That same pain that drew me to him.
There’s something about those of us that are drawn to the written word. Something broken and irreparably damaged that we seek to mend through absorbing similar experiences written down by others and then purging ourselves of it all, creating new ones for those that will come after us.
He looks down at me and reaches a hand for my cheek. I flinch, though he’s never hit me. The proximity with someone like him is enough to put me on edge and soothe me at the same time. I can’t explain it. It was never this way with Wes. With Wes, it was comfortable and easy. With Tom, it’s something else. Easy was never part of it.
He touches my cheek, his fingers trailing along my jaw.
“Please don’t leave,” he says.
Before I can formulate an answer, the door of the library swings open, creaking on its hinges, announcing the arrival of someone else to our little party.
Tom looks over his shoulder.
“Stay here,” he says.
He turns and walks out of the stacks. I bend slightly to peer through the rows of books that separate me from the entrance of the library, and I see her. A woman. I can’t see her face, but I know who it is.
Vanessa.
I hear them argue. I can’t make out the entirety of it, but it pisses Tom off. He storms from the building, leaving me alone with his wife in a five-thousand square foot room full of heavy shelving that I have no doubt she would shove on top of me if she thought it might kill me.
I hover in the stacks, waiting for her leave, but she doesn’t. She pauses and places her hands on her hips. I imagine her craning her neck, sniffing me out, knowing that it’s me just from the way that Tom acted. The thought is ridiculous, and I try to dismiss it entirely. But Vanessa stays just long enough to make me doubt myself.
Finally, she turns and leaves.
I exhale, realizing that I’ve been holding my breath since she came in. The static electricity in the air that was present between Tom and I is squelched in her presence, and I’m a little grateful for that.
Seeing Tom again is like being sucked right back into the eye of a storm after having evacuated. Far too late, albeit, but I got out. Part of me hates myself for being here. The other part reminds me why I came at all.
Birdie.
I have to find a way to see her.
I rise from my bent position in between the stacks and I step over the copy of Anna Karenina, leaving it behind me as I leave the library.
BIRDIE
The idea that a journalist has come is enough to make Birdie almost giddy. Even with the pain in her shoulder escalating, the thought that someone could turn the tide of this tidal wave is like salve on a burn, taking out the sting. It gives her hope. And she knows that hope is an important thing to have.
Especially in a situation like this.
She decides to take a look at her wound, evaluate her current predicament. She reaches over with her good arm and tugs at the end of the bandage beneath her shoulder. She groans, the pain running like an electric current through every muscle fiber in her body. Birdie manages to unravel some of the bandage, revealing the gray green of her flesh. Purple and red meet in a swirl of sickly yellow bruising, but the bullet hole itself remains a red-so-dark-it’s-black wound.
The thought occurs to her that she should try to dig the bullet out herself. It’s in there, the root of the infection, making it spread like ivy over her slowly dying body. It’s only a matter of time before the infection reaches her blood. After that, it’s all but over. Time is not her friend today.
She grits her teeth. Touching the wound will only make it angrier, possibly exacerbating whatever process is taking place. She thinks better of the idea and abandons it, an orphan thought floating in the room.
She’s spent so much time alone since the shooting. Her thoughts have been the majority of her company, furthering the divide that had been growing between her and Tom since the beginning of all of this.
Before she can descend into them, a spelunker exploring the recesses of an unmapped cavern, there’s a knock at the door.
It startles Birdie. She reaches for her bandages, covering up the wound as best she can and the door swings open.
Tom.
His face is drawn, somber. He looks like he’s aged overnight. His hair is undone, a mess of waves around his face and neck. A collection of stubble clings to his jawline, grown long past a respectable five o’clock shadow. The situation is wearing him down. Birdie wonders if he’s talked any more to the FBI. And then it occurs to her that he’s been talking to the journalist.
She longs to leave this room, find that person, and tell them the truth about Tom. How he’s ruthless and cold. How he’d leave her to rot in this prison of a room rather than face the consequences of the shooting. He’s a coward, she realizes. And seeing him this way unshackles her from him.
For so long, she’s been joined at the hip to Tom. His Girl Friday. His right-hand woman. She’s covered up so many of his messes at this point, they all blur together. The truth of history bleeds into the fictions Birdie has created. And for what? So that it could all amount to this? A broken man avoiding arrest while she dies?
“Hey,” he says. His voice
