by L. A. Fiore
“Why?”
The look he gave me was adorable. “You have to ask that?”
“Is that what you want though, to work at a garage instead of pursuing a career in the military?”
His fingers down my spine were very distracting. “The military isn’t going anywhere, but this…” He rolled and pinned me under him. “I want to see where it goes.”
“I want that too, more than anything, but I don’t want you to have regrets either.”
“Regret being with you, no way.”
He ended the conversation when he kissed me, but deep down I feared that Damian was lying to himself and me.
The Aherns were having a graduation party for Cam, Thea and me. They had even invited Anton. I couldn’t remember the last time a party was thrown for me. The gesture had rocked me and cemented the familial bond that had been forming since that first dinner I had shared with them. I had just left my apartment when my phone rang, and thinking it was Thea with a last minute menu item had me answering it. I wished I hadn’t when I heard my mother’s voice.
“You need to come over here immediately.”
“No.”
“Listen to me you little shit. You either get your ass over here or I’ll just show up at the Aherns. I’m sure my invitation got lost in the mail.”
I went numb. She would crash the party; she’d ruin the day for everyone just to fuck with me.
“I’m on my way.”
She was in the kitchen, digging through the trash looking for any bottle that still had a sip or two of vodka. The Aherns were throwing a party for their children to celebrate their accomplishments and my mother was fucking picking through her trash for a fix.
“I heard through the grapevine you were fucking that Ahern girl.” She looked at me from over her shoulder, her bloodshot eyes rimmed with dark circles. “Got that apartment just so you could fuck her, didn’t you? I wonder what her father would say.”
My hands balled into fists, but I refused to take the bait. “Why are you such a vile bitch?”
She turned and laughed, but the sound wasn’t pleasant. “I loved a man and he left me. He was everything to me, I worshipped him, and he fell in love with someone else.”
“That’s not love. Love lifts you up, you were obsessed with him, clung to him, demanded everything from him, even feeling jealous of your own child and the attention Dad gave to me.”
“He was mine! Mine not yours. And he loved you, you who did nothing but shit in your diapers and cry and want attention. He lavished that on you, took his love from me and gave it to you. You didn’t hold his interest very long though, did you? Out of sight and out of mind. And don’t you act like you are any better than me. You’re just the same. Tell me I’m wrong. You are willing to give up everything for that girl, to follow wherever she leads. She consumes your thoughts. A lowlife daring to believe you’re good enough for her. She’ll realize it, just like your father realized it, and she’ll leave you. And it will be you sitting in your shit apartment, drinking yourself to death because you can’t live in a world without her.”
Ice moved through my veins because as much as I wanted to deny it, there was truth in her words. Thea had become the center of my world, the air I breathed…my own obsession. Would I become jealous of my own child if Thea and I ever had one? Did a scene like the one I had witnessed between my mother and father lurk in my future? I would rather never see Thea again than ever see her look at me the way my dad had looked at my mother. My legs went weak at the thought.
“You belong here with me. We are just alike, you and I.”
“Why did you call me here?”
“I’m out of vodka and the electric company is going to shut off my power. You need to take care of it. It is the least you can do considering what you cost me.”
Looking at where I came from, the evidence of the darkness in my blood, I wouldn’t pull the Aherns into hell with me, and if I stayed that is exactly what would happen. She would make all of our lives hell. But I didn’t intend to spend another second with the twisted and pathetic creature whose only legacy was hate. I walked out while she screamed at me to stay and I never looked back.
I had never seen Thea looking as happy as she did during the party. Her face was radiant from the smile that went from ear to ear. She had put herself near me for most of it, but at the moment she stood with her dad—arm in arm. He was toasting her, the pride on his face so clear to see. I would remember how she looked in that moment so I could carry it with me. I loved her, but I had to let her go. I wanted to be better for her and me and to do that I had to leave, even when everything in me wanted to stay.
“What happened?” Anton was a good friend but sometimes he was too fucking observant. I had been to the army recruiter and was getting my shit together. I was leaving. Now that the decision was made I had to just do it, because unlike my thoughts at the beginning of the school year, I didn’t want to go.
“Your fucking mom, wasn’t it?”
“She’s a bitch, but it isn’t because of her I’m leaving…not entirely because of her. I need this.”
“And Thea?”
And Thea, the ache in my chest just wouldn’t fade, but this was the right decision for her too.
“I love her, but she’s got NYU in the fall. Our timing sucks.”
“I like her for you.”
“I like her for me too.”
“I think you’re doing the right thing.”
That surprised me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll look out for your girl.”
Cam was heading to Massachusetts. Thea would be alone in the city. “Don’t look too close.”
“I won’t even tease about it. Besides she only has eyes for you. Can I help you with anything?”
“You already are. Watch out for her. If I know she’s got you watching her back, I’ll be good.”
“Done. You still want Special Forces training?”
“My recruiter thinks it’s a good fit.”
