Scars

They say that time heals our wounds.

That all we have to do is keep on breathing – in and out, one day at a time – and the day will come when it no longer hurts to breathe. That one morning we will open our eyes to the sunrise and no longer be assailed by guilt.

They say that time can heal your pain, can close any wound, no matter how deep.

It’s been four years. Four very long, very emotionally exhausting years. It still hurts to breathe. I have not woken once to a morning without the guilt. And though the wounds have closed, the scars are everywhere: ugly, twisted distortions that mar everything around us.

Our bodies. Our lives. Our homes. Our jobs. Our world. Even our sky.

I never thought that it would hurt so much to do something so mundane, so simple, as to look out the window. But it does. One distracted glance, and the scar in the sky is almost more than I can bear. It’s a reminder of everything that we’ve lost. And it’s an admonishment to cherish everything that we’ve managed to hang on to.

Sometimes, I think it would be better if we left this city. If we went away and started a new life somewhere else, where the memories are not so strong, where the ghosts will no longer haunt us as they do, where the daily sights of streets and buildings will no longer cause the wrenching, pain-filled guilt to rise within us and remind us that we are still here, when so many of the others are not.

But I know that we will never leave. We are bound to this place: by the blood we shed, by the loss that we suffered, by the sacrifices that were made. Our lives are a testament to those who have gone and to those who remain. We will stay here in this place; each day of our lives will be the homage paid in remembrance.

Turning away from my contemplation of the crippled skyline that greets my eyes every time I look out of the bedroom window, I walk out into the hallway on feet trained to move with silent stealth. It is unintentional, and as I turn the corner and get a clear view into the living room, I wonder if I should have made more noise.

There are moments in my life that will forever be branded on my memory, and no matter how many others are dulled by the passage of time, those moments will remain as vivid in my recollection as the day they occurred. The first time I ever saw the man that I would come to love is one of them.

He is sitting there on the sofa, head turned to gaze out at the city beyond the living room window, and I stop to lean against the doorway, hesitant to intrude on his privacy. I can see the glimmer of unshed tears collecting in the corner of his eye and the pinched, thinned out cast to his lips. Though I cannot see them from where I stand, I know that there are strands of silver in his dark, unruly hair.

Grief has left its mark on all of us. I would like nothing more than to retreat and leave him to his solitude, but I know that we must be going. And however painful it is for him, and for me, I also know that it will bring some slight measure of peace to us, even if only for a short time.

“Dee?” I call out quietly as I straighten up from my slouch.

He turns to look at me, and I am struck – as I always am – by his beauty. Even now, with the gnarled scar running from his hairline to his jaw that just barely missed taking out his left eye, that beauty has not been diminished.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks me, smiling the sad, bittersweet smile that I have come to know so well.

I nod as I walk into the room. I am as ready as I can be, although I freely admit to myself that that amounts to practically nothing. I will never be ready, no matter how many times we visit that place. How do you prepare to visit the place that caused your world to shatter?

He stands and, once I draw near enough, pulls me into an embrace. I return it gladly; feeling the simple joy that comes with the tactile proof that someone who means so much is truly standing there beside you. Having stood on the brink of losing him in the maze of crumbling mortar and burning debris, I understand what a precious gift I was given that he walked out of that hell alive. I wish I could say the same for the others.

“It never gets any easier,” he murmurs into my shoulder as his arms tighten around me. “It should, but it doesn’t.”

“We haven’t forgotten,” I reply, wishing that my words could bring comfort, knowing that they could not. “I don’t think it will stop hurting unless we do.”

“I don’t want to forget.”

“Neither do I.”

Maybe we could have healed, if we could have forgotten. But some things, you just can’t forget. Some things you don’t want to forget, no matter how much it hurts. Sometimes, the memories are all you have left.

