The Years Between (Sister Series, 1.5)

by Davis, Leanne

  She stepped back and to the side as people filtered between them, grinning she said, “Except for when you can’t reach me.”

  She ran off with a laugh as he tried to grab her. She was smaller and able to duck in and out of people with an ease his muscle-bound bulk could not. She laughed as she wove up and down the square, around lines, vendors, crowds and people resting to eat. She made it around and through different themes until she became unsure which theme she found herself in. Having paid no attention where they were, because she was being escorted by a man who nearly had the map tattooed on his hands, she glanced back and nearly pumped her hand in the air. She managed to ditch him! She could never, ever outmaneuver, outman or outrun him. It took a thousand people milling around for her to do it, but she finally did. She stopped and bent over, catching her breath. She wasn’t in the shape her soldier husband was. Her heart was racing and her cheeks felt hot.

  But she was having more fun than she’d ever had with a man. Flirting. Kissing. Playing. Being silly. Even as a teenager, she never experienced that. As a teenager there were never any dates or trips to a carnival. There was never playful innocence for her. So to experience it now was heady, exciting, better than any ride she could ever go on.

  No doubt, Will sensed that and so provided it. How? How did he always know just exactly what was right for her, when she usually didn’t know?

  She turned to head back and was suddenly caught from behind in a quick grasp of hands tightly around her waist that pulled her back. She shrieked and laughed, clawing the air to try and at least look like she could fight him.

  She finally gave up and flopped against him like a deflated balloon. “How did you find me?”

  “Special Forces.”

  “Oh Lord. We can all sleep better knowing you Army men can navigate the treacherous war zones found in our theme parks.”

  He set her on her feet and leaned down to say into her ear. “I can always find you. Don’t forget that.”

  She tipped her head up, smiling. The teasing, laughing tone was gone from his voice. He sounded strangely alpha, the commander of the pack. “Why? Are you afraid I’m going to run?”

  “All the time,” he said, his tone milder. She thought it sounded like they’d gone from kidding around to serious. He suddenly straightened up. “My feet really hurt now; can we go see if our stuff is still there?”

  They spent awhile waiting for night to finally darken the sky. The crowds grew ridiculously larger around the Rivers of America. She realized then why he, as usual, thought ahead and put them in a comfortable spot, along the rail, so no one could get in front of them, allowing them to see everything. They grabbed food and drink and sat there, talking. Finally, the show started and Will pulled her against him, his legs surrounding her, his arms resting on her, and his hands interlaced over her stomach. She leaned into him and he dropped his chin on her head.

  It was a common way for two people to sit. Teens around them sat that way or huddled together, watching casually. The thing was: no one ever sat casually with Jessie and did that. No one ever held her… period. She had more sexual partners than anyone needed to contemplate anymore, but not one of them ever cared about her. She’d never been held casually, formally or just because. No one ever walked around with her, holding her hand, or slinging an arm over her shoulder. And no one ever simply sat and watched a show with her curled up in his arms. She shut her eyes. The mist from the fake river felt cool against her cheeks. The air was perfect after the warm day and now cooler night. People talked in happy murmurs around her. The warmth of Will radiated through her. He leaned in and kissed her neck. Just because. He did things like that a lot. Just because, and it flustered her. She didn’t know how to react sometimes. He made comments into her ear, saying small things about the show. Or the couple a few rows over. Still, she kept her eyes shut. His hands tickled her stomach and shifted around her torso. He leaned forward to rest his chin on top of her head.

  She opened her eyes when she heard the fireworks starting. The sky was lit up in artificial colors so brilliant, they looked like a rainbow of shiny gems against the inky night sky. Her eyes filled with tears. It was so perfect. She was afraid to breathe. Or move. She was afraid she’d blink and it would all disappear. She would not be there, or with Will. He would not be holding her, as if he loved her, cared about her, cherished her. She would realize it was all a great big, gigantic joke, capping off the nightmare that comprised her entire life. There was no way, was there? That this was real? That she deserved this?

