By Lacy

"I thought you were going to take a moment to cool off, CJ." Sam jumps in to run interference.

"I'm cool," she shouts.

"I'm glad I wasn't there when you arrived," I say.

"Shut up, Idiot Boy. You don't get to talk. As a matter of fact, you don't ever get to talk again. When...if...Donna ever decides to forgive you, you will not be talking. You will keep your mouth demurely shut and cater to her every command."

"That's the plan," I respond.

The fight goes out of CJ then, and her previously erect spine slumps, no doubt under the weight of the pressure we're all feeling.

"I can't believe this," she sighs. "I have a briefing in," she checks her watch, "three hours, and we still have to inform the President. What am I supposed to tell the press?"

"Tell them nothing," I reply. "Announcing this in the press could be dangerous for her, CJ."

"I'm talking about the two of you, Josh. How am I supposed to go to the press and tell them that your relationship has reached critical mass only eight weeks after it began?"

"I think the press knows all they need to know when it comes to me and Donna." Hearing CJ use the words 'critical mass' to describe my relationship with Donna is a blow of the worst kind. "We're not doing this anymore," I tell her. "The Press Corps can mind its own damn business. Just tell them 'no comment'."

"You can't do that, Josh. You can't give out invitations and then revoke them just because the party didn't turn out the way you wanted it to."

"Watch me," I say. "I'm done on this issue. All I can afford to worry about right now is getting Donna back in one piece. Can you understand that?"

"She's not...." CJ pauses. "It won't be easy to get her back. You know that, right?"

"I know that," I reply.

"Because, Sam told me what happened, and if it was half as bad as the impression he gave me, you're in for one hell of a battle."

"I've accepted that."

"But are you sure you're up for it?"

"I don't have a choice, CJ. I have to get her back. I'll do anything to get her back."

"I'll remember you said that."

"I'm sure you will."

"She deserved better, Josh."

"Deserves," I correct. "She deserves better, CJ. She's always deserved better."

"I have to...." she trails off.

"Go then."

Sam follows CJ out the door, presumably to walk her out of the building, and perhaps to talk about me behind my back.

I've just realized there's a clock on the wall behind me, and that my watch is thirty minutes slow. I wish it wasn't, so I reset the hands in inane to attempt to do something. Even though I know it will be behind again in forty-eight hours.

I wonder where I'll be in forty-eight hours. I wonder if I'll still be waiting for news, or if I'll be planning a funeral.

Time always slows when you're waiting for news. I remember how agonizing it was in the hospital, waiting for Donna to wake up. I work in a high pressure business where every hour represents a hundred things that need to get done. Where issues are discussed on the run, and decisions are made in the moments when you stop to catch your breath.

But this time it's different. This time the ticking of the second hand seems to be flying on a time different from the rest of the world. There's a window, you see. A deadline. I hate that word. In less than hour, Donna's chances of survival decrease with each passing minute.

I try to remember if there was some reason I needed to know this information. Was there some reason that pressure needed to be added to an already volatile situation?

Sitting alone in this sound-proofed room, all I can hear is the ticking of the second hand coming from the industrial clock on the wall above my head. That, and the steady cadence of my own breath. The rhythm of my breathing serves as a reminder of my own second chance at life, and I pray that Donna will be given the same gift I was. If anyone deserves it, she does.

It's hard to cope. The sheer randomness of it makes it impossible to rationalize. With me, even though it felt arbitrary, there was a way to trace it all. The members of West Virginia White Pride delivered a statement with their bullets. They had something to believe in, even it was crazy and, in my view, treasonous. But, at least it was something. Even if their minds were clouded by hate and an obsessive lack of progressive thinking, and even if their statement were better forgotten.

But how can you rationalize such a random act? I can't help but think of all the things that had to happen in just the right order for Donna to be where she is right now. I had to get that call from Kenny to set up dinner with Joey. Sam had to open his trap and spills the beans about the dinner, which led to my early quarrel with Donna. The argument left open a slim window of doubt, which was blown open by my later conversation with Joey.

I returned home in anger, and proceeded to push Donna so far away that I don't know if I'll ever get her back. She left the house in an unpredictable state of mind.

She must have driven around for hours and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. At one in the morning she must have looked like the perfect victim to a desperate cop killer looking for a human shield.

In whatever rage I was feeling last night, I remember that I intentionally sought to break her spirit. I can only pray now that she is stronger than even I believe. That, at some point in the wee hours of the morning, she recovered herself enough to kick start her will to survive. I can't imagine her giving up on life. On me, yes, but not on life.

I survived a gunshot wound to chest, and I know that Donna is at least as strong as I am. I'm willing to bet that she's even stronger. I'd place money on it.

But you never know, really. You can't ever say, 'Oh, I'd definitely survive that situation. I'm a survivor.' Because we all have our limits. Because you just never know, until you're tested. Trial by Fire, that's what they used to call it.

That's how they used to do things back in the day. When chivalry and witch-hunts were the laws of the land. Your entire life, your guilt or innocence, was defined and decided by a single ordeal. That's what this is -- a trial by fire. One random event that will decide the fate of a single person, maybe two.

Which begs the question: who's being tested here?

Heat and fire create pressure even as they scorch and blister. Destructive forces of nature, they offer an indiscriminate justice, raining down judgment upon the innocent as well as the guilty. But fire does not only destroy. It purifies.

They call it calcination. The process of heating something over an open flame until it’s reduced to its most basic elements. Donna taught me that -- I think she read a book about it once. Of course, our own calcination is a spiritual and psychological one, rather than physical, but I find that it’s painful nonetheless.

It’s a process meant to humble you, to break you, so that you can be rebuilt using the best material your psyche has to offer. It’s a forced concession of our inherent hubris for the purposes of self-evaluation and reflection.

Believe me. I’ve evaluated and reflected.

But the crucible’s fire can do more than judge us, and it can do more than refine us. It shapes us as well. Just as the forger’s fire can turn a lump of steel into a finely honed sword, or heat and pressure can turn raw sand into a delicate piece of glass.

I can only hope that when we emerge from this ordeal we will have been refined and shaped, rather than destroyed. That the worst of who we are — who I am — will have been stripped to leave behind only the best of me.

And Donna, with her indomitable spirit.

I hope that wherever you are now, you’re able to dig deep and find the strongest part of yourself -- the part of you that I damaged so cruelly. May you find the part of you that can hold back the storm. Your stubborn will, your courage, and perseverance, all those traits for which I love you so deeply.

You’ve told me in the past that you are in tune with me. I hope that you can feel me now. I’m sending you my love and every ounce of strength that I can offer. I’m broadcasting what is left of my heart and soul, in the hope that you can use these meager offerings to survive. Stay alive, Donna. Please, just…stay alive. Live for me.

You owe me one.

The End