Not dramatic.
Not sobbing.
Just a desperate attempt to keep everything inside.
“I hate this bit,” I say.
The words are barely there.
AJ hears them anyway.
“What bit?”
“When it’s over.”
My throat burns.
“When everyone looks at me as if I can make it make sense.”
He is quiet for a second.
Then he says, “You gave them somewhere to put it.”
I close my eyes.
That is too close.
Too accurate.
Too kind.
“That’s not the same thing as sense.”
“No.”
His voice is low.
Not soft in the weak way.
Steady.
I have spent the last hour being steady for everyone else, and now he is standing in my office being steady back, and I do not know what to do with it.
“I had him,” I say.
The words come out before I can stop them.
AJ says nothing and I am glad he’s not.
If he speaks now, I might break completely.
“I had him,” I repeat, because apparently once a wound opens, it wants air. “We got him out. We got him out quickly once we found him. The work was good. I know the work was good.”
“It was.”
“I know that.”
“Yes.”
