I want to scream “What do you want from me, Jude!?” He can’t ask me questions like that unless he wants to hear answers he won’t like.
“Why did you get upset earlier when I joked about your job being easy?” I ask with narrowed eyes. If he wants to make me feel uncomfortable then I’ll do the same and see how much he likes it. We’re both hiding demons, but he seems to have forgotten that fact since we’ve been in paradise. I thought we were having fun and forgetting about everything but us, here and now.
His hands run through his hair forcefully, tugging on the dark stands as he stares out over the ocean.
“It’s not a story I’ve told many people,” he offers vaguely, as if that’s enough to end the conversation. Like hell it is.
I scoot back over the duvet cover until my body rests against the headboard. I don’t say a word; I don’t goad him into speaking. Honestly, it’d be easier if he shut off like I do, closing the subject so we can move onto the physical side of our “relationship”. That way there wouldn’t be any confusion about what our arrangement is. A part of me desperately wants him to open up and reveal his secrets, but I know it’ll complicate things. We should just stick to what’s on the surface: our chemical attraction. Plain and simple.
He doesn’t move and he doesn’t look at me. His hands are folded around his chest and his eyes are glued to the ocean beyond my room’s window.
But then he starts talking, and my heart slowly crumbles under the weight of his words.
“After college, I went to work for a popular Magazine as a war photographer. It’s the goal most photojournalism majors aspire to: covering real news in areas of the world that need exposure. I’d interned at the magazine through college and when they offered me the position, I would have been insane to pass it up.”
I had no idea he was a war photographer. He said his current job was easier than the last, but I just assumed it was something else, something lighter.
“We were stationed in various villages inside Iraq. My assignment was meant to last a month, but they ended up extending it a few times and I stayed for a little over eight months in total. That was the longest eight months of my life.” As he speaks, his eyes darken and his jaw clenches tight. “The war we fight over there is different than the wars of the past. Today’s conflicts aren’t fought on battlefields. Instead of marching troops toward your enemy with rifles at the ready, modern militaries engage in urban fighting. We had to keep our eyes peeled every moment because the enemy could have been anywhere. There was no separation between war and life, only constant paranoia of what could be waiting around the corner.”
My hand clasps over my mouth, but I don’t make a sound.
“At first, I tried to focus on what I could control: the exposures, saturation, and white balance of my photos. I was taking photos that were meant to shock the western world and was doing a great job at it. I followed marine units, protesters, and civilians step-for-step— through decaying neighborhoods and crowded markets so that I could take photos of the combatants and the afflicted. Civilians suffering from food shortages, hospitals overflowing with the sick and injured, and entire villages burning beneath the weight of war.”
“Every night as I scrolled through photos, trying to decide which to send to my boss, the tragedies of the day would hit me. I’d push everything away during the day, internalizing the overwhelming suffering. But at night the disguise would slip and I’d start to contemplate the darkness surrounding me,” he pauses and takes a heavy breath. “But it wasn’t until I met Ali that everything f**king collapsed.”
A tear rolls down his cheek and I’m taken aback by all he’s had to endure. What could have happened to him?
“Jude. You don’t have to keep going.”
He wipes the tear away forcefully and continues his story. I think it might be easier for him to say it all at once. If he stops now, I wonder if he’d ever want to bring it up again.
“Ali was a little boy that lived in the village we were stationed in during the end of my assignment. I’d see him every morning, begging for food with the rest of these orphaned boys. We were taught to keep the civilians at a distance, to remain unbiased observers.”
“I couldn’t begin to understand the culture of that village. Hunger will do crazy things to people, but I didn’t know. I had no clue what the consequences would be.” The anguish behind his confessions overflows my eyes with sad tears. What could have possibly happened?
“Charley, he was so f**king skinny I could see every bone in his body.” Finally Jude looks at me and my heart splits in two. “I couldn’t just ignore it. Every day it weighed on my conscience. To be a good war photographer you have to be willing to get as close as possible to the subject without feeling a goddamn thing. What kind of bastard can do that?”
“Jude,” I plead through quiet tears. I want to assure him he did the right thing, but I don’t want to interrupt him.
“After I’d thought about it for days, one morning I packed an extra protein bar and some bread in my camera bag. I went to the village center to find him like I did every morning. He’d picked up a few words of English and he would ask me my name and if I had a ‘family in America’. He asked me that every day, and every day I’d say no and keep walking. That morning, I told him to follow me over to a side alley. I had to pull him away; there were too many people starving, not just these orphans, but the entire village. The UN was trying to send aid, but it wasn’t getting to these small villages fast enough.”
