Athena

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            I sat there staring out of the coffee house window as my friends droned on and on about some new art exhibit that would be opening sometime within the next month. This normally would be something that I would be excited about and be going into exact detail of everything that I knew about it. Who was going to be the showcase, which collectors we hoped would be there, and lastly which of our pieces we hoped would be bought. But today I couldn’t even hear what they were saying. My mind was in the small village in the mid-east with Alice and what could be on her agenda within the next few days.

        Being jolted from my daze, I turned to look at my friends.

        “You’ve been back from gathering Phoebe’s things for a month now and you haven’t been yourself since you came back.”

        “She isn’t the same,” one of them whispered, “I wonder what’s going on with her.”

        Phoebe wouldn’t be just sitting here listening to this…

        I shook myself out of my thoughts.

        “What do you want me to say? That I still wake up at night hearing my phone ring, even when I leave it out in the living room? Sometimes at night I still think that I’ll wake up in the morning with an email from her asking me yet again to go visit and see what she does there. I know that I should have done it years ago, but even now I don’t know if I could ever go back. I know, no I understand why she was in love with her job.” I paused. “But then again maybe if I went with her the last time that she would have been more careful, and she’d still be here to go with her just one more time?”

        “I heard that you submitted a few of the photos that you took on your trip?”

        “Yes, Jasmine, there were a few that I thought might would work with what they were lacking.” I paused. “I’m not sure if I will be going, it’s just too much right now. I have more that I need to do to go through, there’s something that I feel like she would want me to do.” I glanced down at my phone.

        Just made it into town, meet you in 15?

        “I have to go, I’m sorry, but this is important.” I walked away from my small group feeling better about my decision now that I understood that they expected me to just go back to normal.

        I’ll see you then.

        I pulled Phoebe’s journal from my bag before leaning against my car.

June 12th

            I can’t describe how much this job means to me. These people that I work with have become more like family to me. You have to be able to trust each other to do what we do, we can sit back and laugh to unwind from the long day, but most importantly we will do whatever it is to make sure that we are safe in the days to come.

            The army has come through trying to tell us that we need to head out within the next few days. The fighting is moving closer to where we have been working. Alice assured them that tomorrow was the last day there and that we would be moving on the day after. I think that the plan is to have everything packed up tonight and be on our way out first thing.

I can feel the tension building while we work. The locals were more watchful today than they have been,  I think they knew something was going on before we knew it.

        Knowing that it was her last passage, I still flipped through the next few pages trying to find anything that would tell me what she was thinking before she rushed off in the dead of night. Sure enough, there was something on the last page:

Athena,

            I’m sorry, you know that I have to do this. These people need help, they have taken me in and fed me, I owe them to help them in their time of need. I know that there is a risk, but there’s always a risk in everything that you do. Just remember that there are good people out there, you just have to allow them to show you. This is not your fault, I would have done it no matter if you were here or not. I gotta go, they’re heading out any minute.

Love,

Phoebe