  If this wasn’t love, what was it? The feelings lodged in her throat and nearly choked her. She’d had plenty of emotions in her life that choked her. Dark, terrible emotions that caused her to draw her own blood. Emotions that spoke to her in the night, and which she feared would convince her to draw enough blood to end all the pain that accompanied her constantly. But this was entirely different. This was beautiful. There was something light and strange lifting in her chest. This was so different. She felt as if the fireworks in the sky were bursting through her circulatory system. Her blood felt warm, not evil, or something she wanted to see streaming over her skin. She turned her head, blinded by the sheer beauty of the night, and the feeling that things, and her entire life, would never feel this way again. Ever. No way. She never felt that kind of purity inside her before. She never felt real happiness before. It was always tinged by the evil that lived inside her.

  But this was softness, and innocence. This was the stuff she heard described by everyone else, but never totally, or completely felt. It was as if there was always a thin, invisible membrane that surrounded her entire body, keeping out just enough of the good that everything she experienced was always tinged by her sordid past.

  This was overwhelming, and she loved it. But she didn’t trust it. She wanted it to last in her chest forever. But she knew she could blink and it would be gone. She’d blink and wake up, alone in her father’s house, without Will. Or he’d be dead. But not the general. There was no way, was there? Was she really here, with him? Was she really happy? Was she really loved? How? How could this become her happy ending? After everything else, how did they get here?

  She turned her head into his chest and pulled her legs up closer to her torso. Then she shifted and crawled completely onto his lap. The tears filled her eyes and choked her throat. She felt him looking down at her, startled by her sudden movement, while ignoring the beauty of the show. Her hands clutched his shoulders and he moved to accommodate her. She felt like she couldn’t breathe and twisted his shirt fabric in her fists. His hands moved to hold her closer against his big, solid, warm, and alive chest.

  “Jessie? Don’t you want to watch the show?” His tone was quiet and concerned. She clutched him, half turning, until she was completely hidden from the crowd. She shook her head against his chest. His hand came up to stroke her hair. Her breath was warm by the strange cocoon she made against him.

  The show ended and the crowd began to move. He started to shift, but she panicked and clutched his shoulders, trying to hold him there, forever. Couldn’t they stay like this together, safe and happy? How often would this feeling consume her so fully again? Never. It had never before. So why would it ever again? It was her supernova. It was the first time she could ever consciously remember feeling that way.

  “Don’t move,” she said, her mouth pressed into his chest. He might have thought she lost her mind, but then, he was also used to that with her.

  He quit moving and didn’t say anything. His arms still flexed, holding her against his body. His hands held her shoulders as he rubbed her. His head was bent down, with his face close to hers. The crowd dispersed and the lights of the sky faded. The night air started to chill. Still, she sat there quiet, calm, safe, and happy. Minutes past.

  His hand came up and slid onto her face. His index finger traced her cheek, feeling the damp wetness there. He finally, gently, tilted her head back enough to look down at her. He leaned down and his lips touched
her cheek, and the dampness. She pressed her cheek into his lips and the gesture, so sweet and small, was huge and grand, making her tears fall harder.

  “What happened?” he asked softly, his lips moving against her temple.

  “I-I’m… happy,” she said, shaking her head, knowing how stupid she sounded. She’d been clutching at him like a helpless newborn for a ridiculous amount of time; and all over a stupid outdoor fireworks show that a thousand other people witnessed around them.

  His laugh was as soft as the breeze. He suddenly pressed her even closer to him, his arms flexing around her. “You’re happy?”

  She took in a shuddering breath and nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before.”

  He shifted and lifted her chin with his hand to look into his eyes, sighing deeply. “I see,” he said while his eyes roved over her face. “And you were crying because you’re afraid it will end. That it won’t last?”

  “It won’t. I won’t feel it again.”

  “You will, Jessie.” Will’s tone was insistent. “You will feel this again. I promise you. It won’t be the last time. Okay? This won’t disappear.”

