Seven Lies (ARC)
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his camera, wanting to see what was farther on, around a corner, what
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might be waiting for him ahead. For me, it was simply wonderful to be
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so isolated, nothing to hear but the sea crashing against the rocks be-
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neath and the squawk of gulls overhead.
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After an hour or so, we approached another seaside village, smaller
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than Beer, it seemed, but with a car park, a tiny building that housed a
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few public toilets, and a café with a thatched roof.
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“Perhaps it’s open,” said Jonathan, and because Jonathan was with
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me, it was.
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He ordered a mug of coffee for himself and, for me, a glass of cold or-
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ange juice. We sat outside on the picnic benches and watched the sea as
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we waited for our bacon sandwiches. Fishermen were huddled together,
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protecting one another from the wind. I imagined them discussing their
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catch, the price of cod, their plans for the rest of the day.
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After breakfast, we wandered along the beach, the waves swim-
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ming in and out, licking at the crevices in each stone and at the soles
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of our boots. Jonathan spotted a small cutaway in the overgrowth at
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the foot of the cliff and insisted that we explore further. We pierced
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the dense shrubs, stepping away from the coast into a forest and zig-
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zagging through thorn bushes and nettles on a narrow mud- pressed
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path. We climbed higher and higher and yet the cliffs were still tower-
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ing above us.
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After ten, maybe fifteen minutes, we reached a fork in the trail; the
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left had steps carved into the slope, the right had a thin path on the
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very edge of an overhang.
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“Let’s try this,” said Jonathan, pointing up and to our right.
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“I don’t think so,” I replied.
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He had spent his childhood in the countryside, been raised in mud
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and hay and knee- high grass. But I wasn’t comfortable in that world. I
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was mesmerized by the views and the sounds and the endless space, but
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I felt like an interloper, uneasy and unwelcome.
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“This looks safer,” I said, gesturing left.
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“Come on,” he said, and he smiled. “You’ll be fine.”
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I hesitated. But I was tempted, encouraged by his faith in me, his
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certainty. I found it so difficult to deny him whatever it was that he
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wanted. Truthfully? I’d have done almost anything he asked.
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I unfurled my fists, stretched out my fingers, and stepped one foot
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toward him, onto the small lip that jutted out from the rocks.
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He stepped backward— so easily, so agile— like a funambulist bal-
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ancing on a tightrope.
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“There you go,” he said. “You’re doing great.”
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The shelf was narrow, less than a foot in width. It was impossible to
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stand with two feet side by side.
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“Take another step,” he said.
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I heard our future in that moment: Jonathan talking to a child,
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encouraging him, too. The memory of it, something that hadn’t yet
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happened, settled within me and it made me feel bolder.
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“What are you waiting for? Keep going,” he insisted. “I’ve got you.”
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I lifted my back leg and slowly swung it forward, over the sea below.
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Finally, my foot found purchase on the ledge and I exhaled.
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“What now?” I asked. I had twisted, somehow facing the cliff, my
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chest pressed against it, the backs of my heels resting only on air. “How 20
are you doing this?”
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“You can walk normally,” he said. “Or just shuffle along. Try not to
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overthink it.”
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I looked up at him just a few steps ahead. He grinned at me, the
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beginnings of wrinkles creasing around his eyes and dimples pressing
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into his cheeks. His hand was stretched out toward me reassuringly, the
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ring on his finger glinting in the sun. His other hand was holding on to
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a ridge above us, and I could see a strip of his hip where his T- shirt had 28
lifted from his trousers.
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I leaned toward him. But then my back foot slipped and I remember
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the feeling of dipping, my weight falling down to one side. I remem-
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ber the air sucked into my lungs, my fingers skimming the rock face, the
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panic that steamed through me. I felt his hand slam into my back as he
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pushed me firmly against the rocks and my chin grazed the sharp sur-
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face of cliff.
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“You’re fine,” he said. “You’re okay.”
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“No,” I said. “This isn’t safe. We shouldn’t be here.”
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My face was stinging and my knees aching from the impact.
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“You’re fine,” he said. “I promise. You’re okay.”
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I shook my head vigorously.
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“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Don’t get upset. Just edge that way.”
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I shuffled a few inches to my left, back onto the grassed pathway.
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“There you go,” he said. “Okay?”
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I nodded. I held my hand to my chin; I thought it was bleeding, but
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my fingers came away clean.
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“Okay,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the top.”
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I nodded and he darted upward.
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I said, I know, that I’d have followed Jonathan anywhere and that
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was true. But there was something about his fearlessness that was so at
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odds with my innate fearfulness. And, try as I might and try as I did,
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sometimes fear won out. I opted for the safer route and our paths
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crossed again a few minutes later, back at the top of the cliffs.
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If I had known then that we had just a few months ahead of us, I’d
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have found the courage to spend those few minutes with him.
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There is a tragic irony that— with hindsight— has embedded itself
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in every fiber of my relationship with Jonathan. We met in a small cor-
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ner of the city and that place became a fundamental part of how we
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lived and loved and existed together. Until it became the place where
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our relationship ended. Jonathan and I fell in love on a corner of Oxford 28
Street and— fatefully— that was where he died.
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I can tell you far more about that day than I can about the day we
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met. I rolled through that dark slideshow, the sequence that led to his
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death, nonstop for weeks. Sometimes I still do.
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k
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Jonathan was running, for the first time, in the London marathon. We 03
were expecting rain and sleet, insistent winds. But he was excited. He
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had been training since the autumn; he was used to running in the rain
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and so he wasn’t concerned.