“So you’ll be hitting the ground running. Upside, you won’t be deployed.”
“Not for a while.”
He started for the door. It was harder than I thought it would be. Anton was like a brother and it felt really fucking nice to know he thought of me as one too. “Take care of yourself. When you’re ready, I’ll give you a ride to the airport.”
“Thanks. I mean it, Anton. Thank you.”
“You can thank me by coming back in one piece.”
It had been a week since the graduation party and Damian wasn’t acting like himself. I was worried about him, but he was never around when I stopped by to see him. I was upset, even scared, because the clock was ticking and we were wasting precious time being apart.
“Hey, Thea,” Dad said as he and Mom walked into the kitchen. “I see you’re wearing your slippers.”
Dad had surprised me with fuzzy bunny slippers after my graduation party. They had made me smile when I saw them, but not even their adorable little faces lifted my spirits.
“Can we talk?” Mom asked, but she was already pulling out a chair.
The last time Mom and Dad wanted to talk, as a unit, it was to tell me that Santa Claus wasn’t real. “Ah, yeah.”
“We wanted to talk to you about Damian,” Mom said.
I assumed this was the sex talk. Damian and I were a couple and my parents knew that. It was fair for them to assume we were having sex and we were. We didn’t go out of our way to hide it, but I also didn’t talk about it around the dinner table. I loved that they wanted to have the talk, but that ship had sailed.
“Ah...this is awkward, but you’re a little late if this is the birds and the bees discussion.”
“We know.”
I can’t say I was surprised, my dad missed nothing, but I could say sitting across the table from my parents while we discussed my love life was definitely uncomfortable.
Dad continued, “Your eighteen, an adult and smart. You are being smart, right?”
“Yes.”
“And we like Damian. He’s a good guy,” he added.
“He is. The best. So if this isn’t about sex then what’s up?”
“First love can be very powerful and when you add sex into the mix it can be life changing, but you have plans for the fall.”
“I’m not changing my plans.”
“It’s not you we’re worried about.” Mom said. “It’s Damian. His goal is the military, has been for a while, but we heard he’s been talking with Cam about finding a job closer to you.”
“Yeah. He mentioned that not too long ago.”
Dad was giving me his cop look before he said, “You don’t agree.”
“I would love for him to stay with me, to move closer so we could continue to explore what has only just started between us, but I don’t think he would be happy…not for long anyway.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“I’ve tried. He’s been busy since the graduation party, but we have to talk and soon. It’s just…” It hurt; really hurt talking about this because I wanted to be with him, wanted to learn every little thing that made up Damian Tate. It would take me years. I wanted years. I wanted a lifetime. Sometimes I tried to imagine my life without him in it and I actually had trouble breathing. It was going to be unimaginably hard letting him go when the time came, but we were young and in love. My hope was that we didn’t end, we’d just put us on hold for a little while.
“It doesn’t have to be goodbye.”
“I know.”
“But at this point in your lives you both need to think about yourselves first, you need to be selfish,” Mom finished.
“And love, time only makes it grow stronger,” Dad added.
As much as I tried to push the inevitable from my mind, this conversation made it real and I couldn’t stop the tears. “It still hurts.”
Dad reached for my hand. “Love often does.”
I needed to change the subject before I embarrassed myself. “How are you? You’ve been working a lot and seem kind of stressed too. Is everything okay?”
He didn’t answer right away before he smiled. “You’re a very astute young woman. Yeah. It’s just sometimes we’re faced with challenges, temptations, and doing what’s right even when it’s not popular.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Don’t worry about me, kiddo, you have enough to think about.”
Damian had called and asked to see me. We were in his kitchen and I knew he had come to the same conclusion about us as me because he looked how I felt.
“My dad left when I was five. He walked out and for all intent and purposes never looked back. Mom fell apart. She worshipped him and he left. It was like her whole life had been wrapped up in him and when he was gone, she no longer knew who she was.”
My heart broke. I had known his home life had been bad, but having a dad who walked out and a mom who checked out stirred anger too.
“As the years passed, she lost herself in the bottle and at first she was despondent, but her love gradually turned to hate that spread like a cancer forcing those around her to share in her misery.”
What a hateful, selfish woman. There was a special place in hell for people like her. “Including you.”
“Especially me. For years it felt as if I would drown in her hate, and then 9/11 happened. The worse act of terror in modern times and I found hope. Hope for a life away from her…a life where I could make a difference.”
“The army.”
“Yeah. Then I met you and it was like that life was dropped at my feet. All the beauty in the world right there, within reaching distance.”
“But?”
“I want you, but you were right. Working at a garage isn’t what I want. I need to work on myself first. To be better for you and for me.”
Even wanting this for him, I ached inside. I tried to keep the tears from my voice. “You don’t need to be better for me, you’re already perfect for me, but I agree that you should enlist.”
Surprise flashed across his face as did pain. “You do?”
