“I …” I run my hands over my face. “We need to talk.”
“We don’t need to do anything,” she tells me. “The only thing that needs to happen is you need to leave.” She walks past me, and I grab her arm, but she rips it from my grasp. “There is nothing you have to say that I want to hear.”
“I love you.” I repeat the three words that I said to her every single day since I left. She walks to me, and I don’t see it coming, but her hand hits my face.
“I hate you,” she says, turning and storming up the stairs. The door slams so hard it’s a wonder that the windows don’t shatter.
“I’m not leaving this time!” I shout, wondering if she even heard me.
Chapter Eleven
Emily
My hand shakes as I lock the door behind me, and I look down, staring at it. “Stop it.” I talk to myself.
“Emily!” I hear his voice as he shouts from the backyard. “Em.” When I hear him use my nickname, my hand isn’t the only part of me that’s shaking. My whole body is shaking now, and I put my back on the door and slowly slide to the floor. The tears fall without me even knowing, the sob comes out silently. “Em.” I hear his voice and know he’s right on the other side. “Em.”
The softness of his voice when he calls me that hurts more than it did when he left. Knowing he’s right there behind the door and I can run to him and wrap myself around him.
Closing my eyes, I try to block out his voice, block out all the memories that have suddenly escaped from the locked box I keep in my head.
“Em.” He called over to me as I walked away from him after getting mad for I don’t even know what.
I turned and looked at him. He stood there with his hands in his pockets. “What do you want, Ethan?”
“For you to come here so I can kiss you.” He smirked at me, which made me even madder at that moment.
“No.” I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t want to kiss you right now, Ethan.”
“What if I come to you?” he asked. I already knew that whatever I was mad about was not even a thought. He took a couple of steps my way. “What if I was the one who came to you?” He took the remainder of the steps until he was right in front of me.
“You made me madder than a wet hen,” I told him, and he just laughed as he put his forehead on mine.
“You make me a better person,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked, putting my hands on his hips as my fingers held on to the loops of his jeans.
“For whatever made you not smile.” He took my face in his hands. “I never want to be the one who makes you frown, Sunrise.” His lips touched mine, and I forgot whatever I was mad about.
“Em.” He says my name again. “Please. I just need to talk to you. Please hear me out, and then I’ll leave.” I slowly get up and unlock the door. He sits on the porch in the darkness with his head down, but his head flies up when he sees me. “I wasn’t leaving this time,” he says when he sees me. “Not this time.”
“Ethan.” I’ve whispered his name to myself for the past five years. I used to stand there in the middle of the kitchen and say his name until it didn’t hurt anymore. I would say his name in my dreams as I chased him. I would say his name while I curled into a ball and cried out for him. “We don’t have to do this.” I swallow down, my mouth suddenly dry. “All we have to do is be polite when we see each other, and that is it.”
“Sunrise,” he says. I walk out of the door with my hands balled by my sides.
“Don’t call me that!” I yell. “Let’s just get this over with. I have things to do to prepare for tomorrow.”
“There are some things that we need to talk about,” he says. I stand, folding my hands over my chest to stop them from shaking.
“Really?” I say. “I don’t think we actually have anything to talk about.”
“You know that isn’t the truth.” He stands, but I don’t want him to come closer to me. I can’t do this if he’s any closer.
“The only truth I know is that at one time, you said you loved me,” I say, forcing myself not to let him see the hurt that he did to me. I’m trying to be strong for me. “And then you didn’t.”
“I have never not loved you,” he says. “It was just …” Putting his head back, he looks up at the sky and releases a deep breath. “It was a shock. I was in shock when I got that letter. It rocked my foundation. Sitting in my truck, I read the words over and over again, thinking that someone out there was lying. But then the truth hit me in the face, and my whole life or whatever life I thought I had was a lie.”
“Nothing was a lie,” I say, and he looks at me, shocked that my tone is so angry now. “They didn’t lie about the love they gave you. No, they kept a secret, and you don’t even know why. You never even stayed to ask why. You just took off.”
“You don’t know what it feels like to have your whole fucking life flash before your eyes and suddenly feel like you don’t know who you are,” he says, throwing his hands up. “You don’t know what it’s like to wonder who you really were. I wonder if my birth father raised me instead of Jacob, would I be this same person? Who the fuck would I be?” His voice goes down. “I didn’t know who I was at that moment.” He runs his hands through his hair. “So, you don’t know, Em.”
“You’re right; I don’t know,” I say. “I will never know. But …” I look down, and the tears come and sting now. “I know a couple of things. Your mother and your father love you with everything. They gave you everything.”
“It’s not that easy,” he tries to tell me. “You just don’t know. I had to find out who I was.”
“I hope that you found out who that man was because the Ethan I knew was pretty fucking spectacular. That Ethan would never bring pain to the people he loved. That Ethan wouldn’t just throw me aside as though I was a piece of garbage or yesterday’s paper by the side of the road. The Ethan I knew would have held my hand and let me help him through it. The Ethan I know would have been man enough to face this head-on.”