  “I’m not used to it. It isn’t a very trustworthy feeling.”

  “Because it feels good inside of you for once?”

  She nodded slowly. He nodded with her. He smiled and her heart shrunk and expanded to hold it. “I wish I knew the things you needed to hear. But I don’t. Not really. But I do know it all comes down to, I love you, Jessie. You’re my beginning and end now. That’s it for me.”

  “I doubted it. I doubted if I really knew what love was. That you could really love me. Jessie Bains. The things I’ve done. The things I am. The things that have happened to me…”

  “Are all the things that are part of you and I love those too. I can sit here all night if you need to. I can do that every day if you need to. I can do whatever you need.”

  “But that doesn’t make happiness.”

  “When I almost died, the only thing that meant anything to me, was you. So you know what? Yeah, it is enough. Loving you however you need it is enough. And I promise you, this will not be the last time you feel happiness.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’s nicer than I thought it would feel.”

  “Yeah, well being with you is nicer than I ever thought too.”

  ****

  She felt small in his arms. Like a fragile bird he could accidentally break, and he tried to be more aware of his strength around her. Not to trap her in. Or hold her down. Never to remind her of what other men once did to her.

  She was and always had been the most complicated woman Will ever met. He felt the physical change in her body. He had no idea what was causing it or where she was going with it. He just knew she’d gone somewhere. Somewhere in that labyrinth that dwelt inside her head. It was a black hole that often threatened to sink her heart, mind and soul. It shrouded her innocence and tried to ruin everything for her. From her moods, to her emotions, to her relationships. Even theirs. He knew that chapter wasn’t done. There was enough residue of evil left over in her still that it nearly drowned all her good intentions to be healthy and whole. It could all come back. It ebbed and flowed in her. It was her mental prison for the rest of her life.

  It was the thing that so twisted his heart and made his brain want to break things was that he couldn’t totally eradicate what they did to her. He could never undo the damage those men caused inside of her, both the men her father let rape her, as well as the monsters who tortured her in Mexico. He could not love her enough to wipe out the things that happened to her before he ever knew her. He could never fully complete her.

  The thing was, he was having a hard time accepting that. What they did to a young, innocent girl nearly totally destroyed her. And not one of them paid for it. She paid for it. Jessie did all the paying. It was so fucking wrong, he sometimes felt choked by the unjustness, and the unfairness of it.

  The reason he ran from loving her was because she was so heartbreaking, it was hard for him to be in love with her. Not because he didn’t love her, or didn’t want to love her, but because of all the damage that was done to her, which changed how she could love him in return.

  But to get nearly panicked with him because she felt… happy? He didn’t know what to do with that. Who never felt happiness before? Right down to your toes, joy and happiness? She didn’t even recognize it. If he could have handed over his heart to her, he would have. How much pain could one person carry in them not to trust a burst of happiness filling them? That helplessness he felt when faced with the emotional damage done to her was something that threatened to suffocate him.

  And the reason he did not want to love her.

  It was also the reason he would never again fucking leave her. Not willingly. If he could do one thing in his macho, stupid, pointless life, it would be to make Jessie believe when she felt happiness, it was real. It was deserved. And it would happen again.

  He felt happiness often in his life. From friends. From Gretchen. From being here, for God’s sake. Everyone felt happiness, didn’t they? He couldn’t even count how many times he felt happy. But Jesus fucking Christ! Jessie didn’t even recognize it. He drew in a breath. Sometimes, the burden of her despair threatened to drown him as well as her. The magnitude of what he was up against with her could twist him all up inside. It was daunting to imagine what could happen, and what could come. There was no way there wouldn’t be more to deal with. More of the old Jessie. And now, Jessie of new. There would never be a completely settled, normal Jessie. He felt the anxiety unsettling his gut.

  But the thing was: he could live with the anxiety. It was better than no Jessie.

  One day at a time. That’s how she survived it, and that’s how they’d figure this out. All of it. One day at a time.

  “Will?”

  “Yeah,” he asked when she finally peeked up at him.

