Ugh! I’m so tired, exhausted. I feel as if I can’t even lift the weight of my eyelids. I can hear the TV in the background. Every channel it is the same thing. But I just can’t bear to watch it again. I can’t handle that sickening feeling in my stomach as the vision of the crumbling buildings repeats relentlessly on the screen and even as projected imagery in my mind, behind closed eyes. How could the world come to this? What is wrong with humanity? That in itself is the problem, there seems to be very little humanity left in humans.

Here I am surrounded by people, a friend and a few strangers, yet I am uncomfortably alone. Why can’t the euphoric feeling last longer? Why can’t I lose myself in its poison? Where is the escape? I don’t want to feel this sorrow and pain. I just want to get away from it all, all the hurt, all the noise. Oh the noise is the worst part. Incessant, pulsating, intruding noise.

“Brianna? Aren’t you going to answer that?” Mitchell’s voice broke through her thoughts.

“Huh? What?” She was confused.

“The phone? Aren’t you going to answer it?”

The phone. The phone? The phone! The distinct sound of the phone ringing finally made its way into her conscious and she scrambled to answer before whoever was calling hung up. Her mouth was dry causing her voice to be not more than a whisper. “H…hello?”

“Brianna? Is that you?” The voice scratched on the other end of the line.

Instantly her heart soared at hearing his voice and then plummeted at the sadness evident in it. “Nick, I’m right here.” She took the cordless phone and walked to her room, silently excusing herself from her houseguests. “I’m right here, talk to me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He was tired, she could hear it, sense it.

“Thank God. I was so worried about you.” Lying down on her bed she closed her eyes in a failed attempt to block out the images from the television.

“I got your message. Sorry I didn’t call sooner.” Something was bothering him, she could tell.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just happy to know you are okay. Where are you? You are okay, right?” She just wanted to make sure. After all, he did use her full name, a dead give-away that something was wrong.

“Um, we’re in Canada, somewhere. I’m on the bus. I’m so tired, I can’t sleep, but man that’s all I want to do. I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up and all this would have been some twisted nightmare.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know. I know what ya mean. It’s all over the news. Every channel is covering it, non-stop. I blink and blink thinking it will go away. But the horror just keeps playing on.”

“Are you okay?” He’s asking if I’m okay? Me? Should I tell him the truth? What is the truth? Yes I am okay. But then again, no I’m not. Will any of us ever be okay? “Brianna?”

“Hmmm? Ummm, yes, I’m fine. Just tired I guess, that’s all.”

“Why did you leave?”

She didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t expect that question. “Nick, I just, things were so, I felt that, “

He interrupted her, “I wish you were still here. I’m so sorry, for everything.”

Tears she thought had long since dried up began to fall again. They fell for her broken heart, they fell for the pain in his voice, they fell for the anger she felt over the terrorists attack and the many, many lives lost because of it.

“Brianna, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Maybe I should just go.”

“No.” She gasped. And then she spoke a little softer, “No. Please, I’ve wanted to talk to you all day. Please don’t hang up. I’m just so mixed up right now. All this stuff going on has me so mixed up.”

There was a knock at her bedroom door. “Brianna?” Mitchell queried opening her door slightly. “Sweetheart, can I get you anything?”

She was shaking her head no.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you have company. I didn’t mean to..” Nick had heard Mitchell’s voice.

“No Mitchell, I’m fine.” She tried to give him a small smile and waved him out of the room. “Nick, it’s okay. I just needed some company. I think we all needed the reassurances of people we know around us.”

“Yeah.” Nick whispered.

She knew what he was feeling. “You’re not alone, you know that.”

**sigh** “Yeah, I know.”

Even though she was nauseas from the unending broadcast of the events she spent the next hour talking to Nick about it. She told him everything that the news reporters had been saying. She described to him the falling of the buildings. They cried to each other and consoled each other.

“Sometimes I wonder with everything we’ve been through as a group, and as individuals, will it ever be enough? Will it ever just end? God, I know that has to sound so selfish.” He was hurting and there was nothing she could do to help him, which only made her hurt more.

“It’s not selfish Nick. When things like this happen they make us think about our lives and everything we have experienced in them. Don’t feel bad for wanting the bad things to end. We all want that. I know I do.”

He was quiet for a few minutes and Brianna just let him have his thoughts. She was lost in her own as well. She had been lost in them all day. If the truth be known, she was either lost in or running from her thoughts for over a week now. When he spoke again, his voice was steady, but soft.

“I wish you were still here.”

She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t say she was sorry for leaving, because she wasn’t. She still felt that under the circumstances she made the right choice. Instead, she spoke what she did feel. “I wish I was with you right now.”

“Yeah, me too.”

MEANWHILE

“So, what is up with this chick?” Eric was asking. He was one of Mitchell’s friends who had accompanied him over to Brianna’s.

“She’s not a ‘chick’.” Mitchell answered with his eyes closed and head resting on the back of the couch.

“Okay. Still, what’s up with her? You and her?” Eric persisted.

“She’s just someone I enjoy hanging out with, and sharing stuff with.” Mitchell liked Brianna, a lot. Okay, maybe more than a lot. But there definitely was a gap between them. It was an unspoken understanding. It didn’t bother him though. That arrangement was just fine with him.

“What type of ‘stuff’?” Mitchell rolled his head to the side and merely stared at Eric for a minute before returning his head back to its original resting place.

“Mmm. O-kay. So does that mean she is in or out?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. Don’t worry, I’ll let ya know when I do.”

Eric grinned and glanced to the closed bedroom door before simply replying, “Cool.”

When Brianna stepped out of her bedroom the conversation officially came to a close.

<~ Chapter 80 or Chapter 82 [coming soon]~>

In the End

Karina 2003