At First Light

by Mari Madison

  After grabbing my purse, I headed back out of the entertainment office, glancing at my watch as I left. I had to be across town by one to attend the screening of yet another blockbuster film: Depressed Yet Gifted Teenager Saves the World from the Vampire Apocalypse While Choosing between Two Hot Guys. (Okay, fine, that wasn’t the official title, but it might as well have been.)

  As I walked down the hall, my cell phone buzzed and I looked down to see who was texting me. Stephanie wanted to know if I wanted to go out tonight. As I pushed through the door, typing my reply, I managed to smack into someone full force.

  “Oh! Sorry!” I cried, nearly dropping my phone. “I wasn’t—”

  I stopped short. Unable to speak. Unable to know if I was ever going to be able to speak again as I stared at the man I had just literally walked into. The man I thought I’d never see in real life again.

  “Oh my God. Troy,” I breathed.

  He stared back at me, his face stark white. A muscle twitched at his jaw. For a moment I wondered if he was literally going to turn around and run the other direction, far away from me. Then, he straightened himself and squared his shoulders. As if this were no big deal.

  “Sarah,” he said, giving me a slight nod. “Good to see you. It’s been . . . a while.”

  I gaped at him, still unable to form words, my mind racing a thousand miles a minute as I tried to convince myself that this was really happening. Right here, right now in my very own workplace.

  Troy Young in the flesh.

  It was funny: Back during those months he had been captured, I’d spent long hours trying to imagine what I’d say to him if I ever saw him again. I even wrote a lot of it down, letter style, though of course I’d never sent any of it. I still had them, though, tucked away in a small shoe box under my bed. Never to see the light of day.

  Once he was freed and had returned home I’d thought about calling him. In fact, for a while that was all I thought about, and I could barely resist the urge. Thankfully common sense had won out in the end, however. I had managed to keep a little dignity. Stay far away.

  But now, not so much.

  “I heard you were back,” I stammered, even knowing as I said it that it was the stupidest thing to say. I mean, the entire world had heard he was back. He was front-page news. In the A block of every newscast for weeks. There was even this crazy Twitter debate going on about whether the President should have bargained with the men who took him—or stuck to the policy of not negotiating with terror groups. I suddenly wondered if Troy knew about this debate. And how it would feel to know. That some people’s politics (including my dad’s) would have preferred he get his head chopped from his shoulders than back down on political policy.

  “So, uh, what are you doing here?” I asked. “Are you here to be interviewed?” I knew all the networks had been after him since he’d been back. But far as I knew he’d turned down every one. It’d be a huge deal if News 9 had scored the exclusive.

  He gave me a weird look. “Actually . . .”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Javier stepped through the door. He smiled at me, then at Troy. “Ready to go?”

  “Go where?” I asked, confused. “I have a screening.”

  “Not you, darling,” Javier interjected. “My man Troy here.”

  Wait, what?

  I watched as Troy’s face turned bright red. “I’m, uh, working here for a bit,” he said in a gruff voice. “Just . . . filling in and stuff for a while. Until I can get on my feet again.”

  I stared at him, shocked beyond belief. Troy was working here? At News 9? As a reporter? But that was so beneath him! He was a network star. A national celebrity. Publishers had offered him millions in book-deal money. Why on earth would he choose to slum it here with us instead?

  He caught my look. “Sorry,” he said, clearly misinterpreting my expression. “I had no idea you were working here too when I took the job.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we won’t cross paths much.”

  My heart panged in my chest at the look I saw on his face. “No! I mean, that’s cool! I’m glad you got a job. That you’re . . . back on your feet. And so soon. And . . .” I realized I was rambling, but I couldn’t help it.

  He gave me a strange look. “Yeah. I’m . . . glad, too,” he said in a clipped voice. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  And with that, he turned abruptly. “Are you ready to go?” he asked Javier. Javier nodded and the two of them walked out the door, while I stood there staring after them, hardly sure what had just happened.

  All that was clear to me were two simple things:

  One, Troy Young was really back.

  And two, he was definitely not happy to see me.

  four

  TROY

  God, I was happy to see her.

  Okay, maybe happy wasn’t the right word. In fact, if anything I felt somewhat physically ill as I followed Javier to the truck and hopped in. As if I’d been sucker-punched in the stomach. But in a good way, if you know what I mean. Just to see her! Standing in front of me. In the flesh. Half of me wanted to poke her—just to make sure she was real. That she was the real flesh and blood Sarah—instead of the construct I’d created down in that hole.

  You gotta understand: After I was captured, I thought I’d never see anyone from back home again, never mind her. Hell, I knew it was unlikely I’d ever see anything outside the walls of my prison. I wasn’t some naïve tourist. I’d reported on half a dozen stories of journalists getting beheaded so jihadist groups could prove a point. People didn’t usually get out of this kind of thing alive and unscathed. My best hope was that they wouldn’t leave me hanging too long.