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He was uncontainable that morning, fidgeting and waffling on about
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something and nothing, his anticipation contagious. We were so ordi-
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nary. Our morning was set against a backdrop of alarm clocks and cof-
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fee and breakfast and showering and looking for the house keys and
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almost running late but not quite and the steady, reassuring rhythm of
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the everyday.
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I wanted to share his victory and so I went straight to the Mall. I
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stood there by the metal barrier waiting for hours and yet I barely no-
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ticed the time slipping past. The atmosphere was electric, excitement
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and nervousness and encouragement sweating from the crowd around
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me. The elite racers flashed by first— they made it look easy— followed 17
soon after by a few men, and then some women, and then a couple
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dripping profusely from their faces, their bodies encased within dino-
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saur costumes.
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Jonathan was determined to complete the race in under three hours,
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and I didn’t doubt that he would do just that. I watched him speed past
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after two hours and fifty- one minutes and he crossed the finish line just 23
three minutes later.
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I have never been destined for great success. I have always worked
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hard, but never excelled. I have always participated; I’ve never won. But 26
Jonathan did; Jonathan won. He surpassed even his own bold goals.
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I was therefore not at all surprised when he was announced as the
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millionth marathon runner to pass the finish line since the inaugural
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London marathon of 1981 and interviewed for a recorded segment to
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be aired that evening on the BBC News. He had always been behind
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the camera at sporting events, filming for news channels or sports
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broadcasters, but he was so charming and modest with his answers that
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day. I remember wondering if he should consider a career in front of the
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camera rather than behind it.
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After his interview, we headed to The Windsor Castle for a quick
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drink, just one, to celebrate his success.
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We never arrived.
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As we threaded our way from the tube station at Oxford Circus
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toward the narrow cobbled street, a drunk driver burst across a pedes-
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trian crossing, mowing my husband down.
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I can remember him lying there on his back on the sidewalk. His
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knee was twisted at a jaunty angle. His eyes were closed, peaceful al-
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most, his chin resting snug against his chest. He was still wearing his
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black shorts and his tight yellow T- shirt. His rucksack was a yard or two 15
away and the thin foil wrap he’d been given peeped from between the
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zippers. His bottle of water was rolling— so slowly, it seemed, inching
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like tar— toward the curb.
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A crowd formed, cyclists and pedestrians, but not the driver of the
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taxi, who remained frozen in his seat.
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Jonathan was frozen, too, strangely still, too rigid and yet somehow
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too serene to be asleep. A puddle of blood began to form beneath his
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cheek, to pool beneath his body.
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I remember the ambulance arriving, pulling up beside us, its siren
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screaming. It was quickly muted; I recall the sudden absence of noise
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where before it had been deafening, but the flashing continued, red and
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blue and red and blue. Paramedics jumped from the van, two of them,
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both dressed in green, and they marched toward us, shouting over the
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hood of the ambulance. Everything was unfolding in half time: she
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snapped on white latex gloves, her right hand first, and then her left,
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pulling at each fingertip. A bag was swung over his shoulder. There was
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a policewoman wearing a hat and I can still see her now, gesturing at
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the crowd to please take a step back, move along now, please, nothing
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at all to see here.
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The paramedics fussed around us, taking Jonathan’s pulse, spread-
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ing their hands over his body, cutting off his T- shirt, shining a bright 04
white light into his eyes.
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“If you could just— ” the woman said, and I sat back on my heels and
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out of their way. Their arms stretched around me, the reflective strips
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of their uniforms redirecting the van’s headlights into my eyes. I
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squinted and I realized that they were wet.
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They slid him onto a stretcher, a strange plastic slab, and lifted him
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in
to the back of the ambulance. We crawled through the streets of Lon-
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don and south to St. George’s Hospital. The police car followed and the
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policewoman— still in her hat— reached for my elbow as I stepped
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down from the back of the ambulance, and she sat with me in the wait-
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ing room. She told me to keep breathing: in through my nose for six,
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and hold for six, and then out through my mouth for six, and then she
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left and then I was all alone, still waiting. It was dark outside when a
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doctor called me into a side room to tell me what I already knew, to
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confirm that Jonathan had died.
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He offered to call someone for me, and I don’t remember if I even
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answered his question. I left and hailed a cab and recited the address for 21
the flat in Vauxhall. When I arrived, there were three young men in
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shorts and T- shirts sitting outside around a picnic table at a pub on the 23
river, gold marathon medals hanging around their necks. I felt a bubble
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burst within my chest and I pictured Jonathan sitting there with them,
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his shorts and his T- shirt, his medal, celebrating his victory. I felt bile 26
rising in my throat and I swallowed it because it wasn’t time, this wasn’t 27
real, and yet I couldn’t remember what I ought to be doing or how to be
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me in that moment.
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I sat down against the entrance to the building. I pictured him
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standing up, rubbing at his elbow, brushing his hands down his chest to
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release small specks of pavement. I imagined him shocked, and sort of
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angry, and a small cut beneath his right eye where he’d landed, but
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otherwise fine: walking, talking, moving, alive. I closed my eyes and
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saw his hair, too long, his arms crossed over his chest, and his chin
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slightly pointed, freckles scattered on the bridge of his nose, from all
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those afternoons running for hours in the sunshine.
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I retched because it wasn’t real— there was no small cut beneath his
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eye, no hair too long, no freckles, no more hours of running— and I
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would never see him again and he would never again be seen and that
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was simply too big, too impossible, to be a thing.
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