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abby
Isat down in my seat after a disastrous go through security. I had to explain to the TSA agent three times that I was an FBI agent and required to carry a weapon at all times. He thought my badge was a fake and asked for a supervisor. When the supervisor saw my badge, he asked the idiot to step aside. He personally apologized to me and said the agent would undergo some additional training to correct his knowledge.
I grabbed the largest iced coffee the cafe had. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get comfortable, and I couldn’t ignore the tightness I felt in my chest. The goodbye had been hard. I could still smell Adam on me, and it did nothing but make me restless. I waited impatiently until the boarding announcement was made. The stewardess looked at me with sympathy I didn’t want nor need. Instead of a witty remark, I dropped down into my seat and waited for the plane to go wheels up. I looked around and thought about how different this flight would be from my last. I’d be missing a rather large and intimidating seatmate. I sighed hopelessly. Who was I kidding? I was going to hurt either way.
My last look at Adam through the taxi window nearly destroyed me. He looked stoic, as if he was accepting the decision I made. Getting shot had hurt less than the coldness. His friends had been kinder. They hugged me and told me they were always there if I needed them. I was part of the crew, even if I didn’t choose to stay with them. I planned to keep in touch, but I was hurting too much to consider texting any of them now. I didn’t know that I’d be able to pick up the phone and select their name without crying.
An older lady approached my mostly empty row. “Can I sit here?”
“Sure,” I answered with a fake smile.
She put her small bag in the overhead luggage area, then plopped down into the seat next to me. She smelled like lilacs and vanilla; it was nice. I instantly considered myself lucky. The opposite alternative would have been someone with nasty body odor. “Oh honey, why do you look like you’ve been crying? So sad to leave paradise?” she asked. Never mind, she was a chatty Kathy. Maybe I wasn’t that lucky.
“Something like that,” I mumbled.
Her eyes held sympathy as they scanned my face closer. “Oh no, that’s not it. That’s the look of heartbreak,” she pressed. She might as well have rubbed salt into my wound, because metaphorically, that was what she did.
I didn’t answer her. I just stared stupidly.
“Let’s try that again. I’m Monique.” She extended her hand. She looked to be in her fifties, and her dress looked like it was meant for someone ten years younger. At least she could pull it off, maybe better than I could.
“Abby.” I grabbed her hand and only held on for a second.
Her body pivoted to face me, and I knew I was in trouble. She was in this for the long haul. “What’s got you so down, Abby?”
I was quiet for a moment, considering my options. Somehow ignoring her didn’t seem like a good one. There were so many things I could hit her with, because my mind was still reeling. I had so many things on my plate now that I was returning home to face reality, one of those being Lilith. Not only was my heart breaking because of the attachment I developed to Adam, but I was going to have to say goodbye to Lilith. I didn’t know her for years like Adam knew his friends, but it was enough to know her. Enough to know that I was going to miss her, and regret that I couldn’t help her, for the rest of my life. That was too heavy for a stranger on a flight. She was going to want to know how Lilith died, and I couldn’t talk about that. So I went for the easy way out. “I’m just wondering if I made the right decision.”
“Tell me all about it. We have a few hours,” she said with a kind smile. She was one of thosefixertypes.
“It’s kind of a long story,” I started. I took a deep breath and then word vomited the whole fucking thing, leaving out the human trafficking or the investigation into the FBI. When I was done, she sat there open mouthed. She looked like she was grasping for words, like a fish gasping for water.
“I need a minute,” she finally said.
I laughed for the first time in hours. “Tell me about it. I’ve needed a lot of them.”
She finally strung together some words, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to hear them. “Abby, it sounds like what you had was special. He liked you, his friends liked you, and he was on board with your career. Not many men would be,” she prefaced.
“I know, but my career is my purpose. It’s my higher calling, to help those who can’t help themselves. If I don’t have that, I have a relationship that could end at any time, for any reason. That’s a hell of a risk to take…for love.” Why I voiced my deepest fears to a stranger, I couldn’t tell you.
“Not any more of a risk than the rest of us take. Do you plan on retiring when you get older? You won’t have your youthful appearance forever. What would you do then? What would make you happy after you could no longer be an agent?” she asked.
“I…I don’t know. I never really thought about that day,” I told her. I’d always lived in the present. It was what my missions usually required of me.
She sighed as if she was explaining rules to a toddler for the third time. “You live in the here and now. Maybe you should think about the long game, like your friend Christine did. She created her own way to help others, and you could too. You don’t need a badge to rescue those in need. You’re the one who decided you need to choose between love and a career. You don’t need to. He accepted your job and its unconventional nature.” Her eyes pleaded with mine—she wanted her words to sink in. “That’s so rare, it would be a shame to waste it,” the woman said with a soft shake of her head.
I shook my head. She didn’t understandwhy.“If I kept my job—kept using my body to seduce secrets from nasty men—that wouldn’t be fair to Adam. It doesn’t matter what he says he’s cool with. He deserves better than that.”
“Who are you to decide for him? He’s a grown man who can make his own decisions. If he’s decided he can handle it, then trust that. He gave you his heart, and he trusted you not to break it. You broke both of your hearts in fear of the unknown, when you could have it all,” she said.
That wasn’t fair. That was a harsh characterization of what happened. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I warned him from the beginning…”
“And yet fate had different plans,” she cut me off. “You can control a lot of things, Abby. You are a strong woman. However, there are two things you can’t control: love and fate. Why make yourself miserable when you can be happy?” she asked.
“Why?” I asked myself.Why make myself miserable?I thought I was protecting Adam, and myself, the same way he protected me.
I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to have both my job and Adam. To come home from assignments and have Adam there waiting. For us to share more adventures together. We might not be able to have a traditional family—at least until I felt I had fulfilled my purpose at the bureau. If Adam was adamant that was something he could handle, then who was I to argue? I hated when someone tried to step in to tell me what I was capable of, what I could or couldn’t be. Yet here I was—the hypocrite. I told Adam he couldn’t be happy with me if I was an undercover agent. He was stubborn like me. No wonder we had the same fight over and over. We ignored what the other said they needed. Mainly me, I ignored what he said he wanted, while he worked to be what I wanted. Yet I gave nothing back in return, except my body. It was all I’d known how to give.
I fucked up.