  Which, of course, was the kind of non-hope that could drive a guy insane (which probably, I realized, was half the point). And so, in an attempt to keep some thread of sanity in my life, some small good in my dark world, I ended up spending a lot of time in that prison thinking of her. Talking to her. Pretending she was there with me, like some blond guardian angel, watching over me and keeping me safe.

  Sarah Martin. Love of my life. The girl I quite literally left behind.

  I had met Sarah on the UCSD campus when we were both undergrads. She was standing on the lawn with her girlfriends, selling cookies as some kind of fundraiser for her film studies group. But to be honest, she could have been peddling dog shit and I would have stopped and signed up for a lifetime supply. I was too chicken to ask her out on the spot so I asked her if she wanted to bring her cookies to sell at my Environmental Club meeting the next evening. That’s where I first introduced her to Ryan. Ryan who had dismissed her as a dumb blonde with no redeeming qualities—until he discovered who her father was.

  And . . . things started to get complicated.

  But I didn’t want to think about that. In the end it was irrelevant anyway. Maybe things between us had started less by chance than most relationships did, but that didn’t mean I didn’t believe Sarah was the one in the end.

  And who could blame me? There was no other girl in the universe like her. It wasn’t just that she was drop-dead gorgeous, though God help me she was always stunning, even in her ripped jeans and Converse. But in the end it had been her passion that had truly sucked me into her world. Her drive, her dedication. Whatever Sarah decided to do, she did it so fully. Throwing everything she had into the endeavor. Never holding back.

  Even when, in the end, she probably should have.

  Her dad hated me. He called me a socialist when he was in a good mood. Communist when he was mad, even though in reality I was neither. He hated the idea that I had opened his little girl’s eyes to the atrocities that were going on in the world—and right here in San Diego. He wanted a debutante, a future politician’s wife. Not some hippie hipster with big eyes and bigger dreams of changing the world. The world that he and his cronies had helped create.

  I sigh
ed. From the look of Sarah now, he may have gotten what he wanted in the end. Though possibly that was largely due to my actions, not his.

  “Here we are,” Javier announced, pulling the truck to the side of the road. I peered out the window, police lights flashing in my eyes. Opening the car door, I jumped out of the truck, running around back to help Javier with the gear. Soon we were all set up and interviewing police officers about the crime and getting interviews from a few passersby. The story seemed pretty straightforward. Guy robs a convenience store. The clerk presses the emergency button. Police show up and the guy runs away. They pursue him down the streets of San Diego until he high-speed smashes his car into a tree and dies.

  “Drugs!” an older woman witness shouted as I held the microphone to her face. “He was clearly on drugs. PCP. Meth. Maybe both. You know kids today. Always on drugs.”

  “Did you know this man?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t need to know him. I know his type. Druggie thug. A menace to our neighborhood.” She glanced over at the wrecked car. “He got what he deserved.”

  I swallowed hard, finding the hatred flashing in her eyes a little unnerving. I’d seen that kind of look far too often overseas. It was even harder to see it here.

  Shaking it off, I walked back to the truck to start writing the piece. On a whim, I typed the victim’s name into Facebook, figuring maybe I could find a picture to use in the report. A moment later a man’s profile popped up. Bingo. I scanned his bio quickly and read a few posts on his (thankfully public) wall.

  Turned out his name was Luke—though his friends called him Bub—and he was a married father of two living in Mira Mesa. It appeared he’d been laid off from work a few months ago from a city job due to budget cuts. Hadn’t been able to find new work since. He had tried to start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to feed his kids and pay the back rent on his apartment. But when I clicked on the campaign I saw it had ended. No one had given him a goddamned dime.

  “Sorry, man, that sucks,” I muttered, downloading a few pictures, then switching back to my interview, listening for useable sound bites.

  “Drugs!” the woman on the screen shouted at me.

  “This guy couldn’t afford drugs if he wanted them,” I shot back at her, now more irritated than ever. I shook my head, stopping the video and jumping out of the truck to approach Javier, who was shooting more of the car crash for the piece. “Do we have time to head over to the family’s apartment?” I asked. “Or maybe see if we can get his former employer to talk? I want to get some more information on what brought him to this point. That he felt the need to steal.”

  Javier raised his eyebrows, looking at me as if I’d just suggested we collect some neighborhood kittens and get them together for a playdate. “We’re live in an hour,” he reminded me. “I can’t just break down the truck and drive somewhere else. This is a car crash story, not an I-Team investigation.”

  I screwed up my face. Of course. What was I thinking? This wasn’t journalism. This was TV news. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am reporting.

  After all, no one at home cared that this man was probably part of a bigger problem. A modern day Jean Valjean, stealing bread to feed his family and paying the ultimate price. As a news station we should be looking at the bigger picture. The breakdown in the system that left people desperate enough to do things they never would have done. Why was his job eliminated? Who benefited from these budget cuts? What fat cat was sitting back on his yacht now, smoking a cigar, while this man lay dead in a smoking ruin?

  But no. No one wanted to put in the work on that kind of story. It was much easier to fill the time slot with good car crash video for people to rubberneck from the comfort of their own homes. At the end of the day our broadcast was nothing more than a glorified reality TV show. Where anyone could achieve their fifteen minutes of fame if they were willing to screw up their lives for all to see.

