Chapter 77 - The Light We Lost

I walked into your room and had to steady myself against the door frame. The nausea returned and I battled it back.

There was a breathing tube jammed down your throat. Your lips were dry and cracked around it. Your head was bandaged, and the soft area below your closed eyes was bruised purple. Someone had wrapped your left arm in a splint, from elbow to wrist. There were tubes and machines beeping everywhere. But it was you. You were there. Your chest was rising and falling. You were alive. I knew what the doctors had just said, but I ignored it.

“Gabe,” I breathed. The room smelled metallic and medicinal, like antiseptic mixed with sweat and blood. I knelt next to your bed and took your hand. Your fingers felt reassuringly warm. I held them to my face, wishing you would trace my lips with your thumb, wishing I could hear your voice.

I thought about the last conversation we had. The one where we said we loved each other. The one where I told you to stay in Jerusalem, not to make me choose. “I take it back,” I said to you. “I didn’t mean it. Just come back. Come back, Gabe. Please. Don’t leave me.”

Nothing happened. You didn’t move. Not a twitch, not a blink.

A sob escaped my chest and then I couldn’t stop them from coming. My throat constricted. My ribs ached. My body shook. I collapsed onto the floor.

I don’t know when she’d entered the room, but Shoshana was at my side, her hand on my shoulder. “Mrs. Maxwell,” she said. “Lucy.”

I looked at her instead of at you. I tried to stop the body-racking sobs. She lifted me up off the floor.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said. “Is there anyone who can be here with you?”

I shook my head. “No one,” I choked out. I thought about Kate, about asking her if she could get on a plane that night. She would come if I asked. I took a quivering breath.

“It’s going to be okay,” Shoshana said, as she steered me out of your room and back down the hall. “Visiting hours are almost over. Why don’t you try to get some rest? You don’t have to make any decisions today.”

“Okay,” I said, my voice as shaky as I felt.

“Do you need a car to take you to a hotel? Or to Mr. Samson’s apartment?” Shoshana asked.

I’d booked a hotel, but I thought about the keys to your apartment in the plastic bag. I had your address in my contacts, where you typed it while we were in bed together. I felt like I had to go there. “A car,” I said. “That would be great.”

Shoshana nodded and came back a few minutes later with my suitcase. “Let me take you outside to meet the driver.” She handed me a card. “I don’t usually do this, but here’s my private line. If you need anything, please call. I’ve added my mobile number on the back.”

“Thank you,” I said, slipping the card into my handbag.

She picked my suitcase back up and I followed her through a revolving gate to the parking lot. A thought flashed through my mind quickly, gone as fast as it entered: If this was fate’s way of granting my wish, making me not have to choose between you and Darren, then I didn’t want to live in this world either.

What do you think, Gabe? Was it your choice to report from Gaza? To take those pictures when you did, where you did, how you did? Did your choices lead you here? Or was this preordained? Your fated end? Our fated end? I have my own thoughts about this, but I wish I could hear yours.