by Molly Evans
“Chase—”
“I can’t take it anymore, Emily. I can’t take it!”
“Then you have to let it go.” Her voice was soft, certain and pure. He’d have felt better had she screamed and railed at him, validating his need to suffer.
“I can’t. I don’t know how.” He paced again, wishing there was something he could do to get the demons out of his head and his heart.
Compassion overwhelmed her. This man had suffered nearly as much as she had, and she hadn’t seen it. But there it was right in front of her, and she couldn’t ignore it or him any longer.
“Tell me about it.”
“I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t help you. There was nothing. I couldn’t operate on you, I couldn’t put you back together. Other people had to do it for me. Other people helped you through rehab, your parents took care of your apartment. I was left out.” He clutched the counter for support and dropped his head, panting as if he’d just run a marathon.
“I didn’t need you to do anything, I needed you to listen and be present. Neither of us really knew how to do that then, but we’re learning, Chase. We’ll always have lessons to learn in life, and this is just one of them.”
“I wanted to do something, and I couldn’t.” He took a breath. “That’s not who I am, who I was.”
“That’s what I needed, who I needed you to be. Now I know you couldn’t take on that role I was trying to force you into. I didn’t know it, either.”
“I fix things. I’m a surgeon. I cut things out or sew them up, make people better than they were before.” He turned his head and pain-filled eyes looked at her. “I couldn’t fix you.”
“But I didn’t need fixing, Chase. I needed to be listened to. I needed to be held, and loved, but mostly I just needed to be.”
“You did, and it was because of me it all happened.”
“Chase, it wasn’t.” Shock filled her at his admission. “You can’t seriously believe that anymore.”
“I’m the one who left the door unlocked. I was so focused on my work. The second I woke up I was gone mentally, I was out of there.”
“That’s not true.” At least, not at the beginning of their relationship.
“It is! I have to admit it. Admit and accept my part in the terror that has become your life. I didn’t listen to you, I didn’t hear you. You would be talking to me, and I got so good at not listening I nodded in all the right places, and you never knew. When I got out of bed that morning it was no different. I was just gone, thinking of work, rounds, surgery, planning my day, and I left without making sure you were safe.”
“Chase—”
“Don’t! Don’t say you forgive me because I can’t bear the words.” He hadn’t forgiven himself. Would never forgive himself.
“It’s not your fault. It was a simple oversight that you didn’t lock the door. You were on an emergency call in the middle of the night, and there was a predator on the loose. You couldn’t have known. No one did!”
“I should have protected you!” He grabbed her shoulders. “I should have kept him from hurting you, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t, and everything that’s happened to you since that night has been my fault, my responsibility.” He pounded his fist on his chest. “Mine.”
“No, it wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. You couldn’t have known. The serial rapist started with someone, and it happened to be me.” She placed her hands on his arms, her touch gentle. There was no fear in her, no anger, just compassion for a man who was tortured by a burden that wasn’t his to carry. The effects of the panic attack had worn off in her efforts to console Chase, and she was in control of herself again. “Look at me.”
“No.” He avoided making eye contact with her, but she put a hand beneath his chin and turned his face toward her.
“Chase, honey, please, look at me.” Her voice dropped, emotion hung heavily in the air between them. “And listen to me.”
After a few seconds he haltingly raised his eyes, damp with moisture, to hers. His breathing was harsh, his face was flushed, and he trembled.
“I’m listening.”
“I forgive you, Chase. I forgave you a long time ago. When I tried to forgive you, you wouldn’t let me and that’s what drove us apart.”
“Emily.” He gripped her arms painfully, but she could take it.
“It was never your fault to begin with.” Emotion tangled in her throat. “Never. I was angry at you at first. Really, really angry, but I came to understand it wasn’t your fault or your responsibility. The blame lies in a man who is a predator.”
