Before You

by Marni Mann

  She didn’t know how long they’d been standing there in silence when she felt the first drop of rain. It hit her forehead, a second one landing on her ear. The drips began to get larger, coming down more frequently, the smell of mud rising in the air.

  Still, they didn’t move.

  Andrew’s hand was now slick on her face, the drips running over his fingers. “I want to tell you something, and I want you to believe me.”

  The emotion wasn’t in his grip this time; it was in his voice instead, and Honey felt like her heart was going to explode from the sound of it.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll never hurt you.”

  She couldn’t imagine what it was like to look at death every day. How difficult it would be to try and save someone, your efforts not being enough. How challenging it would be to then return home and try to put it all behind you.

  Honey didn’t know if Andrew’s last shift at the hospital had prompted him to do this. She didn’t know if it was just something he was feeling and had to say it at that moment.

  But as the rain poured down even harder, she stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then, she replied, “I promise to never hurt you,” before she kissed him.

  Twenty-Two

  Billie

  “Billie!” I heard Jared yell when the noise and the movement stopped. “Billie, answer me!”

  I groaned.

  That was all I could do while everything inside me was screaming—my bones, muscles, skin. Even my hair.

  I had to be alive.

  Death … would be pain-free.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I went to open my mouth to make sure I could still do that. Except it was already open, and air was coming in and out so fast, but it didn’t actually feel like I was breathing. It felt like I was holding my breath.

  “Let me out,” I gasped.

  Wherever this was, it was a hot, dark place, and all I could taste was blood. The thick metal flavor was enough to make me gag.

  A massive weight suddenly lifted off the back of my neck and shoulders and the top of my head. It was as though a blanket had been covering me.

  A heavy one.

  One that looked like Jared.

  “Tell me you’re all right,” he said, his hands running over me like he was giving me an X-ray.

  I couldn’t keep up with his speed.

  I couldn’t process his question.

  “Billie …”

  “I’m alive.”

  It was all I could think.

  All I knew.

  Except I wasn’t even entirely sure it was true.

  “We have to get off this plane,” he said.

  The plane.

  The reason for this. Why there were wires hitting my head and personal belongings all over my feet.

  Why there was blood.

  All over me.

  “Billie …”

  My ears were ringing. Body tingling. I was sure my lungs were going to stop filling if they hadn’t already.

  But I’d heard him.

  And I understood.

  So, I answered, “Okay,” and things started happening so fast again.

  But this time, it was because of Jared. He was in control. And all of the movement involved me.

  I couldn’t catch up. I didn’t know if I was supposed to or if I was even able. Before I tried, I was out of my seat and in the air, and Jared was holding me like a baby.

  Everything turned into a giant blur of color. Navy and off-white and a flickering red. More hues flashed across my eyes, like when I looked out the window on the runway. They streaked faster, mixing with my vision and a giant gust of air and then …

  Rain.

  I didn’t know where it was coming from. I didn’t know why it felt so good. But when it sprinkled across my face and over my hands and on my bare foot, it felt like love.

  The purest, rawest form.

  Every drop of it.

  Every splatter.

  I felt it everywhere.

  And then I felt nothing at all.

  Because there was only black.

  Twenty-Three

  Jared

  I’d watched a documentary once about a man who had fled his homeland during World War II, and when he returned forty years later, the cameras were rolling to capture it. After the fourteen-hour flight, the man descended the steps of the plane, and once his feet touched the tarmac, he got on his hands and knees and kissed the ground.

  His body shook; his hands could barely hold his own weight.

  But he didn’t move.

  He stayed just like that with his face hidden, breathing it all in, getting reconnected to his roots.

  I knew exactly how the man had felt.

  Once I set Billie on a stretcher and into the care of a paramedic where I knew she was safe, I made it only a few paces before I fell onto my knees.

  My palms hit the grass and then my elbows.

  My hands shook as they held my weight.

  I pressed my face into the wet blades.

  And when I smelled the mud, I kissed it.

  “Thank you,” I whispered even though no one could hear me.

  Twenty-Four

  Honey

  Winter 1984

  “I can’t believe it’s really happening,” Valentine said to Honey as the movers carried some of her boxes out of their apartment.

  The girls had celebrated last night, their final evening as roommates, by ordering pizza and drinking wine and never getting out of their pajamas. Even though they were extremely excited about their new homes, they were dreading the separation. Fortunately, the condo Andrew had purchased in downtown Portland that Honey was moving into was only a couple of blocks from the new place Valentine had rented.

  “I know,” Honey sighed, watching one of the guys put a box in the truck and head back inside for more. “I’m going to miss us so much.” She faced her best friend, closing the distance between them, and hugged her as hard as she could.

  “You’re going to see me all the time.”

