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Chapter 2

2

Jonathan

I am always attracted to women at the worst possible times. When they are married, and I am assigned to kill their husbands. Or today, when I have been shot.

My heart is hammering so hard, so fast. Then it stops. That is the worst part.

It hangs its heartstrings up for one…two…three seconds. I think it is never coming back. My heartbeat, I did not know I loved it so much, and then:

Bam! It starts up again with a stabbing jolt.

I am dying. It is not the first time. In some ways I have learned to enjoy it, the musicality of the world refreshing and receding. The subtle interplay. Life. The absence of it.

There is no afterlife. I know that for certain because I have died before. Four times. I have died and been brought back—always against my will. I black out. I wake up in a hospital. That is all death is. A break between being alive.

Unless you do not come back.

I leave the train car. I stalk down the aisle toward the toilet. My cheeks are burning up. My hands are numb. My heart is beating too fast, and then flick , it stops.

I fall sideways.

Smack!

My temple hits the wall, which brings me around, blinking, heart beating. Alive.

Now on the ground. The train is coursing like blood over the tracks beneath me. I can feel the vibrations all through me. They rattle my teeth.

A woman in red shoes is peering down at me. "Are you all right?" she says in French.

"Yes," I say back in French. "Sorry."

She scowls at me. I apologize again. I drag myself to my feet. I try to look repentant.

I am dying, and I am so goddamn sorry about it.

When I finally make it into the bathroom and shut the door, all my pain and nausea, and frankly, all my disgust with the entire situation, come screaming to the surface. Now that no one is watching, I can really fucking die.

I grip the sink. I want to splash water on my face, but I seem unable to let the sink go. My knuckles are white. My hands are shaking. I cannot even look up. I stare into the small silver bowl.

I will myself not to die. You can do it. You just have to believe in yourself.

The train veers left. I fall right.

I smack my head on the edge of the toilet.

This truly does not feel good, and possibly I should just let myself die. There are so many problems it would solve: my problems, a lot of people's problems. But the thing about dying is that when push comes to shove, there is a natural override. Your body wants to live. It really does not care at all about your opinions on the matter. Your thoughts. Your needs. Your wants. Your body takes over. It works its magic. It hands your life back to you like a gift.

I have drugs in my pockets. So many drugs. All different colors and flavors. Not for me, but for my job. Drugs to kill you. Drugs to bring you back to life.

I reach into the less lethal pocket and pull out a handful. I try to be organized but I am slipping dangerously close to unconsciousness. I move the pills around with my finger. I try to remember exactly what they are. There has to be something in my hand that can solve being shot.

I do not have time to figure it out. I swallow them all. Downers to stop the pain. Uppers to stop the dying. They catch in my throat.

I climb up and suck water from the sink beneath a sign that says Not Safe for Drinking . Let that be the thing that kills me.

I tumble to the floor. I imagine the pill army splitting up inside my vanquished body. Divide. Conquer. Win the battle against death.

I shut my eyes. The train hums under me, sometimes inside me.

I do not die.

In my experience, you rarely die when you think you are going to.

I lean back against the sink, facing the toilet. Above my head, the world steams by through a tiny window and my mind starts to drift…

What a beautiful world. What a beautiful life . I am so lucky to be alive right now…Wow.

I am pretty sure one of the pills I took was Ecstasy.

My life returns in a cozy drugged fog. I do not have time to enjoy it.

I undo the buttons of the jacket I am wearing. It is not my jacket. I borrowed it from the man who shot me. My jacket was much nicer, before it was stained with my blood.

I unbutton his shirt and examine the dressing. I am very good at dressing wounds. I am actually quite artistic about it. Death and not dying are the great works of my life.

Little puffs of blood are blooming through the gauze but nothing excessive, nothing to justify the way I felt before the drugs started to work their magic.

It is possible I was just having a panic attack. It is possible, even, that she induced it. I often confuse lust for some form of disease. Maybe she made me feel like I was dying. Maybe she stopped my heart.

I let my head fall back. I take a deep, calming breath.

I am not dead yet.

I am on the sleeper train to Paris. I could not take a plane because the bullet under my shoulder blade might be picked up by a metal detector, and I do not want to raise any flags. I am going to see my brother, who is a doctor. There are other doctors I could see, but he is the only one I trust. I am feeling a little fragile because someone shot me.

In most cases it is safer to leave a bullet inside you, but I do not like the location of this one, too close to a main artery, a through line to my heart—whatever is left of it. I also do not like that I keep fainting.

You spend so long defying death, you start to get too comfortable with it. You learn to live with it hovering over your shoulder, whispering the sweetest nothing in your ear. It becomes hard to tell when you are dying from when you are just living.

I run my fingers over my palms over and over. It is a tic I have sometimes, and right now the Ecstasy is not helping. I really know how to make my life interesting. I should not leave the restroom. I should stay here, sleep if I can, ride the train and the situation out.

But when I shut my eyes, I see her. She looks so familiar. It gives me this uncomfortable sensation that I know her already. That we were supposed to meet.

Destiny is the easiest way to explain the unexplainable. I like her. I want her. It must be fate. What else could it be?

I close my eyes and try to find where she belongs, to place her on the map of my twisted life. Is she someone I tried to kill? Is she someone who tried to kill me? She does not fit anywhere. And Ecstasy brain tells me it is because she is my destiny, and suddenly my whole life makes sense—as long as I do not think about it too hard. My life is a train steaming toward this eventual stop: her.

I can see her now.

She has wide, round eyes. Thin lips. Messy hair. A cowlick behind her right ear but not her left. A mole on her shoulder. A protruding clavicle. Muscled arms and shoulders but a soft belly. A broken heart.

Some things I remember. Some things I add on.

The train pitches. My eyes click open.

We will be in Paris in eleven hours. I want to see her again.

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