Unable to handle the emotions churning in him, he clasped her against him, needing her strength, the amazing amount of strength she had to hold him upright. Tears leaked out of his eyes and the pressure of holding onto this responsibility for three years burst out of him in a powerful surge, leaving him breathless. He hadn’t known he’d needed to hear her say those words.
His knees buckled and more of his weight went onto Emily, but she held on to him, she held him up and she used her strength to support him for a moment. Though she trembled, he could feel the strength in her muscles, and she stood firm. When his knees and legs were able to bear the burden of his weight again he pulled back from her.
Her face was a mess, and so was his. Hers had tears and red blotchy spots, and he was certain his face looked about the same. Pulling himself up to his full height, he cupped his hands around her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay. I can take it. I’m stronger than I ever used to be, and for that I’m grateful. Very grateful.” She smiled at him—it was soft and sad and bittersweet, but he could see the forgiveness in her eyes and knew it to be the truth.
“I am, too.” He eased her closer. “I know I’m not supposed to touch you, but I have to do this.” He pressed a very soft, very chaste, very heartfelt kiss to her forehead. For a moment neither of them moved, each caught in the power of that purity, that moment of grace between them.
When Chase pulled back, Emily wrapped her hands around his wrists and fresh tears fell from her eyes. “I am sorry. For everything.” She took a breath. “This wasn’t how our lives were supposed to have turned out. We were going to get married, have babies and live happily ever after, weren’t we?”
“That was the plan.” She moved away from him, needing a little space, a place to take a deep breath. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Go back to work on Monday, finish my assignment, maybe go on to another one after that.” She shrugged. “I still haven’t decided about where I want to put down roots again.”
“This is your home, as you said, and you have as much of a right to settle here as anyone.” He stepped forward. “Don’t let that bastard run you away from your home again, Emily.”
“I won’t. I’m not.” She cast a look over her shoulder at him. “Now I’m not sure working with you long term is a good idea, either.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat and took a step closer. “When we made love last night, it was beautiful.”
“It was, and I thank you for that. For helping me get through that first time.” She gave a small laugh. “Kinda felt like I was a virgin again.”
“In some ways you were. You’re a new you.”
“True.”
He clasped her hand and his fingers intertwined with hers. “Do you think...? Could you...?” He sighed. “I don’t even know how to ask you this.”
“What? It’s usually better if you just ask things straight out.”
“Emily Hoover, will you go out with me on a real date? Start over? Let me get to know the new you, get to know the new me?”
“I’m gonna have to think about that one.” There was so much potential for pain.
“Really?” He pulled back, anger surfacing in his face. “I’
m good enough to have sex with but you won’t let me take you out?”
“That’s not it. Not it at all.”
“Then you’ll have to explain it to me because I don’t understand where you’re coming from.”
“I’m just trying to keep my life simple right now. Going out with you would complicate things. I know the other night I said I would go out with you, but now I’m not certain it’s a good idea. For either of us.”
“That’s not a valid excuse.” He stepped forward and cupped her face with his hand.
“I know, but I’m trying to come up with something.” A sparkle returned to her eyes. Maybe there was hope for them after all. The power of the panic attack had been overwhelming and took time to recover from. Each time it would get better, but it would take time and patience.
“Then you’ll go out with me? Let me try to make things up to you?”
“You can’t make things up to me, because it’s not your fault. Again. It’s not your fault.” She released his hand. “I don’t want to go out with you if you can’t accept that.”
“It’s hard.” For both of them. They each had their own demons to slay, but maybe together they could do it.
“I know. It’s very hard. I worked for a lot of months before I was even able to start to understand that.” She blew out a breath. “I’m a whole person again. It’s taken three years, but I’m whole. I’m not the woman I used to be. I’m different. I’m new. But I’m here. I want the same thing for you, too, Chase. But you have to want it.”
“If you help me, I think I can do it. I can at least try.”
“You thought you were my superhero, Chase, and you’re not. You’re just not.”
“Well, thanks for that vote of confidence.”