  “I’d better.”

  Honey had been so relieved when Valentine told her she’d found an apartment that was only a two-minute walk away, solidifying that she would see her best friend as much as she hoped.

  “It’s the only way you’ll get fed on the nights Andrew works since you can’t even boil water.”

  Both girls laughed.

  “I hate how true that is,” Honey said. She felt a knot in her throat, and it grew with each swallow. “And I hate how much this hurts.”

  It didn’t matter how close Valentine would be living to her; she still wouldn’t be sleeping in the next room, and that was a big change.

  Valentine squeezed her back. “You found yourself a good man. You’re taking the next steps, just as you should be.” Her fingers dug in even harder. “I’m positive he’s the right one for you.”

  Glancing over Valentine’s shoulder, Honey saw Andrew pull up to the curb and park. He had come straight from the hospital and was still in his white coat and scrubs, but he wanted to make sure the girls had all the help they needed.

  “I’m positive too,” Honey said, reaching for Valentine’s hand and holding it as she faced Andrew.

  He had just gotten out of his car, his eyes instantly connecting with Honey’s, and the couple stared at each other as he walked up the sidewalk.

  “That’s love,” Valentine whispered when he was still several feet away.

  “What is?” she asked her friend.

  “The way that man looks at you.”

  Twenty-Five

  Billie

  The nurse only had the door open a crack when I saw Jared. He was standing in the hallway outside the X-ray room that I had been wheeled into a few minutes ago. Before I had been taken in there, he’d been with me in the ambulance when I was driven to the hospital and right next to me when I was examined by the doctor.

  I didn’t know if I’d asked him to stay or if he’d
told me he would, but he hadn’t left my side, and something about that felt right.

  “Billie,” he said as he walked closer, looking down at me in the wheelchair.

  Blood covered his ripped shirt. Mud was everywhere else.

  I glanced at my clothes and saw the same colors.

  “Can I have a minute alone with her?” he asked the nurse behind me.

  “The doctor is waiting to go over her X-rays—”

  “I just need a second,” he said.

  “Be quick,” she replied.

  I watched her disappear into the chaos, and then my eyes slowly returned to Jared.

  Everything was moving, except for us.

  The hospital was like Times Square. People were everywhere. I couldn’t keep up with it all—not the scents or the sounds or the colors. The bright lights that just kept getting brighter.

  And the loudness that kept getting louder.

  My ears were screaming.

  I just wanted everyone to whisper.

  I wanted them to stop going, going, going.

  “Billie …” Jared said again.

  My stare was already on him. I just refocused. Zoomed in.

  Blinked hard.

  “Hi.” The word hurt when it came out. I didn’t know why, but it felt like my tongue weighed a hundred pounds.

  He knelt down in front of the wheelchair, and all I saw were his eyes.

  Brown. Like fudge.

  Something I couldn’t even remember the taste of at this point.

  “You’re going to be all right.”

  I’d been waiting so long to hear him say that.

  Now, it almost didn’t seem real.

  Or possible.

  “Jared, this is all”—there were tears in my eyes; I didn’t know when they had started or what exact moment had triggered them or why they wouldn’t stop falling—“so much.”

  “Billie, listen to me.”

  Something tightened. I wasn’t sure where it had come from, but I felt the squeeze.

  “You’re going to be all right.”

  He repeated it as though he knew it was what I needed to hear.

  And it was.

  And I said it in my head over and over.

  And I tried to make myself believe it.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Are you going to be all right?”

  I’d been looking at his face this whole time and not seen the blood. But now, red was the only thing in my vision, and it was smeared through the whiskers of his beard, fresh and dripping onto his collar.

  “Have you been looked at? Do you need stitches?”

  It occurred to me that I’d been the one treated in the ambulance and wheeled into the hospital and taken for X-rays. But what about Jared? Had he left my side long enough to get checked out by a doctor?

  “I have to go, Billie.”

  A burst moved through my chest like we’d just dropped out of the air again. “No. You can’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head, not believing he would leave at a time like this.

  He’d been here for all of it. I didn’t know what it would feel like without him.

  “Please don’t go. I need you here.”

  My gaze fell to my lap where I saw more red.

  I was cut.

  Bruised.

  I hurt everywhere.

  They were sure I had several broken ribs and a possible concussion.

  That was just the start of the list.

  But I was here, and so much of that had to do with Jared.

  Somehow, I had to thank him. I had to lift my arms and reach forward and hug the man who had saved me.

  Except I didn’t get the chance.

  As he looked at me, his fingers brushed across my foot, and he pushed himself up, getting to his feet. “Take care of yourself, Billie.”

  It was a gaze I wouldn’t forget.

  One I felt all the way in my toes.

  I replied, “You too,” but he didn’t hear me.

