Battlefield of the Heart

by E. A. West

  “Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry.” Now she understood why Linda hadn’t told her the story. It was deeply personal and something he wouldn’t appreciate others sharing.

  He straightened and shrugged as he met her gaze with soft gray eyes. “I’ve come to realize she did me a favor. She couldn’t have stayed with me through everything. My problems didn’t get really bad until after she’d already started seeing that business student. If she couldn’t take me being a little down while I was deployed, there’s no way she could have handled a flashback or me being hospitalized for even a short time.” A faint smile touched his lips, and he stroked Cindy’s cheek. “You, on the other hand, met me because of a flashback. You’ve seen me at my worst, and you’re still here with me. I think you’d be better off with another man, but the simple fact that you haven’t left me yet makes me love you even more.”

  She gave him another hug, happy he could see how much she cared about him. “I’m just glad I know where you are. I hated spending the weekend worrying about you, but even then, I knew I couldn’t abandon you. You’ve become a part of my life.”

  “You’re an important part of mine, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay with me out of pity.” He leaned back in his seat, his expression stony. “I’m sure my dad told you I can’t handle rejection. He’s wrong. I’ve been rejected before by people other than Shannon. Dad doesn’t understand I’m used to it. He’s just overprotective. So, leave and let me get on with my life.”

  What had just happened? “Your dad did talk to me yesterday, but I’d already planned on sticking with you. I don’t abandon the people I love.”

  “Yeah, Shannon told me the same thing once.” Danny stood and walked to the far side of the room, keeping his back to her. “I’ll make it easy on you. Get out of here. I’m not going to make you stay with a guy who can’t even handle college.”

  Cindy rose and walked to him, aware of a nurse opening the door. “You’re not making me stay with you. I want to be with you.”

  He whirled toward her and glared. “You’re just saying that because you feel sorry for me. I refuse to have anyone else pity me. Go home. You know you’re going to leave me anyway. Don’t bother pretending you’re not.”

  “I’m not pretending. I love you.” She fought to keep her voice steady as his words tore through her like shrapnel. After all the time they’d spent together, after everything they’d been through, how could he think she pitied him or that she’d leave him?

  “I doubt you know what love is.”

  The nurse stepped into the room and spoke in a calm voice. “Danny, why don’t you go cool off for a few minutes?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just trying to send home a woman who has no clue what she really wants.”

  Cindy struggled to keep the tears at bay. “Danny…”

  “We’ll both be better off if you go.” He walked out of the room and disappeared toward the patient rooms, leaving her alone with the nurse.

  Cindy turned toward the sympathetic woman. “I didn’t mean to upset him. He was fine. I don’t know what I did or said or…”

  The nurse gave her shoulder a comforting pat then guided her out of the room and toward the door leading out of the ward. “Honey, I doubt it had anything to do with you. His mood has been all over the place today. The doctor is working to get him stabilized, and he’s receiving counseling to help as well, but it’s going to take time. For now, it might be best for both of you if you go on home.”

  Cindy nodded. There was no point in upsetting Danny further, and she couldn’t handle any more rejection from him right now, anyway. “Should I come visit him again tomorrow? Or do I need to stay away for a couple of days? I don’t want to do anything to make him worse, but I don’t want him to feel like I’ve abandoned him, either.”

  They stopped by the exit, and the nurse turned to face her. “Go ahead and come tomorrow. The worst that can happen is you’ll have to go home early like tonight. But I have a feeling in an hour or so Danny’s going to feel pretty bad about the way he treated you.”

  “Why is that?”

  The nurse smiled. “He’s been talking about you and how great you are since I came on duty. He’s had his down moments, but the one thing he always went back to is how much he hoped you would come to visit.”

  She managed to give the woman a tight smile, even though her heart threatened to shatter any second. “Do you think it would do any good to try and call him later?”

  “You can try, as long as it’s before nine.”

  “Okay.” Though she ached from the beating Danny had just given her heart, she intended to keep her promise to stick with him if he would let her — and if he would get the necessary help to keep from trying to hurt her feelings. But was she brave enough to let this nurse pass on a message for her? Thoughts of how much Shannon had hurt him caused her to work up the courage. “If Danny starts worrying that I’ve abandoned him or that I don’t care about him, can you let him know I love him and will get here as close to the start of visiting hours as I can tomorrow?”

  The nurse nodded and smiled sympathetically. “I’ll let him know. You drive carefully.”

  “Thanks.”

  Cindy made it to the parking garage before the tears started falling. She sat behind the wheel of Danny’s truck and wept, praying for comfort and strength. Even though she was sure Danny’s words had been the result of his PTSD, the rejection still hurt. As she thought over the last few days, she realized leaning on God was the only thing that had kept her sane. She could only pray He would help her survive this as well.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The hour drive and long walk from the freshman lot to her dorm gave Cindy plenty of time to think about what to say to Danny when she talked to him. She discarded everything she thought of, not satisfied with any of it. After much prayer, she decided to take her cues from Danny. If he mentioned the way they’d parted, she’d talk to him about how it made her feel. But if he chose to pretend it never happened, she’d do the same for the sake of his mental health.

