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Authors: Amy Leigh McCorkle

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BOOK: SCARS
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              Continuing to run, the New Year’s Eve air blew, a bitter cold wind biting at my nose. I ran, one foot in front of another. So many solo runs taken in the years since my HIV diagnosis. But here recently with the Diabetes verdict my body had responded quickly to the new routine. Before I’d found James and my life had changed so radically in some ways my body had started to respond to the exercise and eating regime. Physically it had made me stronger. And with each run I took with my fiancé the stronger I felt emotionally.

              But on this morning, as the snow began to come down again, there was a certain amount of peace I found within myself -- even though I knew Georgia was out there with that secret. Of course, in the end it would be my word against hers. There was some comfort in that. Having Ellen and James in my corner to fight against her gave me the strength and confidence that had been sorely lacking in the past.

              Yes, the nightmares were still there. Yes, perhaps they would always haunt me, I wasn’t built for secrets and a life of murder. Yet that’s exactly what my life had been up to this point. If Georgia was manipulating me with the idea I would confess to my crime outright she really misjudged the situation altogether.

              I knew I needed a therapist to work through this stuff in a healthy way, but they would be obligated to report my crime to the authorities. And god knew I didn’t want that. So I ran. I ran hard. And I thought of James and our unlikely path to each other and our future together.

              It was impossible not to.

              His crimes both the one he had confessed and had only intimated were awful. But I found myself unable to judge him for or recoil from. I could only feel his devastation at finding his lover Lana dead in her bedroom on the night they were to run off together.

              The picture I watched him burn—the one of her in a gorgeous evening gown drinking champagne—was breathtaking. How he went from her to me was something I still had trouble getting my head around.

              Of course we were similar in one way, we had both, at one time been victims, hunted by a monster. I supposed in a way I was still being hunted by that monster.

              Only Georgia’s head had sprouted where George’s had once been and she was using every tool in her belt to torture me and rob of any happiness I was trying to claim as my own and heal with.

              She could be anywhere really.

              In the shadows.

              Behind the trees.

              At James’ and my home. Or even at the police station.

              I kept running. The sun was rising. I hoped I beat James rising for breakfast and coffee. I had my breakfast of pills coffee and oatmeal before I headed out for my run. I came to the bridge and stopped abruptly.

              I wondered to myself if it would always be this way.

              Me versus my past. Me versus every horrible, painful memory that stood out to me when I came to it. I hated that. I wished I could just race across it free from every burden it brought with it.

              And then as if on cue James emerged from the edge of the woods on the other side and stepped out onto the bridge and reached for me. Tears blurred my vision. How on earth had I talked this same man off the bridge without going over the side of it?

              Slowly but surely I stepped out onto that bridge and he smiled that charming, charismatic half smile and said, “You didn’t really think I’d leave you to face this alone did you?”

              Relief flooded my whole body. I walked across the bridge a little bit at a time. Each time the wind gusted I stopped and clenched my fists and gritted my teeth.

              “Come now, angel. You’re the strongest person I know. You can do this. Your past only has power over you if you let it have that power over you.”

              I took several breaths and crossed the bridge grasping his hand tightly as I reached the other side. He drew me in and we stood there in one another’s arms.

              “Rayna, one day this bridge will mean nothing to you and you will cross it back and forth at will.”

              “I don’t know. Maybe. But as long as I have you anything seems possible.”

              The wind gusted and we held tightly to one another.

              There we stood. Future bride and groom. Secure in our love. Secure in one another’s presence. Nothing would change that. Nothing. No one, no matter how hard they tried would get to us. And trust me. They would try. With everything they would try.

***

              I sat in the kitchen with a cup of McDonald’s coffee and my computer open. The novel I had started so many years ago was now writing itself. I loved writing. I’d forgotten how good it felt to lose myself to a world where there were lives other than mine dealing with life or death issues.

              In the story people were on the run. People were in love.

              The person I was at twenty-four was not the person I was as I sat in front of that computer. That much was for sure. The story had grown darker. The characters had more texture. And the narrative was far more compelling than it had ever been before.

              This love I shared with James, our bond, it informed my writing. The fierceness with which we loved each other was something out of a dark and thorny fairytale. Our shared past may have remained forever locked away in the recesses of my mind had it not been for me being drawn to that damned bridge.

              And while I had scrapped the original novel and started completely over in my head, it was James who I saw. Every heroic word. Every daring escape. Every magical kiss. In printed word it was James that I saw. And it was me that I dreamed about.

              It had been a long time since I had hoped for New York with anything that I wrote. Yet as I wrote this story I began to dream again. Love had a way of doing that for you. Dreaming was the life’s blood for any artist. Love of someone or something.

              I had always dreamed of being in love with a superhero.

              A man strong enough to change a tire.

              Vulnerable enough to cry at a movie.

              God had sent me James. He suffered as much as me. Maybe more. Yet we were strong enough to be vulnerable around one another.

              His demons rivaled mine. And mine his.