“I gave him the food and he started crying. He tore into the bread as quickly as he could. But I couldn’t stay; I’d already been gone from my crew for too long.”
With slow movements, I crawl off the bed and wrap my arms around him, not knowing what else to do. I want to reach in and take away every ounce of sadness; wipe him completely clean. He doesn’t deserve to feel any of this.
“I should have f**king stayed. I’ll regret leaving him with that food for the rest of my life.” His sob breaks through the room, and I feel his heart beating wildly against my ear.
“Jude, you fed him. He was so hungry and you gave him food.”
I feel his head shake above me. “They found him. A group of teenagers found him with the food, and they tried to steal it. The other orphaned boys saw it happening. They said he wouldn’t give it up and they beat him. They killed him to get that f**king protein bar. Because I couldn’t just do my job and stay the f**k away, Ali died.”
“No! Jude!” I pull back to look into his eyes, but his gaze is focused on the bed just over my head. “If you didn’t feed him, he would have died anyway. You did the right thing, Jude.” I know my words fall on deaf ears. It’s like I’m looking at him through a two-way mirror; he’s so far away, but I can see every emotion etched across his beautifully sad features. He hasn’t forgiven himself and nothing I say will get through to him now.
“It doesn’t matter, Charley. Even if there was no Ali, the war changes everyone. I watched soldiers, coworkers, and civilians get injured or die every day. It wears you down. Having to constantly be on watch turns your body into a bundle of nerves. They diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder when I got back and I went to therapy for a while. But even therapists can’t quite grapple with the trauma. Soldiers have a mission: to eliminate the enemy. They have their own set of difficulties, and I can’t image what it would feel like to kill someone. But the lines are blurred for journalists and photographers. We have to get close, too close to the tragedies. The closer we get, the better our photos, and the more f**ked up we become.”
He shakes out of my tight grasp and steps away to take a few calming breaths. “Now I’ve just come to live with the night terrors. They’ve lessened over the years. And the more I fill my life with meaningless photography jobs, the less I have to think about what happened over there.”
“That’s why you never dated.”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. It fell into place. Girls were a means to an end. I’d learned how to compartmentalize every demon when I was in Iraq and it seemed easier to keep everyone at bay.”
“I’m glad you let Bennett in.”
He nods and I see his features starting to relax. “Bennett has been my friend since we were kids. He knew me before I went overseas and he could see how much it changed me. I’ve talked about it with my family briefly as well. Other than that I’ve just learned to live with it.”
“Jude. I’m so sorry.” Those are the only words I can say. Everything else that springs to mind seems cliché and trite.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’m alive and I truly enjoy most parts of my life. Ali is dead and that knowledge will forever haunt me.”
We sit in a long period of silence. The kind of silence that wraps around your body and freezes you in place as you try to process the intricacies of the world we live in.
I tuck my head under his chin and wrap my arms around his chest. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m glad I did. I want us to be honest with each other, Charley.”
I close my eyes, inhaling his scent and pretending I didn’t hear his last sentence.
“Let’s go to bed, Jude.”
“No,” he demands, his grip tightening around my waist. “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to be with you. I want to feel you moving under me. After everything that’s happened, you make me feel alive, like the last four years don’t have to be what the rest of my life looks like.”
It’s too much. I can give him an inch, but he’s demanding a mile. His words wind around my soul and each syllable tugs the rope tighter and tighter until I’m sure I’ll shatter.
“Let’s just be here, Jude. That’s all I can give you right now. Just be here with me for tonight,” I plead, hearing the desperation in my voice.
I have to be honest with him about that. I need him to know my limits before we do anything we can’t take back.
I expected him to argue against my request, but the hunger building behind his gaze highlights the transition taking place between us: from a deep conversation toward the concession of our passionate desire. It sparks between us like the brewing of a storm, and I step back instinctively, trying to separate myself from the consuming downpour.
My movements are futile though.
Jude reaches down with his hands, sliding them from my lower back, down to the sides of my hips. He slowly bunches the bottom of my dress in his palms. His eyes are focused and demanding, never straying from my gaze as he pulls my dress up and over my lacy underwear.
“Take it off.” He tugs on my dress, forcing my obedience with his heady touch.
My tongue reaches out to wet my lips as my shaky hands find the hem of my dress. I pull it off in one quick flourish and then let it drop from my fingers without a glance toward the silky white material.