“I never ever meant to hurt you.” He wipes his own tears. “I never meant to hurt anyone. You will never know what it’s like to doubt your existence. How could I marry you without knowing who I was? I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t do it to myself. How could I be a man to you and a father to our children if I doubted my whole life?” He looks at me. “I was never going to come back. In my head, Ethan McIntyre died that night.” He trails off the last words.
“He isn’t the only one who died that night.” I want to be so strong but can’t as I relive it. “You walked away that night, and I chased the car.” He looks at me shocked. “I ran as fast as my legs would let me. I ignored the burning that I felt in them. I saw you throw the phone out of the window and speed up even faster. I ran until my lungs burned, and then I fell in the middle of the road, and all I could do was watch the two red lights disappear into the darkness while I cried out your name. While I begged you to come back. I didn’t move from the middle of the street for a long time. I waited for you to come back. I waited for you, and you never came.”
His tears run down his face freely now, but this is what he wanted. This is everything that he asked me for, so I’m going to say my piece, and then it’ll be over. “You know what I know?” My shoulders go tight. “I know what it feels like to have half your soul ripped from your body, no, sorry …” I shake my head. “Your whole soul ripped from your body. Do you know what it’s like to have to be picked up off the ground when your legs can’t manage to stand because of the pain in your heart? Do you know what it’s like to beg and plead for someone to come back? Do you know what it’s like to look around and feel like you’re a shell of a woman? Do you know what it’s like to live in a town when people look at you with pity because you just can’t fucking let go of the man who doesn’t even want you?” I sob out, and he takes a step forward, but I take a fast step back, holding up my hand. “Do you know what it’s like to
beg his mother to buy his house, with the hopes that he will come back? Do you know what it feels like to be told time and time again that you have to move on? Being told every single day that you have to start living again, but you can’t because the only way you can live is with the one person who doesn’t want you. So, you weren’t the only one who died that night, Ethan.”
“Emily,” he says my name in a whisper.
“No.” I shake my head. “Those are the last tears I will cry for you, Ethan,” I say. “The last. Do me a favor and let me be. If you ever cared about me at all, just let me be.”
He walks to me now, and I don’t move, I can’t. “I’ll let you be,” he says the words. “But for the record, I loved you every single day that I was gone. I loved you every single second. In my darkness, you were my light,” he says words that cut me to the core. “In my pain, you were my strength, and when I looked into the face of evil and fought for my life, you were the reason I wanted to live.” My mouth opens, but just like I gave him my truth, he gives me his. He pulls his wallet from his back pocket and takes out a ratted old picture. “The color has faded with all the times it’s been taken out and touched, but this picture.” He turns it, and I see it’s a picture that we took together. He’s kissing my neck, and I’m laughing. “This picture saved me in more ways than one.” His hand comes out now to touch my face, his thumb wiping away a tear that is running down my face. “I loved you then, I’ll love you forever, but I’ll let you be.” He bends down, and my whole body shakes. “Be happy, Emily,” he says, kissing my cheek and walking away from me.
I watch him walk until I can’t see him anymore, then turn and walk into the house. My body feels like it's been beaten down. I walk into my bedroom and walk over to the drawer, lifting up the shirts until I find the same picture that he showed me outside. But mine is still in the frame. I look at the picture, bringing it to bed with me, and here in the darkness, I hold it to my chest and cry myself to sleep.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan
As I walk away from her, my heart shatters in my chest, and my mind goes around and around. I don’t know how I make it back to the house. Numb. That is the only word I know to describe what this feeling is. I don’t bother turning on the lights in the house before I make my way over to where I know the whiskey is kept. Without bothering with a glass, I take a pull straight from the bottle until the burning hurts so much I gasp out, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “What the fuck was I thinking coming back here?” Sitting down on the couch, I put my head back and close my eyes, but all I can see is Emily. The pain in her eyes, the hurt in her words, the destruction I left behind. I take another pull of the whiskey. When I left, I thought of none of that. I just thought about myself.
Walking away from them was so hard, but I had to do it for me. I was lost, so lost, and I didn’t know where to turn. I walked into church one night. I was dripping wet from the rain that was coming down outside. It was a mirror to how I was doing inside me. I was drowning, my head was under the water, and there were no lifelines thrown in my direction.
Sitting in the last pew in church, I looked up, not even sure what I was doing there. I was hoping I would get the answers I needed. I sat there for much longer than I needed to, and one of the parishioners came over to me.
“Son, you look lost,” he said as he sat down next to me. I didn’t say anything to him. “I know that look,” he said to me, looking ahead. “I’ve had the same look.”
“How did you get found?” I asked, not expecting his answer.
“Military,” he said proudly. “Band of brotherhood. Strangers one minute, family the next. I would die for each and every one of them.” He said the words, and when I walked into the recruitment office the next day, I felt like a piece of my puzzle was back in its place.
The sound of thunder makes me open my eyes just in time to see the lightning come through the window. I take another pull of the whiskey as Emily’s words replay in my head. The whiskey numbs the pain, and when I finish the bottle, it slips from my fingers at the same time as my eyes close and the thunder crashes again.