  “I’m kind of hungry now.”

  He smiled. And that’s how she did it. She drew him back to the here and now. Jessie. Right before him. The magic of that moment. “I can fix that.”

  She finally released him and stood up. “You can fix a lot of things.”

  Not enough though. “I can check the map.”

  That made her smile. “I like the map.”

  He stood up and joined her, careful to take her hand. He was beginning to see he could never do enough positive things for her.

  Chapter Five

  The first week was unlike any Jessie ever spent. They were so busy seeing Disneyland, their feet blistered and ached each night, as if bruised. They hit every single attraction they could. They ate and swam and had sex. They talked, and joked and kissed everywhere. He showed her many of the things he and Tony Lindstrom did together, along with occasional offhand comments about when he went there with Gretchen’s family.

  “There’s where we stayed when we came here to celebrate high school graduation,” Will said, pointing to a nearby hotel. She glanced over, and he grimaced. “Sorry, I keep doing that. There’re just memories, you know? She shared a big part of my youth. Her family was… good to me.”

  “Better than your mother, you mean?”

  He laughed a sarcastic, sour sound. “Anything was better than her. But I shouldn’t keep mentioning my ex-wife and her family.”

  “If you can deal with my past; then believe me, I can deal with your much more normal one of having an ex-wife and childhood family you could rely on. I can hear those memories, Will. I want to hear them. I want to know everything about you.”

  He smiled with a crooked lift to his mouth, “Even my ex-wife? Really, I half married her just for her family. They were what I always wanted and imagined. Nice parents. Middle class, normal house, nice siblings. I was alone most of my childhood. I had no one. Not even a sibling to share my loneliness. It’s probably why I became such a good soldier. I can be alone. I prefer being alone to needing anyone. I was always self-sufficient. So the Army sending me
away on a mission was easy. My mom, when not in a drunken stupor, was simply absent. She wasn’t mean to me or anything. She just didn’t care.”

  “She neglected you, Will. Ignoring a young child is neglect, plain and simple. And it’s not okay. I’m glad you had Gretchen’s family.”

  He suddenly stopped, stepping off the sidewalk to avoid the strolling crowds and wrapping her in his arms. “You know what I dream about now?”

  “What?”

  “You and me having that normal. Being nice parents, with kids who are decent, fun, loving siblings to each other. That’s what I dream about now.”

  “You want us to have kids? As in plural?”

  He chuckled as he caught her expression. “Never have just one. It isn’t fun being all alone as a kid. But yeah, I want to have kids. Not tomorrow. But someday? Yeah. The someday after we’ve survived the Army.”

  She sighed. “That’s as far as I can see right now. I can’t imagine what you just described. I didn’t live that. I didn’t witness that. So I just can’t imagine it. But it sounds… really nice.”

  “It is.”

  Jessie tilted her neck back to look into his eyes. “Why didn’t you make that life with Gretchen?”

  He scratched his head. “I should have. I married her thinking I would. I was with her forever, and I just assumed it would all work, and that life would come. But I felt itchy with restlessness whenever I came home. I didn’t like living with her day in and day out. I wanted to be gone. I looked forward to the missions. I wanted to live more in the Army than with her. It was a shock to me. I wasn’t a very good husband to her.”

  “And somehow you think I am going to motivate you to want to stay home more? If you didn’t want to with Gretchen, why would you ever think you’d want to with me? I mean, I’m an awful choice for that dream you just described.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? I love you in ways I’ve never loved anyone. Ever. I didn’t even know I could feel this way. I thought I loved Gretchen. That’s what I’m telling you. I married her, believing I was completely in love with her. How I felt for her was as deep as my feelings can be. But then, you came along. And I knew it wasn’t. I loved her, but not like I love you. I can’t even describe the difference. It’s shocking. I know now, what she felt for me was not what I felt for her. I regret the years I took from her. But I know now that the reason it never felt right to want that life with Gretchen was because I didn’t love her enough for it to feel right. I love you enough. So it’s right.”