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elementof_riskIt should be stated and well understood that I like risks. Whether it is the adrenaline rush, the chance of failure, the feeling of success, I neither know nor care. "Anything in life worth doing has an element of risk. It's what makes life interesting." I said that to her the night we met, and I believed it, absolutely. Whatever name I gave her, whatever accent I used, that was real and that was honest. So, yes. I like risks, I seek them out, I love the rush that comes with surviving them.
But this? This is not the sort of thing I usually do. I do not do family dinners. I do not do parties in the park. I do not hang out in apartments that could very well be under surveillance. I do not date people whose job it is to kill me or put me in prison.
This goes beyond risk, well into the realm of madness. This history between us insists it can never work. I tortured her. I blew up her office. I killed her friend. And yet she took me home and introduced me to her parents, her younger siblings. I ate at their table and hung out in their living room while she tinkered with the computer. I do not hang out.
I kill people. I find weapons for warlords and plutonium caches for despots. I trade international secrets. I steal. I lie. I would be perfectly happy to watch her government crumble.
Even if I had gone the patriotic route and served my country with the distinction with which she serves hers, perhaps I could have been more respected as just doing my civic duty, but at the end of the day, we still would have been enemies, because the country I would have served would have been Mother Russia. We are separated by ideals, by beliefs, by values, by history, by upbringing, by dreams...
And yet, when I am not with her, I think about her nearly all the time. I miss her. The bed of whatever hotel I am in feels empty. I do my job, and I do it well. I serve my clients as brilliantly as ever, and for a brief time I can lose myself in that, but at the end of the day, coming back to an empty room that isn't mine...I think about how easy it would be to go to the airport. I calculate just how long it would take me to get back to that cursed city of angels. And I realize that no matter how much it might not be the sort of thing I usually do, it is the thing I am doing now, and the thing I rather suspect I'll be doing for the foreseeable future, and I have no idea what ramifications that will have for either of us, in the end.
But this? This is not the sort of thing I usually do. I do not do family dinners. I do not do parties in the park. I do not hang out in apartments that could very well be under surveillance. I do not date people whose job it is to kill me or put me in prison.
This goes beyond risk, well into the realm of madness. This history between us insists it can never work. I tortured her. I blew up her office. I killed her friend. And yet she took me home and introduced me to her parents, her younger siblings. I ate at their table and hung out in their living room while she tinkered with the computer. I do not hang out.
I kill people. I find weapons for warlords and plutonium caches for despots. I trade international secrets. I steal. I lie. I would be perfectly happy to watch her government crumble.
Even if I had gone the patriotic route and served my country with the distinction with which she serves hers, perhaps I could have been more respected as just doing my civic duty, but at the end of the day, we still would have been enemies, because the country I would have served would have been Mother Russia. We are separated by ideals, by beliefs, by values, by history, by upbringing, by dreams...
And yet, when I am not with her, I think about her nearly all the time. I miss her. The bed of whatever hotel I am in feels empty. I do my job, and I do it well. I serve my clients as brilliantly as ever, and for a brief time I can lose myself in that, but at the end of the day, coming back to an empty room that isn't mine...I think about how easy it would be to go to the airport. I calculate just how long it would take me to get back to that cursed city of angels. And I realize that no matter how much it might not be the sort of thing I usually do, it is the thing I am doing now, and the thing I rather suspect I'll be doing for the foreseeable future, and I have no idea what ramifications that will have for either of us, in the end.