  As she approached her room, she heard a burst of laughter. Great. Just what she needed — Leann and other happy people who likely wouldn’t understand what she was dealing with. She considered turning around and hiding in the lounge until the room was empty, but she wanted Iggy. Her cat would be better, but the fluffy stuffed duck was as close as she could get right now.

  Cindy stepped through the open door of her room and dropped onto her bed, taking a quick glance at the other occupants of the room without really noticing who they were. She picked up Iggy and held him on her lap, realizing the room had fallen silent. Sighing, she looked again to see who was there, forcing herself to pay attention this time. Shock coursed through her when she spotted Josh sitting beside Leann on her bed and Halbert and Tana on the floor. Maybe the matchmaking had worked better than expected. The four of them were playing a card game on the nightstand someone had set by the bed.

  Leann lowered her cards. “You’re home early. I thought you were going to visit Danny until they kicked you out.”

  “That was the plan.” Cindy dropped her gaze to the fluffy duck, and she stroked it as she fought back tears. “Danny had other ideas.”

  Leann’s bed creaked, and then Josh sat beside Cindy. “What did he do?”

  “Told me some stuff then tried to pick a fight with me.” She risked looking at Josh and found him watching her closely. Tears blurred her vision at the concern in his eyes. “If I thought he meant what he said, I’d have to believe he broke up with me. The nurse told me he’ll probably feel terrible for the things he said, but what if…”

  Josh put his arm around her shoulders. “The nurse is right. When Danny’s unstable, he’s liable to say anything. I think his mom explained it best after he tried to pick a fight with me. Danny’s hurting so badly that sometimes he can’t help hurting the people around him. He doesn’t mean to, and he regrets it when he calms down, but it’s something he can’t control. His
meds usually do a good job of keeping his emotions stable, but it sounds like everything’s out of whack again.”

  Halbert spoke up from his seat on the floor. “Yeah, Danny’s not always the easiest to get along with, but when he’s stable, he’s a good guy. It’s when his meds aren’t working right that life gets interesting.”

  “The nurse said his mood has been all over the place today.” Cindy looked around her sympathetic friends, desperate for reassurance. “Do you think it’s a good sign that he spent the day telling the staff he hoped I’d visit him? I mean, that shows how he really feels, right?”

  “If he didn’t want you to be his girlfriend,” Tana said in an authoritative tone, “he wouldn’t have been all excited about possibly seeing you. No matter how weird he is right now, I have a hard time believing he’s that crazy.”

  Leann nodded. “I’m with Tana on this one. Can you call him and see if he’s calmed down?”

  “I could, but I think I’ll wait a little longer.” Cindy hugged the duck to her chest, her insecurity about Danny making her want to cry. “I don’t think I can handle it right now if he’s still in a mood to try to make me leave him.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable.” Josh lifted his arm from her shoulders and checked his watch. “It’s after six, and I’m hungry. Anyone else interested in dinner?”

  Cindy remained silent as the others agreed. She knew she should eat, but food held no appeal. Danny’s rejection had killed her appetite as well as her mood.

  Leann stood and took Iggy from her, tossing the duck on the pillow before grabbing her hands. “Come on. You need dinner, too.”

  Cindy shook her head but allowed her roommate to pull her to her feet. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Come with us anyway.” Leann slung an arm around her waist. “Sitting up here moping isn’t going to help anyone. Besides, maybe you’ll be a little hungry by the time we get downstairs.”

  “Not likely.” Cindy heaved a sigh as she let her friends guide her into the hall.

  The group decided to walk to Mitchell Complex, a quarter of a mile away. Although Cindy knew the food would be good, she had a feeling anything her friends made her eat would be as appetizing as corrugated cardboard. Danny had hurt her, and the more she thought about it, the more she questioned her sanity for falling in love with him. Hadn’t she learned her lesson when she was fourteen? Emotional abuse was just as bad as physical abuse, and the effects lasted a whole lot longer.

  But Danny wasn’t abusive, was he? Yes, he’d said things that hurt, but she was sure he hadn’t meant any of them. In a way, it felt like she was making excuses for him, but he really did have the excuse that he was out of his mind. That’s why he was locked in a psychiatric ward.

  Before her thoughts could go any further and possibly make her as unstable as Danny, she spotted Alex walking toward them. He ran a concerned gaze over her as the others greeted him. After returning their greetings, he pulled Cindy aside.

  Once they were far enough from the group that no one would overhear, he spoke quietly. “Danny called me a little while ago. He told me what happened at the hospital, what he said. He’s pretty torn up about the way he treated you and asked me to come check on you. Are you all right?”

  Her eyes flooded, but she didn’t look away. She wanted Alex to see it so he could tell Danny about it. “What he said hurt me. He once promised that he would do everything he could to avoid making me cry, but today he wouldn’t quit until he’d pushed me to the point of tears.”

  Alex scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I’m not going to excuse his behavior. He had no call to treat you like that. But when I was talking to him, I got a bit of an explanation. The thing with Shannon messed him up, and he didn’t need to be messed up any more. But it happened, and he’s got trust issues because of it. He’s so afraid you’ll leave him like she did that he tried to push you away because he thought it would hurt less than if you just dumped him.”

