“That’s a good way to put it and it’s so true. I don’t care about anything back there, but…but Lee…”
“I know, Eli,” he said, stoking the fire without looking his way. “That’s something that tagged along with us. All the questions, all the wonder aboutus. I’ve come to realize pretty quickly that we can’t table it.”
“I’ve been trying. Lee, I think you have me wrong.”
Lee’s eyes cut to him a moment, but not long. “Oh?”
“I’m not judging you anymore. I see where you come from, I know how you thought you had to be. I just want you to know that. I understand a lot now, Lee. And I’m possibly more confused than ever.”
“I like that you don’t lie, Eli. That you don’t say things just because you think I want to hear them. You have this outlook on life I didn’t understand. Maybe not until we came here, did I remember that I have philosophies too.”
“Please, tell me?”
Moving the branch around in the fire, he didn’t speak for a long time, but Eli had time. They were there, no commitments, no phone calls plaguing them.
The birds called out in the trees around them, and the steady gurgle of the stream, well they may have been all that reminded him that they were there together and not off in some dream.
“Mostly I want to be a good person, Eli. And I’ve lost my way. I think of all the things I’ve done that were greed driven, reckless in what it could do to others.
“My thoughts on all of it went back to my childhood. I rarely got into real trouble. When I did, it didn’t last. My nannies, Mars, others that raised me while my parents were at cocktail parties and afternoon teas, in Congress and wherever else…they tried to teach me right from wrong. They were all good people. But my father would come in and veto them. He had power in the Senate, but he had more at home, and he loved to wield it.”
Eli listened to his life story, seeing it in his mind, a small Lee, wanting desperately to feel normal, but he wasn’t. He was a person raised on greed and power. It had to leave lasting effects.
“When I was in school, my friends were much the same, but others were there on scholarship, and they were grateful. They smiled real smiles and laughed real laughter.”
“So, what is your philosophy about all of it?”
Again, it took him a few moments, and then he laid it out, and Eli couldn’t believe how deep and insightful it was.
“We’re born a blank slate. Sure, we have inherent issues, but mostly, our brains are clean. Nature versus nurture, well, if you look at most serial killers and congressmen, you will see that they had different but terrible childhoods. Either they were beaten or spoiled beyond learning any true lessons.
“We grow and take our character from each and every one of our experiences. Some good, some bad, but it shapes us. Mostly people don’t recognize it unless they spend a million dollars in therapy, and still most don’t learn from it. But there is a chance, Eli. There is a moment, an experience, a person, whatever it is, that comes along and resets us, like a busted computer. They can take out the motherboard and make it clean again. Or dirty, depending on the person being reset. Maybe it’s a good person that hasn’t hurt many people, and never intentionally, that gets dealt a huge blow. Maybe it takes a couple of blows, but they lose hope for humanity, and they see everyone is wicked.
“But my experience, personally, well, I was made into a piece of shit. I only thought of greed and power. Sure, there were hopes and dreams buried under it all, but I thought I needed the money and power to get them. It’s like me finding you so beautiful as you danced on that table that night. There was something about you, how you didn’t try to meet our eyes, how there was a blush over your entire body. You did your job well, of course, and that was impressive as well, for you to be so embarrassed by what you were doing.”
“I hated that about myself, Lee. I felt as if I were judging the people who had to do that job, like I did, sure, but I felt above them.”
“I know, Eli, but you’d never act like that on purpose. You’re one of those good people that I admire and that I truly envy. I knew I wanted you, but a part of me, a part that I ignored, told me to leave you alone. It screamed in my head that I’d be your reset. That all the good and all the dreams in you would die, if you became a part of my life. I didn’t bother to look and see that you could be my reset.”
Eli moved over to him and held him as Lee crying silently, unmoving, the branch he’d been using to stoke the fire dropped from his hand. Eli knew it then, knew it without a doubt. “This trip…it’s our goodbye, isn’t it?”
No words were spoken, but he nodded on Eli’s shoulder.
“Are you sure? We could try…”
“We can’t.”
Eli moved back and braced himself for what he’d soon hear, trying to hold back tears that inevitably would come.
“Eli, I care about you too much to let you be there through the events that will happen to me and around me.”
“What events? What do you mean?”
Shaking his head, Lee refused to say. “I’ve got a new job. It’s the same as my old one but done a little differently. That’s all I can say.”
“Are you going to be in danger?”
The way his head fell was answer enough.