  I sighed, remembering how naïve I had been back in the day. When I switched my major to journalism, truly believing I could save the world. Expose wrongs, bring bad guys to justice. Change laws. Back then I felt so powerful. King of the world, giving it to the man.

  Now I wasn’t much better off than the guy in the smoking car.

  Feeling defeated, I walked back over to the editing deck. I wrote up a quick script, picked some sound bites, and handed it all to Javier so he could get to work. Then I went and sat back in the passenger seat of the truck, staring out onto the accident scene. The police lights reflected in the mirror, an endless repeating pattern of blue and red and white.

  Feeling restless, I got out of the car again. A small crowd had gathered around the accident scene, behind the police tape, watching eagerly. I wasn’t sure what they expected to see—the guy wasn’t going to suddenly get up and walk away. It made me a little sick to see their excited faces. One man’s tragedy, as seen on TV.

  “Hey! Look! That’s that guy! That reporter that was kidnapped.”

  Oh crap. I tried to make a move back into the shadows, but it was too late. Accident forgotten, they’d all turned their attentions to me.

  “You coward!” one of them yelled.

  “You should have died like a man!” another cried. “Pathetic.”

  “You think your life is more important than all those who are going to die now because that jihadist was freed?”

  I staggered backward as if I’d been shot, their anger and screams worse than any bullet. My heart thudded in my chest and I felt as if I was going to throw up. I wanted to say something. To tell them it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask to be rescued. I didn’t even know a deal was on the table. That I was stuck in a hole while this was all going on, praying they’d let me die.

  But I knew all the rationality in the world couldn’t cauterize the hatred radiating from their eyes. I was the face of all their frustrations. It was easier to blame a person than a public policy, after all.

  And so, feeling like the worst coward, I retreated to the news truck, climbing inside and locking the door. Javier looked up from editing, catching my face. “You okay, man?” he asked.

  I bit my lower lip. “Peachy. Just had to deal with some fans out there.”

  Javier nodded, taking me literally. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Instead, I turned to my script, reading it over, trying to memorize the live hit and move forward. To forget the people outside.

  Come on, Troy, I scolded myself. Man up. Do your fucking job.

  But try as I might I couldn’t stop my heart from racing in my chest. And as the live shot loomed ever closer, so did my dread.

  five

  SARAH

  I had just settled onto my couch that evening, a glass of wine in my hand, when I heard a banging at my door.

  “Come in,” I cried. “It’s open.”

  I knew who it would be before she pushed the door open. No one ever banged on a door with as much enthusiasm as Stephanie. Sure enough, a moment later she came bursting into the room.

  “Aha!” she cried. “You are so busted!” She pointed to the TV, which, of course, was tuned in to News 9 at the start of the evening news.

  “What?” I asked, feigning innocence, even as I was unable to help the guilty smile playing at the corner of my lips. “I taped a segment earlier today. I wanted to watch it on air.”

  “Yeah, well, I might actually believe that ridiculous lie if you didn’t once tell me that you never watched your pieces live,” Stephanie reminded me. “In fact, I believe you told me it was nothing short of cringe worthy to watch oneself on TV.”

  I sighed. That sounded like something I would say. And it was true as well. To watch myself on TV, as a regular viewer would. To listen to the vapid bullshit spewing from my lips about which celebrities had hooked up, who had cheated on whom with what nanny, whether Gwen Stefani was pregnant again—or had just eaten a few too many tacos. Oh, a
nd don’t forget that crazy thing Kanye had posted to Twitter the day before. Can’t go to bed without knowing that.

  Seriously, if you watched me on TV, you’d probably decide I cared less about the state of the world than the state of Chris Pratt’s (or Chris Pine’s) last haircut. Which was one of the reasons I’d made it a policy never to tune in.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, realizing I was busted. “I was just checking in on him. It is his first day, you know. I was curious how he was going to do. I mean it can’t be easy. Going back to work after . . . well, you know.” I cringed a little.

  My mind flashed back to our encounter earlier that day. I’d been so flustered, so ridiculous—leading him to believe I wasn’t happy to see him. When in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. After all those months of not knowing for sure whether he was alive or dead . . . then seeing him in real life again . . . I wanted to say everything at once. But instead I found myself unable to say anything at all.

  You can talk to him tomorrow, I told myself. Try to straighten everything out. I’m sure he’ll understand. It has to be hard for him, too. After all, it wasn’t exactly as if you parted on good terms. At the very least he probably feels pretty awkward about everything he did to you. Not to mention the way he left.

  The thought made me frown. Because that was exactly why I shouldn’t have been thinking of any of this at all. Why I should have been letting sleeping dogs lie—not trying to wake them to start things over again. I mean, what was my end game here, anyway? After what he did to me? After how he used me and spit me out like so much garbage? Why should I be the one to go back like a wounded puppy dog, whimpering for another chance? Was I that eager to open up old wounds? I had finally moved on with my life. I was doing well. I didn’t need to backtrack.