Hard Beat

With so many emotions churning within me, I shouldn’t be surprised that I just gave her an insight into Stella’s death. And I recognize that was just the tip of the iceberg in a sense, because it’s time I finally talk about it. How can I expect her to want to be open with me when I can’t be with her?

“This is about you wanting to be partners, but you shut down anytime the discussion turns to you. This is about you promising me one thing and then going out and doing the opposite. This is about losing my best friend because she got caught up in an idea and never saw danger coming until it was too damn late.” I shake my head, needing to purge all of my explanations at once, and yet the last one is harder to readily admit than the others. “This is about the fact that you mean something to me and yet you have no regard for your own safety.”

Once I’ve finished, I appreciate that she remains silent, but the hitch of her breath tells me that she heard me loud and clear. She reaches over and laces her fingers with mine, her touch bringing comfort and a little more security in the midst of the sudden isolation I’ve felt.

“I’m from a small town in the Midwest. Let’s see… There’s not much to tell really. I had a Norman Rockwell type of upbringing, nothing spectacular, and then my parents died and my world turned upside down.” Her voice cracks, and I squeeze her hand, hating myself for asking her to speak about her past and at the same time needing to know, to hear it so that I can connect with her. “I’ve never been back. I left that town because there were just too many memories there, too much pain in the idea of walking down Main Street to see where my dad used to take me for ice cream or where my mom and I would meet for lunch. Or the place where the drunk driver hit them head-on and they died. So to me it doesn’t exist anymore because it reminds me too much of the loss, and I’d rather keep those memories sacred.”

I exhale slowly in response to the grief in her voice; it’s so raw that I sense that she understands how I feel about Stella, that even after all of this time, she still hasn’t fully dealt with the losses in her life either.

The heat makes me sweat and causes my shirt to stick to my skin as I prepare myself to really talk about it for the first time.

“It was my birthday.” Those first words are the hardest to get out, namely the admission that I was the cause of Stella’s death. “I told Stella not to make a big deal about it, that we’d have a little celebration at the bar later. I told her that I wanted to Skype with my family and have the party downstairs and I was more than happy with that. She agreed…” My voice trails off as I recall the look on her face, the sound of her voice as she promised me that she wouldn’t do anything else because the city had been in some major unrest with the opposition making a few daring assaults in the city to make its power known.

“There were a few new freelancers, all eager beavers to get out there and pop their break-the-story cherry. From what I could gather after the fact, Stella was hell-bent on getting me a birthday present. She wanted to get decorations for the bar and pick me up something else. I didn’t know any of this obviously, or else I would have stopped… It wouldn’t have all happened.”

I pause for a second, the memory coming back to me clear as day. The party in full swing in the bar just as dusk fell. Stella snapping picture after picture, telling me, “Pictures make memories last forever,” every time I balked when she pointed the shutter my way. I can still feel the way her arms slid around my waist and how she looked up to me as Pauly took the picture that sits on the memory card in the camera on my dresser at home – I’ve never looked at it, but that image is forever burned in my memory.

“Halfway through the party she disappeared. I couldn’t find her. I guess she’d told some of the newbies that she was upset that I wouldn’t let her out of my sight long enough for her to surprise me with a birthday present. The new guys didn’t know me for shit except for my reputation, and so they wanted to get out in the city, experience the danger they’d come here to witness. She agreed. Said as long as they’d be out and back within thirty minutes so I didn’t notice she was gone.”

“Oh, Tanner.” It’s all Beaux says as she shifts her body so she can lean her head on my shoulder, but it’s just enough to tell me she knows what’s coming next. Understands the guilt that weighs so heavily on me.

“At some point I noticed that the camera was gone. I’d had enough to drink by then, but I remember thinking, Thank God Stella’s not taking pictures anymore. One thing led to another, and I found out what she was doing when I questioned another reporter who’d overheard them talking. I went apeshit. Ran out of the hotel, sobering up with each step because I swear, Beaux, it was like I knew I had to get to her, sensed something was going to happen to her… but it already had by the time I got there.” I clear my throat, trying to use my training as a journalist to tell the story, except it’s utterly impossible to keep my emotions out of it.

“I guess Stella wanted to get me this satchel thing she’d seen when we’d passed by the market earlier in the month. Nothing big, just something to make me feel like I was a little more at home having a normal birthday. Apparently some of the opposition had targeted the location, thought the shopkeeper had turned information or something over to the standing government here from what we can make out. They opened fire on the market when she was paying. Three people were inside. I got there a few minutes after it happened. Tried to save her.” I stop talking at that point, can’t say anything else for a moment as I turn my head away from her, not wanting her to see my eyes well up.