The Witness

2

"Where do I start?" I asked, sliding effortlessly back into my lying position. My delicate fingers laced together to rest over my stomach; I cringed when I noticed how many of my fingernails had been bitten down to nubs.

These hands were meant to sport constant French manicures, not look like they'd gone through the French Revolution.

"Wherever you'd like." My therapist flipped the page of her notebook and settled back into her armchair. "Tell me, Sam. What was your life like before the incident?"

An excellent question.

"I was a publicist," I recalled, my eyes sliding closed as I remembered the world of just a year ago. "Not exactly what I went to school for, but in today's economy beggars can't be choosers when it comes to paychecks."

"Plenty of young adults face the difficult reality of working in fields they didn't study immediately after they finish studying," my confidant empathized. "I myself spent two years in a call center until I found my first position in psychology. But...did you like what you did?"

"Working as a publicist wasn't exactly my dream job after graduating college. It just sort of...happened," I replied, my mind flickering between various coffee shop run-ins and reporter rendezvouses of my career. "I didn't represent sports superstars or the newest pop star sensations. That level of notoriety was reserved for the big dogs. Like my boss."

"Oh?" My therapist shifted in her seat, a sound with which I was now intimately familiar. "Who were your clients?"

"I represented authors. New authors," I replied, my tone flat as I tried to hide the dull ache in my chest at hearing this recollection. Some of my clients had become good friends, and by remembering them now I was reminded of the friendships I had lost. I knew that my tone was less than enthusiastic, so I quickly corrected my therapist's perceptions of my career. "Authors could be sexy, especially if they put out thrilling vampire love stories and sensuous S&M best sellers. I just...didn't get a lot of those."

"Is there any reason why?" My counterpart continued scribbling away on our session notes, but I didn't mind. What could she possibly diagnose from memories of a job that wasn't directly related to the murders?

"I always thought that maybe I didn't get the biggest and brightest because I was only 25 at the time of the incident," I admitted sheepishly, my nose reddening in anger at the injustice of the agism of the current day workforce. "The established authors wanted the established publicists. And before I left, I had only just broken three years of experience as a publicist."

"I'm sure that must have frustrated you," my therapist empathized again, a hint of nostalgia in her voice. This time, she offered no personal insights into my thought process. "Did you ever bring up your concerns to your boss?"

"Yeah...once. He didn't really care," I snorted at the recollection "'Don't be offended, Sam.' He said that to me when I asked for his advice on how to get more clients. 'Everyone has to pay their dues. You'll get your winner.'"

My confidant chuckled, but made no open attempt to intervene. So I continued my recount, for once glad to remember something about the past which didn't immediately bring the usual sob fests and banshee shrieking that other memory paths garnered.

"His trivial response only inspired me to prove him wrong. I spent my working days and nights setting up public readings of my authors' newest releases, vying for radio station interviews for my clients, speed reading novels and short stories, and babysitting my writers' media debuts at minor league parties," I felt my voice growing stronger, rooted by the security of my former life. A laugh escaped as I emphasized my last point. "Literally. The only athletes at those parties were minor league baseball players."