“Stay down!” Trevor yells from behind me, and the sound of bombs explode all around us. We are going in for a rescue mission. We were given orders eight hours ago, and they just dropped us. But they were ready for us.
“Let’s go,” Jason says from beside me as we get on our stomach and keep our head down. My heart pounds in my chest. We trained for this, and we are the best of the best for this. We both looke up at the same time, scanning the area to see where the other members are. We’ve been together for the last three years. My brothers, the ones I walk beside, the ones who carry me on their shoulders.
“On three,” he says. I get ready, and on three, we all spring into action. My gun is ready to fire, and I look over, seeing all of us dressed the same as we make our way to the building. It happens so fast that none of us see it. The first bomb strikes near us, and my ear buzzes right away as we are thrown off our feet. My head hits hard, and all I can hear is more bombs around us.
“Fuck, I’m hit.” I hear from beside me, but I can’t move. I try to keep my eyes open, but they shut as the sound of bullets whizz around me. I must be hit, I think to myself. This is it. I feel myself being carried and think it is the end, and the only thing that flashes through my head is Emily. I hear voices around me, and then I’m thrown on the ground, and I hear four more thuds.
They start talking in Arabic. “Four are dead,” one of them says.
I keep my eyes closed as I hear footsteps walk away. I make the mistake of opening my eyes, and one of them kicks me in my ribs. I’m about to say something when the same foot that kicked my ribs aims for my face.
I wake up yelling with my body trembling. My T-shirt is soaked through with sweat, and it takes me a second to look around and get my bearings. I try to get up, but my knees are still weak, so I fall right back down. I force myself to walk to the bedroom where I take an ice-cold shower. My hands rub the scars that the mission left me with. Scars that made me see so many things and want to come back home. I don’t bother going back to bed; instead, I head to the gym and push my body, and when the sun comes up, the barn door opens and Casey comes in.
“Got your text,” he says to me, and I can see he’s been up a while. “What the fuck were you doing up at three thirty in the morning?”
“Thinking,” I say, dropping the dumbbells I’m holding. I don’t tell him that the nightmare kept me up all night or that I still have flashbacks. I will, just not yet.
“You know that it is never a good thing,” he says, walking in and looking around at all the equipment. “This gym was a good idea. Olivia’s idea.” He smiles. “She has the best ideas sometimes.”
“I’ll thank her the next time I see her,” I say, and then I grab the water bottle. “I want to know everything.” He just eyes me. “I want to know everything you told them.”
“Does it matter?” He puts his hands on his hips.
“Yes,” I say, looking out at the sun now high in the sky. “If I’m going to mend bridges, I need to know what you told them.”
“If you are going to mend bridges, the first thing you have to do is decide if you’re staying or going.” He glares at me. “It’s fine to visit and all that, but—”
“I’m staying,” I say. I don’t tell him that I made the decision the minute I stepped foot back into town.
“For good?” he asks, and I nod, making it official. “What changed your mind? Five months ago, you wouldn’t even entertain the idea of coming home.”
“What matters is that I’m here to claim my life back,” I say, not ready to go into why. “I need to find a house,” I say, and he just shakes his head. “You can’t just give me your house.”
“But you’ll be doing me a favor.” He tries to persuade me.
“I’ll take the help for now, but I want to earn my keep,” I say, and he just smiles. “Why does that smile make me scared?”
<
br /> “How are your rodeo skills?” he asks, and I just glare at him, putting my hands on my hips. “Perfect, you have a class tomorrow at eight a.m. I’ll send you the details.” He claps his hands and starts to walk out of the barn.
“Casey!” I shout his name. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“And I’m not going to.” His hand is on the door. “You want to know what I told them, find out yourself.” He walks out but then stops. “Hey, Ethan?” He calls my name, walking backward. “Welcome home.” He smirks and walks back to his truck. I watch him leave, and when I go inside, I make the second most important phone call of the day.
* * *
I’m parked in front of the school, and I hear the bell ring. I get out of the truck and lean against it while I wait for Chelsea. I look around as the kids slowly start piling out. I spot her right away as she walks out, surrounded by three girls I recognize. One of them notices me and points me out, making her look over at me. I raise my hand to say hello, but she just glares at me. Pushing off the truck, I make my way over to her.
“Hey,” I say to her and then smile at her friends. They are checking me out, making me feel like a piece of meat.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I thought I could give you a lift home,” I say. “Maybe get some ice cream.”
“Mom is picking me up,” she says. I just smile at her, and she knows that it is a setup.
“She had something come up,” I say.
She looks at her friends. “I have to go. I’ll text you guys later.”
“See you later.” I hold up my hand.
“See you later, Ethan,” one of them says, and I swear she winks at me. When I turn to walk to the truck, I see Emily walk out of the school, talking with a student. She is dressed in pants and a white button-down shirt today, and her smile fills her face. My heart stops in my chest when I think of everything she told me last night. All I can picture in my head is her kneeling in the middle of the street and having to be carried.
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