  He was already gone.

  Twenty-Six

  Jared

  I swiped my thumb toward the top of my phone, and as a new picture appeared, I studied it before moving to the next. There were thousands of shots. Some of food, some of her life. Some of just Billie.

  Painfully beautiful in each one.

  She posted every day, alternating what she was highlighting but always staying in the food theme. Her brand was consistent, and it had been for years.

  Except for the last four days since the crash where she hadn’t posted at all.

  I lifted the small tumbler off the bed and brought it up to my lips, swallowing the peppery liquor. As I rewound the years, going further back in her photos, she’d switched up hairstyles and her glasses—when she had them on. The thing I noticed the most was her maturity. I saw it in her eyes.

  If I saw them right now, I’d guarantee they looked haunted.

  But I hadn’t seen her since I left her at the hospital.

  I just knew …

  Because mine looked the same fucking way.

  I took another drink and set it back on the bed, the pads of my fingers soggy from the wet glass. And I stared at the last picture of herself that she had shared. The date was two days before our flight to San Francisco. The location was Tribeca, a few blocks from where I lived, at a coffee shop I went to often. She was holding her drink under her chin, but the focus was Billie’s profile. The angle of the shot started at the base of her neck and moved across her face, the sunlight from Church Street reflecting off her skin.

  That was what happiness looked like.

  Peacefulness. Contentment.

  It sure as hell didn’t look like this—a head filled with so many goddamn thoughts that it was enough to keep me awake. I watched the morning light come into my room, and my day began. The last three had been filled with meetings. I’d retold the story to the police and FBI, Homeland Security and the FAA. I’d answered their hundreds of questions.

  We all had.

  Yesterday was the last of it, and now, we were supposed to follow up with our doctors and therapists and everyone else we needed to help us return to normal.

  I brought the glass up to my mouth and swallowed until only drips from the ice were going down my throat before putting it on the nightstand. I then grabbed my pillow and fisted the down.

  Normal.

  Those days were gone.

  Long, long gone.

  Twenty-Seven

  Billie

  I stood in front of the window in my living room, my forehead and palms pressed to the glass. I didn’t know how long I’d been here. I wasn’t looking at anything in particular, just the blur of movement on the street below.

  Cars. People. Bikes.

  And here I was, in my apartment, perfectly still, focused on everything that had happened in the sky and the aftermath of what it looked like on the land.

  The field in Pennsylvania we’d crashed in. The private vehicles that had driven us and our families back to New York.

  The one hundred and sixteen total people on board the plane.

  The eight fatalities.

  The eighty of us who had been injured.

  I didn’t see it like a movie where I could stop and start anyplace I wanted. It didn’t run in a continuous loop either. What I saw were flashes that lasted only seconds. These tiny windows came in random order and took place sometime during the forty-two minutes we had been airborne.

  Some were from before the drone had hit our engine.

  Most were from after.

  But each one came hard, fast, and my brain liked to serve them up every hour or so like they were cocktails.

  Days ago, it’d happened several times a minute. According to my doctor, this was improvement.

  What hadn’t returned were my taste buds. Nothing had technically happened to them; the crash hadn’t injured my tongue. I just had no desire to eat.

  And I didn’t understand it.

 
Food had been comfort my entire life. It was my family’s way of showing love. We ate together, and we fed whoever came over. When we weren’t eating, we were talking about what we were going to have.

  Food would make this better.

  I had to believe that.

  It would make it all seem a little more tolerable.

  I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, and without even putting a bra on, I went out in the night.

  I knew every crevice of Greenwich Village. But as I stood on the sidewalk on Bleecker Street, looking up and down the block, I couldn’t figure out which direction to go. Not a single restaurant from my favorites list was coming to me. Everything was fuzzy, like I didn’t have glasses on … except I did.

  I started walking, and when the cold made my nose feel like someone was holding a burning match to the tip, I reached for the metal door handle and pulled it open. A ding went off as I entered. The smell of stale popcorn hit me. A light flickered in my face, and I wanted to shield my eyes; it was so bright.

  There were rows, and I headed for them, pausing halfway down, staring at the bags, studying the pictures. Nacho cheese, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar.

  Nothing.

  I went to the next aisle and the one after, reading more descriptions, gazing at more oversize pictures.

  Waiting.

  Listening.

  There wasn’t a single grumble in my stomach. Not a drop of saliva in my mouth.

  What is happening to me?

  I went to the coolers in the back and grabbed a few coffee-flavored drinks—what I’d mostly been living on since the crash. I brought them up to the register.

  “Hello,” the man behind the counter said as I placed the bottles in front of him.

  I felt around my waist for my purse.

  It wasn’t there. I’d left my apartment with just my jacket.

  “Smile.”