Page 19 of The Circle

CHAPTER NINE

“Copy that. We’ll be there soon.”

I hang up with Brenden (or Charlie—I couldn’t care less) and turn to Alec and Christine. “They’ve moved the boys. They left their cell phones in the warehouse. If Brasil heads straight there, he’ll have to call us to find out where we all are now. So…” I look at my watch. “We’ve probably got an hour or so. How are we feeling?”

“Like old times,” Alec says, slapping a clip into a pistol and tossing it into a huge, black duffle bag which sits on the bed alongside another huge, black duffle bag, both filled with guns and explosives and… Jesus. The image would be sort of funny if this weren’t all so goddamn tragic. I take it all in, chuckle anyway, despite the tragedy of the situation, and shake my head.

“What?” Christine asks. “What’s funny?”

“I mean… nothing. Really. At all. I was just thinking… How are we not all dead? Or in jail somewhere? Seriously? How the fuck are we still alive?”

“Because, Danny,” Alec responds, “fortune favors the bold.”

He’s shirtless. That’s his thing. He always takes his shirt off when we’re readying for a mission, or heist, or death wish or whatever. And then he puts it on last once he feels ready. I used to think it was about vanity, but over the years I’ve come to believe it’s that he wants to feel primal. Like, somehow it reminds him that he’s a human animal, made of flesh, blood, and bone. All of which can be taken away in a breath and all trace of him will disappear.

Or maybe he just likes it when Christine and I stare at his chest. I dunno.

“Let’s hope,” I say, sighing as I look down at the instruments of destruction we all play so well, before heading off to the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” Christine asks.

“Take a leak.”

It’s true, but I also just… need a minute. I’m tired. And sad for some reason. And that’s a bad mind state to be in when in the middle of a war. Inevitable, probably. But not helpful, ultimately. I gotta get my shit together to do what needs to be done.

The bathroom in this joint is bigger than it needs to be. They always are. That’s how Alec rolls. Big bathrooms, big bedrooms, big ideas, big trouble. Big everything. Always. He just takes up a lot of space however he can. It’s one of the things I love about him. Even though I’ll never tell him that. Because his head is also big enough as it is. Alec van den Berg. Bigger than life.

I stop to look at myself in the covers-the-whole-wall mirror. I don’t look tired. Or old. At least not as old and tired as I feel. That’s good. I don’t need anyone else worrying about me. I’ve never wanted to be a problem. I want to be the solution. That’s my part in our little tragicomedy. I’m the reliable one. The stable one. I’m—

“Hey.”

Christine stands in the doorway. I see her reflection behind me in the mirror. She looks worried. Fuck me.

“Hey.” I turn to face her. She nibbles at her lip. “You okay?” She nods. “You sure?” She nods again. “Except… you’re not.” She lowers her chin to her chest, shakes her head ever so slightly. I sigh. Again. “What’s up?”

She continues staring at the floor, now swirling her head in a kind of figure eight pattern. Then she shrugs. “I dunno.”

I step toward her, lifting her chin with my finger. “Hey. Hey, look at me.” She does. There’s a sadness there that reminds me of her when she was young and wore that sadness all the time. I click my tongue to keep any other sound from intruding on the moment. You know, like my heart breaking or whatever. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

She pauses for a moment, then says, “Today? Earlier? I couldn’t feel you.”

I nod, slowly. Not in understanding. More in a huh? kind of a way. Then I lend voice to the action. “K. Uh… whaddayou mean?”

She huffs out a sigh all the way through her shoulders and says, “When everything popped off and I saw Alec chasing the kids down the street, I didn’t see you. I didn’t know where you were.” I keep looking at her. Waiting. I’m afraid I know exactly where she’s going with this.

She’s worried that I’m going to leave again. That somehow I’m going to take off on her and Alec. I’m not, obviously, but what is and what isn’t doesn’t matter to feelings. Feelings don’t give a shit. They do what they want.

Call it sense memory or just ... fuckin’ ... memory. But being up there on that roof... It had to stir it all up for her. What it was like before. The last time. It’s why I didn’t want her there to begin with. “But more than that,” she goes on speaking, “I couldn’t… I dunno. Doesn’t matter. Go take a leak. Sorry. I don’t know what I…”

She turns to leave, but I take her by the hand, stopping her exit and pulling her over to the excessively lengthy counter/basin thing. “Whoa. Hold up.”

She spins toward me, looks up again with those damn eyes. I take her other hand as well and lean back against the sink, studying her. Every inch of her face. There’s a whole epic poem of shit I want to say, but the thought that wins the battle to see what comes out of my mouth first is, “You okay to do this thing?”

“Yeah,” she says, lacking any kind of conviction.

“Because you don’t have to.”

“I know.”