lead or turn down the assignment. This is a paycheck for me, and I’ve got to make it on my own.

I thought returning to what’s been familiar to me for five years would push me forward, but listening to the wailing, seeing the blood and bodies in the street, smelling death for two months…I might as well have jumped off that hospital roof. I’m helpless and alone. Words aren’t fixing this, and though I care, though my job has purpose, I’ve turned into a ghost myself.

Gunfire rings out, echoing between the buildings. My heart slams in my chest. I should be used to this, but it still makes me flinch, the surprise of it, the way the noise seeps into my bones until reality fades and I think I’ve been shot.

Bloody hell.

Voices carry through the barrage of fire—quick rounds being shot off, others incoming. I sweep the area, watching the civilians scurrying. I push up against the wall and peek around the corner. My body is on fire, my heart racing so fast I think it might finally stop and I’ll collapse. Fear is a powerful thing. So’s the fight to survive, too. My feet move before I can think better of it.

I’m running when the first strike hits up the street. The rocket whistles, and then the earth shakes as it explodes. Dust ripples and billows up into a consuming cloud. The screams pierce the air, and I stop, peering over my shoulder as more gunfire breaks out behind me in a tinny chorus. Pleas for help come from the smoke ahead of me. And me… I have nowhere to go.

I survey the alley to my left—a dead end. If I turn around, I’ll be in the middle of what sounds like a fucking nasty firefight. I race forward into the black cloud, my eyes and throat burning. I run into the tenebrous darkness ahead, chasing the ghost of Everly.

Then the ground shakes, and I’m knocked off my feet and everything goes black.

Beckett

I see her face all the time—the way the sun hit her cheeks and lit up her hair when we spent the afternoon at the lake, back when her hair was still blonde. I hear her honest laugh as we raced through the rain in London before we made out in the back of that taxi. I remember the soft sigh she made when I kissed the inside of her elbow. The warmth of her lips over mine until we’d both ran out of air. In the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep, I phone her just to listen to her voicemail because there’s nothing left of Everly for me except memories.

It’s the recollection of her blue eyes that make mine open. Noise fades in and out, and I can’t see shit. I half-expect to be dragged out of here and held for ransom. I half-expect another mortar shell to rain down from the sky to kill me for good. I’ve come to anticipate dying, and that’s no way to live.

Black smoke churns around me, the air thick with debris and dust. I’m suffocating and slow to move, the shock of being knocked to my feet too much of a reminder of last time. I could die now, and I might, but my mind is freaking the fuck out. I rub my eyes, trying to clear away the image of bloodied bodies and lifeless eyes.

And then I feel the weight of Everly’s near-lifeless body in my arms—the beach, the salty air, the fear that I’d lost her. I push to my feet and run.

Fire rips through the debris cloud, and shadows of people come into focus. Sound warps in and out, the impact of the rocket still rippling through my body. I follow the crowd, my hearing slowly returning to greet me with screams and crying and angry yelling. Gunfire spirals around me. Arabic words, but the universal sound is of misery. It feels like the world tilts, or maybe it’s the rush of adrenaline.

In the middle of the burning rubble and flesh, in the middle of insanity, I notice a small boy pinned to the filthy street. No one notices; it’s chaos. His small arm is severed from his body. I know I should keep moving. It goes against all my training, but I can’t walk past and leave him alone to die. There’s a story to file after this attack, words to write, pictures to take. Except the pain and the fear of the day washes over me. I sink to my knees and fashion a tourniquet for his arm, but it’s no use. He’s lost too much blood. He’s bleeding out in the street. I stay by him and gently whisper reassurances. I ask for his name and tell him I won’t leave, even as I flag for help, trying my best to appear calm for him. I hold his remaining hand and search for his family through the dust and smoke. No one comes.

In a few minutes, he passes.

It’s almost four in the morning, and his face still stares back at me whenever I close my eyes. I carried his body to the makeshift hospital, hoping that someone would give his body a name. I left after that, taking my chances with a truck of rebels who were driving farther north, not far from Turkish border.

I’ve stayed up because I can’t sleep. I wish Ollie wasn’t on special assignment, I want to talk to him, hear something familiar. I’m shattered and gutted, rubbed raw from too many days like today. I wrote a bit, but even that’s pointless now.

Everly. I miss her so much it hurts.