We leave the apartment then, taking along our jackets. It always seems colder there, no matter how warm it really was. Some say that it’s because it’s haunted, that if you listen hard enough, you can still hear the screams echoing through the empty space. I don’t know how much truth there is in those rumors. I’ve been there so many times, but all I ever hear is the oppressive silence that manages to block out even the sounds of the most horrendous of traffic jams. For me, the screaming only starts at night when I close my eyes.

We meet the rest of the 27th precinct in the ratty, tumbledown old building that serves as our headquarters. Behind every new face that was recruited to thicken our depleted ranks, I see the spectral visage of the one whose place is being filled. Judging from the way Dee reaches out and clings to my hand, I know that he sees them too.

The first year, the Chief stood before us and gave a speech about honor and duty and never forgetting. The second year, he only said a few words. The third, he opened his mouth, then closed it and let the words go unsaid. Now no one says anything. We wait in silence until everyone arrives – and everyone always does, even those new to the force – and then we leave together: those of us who were there, the new recruits, and the ghosts of the men and women who did not walk away from the carnage, but were brought out from the devastation on stretchers, in body bags, and in the memories of those of us who were left behind.

The sidewalks are lined with people. They always are now; regardless of the hour or the day, people come from all over the world to see the vacant slab of concrete that was once an architectural marvel of glass and marble.

When all was said and done, nearly three thousand people lost their lives that Tuesday morning. But as I stand there on that ground hallowed by blood and look at the sea of faces around me, I cannot help but feel that the loss was far higher. Nearly three thousand people died that day, but so many more lost their lives.

I glance over at Dee, who is staring out across the empty space into a place that no longer exists, and I know that he is remembering. After a time, his hand reaches up to touch the scar on his face, his eyes close against the liquid that seeps from the corner of his eye, and I know what he is seeing, in his tormented memory.

I twine my fingers around his, giving them a squeeze to let him know that I am here, and he returns the pressure in silent thanks. He knows, deep down in his heart, that it was not his fault. He knows that he could not have gotten there sooner, or faster, or have prevented it from happening in the first place. He knows the dangers of ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ He knows, but still the guilt plagues him. For not getting there sooner, for not being faster, for not stopping that wild rush back inside the doomed building to rescue those still trapped within.

It is no more his fault than it is mine.

It was not my fault that I survived instead. It was not my fault that that particular section of floor collapsed instead of the one that I was standing on. It was not my ill will – my dislike, my jealousy – which caused the floor to collapse. It was not my fault that I am here with him now. It is not my fault that it is me who is sharing his life.

The guilt has never really cared about reality. It does not start to care now.

“I miss him,” Dee whispers brokenly. “Oh God, I miss him.”

“I know.”

I miss him too. I never thought I would find myself missing him. But I do. If he were here right now, it would mean that none of this had ever happened. If he were here, Dee would not be in pain. What that would mean for me matters very little. We all learned about love and sacrifice the hard way, that day.

“Ryo…”

“I know.”

There is nothing else I can say. I cannot ease his grief. I cannot make him forget, and I never would, even if I could. In this world of madness, love is too precious to be forgotten, no matter how much it makes us hurt.

We stand there for hours – the 27th precinct, New York City’s finest – in remembrance and in mourning: for those we lost, and for us, for those pieces of ourselves that died beneath the rubble along with so many others, for the people that we were in those days before the towers fell.

Dee and I, we mourn for all of that. And we mourn the death of a man who so effortlessly sacrificed his life so that the two of us could emerge shaken and scarred, but alive, from the deteriorating building.

“JJ.”

The sky grown dark, and the crowd, though still present, has begun to thin. Our vigil is at an end and the 27th precinct is about to leave.

Dee’s hand is on my arm, and I look over at him, blinking my eyes. “Sorry, I was…” My voice trails off. The words are not necessary. Someone else, probably the Chief, had had to rouse him from his grief-filled reverie.

As we turn away, I cast one last look at the great empty, silent space. In my mind’s eye, I can see so much. And as I do every year at this time, I make the pledge to the man who was my rival, once upon a time.

I won’t forget. And I’ll love him and keep him safe for you, Ryo, until the day he when can return to you.