At First Light

by Mari Madison

  He frowned. “I’m not suffering,” he spit out, as if expelling poison. “Suffering is being stuck in a dark hole, not knowing if you’re going to live or die. Suffering is having your leg dislocated and not getting it set right. This”—he waved his arm around the studio—“this is nothing,” he barked out. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “No,” I said quietly. “It’s not nothing. This is your life now. And you have every right to have these feelings about it. Not everything from this point forward has to be weighed against your abduction.” I gave him a small smile. “Little things are still allowed to suck.”

  He snorted, shaking his head as he paced the small stage. Then he turned to me. “Is this all I have left?” he asked suddenly. “Is this all I have to look forward to? This mindless bullshit?” He dropped to a sitting position, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “No offense,” he muttered.

  “None taken.” I walked over to him, sitting down next to him, careful not to touch him. “Look, Troy,” I said. “I know you don’t want to be here. Doing this. This is never going to be your dream job—I get it. I really do. But I also get that this is just temporary. Just until you get back on your feet. You know Richard will put you back out into the field anytime. And the network would be overjoyed to have you back when you’re ready. You can go overseas and continue where you left off.”

  He was silent for a moment. “What if I’m never ready?”

  “Then you’ll find something else. And whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll be great at it. You told me you had been thinking of coming home anyway. Maybe in a really crazy way, this was a good thing. Not your abduction, of course. But the excuse to be back home. The chance to figure out what you really want to be when you grow up.” I said the last part in a teasing voice and was rewarded by a small smile ghosting his lips.

  “Have dinner with me,” he said suddenly.

  “What?” My heart pounded in my chest.

  “Just dinner. At my place tomorrow night. I’ll cook for you.”

  I bit my lower lip. “I don’t know . . .” I said. “That might not be a good idea.”

  I wanted to, of course. In fact, every fiber in my body was screaming for me to say yes. But at the same time, I held back. Not wanting to make yet another mistake when it came to Troy. To dig myself even deeper into the hole I’d dug. After all, it was one thing to find him physically attractive and want to jump his bones. But this tenderness I was feeling when I looked at him now—when I saw how lost he looked. That was truly dangerous ground.

  “Come on, Sarah,” he begged, clearly not willing to take no for an answer. Typical Troy. “It’s just dinner. No strings attached. I won’t make a move on you. I won’t bring up the past. We’ll just eat.” He paused, then added, “You said we could be friends. And, well, the way I’m feeling right now . . . I could use a friend.”

  I could hear the cost in his voice as he said the words. How hard it was to move them past his lips. He was asking for help. Even though it was the hardest thing for him to do. Especially asking it of me.

  I found myself nodding slowly. What else could I do? What else could I say? He’d been through so much. And he was asking for so little now. Surely I could put my own feelings aside for one night to keep him company. To be his friend.

  “Sure,” I said. “You can cook for me. But I insist on doing the dishes after.”

  twenty-five

  TROY

  When I had volunteered to cook for Sarah, I hadn’t really considered the fact that most of my go-to recipes were basically of the barbequed meat variety, which weren’t going to work for my little vegetarian friend. In a panic, I’d called Griffin, who told me girls dug a man who could make a spaghetti sauce from scratch. Which seemed odd to me, since the stuff came premade in a jar, but what the hell. I found a recipe online, hit the store on the way home, and started sauce making. I did cheat and buy the pasta in a box. Hopefully that wouldn’t take away from the magic.

  I frowned, dipping my finger into the sauce now as it simmered on the stove. Did it taste all right? Did it need more salt?

  Was this a totally crazy idea?

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. Where was Sarah? Should I call her and make sure everything was okay? After work she’d gone back to her place to shower and grab some new clothes—which I’d tried and failed to talk her out of. After all, we still didn’t know who’d been making threats against her. But we did know whomever it was knew where she lived. What if he was there, lying in wait? What if he was ready to do more than make idle threats this time? She promised me she’d call Stephanie and have her meet her over there—safety in numbers and all that. But what could two girls do against a full-grown male?

  Then my mind flashed back to her little demonstration in the studio yesterday. Okay fine. Maybe she could hold her own.

  I’d almost made the suggestion that she just shower here—but then decided she might take it the wrong way. After all, I had promised her that tonight would be platonic. Just two people, keeping each other company. And I was determined to stick to that promise if it killed me.

  Which it very possibly would. Hell, she wasn’t even here yet and I was boiling hotter than the pasta sauce.

  As I stirred, my mind decided to stir its own memory sauce, treating me to a vivid flashback of a shower scene from the past. Sarah and I had just finished making love for the first time—a little awkwardly: We were just dumb kids after all and barely had any idea what we were doing. She had risen from the bed, all naked and sweaty and beautiful and I had tried (and failed) to be a decent guy who didn’t stare at her ass.

  I remembered her walking to the bathroom door. (Thank God I had a single dorm room with a private bath.) She’d turned around, batting her pretty eyes at me, a shy smile on her face as she asked if I’d like to join her in the shower. I was lucky I didn’t break my neck in my haste to get out of bed. As it was I got completely tripped up in my blankets and banged my knee against the floorboards, scoring a killer souvenir bruise that would end up lasting for weeks. (I was seriously so cool back then!)