I glance at my keys on the table, my wallet and passport, and then at my door in the bombed-out hotel where I’m staying. I have to keep moving so I don’t have much of anything with me. I should be wearing the flak jacket slung over the back of the empty chair, but it’s stained with blood. I’ve listened to my interview with a local rebel commander over Otis Redding on loop to try to make it bearable tonight.

In the distance, more gunfire pierces the night’s dark skies.

Fuck this.

Some bridges are better left burned. I’ll file the material I have, but I’m finished. I don’t belong here. I’m not sure where I belong actually, but it sure as hell isn’t constantly on the edge in a war zone. I’m too young to be this disillusioned with the world. I’m too young to give in and be lost. What I do know is that I have something to fall back on now, for a little while at least. I need to take care of my aunt’s estate, sell the café and her house. I need to get my feet back on the ground. And I need to find Everly.

I barely survived her the first time, but I’m not ready to let her go. I’m not accepting that we broke apart in that hospital room. I’m not ready to let this be my life, either.

It takes three planes to touch down in Naples the next afternoon.

I jump into a cab waiting outside the broken-down pink airport. The driver smiles, mocking me with a very Italian laugh before throwing a worn black book of English phrases into the backseat at me.

“I learn English.”

I look and feel like shit, still covered in dust and sweat. I couldn’t care less about trying to bridge the language difference between us politely like I should. I brush him off with a curt nod. “Molo Beverello,
per favore
.”

“You take boat?” His head spins around to me, the car swerving toward the thick concrete divide as we race down A56 toward the busy Naples center.

I’m never going to see her again. I’m going to get killed riding in this fucking cab. I’ve survived war zones with high casualty rates but put me in an Italian cab and it’s a damn death trap. “Yes.”

“Yes—” A car pulls out from a side street, barely missing us. “
Vaffanculo
!” he yells at the offending driver, shaking his hands in the air, the wheel completely untouched as we barrel forward. “No one knows to drive.”

We speed down some alleyway, cars parked on either side, taking corners fast enough to almost flip us over. A car careens toward us, and I brace myself for an impact. He hits the brakes, swearing and beeping the horn. I wince and open one eye, sure that I’m going to find nothing left to the car, that I’m going to wake up mangled on the sidewalk.

I take the next hydrofoil over to Capri, but I’m not sure where to go when we dock. I came this far on the bet that Everly would use the ticket Hudson bought for her. It could still be sitting in my old flat, boxed up. She could be anywhere, but my gut led me this far, so I start walking from hotel to hotel asking if she’s a guest.

Of course, they won’t tell me, but I keep walking until I happen down a small pathway to a hotel perched on the rocky shore of the island. Bougainvillea clings to the stone walls to my right; the faraglioni stand tall in the bay to my left. I have travel whiplash, recoiling when someone shuts an iron gate behind me. I watched a boy die yesterday, and now I’m walking in what seems like paradise. Maybe I did die on that sidewalk.

I expect the woman behind the counter to respond like every other desk clerk, but she holds her hand up for me to wait while she takes a call. She ducks down behind the counter, riffles through a bin, and slides a phone with a shattered screen across the desk to me, turning her back at my confusion.

I pick it up, flipping it over in my hand to see the familiar pink, bedazzled case, and my pulse starts to race. This is Everly’s phone.

Nothing happens when I turn it on. I don’t know what to expect, either. Maybe some context from the clerk, but she’s arguing on the phone.

There’s pile of missed calls from me. It must have been in this bin every time I called, praying she’d pick up so we could talk. But she’s gone, and I missed her. Except I notice there’s a saved draft in her messages. The floor moves under my feet as I read it over.

For now, let me go. If I can find you once, maybe I can find you again when it’s time. When I can be what you need, too. I know I’m going to be okay now. Until then, listen to Otis Redding and think of me.

Below there’s a picture of Everly blowing me a kiss, her hair blonde again as she sits on a beach, her skin tanned. She looks happy, her dark eyes shining bright, no sunglasses. My eyes settle on the caption below it:
And I love you, too.

As if she needs to tell me to think of her. You can’t erase a girl like Everly from your life.

I was wrong that day when she returned my quilt—she’s not the bright flash of green. She’s not the secret murmur of anticipation for a natural phenomenon, either. Everly isn’t fleeting. When you love someone—love them as much as I love her—they become the scars you carry, the battle wounds from when you took a risk. I think the messier bits of life should be worn like a badge of courage sometimes, a sign for you to say you’ve lived—are
living
.