  “I keep telling him I’m not going to leave him, but if he keeps trying to drive me away, I’m going to have to leave him for my own mental health.” Cindy wrapped her arms around herself, tears slipping from her eyes. “I can’t handle emotional abuse. I dealt with it once, and I already told Danny I’m not going to go through it again. Either he has to accept that I love him and that I’m going to stick with him or I’ll have to break my promise to him and his parents and leave him.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain tearing her heart in two. “I don’t want to lose him, but he may end up forcing me into it.”

  Alex wrapped her in a hug. “I had a serious discussion with him about treating you right. You’re too good a friend for me to stand by and watch him hurt you. I don’t care how messed up he is right now. He needs to see you for the special person you are and treat you right. He promised to talk to a therapist and get some help in controlling himself better in the future.”

  Cindy nodded, afraid to hope but more afraid not to, as he released her and stepped back. She dried her eyes, needing Alex’s more experienced opinion. “Do you think it will help?”

  “When Danny puts his mind to something, he sees it through to the end. I think counseling will help; it may just take a while because when he gets like he did today, it’s because he’s so messed up nothing makes sense, and he essentially has no control over anything.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to her. “Here, this is Danny’s. I was at his parents’ house when he called, and he asked me to bring it to you so you can call him if you want to without having to use the minutes on your phone. He thought about calling you, but he’s afraid you won’t want to talk to him again, so he’s leaving it up to you whether you have contact with him or not.”

  She stared at the phone in her hand. “I was planning to call him later, but I wanted to give him plenty of time to calm down so I didn’t make things worse for him. I guess he’s already over it.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say he’s over it, but he’s definitely calm and feeling guilty.”

  After a long moment, she sighed and looked up at Alex. “I think I’ll go ahead and call Danny now. Can you let the others know I’ll meet them at Mitchell Complex in a little bit?”

  “Sure, no problem.” His reassuring look did little to soothe her frayed nerves. “I’m sure Danny will apologize profusely for the way he spoke to you earlier. But if he doesn’t — well, let me know, and I’ll have another talk with him.”

  Cindy managed a small smile. “Thanks, Alex.”

  He headed for the waiting group, and she turned to walk in the other direction as she opened Danny’s phone. She’d memorized the hospital number that morning because she’d stared at it for so long before calling. Her nervousness then couldn’t compare to the anxiety she suffered now.

  Lord, give me the strength and wisdom to get through this.

  She drew in a calming breath and dialed. It took a moment for Danny to come to the phone, and when he did, his voice was filled with a combination of hope and remorse.

  “Cindy?”

  “Yes, it’s me.” She tried to figure out what to say and decided to take the straightforward approach. “Danny, you’ve got to stop trying to push me away. I can’t take you making me cry because of your insecurity. I don’t want to lose you, but I have to wonder if I really have you.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I know you aren’t like Shannon, but I can’t help worrying that you’ll end up leaving me, too. Have you seen Alex? I talked to him and promised to get help so I don’t try to make you cry again.”

  “He found me a few minutes ago and gave me your cell phone. That’s what I’m calling from now.” She took a deep breath, a plan forming in her mind. “I’m glad you’re going to get help, but I think we might need to see a counselor together. I want to help you get better, but sometimes I don’t know how to help you. Maybe if we talk to someone together, we can learn how to keep things like this afternoon from h
appening.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. We might have to wait until I get out of here, though. I don’t know if they do couples counseling when one half of the couple is on the psych ward.” He sighed, and she could imagine him running a hand through his hair like he so often did. “My regular counselor would talk to us after I come home. You should meet her anyway. I think you’ll like her, and she’s easy to talk to.”

  “I’d be glad to meet your counselor.” Cindy hesitated, a little afraid of his reaction to her next words. “I love you, Danny.”

  “I love you, too, and if you were here or I was there, I’d give you a kiss and hold you close so you’d be able to see how much I love you.” That sounded like the sweet guy she’d fallen in love with. Her smile faded as he continued with a hesitant tone. “Are you going to come visit tomorrow? I understand if you don’t want to after the way I treated you today, but I’d really like to see you.”

  Even if she hadn’t already planned to go, there was no way she could resist his hopeful plea. “I’m planning to get there as close to the start of visiting hours as I can, but I have a midterm at two so I might be a little late. It all depends on how long the test takes.”

  “That’s okay. I’m just happy and relieved you’re coming.” His voice dropped in volume. “I was so afraid I’d actually driven you away. I can’t stand the thought of losing you because I acted stupid.”

  “You haven’t lost me, but you came close.” She took a deep breath, fighting back tears because she knew she was hurting him. But he had to hear it. “The important thing now is that you’re going to get help. I’m so glad about that. I think it’ll help both of us for you to learn you can trust me and rely on me.”

  “I’m trying, Cindy. I’m really trying.” His voice broke again. “But it’s so hard. I don’t know how to control it. It just happens.”

  “I know,” she said soothingly, wishing she could give him the hug he sounded like he desperately needed. Maybe complete honesty hadn’t been the best choice for tonight. “I’m sure the therapist or whoever will help you learn how to deal with it.”