  But God bless Sarah, she didn’t seem to mind my dorky fall. In fact, if anything she looked a little relieved. And when I finally managed to limp myself over to the bathroom, she dropped down and kissed my knee, as if I were a child with a boo-boo that she wanted to make feel better. And then, after I followed her into the shower, she proceeded to make the rest of me feel better as well.

  I glanced at the clock again. Where was she? She should be here by now. She said eight, right? It was half past eight—she was a half hour late. My heart stuttered in my chest. Oh God, what if something had happened to her? Maybe I needed to call her. If she didn’t answer I could call 911. Send them over to her house. Or maybe I should go myself. Of course I needed to call first—where was my phone? Had I left it in the bedroom? What if she had already tried to call? I should check the messages.

  I ran to the bedroom, my heart in my throat as I searched for my phone. But try as I might I couldn’t find it. Not in the bedroom, not in the bathroom. The living room. My pulse kicked up in alarm. The kitchen—wait, was that smoke coming from the kitchen?

  Oh crap, the sauce must be burning.

  I ran to the kitchen. The entire room was filled with smoke. I blinked my eyes, trying to make my way to the stove. It was then that I realized I must have left the recipe too close to the flame—and the paper had caught fire, then spread to a newspaper I had laid on the counter. Flames danced on the granite now, greedily licking the cabinets above while smoke plumed, thick and black.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

  Reaching out, I tried to knock the paper off the counter onto the floor to better stamp out the flame. But my swing was too wide and I yelped as I accidentally brushed my hand against the hot pan. Icy pain shot up my arm like a bullet and I staggered backward clutching my palm.

  My mind flashed back
again. Not to Sarah this time. Not to a simple knee bruise, easily kissed away. But to one of the “interviews” I’d been subjected to when I’d first been captured.

  What is your government’s plan for Aleppo?

  I’m just a journalist! I don’t know!

  You lie. There are consequences for lying.

  The consequences—the hot poker dragging down my arm. The scorching heat, searing into my skin, leaving a blackened scar behind. The phantom pain echoed through me now, mirroring my current agony. I tried to remember what I told them after that—how many lies spilled from my lips, just to get them to stop. But all I remembered for sure was how I cried like a baby back in my cell, clutching my charred, throbbing arm. Helpless and alone.

  Just like now.

  A sudden wailing sound rang through my ears, mimicking the air raids we’d heard so often back then. I dropped to the floor, covering my head with my hands, my heart slamming against my ribcage as my mind fought and failed to regain control over my senses. My sight. My breathing. Squeezing my eyes shut, I prayed it would stop. That this would all somehow go away. Somehow. Someway.

  Hands grabbing me. Nails digging into my flesh. Screeching sounds assaulting my ears.

  You are going to die. You’d better get right with your God. The best you can hope for is that your death will come quick.

  “Troy!”

  Rough hands grabbed me now, jerking me away from the flames. Startled, I looked up, my vision so blurry from smoke I couldn’t see what was happening, who was here—and I fought wildly against them, struggling to keep control. It wasn’t until she repeated my name, louder and more insistently this time—that I realized it wasn’t my captors, come to do me harm.

  It was only Sarah. My Sarah.

  I watched, helplessly, as she grabbed a blanket off the couch, running back to the kitchen to smother the flames. Once they were out, she turned her attention to the stove, grabbing the pan and throwing it in the sink. Steam shot through the air as she raced over to my apartment’s balcony door, flinging it open wide. Then she turned on the ceiling fans in each room. A moment later the wailing, which I now realized had simply been my smoke alarm, faded into obscurity. The air began to clear. Slowly, everything went back to normal.

  Except me, that was. I remained a quivering mess in the corner. My breath coming in short gasps. My mind still racing. Oh God. If she hadn’t come when she had I could have burned down the apartment. I could have inhaled too much smoke. I could have—

  “Troy!” Sarah looked down at me, her eyes filled with concern. I tried to turn away, not wanting to look at her. Not wanting her to look at me. To see me like this. This total fucking mess of a man. I felt ridiculous—both incredibly relieved that she’d shown up when she had and also incredibly humiliated. God, what must she think of me? Falling apart over burned pasta sauce.

  “Can you take my hand?” she asked.

  It was a simple question, and I shouldn’t have felt as grateful as I did for her to ask it. But still—the fact that she’d asked. That she didn’t just grab me and drag me—like I’d been grabbed so many times in that hole. Even after I was rescued, my space had been constantly invaded. Well-meaning doctors and nurses, poking and prodding me with needles and tests without asking permission—as if my body were not my own.

  But Sarah. Sarah had asked. And she was waiting for me to say it was okay.

  I nodded wordlessly and reached out to take her hand. Her skin was soft, cool, smooth. But solid, real at the same time. I forced my brain to cling on to that fact as my hand clung on to hers. Trying to focus on the sensation of her silky skin against my rough palm.

