Remember Me

TearsoftheWorld

Radical Dreamer
Joined
Oct 15, 2006
Posts
16,002
Here I am.

Waiting to hold you.



Twenty Years Ago

The rain outside was coming down harder and harder, and even with the windows of her hotel room closed and the curtains drawn shut, Casey Anderson couldn't help but imagine the raging storm outside. It was late, and she should have been asleep, but something was keeping her awake. Something deep inside her kept her from finding peace. The young girl reached over towards the nightstand and pulled out her journal. The dark brown book opened up in her hands to one of the few fresh pages towards the end, but she turned back towards the beginning.

There, tucked between a couple of pages, were some photographs of her family.

Casey slowly closed her journal and held it close to her chest as she started to cry.

She needed someone to talk to.

She wanted someone to talk to.

She wanted to talk to them.

But they couldn't hear her.

Casey looked over at the telephone on the far wall of the hotel room, and it would have been so easy for her to just pick it up and dial one of her friends from back home. But that was against the rules. In fact, that would have been against Rule #1. No contact. Not a word. Not to anyone she knew. They probably had the phone wired so that she couldn't even make a call if she really wanted to.

She didn't really know... this was her first time under witness protection.

She was supposed to feel safe.

Secure.

But still... she had that feeling.

And it hit her like a sledgehammer when she heard a sudden knocking at her door. At first she didn't move. Despite having been told repeatedly what to do in situations like this, the nineteen-year-old lost herself. Time slowed down as she moved towards the door, and looking through the peep hole she saw a uniformed agent. Although she didn't recognize him, she recognized the symbol on his arms, and in her moment of weakness that was all it took for her to unlock and open the door.

The journal she'd been holding fell to the ground, and the pictures of her family slowly slid out from between the pages.
 
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[Thank you. This thread is now closed, however, so I'd appreciate it if all questions / comments / concerns about the story would be directed to me via PM.]
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjlBCAx6330

How much time had passed?

Casey couldn't really tell. All the moments of her life had started to blend together. In the middle of a field of tall golden grass she saw a tall tree, and the sky above was like a rainbow. It was surreal, but incredibly beautiful. The leaves of the tree were a magnificent green, and a light breeze caressed her face, as if to say that everything was alright now. She knew in her heart that there was something even more beautiful waiting for her.

Why hadn't she gone there yet?

Why was she stuck in the in-between?

Casey closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them up and looked behind her, she could see it.

The hotel room.

The scene flashed before her, and instead of clear skies the clouds overhead had darkened.

Day turned to night.

She was going back.

That's why... that's why she hadn't moved on.

She needed to go back.

She wasn't ready to move on.

Laughter.

Casey turned around, but not seeing anyone else she believed herself to be alone.

Crying.

Was she... was she truly alone?

Casey took a moment to compose herself. She still had mixed feelings... mixed emotions. Closing her eyes, she concentrated as hard as she could. She didn't know what she was trying to concentrate on, but she had to concentrate on something. The wind around her started to blow harder. It wasn't going to stop her. A single tear slid down her cheek, but she wasn't going to stop now.

I'm here. Please... please hear me. I'm still here. Please... please here me..

She had to concentrate harder.

Ignore the laughter.

Ignore the crying.

Ignore the wind.

I'm still here.
 
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There was substance and tangibility and all possibilities.

At least that was the truth of reality. If one chose to believe in it.

Cale Matthews didn't really care too much for reality. It wasn't so much that he didn't like living in the really real world but more so that an escape was welcomed. And this was the reason he poured himself another glass of bourbon. There wasn't any mixer in this glass. There hadn't been for some time. There used to be, a while back, but now it was straight Wild Turkey or Buffalo Trace or Jim Beam. Or whatever might be sitting on his kitchen counter bar.

It had been another day at the office, so the cliche' goes. Same shit. Different day. There had been a time when it wasn't always so. When he was a rookie patrolman and he got into his first foot chase. Yeah, that was bad ass. He moved quickly through rank, then. Fresh out of the army and still full of piss and vinegar. Cale went and got himself a college degree and before anyone knew it, he was a shift sergeant, then a lieutenant and the next thing he was an investigator. Not just any detective, though. He was the top-notch criminal investigator the department had. If you had a suspect that wouldn't crack in an interview, call Cale. If you needed someone found that couldn't be found, call Cale. If SWAT had a hostage situation, call Cale. He'd talk the bad guy out and have him bring pancakes and sausage to the SWAT guys, too.