              Yet as this story flowed out of me and I guzzled the coffee as if it were water, I knew we had the kind of love you couldn’t find in this world. The kind where there were no secrets. Where there were no lies.  Our shared vulnerabilities made us stronger.

              Our past was what it was. Even when it haunted our present and threatened our future., it was enough that we had each other.

              I had never expected to ever find that after Kevin’s betrayal. But there on the bridge where life had taken so much from me, it had given me James.

              I thought back to that morning I saw James on the bridge, before going on with my story. I had forced myself out of bed. Forced myself to take my pills. Forced myself to eat breakfast. Forced myself out the door for the run. And each labored step I took I had wondered was it worth it? Was this fucking life worth it?

              Each stride. Each breath. I wondered is this the day I give up? Is this the day I choose to die?

              I had chosen the wooded path on automatic pilot. Subconsciously I was sure my mind was taking me through my past to confront it. To take me to that bridge. And when I got to it and saw James all I saw was a reflection of the deepest cuts of pain one could ever imagine.

              Choosing to go to a man I didn’t know. A man who stood on a bridge who was clearly drunk and inviting death, no wonder Ellen had been freaked out. No wonder I had been drawn to him. I felt these same things.

              I might not have been drunk, I might not have been as open with my invitation to death, but in reaching for him when he was ready to pitch over I had been ready to tie my fate to his in a way only another human being suffering the way we were would understand.

              This book I was penning, whether it was set in the here and now, in the past or in a fantasy world, it was telling the James and Rayna story. And in my life, as a writer James and Rayna would forever find their way into all the stories I wrote, whatever time period they were in they would be there. Testifying to our love and endurance. To our trials and tribulations. And to joys and sorrows. And ultimately, to just how faithful we were to one another.

              Only death would part us. And even then it would only be temporary. James and I would love each other eternally. Now. Always. Forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty

              I needed a night out with just the girls -- me and Ellen to be exact. Old dreams were being reawakened. Things I’d put to bed so long ago that it wasn’t until recently I was thinking about them. After wondering if life was worth living for so long I suddenly wanted to seize the day and live it to the fullest.

              Recklessly almost.

              I wanted to dream impossible dreams because the impossible was happening to me with James. His love for me made me believe the Nike campaign slogan,
impossible was nothing.

              However the things I wanted to do, the things I dreamed so mightily about, if I were to be successful, my profile would be raised. And by extension James’ profile would be raised. It would be difficult to broach this conversation with him. So where to turn first?.

              I had my rock of a best friend, Ellen. New Year’s had come and gone without our usual date with Dick Clark. But we’d had dinner and then I went home to James that night. We watched Titanic. To which he wouldn’t admit, but he loved the movie as much as I did.

              I entered Smokehouse for the first time in months. The smells were warm, inviting and delicious. I looked around and there she was in a back booth. ‘Our seat’ so to speak when we came in, which we used to do on a weekly basis. She smiled but she looked like hell. Instantly my antennae went up.

              Was this about my secret or was she struggling with problems of her own. Truth was it could be both. I’d been pretty self-involved this last month. Falling crazy in love had a way of doing that to a person. Had I been a good friend? Or had I put her in a bad spot? Was it possible I had done both?

              Sliding into the booth a server came up and took our drinks order.

              “Hey,” I said tenderly once the server had disappeared. “Everything okay?”

              “You tell me,” she said pushing a folded up piece of paper towards me. As I opened it up she continued to talk. “I found it beneath my windshield wiper when I came out from work.”

             
I know you know. I know you’re protecting my sister. As long as you stand with her you’re as much of a criminal as she is. Protect her. Face the consequences.

             
It wasn’t signed but the sister reference alerted me to the intended party’s identity. I sighed.

              “If you want out of our friendship, your silence is not required.”

              I folded the paper back up and pushed it towards her.

              “You know I would never betray our friendship like that.”

              “Maybe not, but Georgia is not a good woman. She grieves but she’s willing to torture versus being out with it.”

              “Can I ask you something about the night in question?”

              “If anyone can it’s certainly you, Ellen.”

              “Why that night? What made you snap? Was it convenience? Did he do something especially heinous? I mean he was a monster to begin with, but why that night? You don’t have to answer the questions. I guess it’s just morbid curiosity that has me asking them.”

              She looked like hell for a reason. The weight of my secret lay on her. Not only that, Georgia was now threatening her, which was not right nor was it fair. But then Georgia never cared about those things. She thought her father was a saint and that I never respected him for all that he did for me in light of my bastard status.

              I was always the other.

              And she never let me forget it.

              I carried it with me even now. It was hard not to. With Ellen though, I felt…at home. She didn’t judge me. But now she was afraid. I didn’t want her to be afraid. I wanted Georgia to back off. I needed my bubble to remain unpierced. I needed my world to remain untested. At least no more tested than it already had been. In the end, my friend deserved answers.

              “I don’t know,” I admitted.

              “What do you mean?”

BOOK: SCARS
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