  I let her pull me to my feet and walk me over to the couch. She helped me sit down. My chest was still heaving up and down and I felt a little like I was hyperventilating. I think I was shaking, too.

  To my surprise, Sarah ran to the kitchen. She grabbed something off the counter and ran back to me, pushing it into my hand. It took me a moment to realize it was a jar of peanut butter, of all things.

  “Read me the ingredient list,” she said.

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Just do it.” Her voice left no room for argument.

  It was the oddest request, but I did as I was told, slowly reading the tiny words on the jar, one by one, trying to pronounce the difficult ones. It seemed ridiculous, pointless, but I did it anyway, because she had asked me to and at that moment I would have done anything for her, I was so grateful she had come in time.

  As I read the words, she stroked my back with slow, even fingers. And lo and behold, by the time I reached the end of the list, my heart had slowed down. My vision had cleared. I could breathe again.

  I drew in a breath, a slow, steady one this time. It was funny: I’d never fully appreciated the effort it took to simply breathe before. But it really was a miracle, wasn’t it? The fact that our bodies took regular breaths, even when we weren’t thinking about them?

  “I burned the sauce,” I said after a moment.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “You did.”

  I felt a weird appreciation at her words. I’d expected her to say something like that it was no big deal. That she didn’t like homemade sauce anyway. That this would just give us an excuse to order pizza instead. Something—anything—pitying like that. But she didn’t. She just rose to her feet and walked back to the kitchen. She took the pan out of the sink and grabbed a sponge, working to wash it out. It was probably burned to the point of no return, but she scrubbed it hard anyway, as if she believed in it still. As if she believed it had some life left in it yet.

  Now there was a metaphor if I ever heard one.

  “I was going to cook for you,” I said wearily.

  She turned to look at me. Her eyebrows cocked. “You still are,” she said. “I’m just doing the cleanup. As promised.”

  I sighed. When she’d made that promise, I’d assumed she’d meant a few dishes, not my entire world. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I was grateful she was here. The attack had been a bad one. If I had been alone . . .

  I rose to my feet, squaring my shoulders, determination surging through me. I’d been given a second chance. I wasn’t about to squander it now. The shrinks had insisted the best thing to do was get right back on that horse. To face what scared you. Otherwise you might start avoiding it altogether, the fear building inside of you until it became insurmountable.

  Reaching into the cupboard, I pulled out a jar of Ragu. I held it in her direction. “It’s not the gourmet sauce I imagined, but . . .”

  She smiled, her lips stretching across perfect white teeth. “Meh,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I always thought homemade sauce was vastly overrated anyway. I mean, why bother with all that simmering when you can simply grab a perfect jar from the store?”

  I sighed. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “Is it working?”

  “God yes.”

  I set the jar down and crossed the kitchen. Took the pot out of her hand and set it on the counter. Then I pulled her into a warm hug. At first she felt a little stiff—as if wary of my intentions. But then she relaxed, her soft body melting into mine. I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in. She smelled like burned tomato sauce . . .

  And a little like my salvation.

  twenty-six

  SARAH

  I would have been totally cool with hugging Troy all night long, skipping dinner entirely in exchange for the nourishment I was getting from being in his arms. But, of course, that would have been counterproductive. He needed to make this meal, to get through it without panicking. To see that he didn’t have to be afraid.

  So I broke from the hug and went back to the dishwashing as he went to get the pasta on the stove. We worked side by side, hardly speaking unless we needed something passed across the kitchen. Separate but together all
the same. By the end, Troy had created a halfway decent feast and the dishes were in the dish rack sparkling clean. The air still smelled a lot like smoke, but I kept the windows open, hoping it would eventually air out.

  I set the table and he brought over the food. Then we sat down together and starting passing the dishes around, filling our plates.

  “Delicious,” I pronounced as I took a big bite of spaghetti.

  He rolled his eyes. “It’s pasta from a box and sauce from a jar.”

  “And it’s absolutely delicious,” I reaffirmed, slurping up a large noodle. The sauce splashed onto my cheeks. I laughed. “So classy, right?” I asked, grabbing for a napkin.

  Troy beat me to it, reaching over and dabbing my cheek carefully with his own napkin. I sucked in a breath, my stomach twisting as his gentle fingers moved across my face. Seriously, how could something so sweet and innocent feel so damned sexy? I mean, it wasn’t like he was licking it off with his tongue.

  Okay, Sarah, calm your hormones. The guy just went through a major PTSD episode and almost burned down his kitchen. The last thing he needs is you to be sexualizing him when he’s just trying to be polite.

  “So,” he said, dropping the napkin and returning to his meal, “how did you know to tell me to read the peanut butter jar?”

  “Oh.” I felt my face flush. “Just something I . . . read about. Tricks to get someone out of a panic attack.”

  He frowned. “You read about it? Were you researching me or something?” He suddenly looked annoyed. As if I had gone behind his back. Had him investigated or something.

  Fortunately I could answer truthfully. “Actually I’ve had a few panic attacks of my own over the years,” I confessed. “I saw a therapist. She gave me a few coping strategies.”

  “And they worked?” he asked, looking curious despite himself.