“I want to be with you, the idea of a time when you won’t be around is too painful to contemplate, but we both need to work on ourselves. And as much as the idea of you enlisting and going off to war terrifies me, it is what you want. We can make it work. Long distance relationships aren’t so long now with technology.”
His face closed off and I realized he wasn’t just leaving. He was leaving me. “I have to ask something of you. As much as it goes against everything I want, please don’t write to me.”
I gasped on a sob. “What?”
He stood and pulled me from the chair, right against his chest. “I love you, Thea, more than is probably healthy. I’ve never loved anyone in my life.”
He loved me. I knew that and yet hearing those words was like feeling the magic of Christmas morning times infinity. “You can never love someone too much.”
“Yeah, you can, but the military isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. Are you going to leave your family and move around with me, or wait by the phone when I’m deployed to hear if I’m coming home? I won’t put that on you.”
“You don’t think I’ll be going through it anyway, whether you want me to or not?”
That sadness was buried behind his eyes again. “I can’t do this if I’m holding on to you, but I can’t let you go, I need you to let me go.” It was the pain in his voice, the obvious struggle he fought that had me agreeing even as my heart broke. “I don’t want this, I want you to know I don’t want this, but I understand why you think you do. So I’ll agree to not write to you, but I’ll be missing you, worrying for you, loving you and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”
He framed my face in his hands and for a good long time he just looked his fill before he whispered, “This isn’t over.” His lips closed over mine for a kiss that was more than a kiss, it was a promise. He took me to his bed and all night and into the morning he loved me, like he was getting in a lifetime’s worth.
He was leaving. Two days later, I stood on the front stoop of my parents’ house and watched as he said goodbye to my family. I bit my lip to hold back the tears that had been threatening, tears that I knew wouldn’t stop once they started. When I thought of him gone, away from me, I couldn’t breathe. I felt panicked, like I was trapped in a funhouse looking for a way out and not finding one. The idea that tomorrow I couldn’t walk to his apartment, I couldn’t call him, I wouldn’t see his face, hear his voice, I wouldn’t get to look into those eyes. I wanted to sob; I wanted to scream at him to stay even knowing he had to go. Four long years until I was out of college, we had four years…so much could happen in that time. It only took less than a year for Damian to change me, totally and completely.
“Thea, come say goodbye,” Cam called, but I was looking at Damian who was leaning against his car looking back.
I couldn’t say goodbye, we had said our goodbyes, having to do it again would kill me, so I lifted my hand and smiled what I was sure was a sad smile before turning and heading back inside. I didn’t even reach the stairs when I felt a hand on my arm. He turned me into him and pulled me close, right up against his chest. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want that to be his last memory of me.
He didn’t say anything and neither did I. We had already said everything we needed to. He just held me for a really long time and when he walked away he took my heart with him.
It was hours later and I was sitting on our front stoop. I felt empty inside, had tears brimming my eyes that I fought to hold back. How the hell was I going to get through this? How was I going to learn to live without him? A car pulled up in front of the house and for a second I thought it was Damian coming back to me. It wasn’t. Anton climbed from the driver’s side. He strolled up my parents’ front path and joined me on the step.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any words of comfort or greeting, he just sat silently next to me. I had been battl
ing back my tears, but it hurt so damn much. I rested my head on Anton’s shoulder, a tear escaped and then another. He put his arm around me, pulled me closer, and I lost the battle with my tears.
Basic training was intense. The hours were long and by the time I went facedown on my bunk I was too fucking tired to think and still when I dreamed it was Thea I saw.
Boot camp was ten weeks and I was nine weeks into it. After boot camp there were several other training programs I had to complete before I was even considered for Ranger school. It wasn’t going to be easy. I’d heard stories about Ranger school, it was hard as hell, fucking brutal, but I was so ready to give it a go.
It’d been another exhausting day of training. I headed to my barracks for a shower before dinner at the mess hall. I was surprised to see the letter on my cot and when I saw the return address I actually got a little weak in the knees. Dropping onto my bunk, I ran my fingers over the delicate curves of her handwriting. I hadn’t wanted her to write and yet I’d kill anyone who tried to take this letter from me. My hands were actually shaking as I opened it.
Dear Damian,
I know you don’t want me to write and so I won’t after this letter, even though I don’t at all agree with your request.
I love you times 1,460. One ‘I love you’ for every day over the next four years. I won’t be there to say the words and so I’m putting them in the only letter I’m allowed to send. I’m sending kisses too, but not 1,460 because that would look weird, me kissing the paper 1,460 times.
I baked a batch of cookies, but they weren’t any better than the last batch, a little less charred but still inedible. I will conquer the cookie and when I do I’m sending you some and you can just deal.
You asked me to let you go, but I can’t. You are part of me. Every little thing I want to share with you, which was easy when you were right here, close enough for me to touch, but even with the distance between us you are still the first person I think about when I wake and the last person I think about before I go to sleep. I dream about you too, sometimes those dreams feel so real that when I wake it’s hard to accept you aren’t here.