He remembered the first time he fired his weapon on duty. He was still a junior street patrol officer. It was on a traffic stop. The driver pulled a gun on Cale as he was walking up to the car. Cale pulled his Glock. Shots fired. Suspect down. Officer unharmed. Dispatch, everything is Code 4.

The department sent him to a shrink to talk about the shooting. "What did you feel when you pulled your trigger?"

"Recoil," Cale answered with a shrug.

Cale glanced at the refrigerator. The therapist's number was stuck to the fridge by a magnet that he and Jess had gotten at some gift shop near the Grand Canyon. Dr. Tess Thornberg. She was a decent person to talk to. She was much better to look at. And Cale knew he was supposed to see her tomorrow.

Because he drank. Because he wasn't the cop he once was. Because Jess left.

Fuck.

Jess.

She had been his world. His everything. And, something happened. What? Something he did? Something they didn't do? Grew apart. He didn't communicate with her. Kept things bottled up. It was his way.

What does it take to change the essence of a man?

More bourbon.
 
It all stopped.

The wind.

The laughter.

The crying.

Casey had felt like screaming... had felt like tearing her hair out. And then there was silence. She couldn't even hear herself breathe. The silence was eerie. Out of place. Casey turned around, and behind her was an apartment building.

No... not an apartment.

A house.

It didn't look familiar to her.

She didn't want to go near it... even though it called to her.

Casey started to run. She ran away from the house and over the fields until she was certain that she'd run as far away as possible before she'd start to circle back. Content for the moment with where she'd run off to, Casey collapsed to the ground and spread out her arms and legs. She closed her eyes for a short while, thinking that perhaps things would be better when she woke up again.

~ ~ ~

It was about six o'clock in the morning when Tess Thornberg first arrived to her private office, but it would be several hours before her first appointment would arrive for their session. She was familiar with the case, and she hoped that the morning's session would bear some sort of fruit. Cale was an interesting man to deal with, and through years of training she knew that underneath his shell she could see that he was a good man.

Lost.

Confused.

Most men didn't like to talk about their feelings, but it was her job to get them to do just that. And not just talk about them, but confront them. She knew that it was easier to bottle up emotions, but she also knew that true healing would only come when those emotions were finally put out into the open.

Hopefully she could put a crack in his armor, or at least exploit the cracks that were already starting to show. Although she was relatively young, Tess had a way with words, and she knew how to deal with stubborn men. She knew how to be delicate and still find the strength within herself to push their buttons.

She knew she had to.

With men like Cale... it was the only way.
 
The headache Cale woke with was not unexpected. He did, however, not expect to oversleep. He had forgotten to set his alarm last night. In fact, he had forgotten to leave his recliner and go to bed. The nearly empty bottle of bourbon and an overturned glass on the coffee table reminded him why.

His shower was quick. He didn't bother shaving. Fortunately for him the policies governing his dress code at work were somewhat lax. This wasn't the norm for most of the department. Since Cale was assigned to the Special Crimes unit of the Criminal Investigations Division, he pretty much could wear what he wanted. Today was a gray long sleeve Henley, jeans, boots, and the same old black moto jacket he always wore. Cale actually had a motorcycle, an old Ducati that had belonged to his brother. He wore his sidearm, the department issued Kimber 1911, in a black leather holster on his right hip and his badge was clipped next to it.

Cale didn't even bother going to the police station. He went, instead, to Dr. Thornberg's office.

He looked at his watch as he entered her office and took a seat in what he had come to call 'The Chair'. "Better late than never, right?" He said to her. He folded his sunglasses and put them in his jacket. He gave a sigh, folded his hands behind his head, and reclined back into The Chair.

"What are we talking about today, Doctor?"
 
Tess was never all that comfortable around guns, but the badge on Cale’s waist reminded her of the fundamental difference between criminals and officers of the law. He may not have looked it, and he may have forgotten it himself, but Cale was a man to be trusted. Still, it had taken a few sessions for Tess to get used to the firearm he kept holstered at his side.

“What shall we talk about,” she repeated, mostly to herself, as she rose from her chair to shut the door.

“Let’s start by talking about what happened last night.”

Tess knew he drank. Cale’s reliance on alcohol was one of the main reasons why he was in her office to begin with.

She wasn’t going to judge him.

She wasn’t being paid to judge anyone.

She was, however, being paid to help him confront his demons.

