An Interruption to the Plot

“Some people’s lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That’s what trauma does. It interrupts the plot.” ― Jessica Stern

—

Of all the lies we tell each other there’s one bigger than all the others.

We tell it straight-faced all the time. We say it casually. We say it sincerely. We say it even when we know it’s a lie.

I’m fine.

Sometimes we say it because we need to believe it. Sometimes it might even be true.

What happened that night? That’s easy. I broke a promise. I stopped for red lights.

In my defence, it wasn’t the lights. It was the sirens. Not that that makes me feel better about it.

It’d been a long time. A lot had happened since then. You start to think you’re past it. You think you’ve won, but then something happens – big or small – and it can snap you back. Not right back. You do get better. You fail better all the time. Sometimes you even feel normal.

It isn’t like flipping a switch. It creeps up on you. I was fine.

I helped them put her into the ambulance. I made sure she was safe.  I stepped back… There were sirens on the ambulance, on the police cars…

I wasn’t fine.

I can rationalise it if you’d like. Adrenaline. Fight or flight.

I went with flight.

People think it’s like a video on a loop, but that’s not it. It’s not a montage or flash frames. That makes it sound edited to a script that makes some kind of sense, you know, like on a TV show when they want to show you remembering it. It’s not high def visuals. It’s feelings. It’s the monologue inside your head, and it won’t shut up.

It’s fear. Pure, unadulterated fear.

Everything hurts and you just wanna run. You wanna make it shut up but it’s your voice, your brain, and you don’t know how. You wanna fight, and you’ll fight whatever steps in front of you. Fight and flight gets fucked up, mashed up.

You want to shout, scream, cry or just lash on out. You’re scared but you’re wired. Everything’s out of proportion, and you know it.

You know it. You’re out of control but you know it, and you don’t know how to stop.

Then, somehow… somehow, you do.

You come back, and gradually you’re you again. Then that’s really the worst because you know you lost it for a while there. It’s embarrassing; to lose control like that. The one thing you should have control over is your own head.

I made a promise. I promised never to stop for red lights. I broke it. I left her alone in the ambulance while I ran off into the night.

The bullet hit her, but just barely. It grazed her arm. Her worst injury was the minor head wound from where I knocked her to the ground trying to keep her safe. I get the irony.

Her blood was all over me from where I held her until the ambulance arrived. I’m not good with blood.

Just one shot got fired before they tackled him to the ground. If he’d been a better shot…

He was just some lone nutbar. He was freaking out about death camps.

It’s not back to square one. I left that behind a long time ago. This was an echo. It’s embarrassing, melodramatic and far, far too public, but it’s not even the strongest one I’ve had. In so many ways this is a battle I won a long time ago.

In my hospital room, she looks at me with such love in her eyes, and that hurts more than anything else could.

As I struggle to apologise – to explain about the red lights – she’s having none of it. It’s with a kiss that she shuts me up.

She tells me that she thinks she should give up on the bill and that we should go away somewhere together – just us and the kids – to somewhere safe. She’s not scared for herself; she’s scared for me.

She’s ready to give it all up – everything she’s worked for, everything she wants – to look after me.

Of course she is. It’s Donna.

That’s why I can’t let her.

“No Donna, no.” I tell her.

No way are we leaving. No way are we running away. She’s got so much to do. It’s not just about this bill. She’s got brains and heart, and she makes me believe even though I’ve seen so much that it would be easy to just give in to cynicism about everything. I won’t let her give up everything she can be, not for me. We’ll find a way to be safe and do this too.

I broke a promise today, but this time I can’t let it eat at me. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my fault, and I can’t let it stop her.

So I tell her that we need Sam and we need Toby. We need them to write her a statement for the press.

She gets that look that says I’ve got her either worried or intrigued. I love that look, and the one she gets as she works it out, catches up and then speeds past me.

“I’m not Jed Bartlet,” She says. “Not even with Toby and Sam putting words in my mouth.”

She still doesn’t know that she is. That she can be. That every day she gets a little bit closer.

She’s amazing, and she’s only just begun.

Truth is I’m not always fine, but that’s okay because I have Donna. She’s always been there to help me get through it; to help me do what needs to be done. From dancing to dinner.

It’s my turn now. Sirens might still have the power to trip me up, but I’ll keep on standing up, for her.

We’re gonna run all the lights together.

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