Afterlife: Reincarnation

2

May 16

LANE

Be careful.

That was what he had said to me. Of all the things he could have said in that moment, in the middle of a beautiful, grand gesture that left him with a four hundred dollar ticket to London he wasn't even going to use, breathless and hunched over after sprinting across the airport, he chose be careful.

What a fucking idiot.

He had been on my mind constantly during the last week. Since the moment he walked out of my apartment, shutting down on me just as he always did, I thought about what it would be like for things to be different. Of all the things I wish he had said to me. Of all the things I wish I had the courage to say back.

What if I stayed? What if, instead of taking the job of a lifetime, I instead chose this wounded boy who stole my heart? The jobs I had been offered in New York were great. Any of them would have been enjoyable and challenging and a great starting point to my career. I could have been happy in New York, starting this new chapter of my life.

But he wouldn't have been there anyway. Even if I had stayed, he wouldn't have. Because even before I had been offered this job, he had accepted one on the other side of the country. My choice didn't change his. So why should his change mine?

I shuffled in my seat, the uncomfortable airline seating doing nothing to ease the discomfort I felt, mainly in my rear. It was late in the evening now, and we were due to arrive in London within the hour. It was almost like a sick twist of fate that my first layover was in the city where Harry Styles had been born. Like even as I left him standing in that airport, watching me walk away without a hint of remorse, I wasn't actually getting away from him that easily.

I sighed, leaning my head against the window at my side. My eyes barely took in the tops of the clouds below me, the sun setting slowly, disappearing behind them as it lowered across the horizon. Thankfully, I had my row of seats to myself. A surprising twist since one of my new colleagues, a overly perky man with vibrant red hair, informed me not long after boarding. He was seated behind me, popping over the top of my seat more than once to get acquainted once we realized we were both on the same assignment. Thankfully, he had fallen asleep just over an hour ago, leaving me to my distant thoughts.

I should be excited. I should be anticipating the months to come, what I would see, what I would experience. This was the chance of a lifetime for any photographer and I had been granted the opportunity just out of college. It was a rare fact that hadn't escaped me, and if anything, made me even more determined to live up to the expectations extended to me.

In a way, I felt I was ready for this challenge. Thinking back, in some ways, I had been preparing for this all my life. I enjoyed all genres of photography, but really, capturing life, in all its facets, was what thrilled me, excited me, and inspired me. Being able to capture reality, as true and disturbing as it could be, was in my mind the whole purpose of my art form. Not the glamour or the glitz of fashion, or the sensationalism of the tabloids. But the truth, the realism and the lives of the world.

But just as strongly as I felt prepared, I felt completely unprepared. I had never been on an assignment like this, to the other side of the world, expected to produce under this kind of pressure. I had been brief on the fact that despite the extensive security afforded to us, there may be instances of gunfire, route changes, and evacuations. The patients treated were tortured, raped, beaten and shot. And they were the lucky ones.

I should be thinking about the world I am entering, the people I am about to encounter, and the reality of the brutal lives lived by these people. But instead I was sitting on this plane, my new colleague snoring loudly behind me, my ass going numb in this God forsaken seat, and my mind thousands of miles back in New York with a certain green eyed man.