Tess sat back down and looked at her client. It didn’t take her long to see the signs. They were incredibly subtle, but she was trained to look for them without even having to look for them. The way he sat and reclined in her chair, for example, revealed quite a bit. She also noticed that he hadn’t shaved. Was that a red flag? Perhaps not, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

During the session, she'd ask him questions relating to his goals.

His phobias and fears.

Everything, at least in her mind, would circle back towards Cale's goals.

She began discussing a few options, one of which included writing down his goals for treatment and having him sign it. Instead of a nearly empty bottle of bourbon, it could be a half-empty bottle of bourbon.

And then two-thirds full.

Then O'Doul's.

Of course she'd have to recommend another year or two of therapy after drinking that.
 
Tess was never all that comfortable around guns, but the badge on Cale’s waist reminded her of the fundamental difference between criminals and officers of the law. He may not have looked it, and he may have forgotten it himself, but Cale was a man to be trusted. Still, it had taken a few sessions for Tess to get used to the firearm he kept holstered at his side.

“What shall we talk about,” she repeated, mostly to herself, as she rose from her chair to shut the door.

“Let’s start by talking about what happened last night.”

Cale gave a shrug. "Last night was pretty uneventful," he told her. "You know I've been working on putting an old military rifle, an M1 Garand, back together."

He looked at the floor. "It sits there on the dining room table, on a big white sheet, in pieces. I stared at it for a few minutes after I had gotten home from work. And I never picked a piece of it up."

He shrugged again. "So, I turned on the TV and watched something."

"What did you do when you got home last night?"

She wanted to talk about drinking. Cale didn't want to talk about drinking. It wasn't something he really thought about, truthfully. It wasn't like he couldn't wait to get home to pour bourbon into a glass and gulp it down.

Psycho-babble about an escape from problems being the bourbon's purpose was about to ensue. He was sure of it.

Cale knew. He was pretty smart. She was, too. Two intelligent people surely could come up with an answer to whatever the question was at hand.

What exactly was the question?

Oh yeah. Last night.

"Yeah," he said at last. "I had a few," he admitted. He shrugged again.
 
Jess immediately recognized what that rifle meant. Even if Cale was being literal, Tess took his words and recognized it as another piece to the puzzle. Cale was a bit older than she was, and just like him, that rifle remained in pieces.

"So, I turned on the TV and watched something."

It's so easy to run away from your troubles.

Hakuna Matata... why worry?

"What did you do when you got home last night?"

Tess waited until Cale's attempt at deflection circled back around, and then she smiled warmly at him before things would have to turn serious.

"I could... lecture you on the dangers of substance abuse, but you're a smart guy. I didn't even have to look at your file to know that. There's clearly something missing from your life, and alcohol is one of those things that will make it harder for you to address those issues."

This was a very delicate tango.

"You're not relying on alcohol to escape... right? I get that."

Maybe she was breaking protocol.

Tess pulled out a set of keys from her purse and went over to a locked cabinet in the corner of the room. Tucked neatly behind some files was a bottle of very expensive whiskey. She reached in and pulled out the bottle, along with two small tumblers that clinked when she set them down on her desk. She fixed herself a generous shot and then offered up the second glass.

The smell was intoxicating...

The golden liquid burned the back of her throat for a brief moment, but the sensation left her mouth watering... desiring more.

"Tell me a bit more about the rifle on your kitchen table... Why haven't you finished working on it?"
 
Cale held the glass under his nose. He breathed in deeply.

The MacAllan. Finest Scotch in the world.

He sat the glass on the office coffee table without taking a sip.

"I'm still on duty," he told Tess. Dr. Thornberg. He hated to waste Scotch that good. Hated it. Still, though, he was on duty.

"Addressing issues," he acknowledged. "Yeah, everyone's got issues. Something missing?" Cale shrugged. Isn't it obvious?

"Back to the rifle," he said, shifting in his chair and adjusting the carry position of his holstered sidearm on his hip, "I really think I've lost interest. I've been waiting on a part to come in that I ordered. It's a rare piece because I'm only using original parts to rebuild this one. They make current stuff, parts you can buy that are the same as the real thing, but I had to look everywhere to find original, military issue stuff that was made in the '40s and early '50s. Not an easy thing to find.

"So, I guess in all the waiting, I've kinda lost motivation to finish it. I could be doing other things to it while waiting, like refinishing the stock or working on the internal mechanisms," he finished. He shrugged again. "Guess I've just lost interest until I get this one piece I need."
 
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