“Seriously. You’re just a man, I’m just a woman, and that’s all there is that needs to be there between us. You don’t have to rescue me, and I don’t have to be your salvation.” She cupped his cheek and brought his face up to look at her. “We need to be who we are. Who we are now, not who other people think we are. And we can’t be who we were back then.”
“The question now is do you still love me? Can you love me again after all this?”
“We can’t recapture what we used to have. We’re different people now. You know that.” As painful as that was, it had to be said out loud between them.
“Yes, but it doesn’t answer my question.” He faced her, cupped his hands around her face and drew her closer to him. “Look at me now and tell me you don’t want me, don’t need me, don’t love me.” It was a challenge for sure, but he needed it.
“I do love you, Chase.” Tears rolled from her eyes down onto those beautiful cheeks, and he wiped them away with his thumbs. “I loved you then, and I love you now.” She looked down then back up at him. “Thinking of you helped me get through the rough times. Thinking of the good times we had before it all came crashing down. In that way you were my strength.”
“I should have been there for you.” He gritted his teeth against the pain his actions had caused her.
“You couldn’t. I was in survival mode. I couldn’t take care of you and myself, so I took care of myself, and maybe I’m better for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I needed more space than I knew at the time and if I’d been with you, maybe I wouldn’t have found the strength to be who I am now, might not have found the courage to stand on my own, would have depended on you too much.”
“We’ll never know, will we?”
“No. And it’s okay that we don’t.”
“We can’t pick up where we left off, I know that.” He took a deep breath. “I’m seeing it. I’m okay with it.” He didn’t want her to leave again at the end of her assignment. “Will you stay awhile and let’s see if we can really find our way back to each other again? I know you’re only a few weeks into your assignment, but I don’t want you to take off and go somewhere else when it’s over. I don’t know what the future holds, Em, but I want you in mine.” He cleared his throat against the emotion trying to choke him. “If you’ll have me. I want to be the man you need. Now.”
With a gasp she threw herself at him. Trembling, they clung to each other as another layer of the past fell away from them. “Me, too. Me, too. But I think we should do some couples therapy at the center.”
“Is that necessary, do you think?” He didn’t know.
“I do. For you, for us together.”
“Then we will.”
“Thank you, Chase. It’ll be good, you’ll see.”
“I do have one question.” Chase said.
She snorted out a laugh. “Seriously? Just one?”
“Do you still have the ring I gave you?” He rubbed the ring finger on her right hand. “The last time I saw it was the night you were...you were attacked.” Demons from that night tried to surface, and he let out a long breath. Somehow now they had less power than they’d used to, and he could push them aside for the moment. They might never go away and might try to take a bite out of him at times, but he had the strength now to vanquish them.
She rubbed her lips together as emotion overwhelmed her. “I have it. I didn’t...I couldn’t...get rid of it.” Slowly, she pulled the chain she always wore around her neck and the pendant emerged from beneath her gi.
“Do you remember when I gave this to you?” He turned it over in his hand and examined the ring of promise he’d given her.
“I do. We were walking down by the river and it was the first time you said you loved me.”
“May I?”
She nodded, and he reached behind her neck to open the clasp then slid the ring off the chain. “I couldn’t wear it for a while so I put it on a chain, and then I didn’t want to wear it, but I couldn’t let it go.”
He held out the silver ring with a single fire opal gemstone in the center. With his left hand, he took her right and slid the ring part way onto her finger. “When I gave you this ring, I gave you a promise.”
“You promised your love, your faith, your fidelity and your honor.” Tears that had been hiding beneath the surface surged over and trickled down her cheeks.
He huffed out a self-deprecating laugh. “I didn’t do a very good job of keeping those promises.” The trembling inside him bubbled up, but merged into a well of bounty and promise and hope for the future. It was still an unknown, the future, but with her by his side it no longer frightened him as much as it had.
He remembered the words from Lao Tzu that sensei Rose had spoken to him a few days ago, and though he hadn’t understood them at the time they now began to make more sense. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. Now he could see the proof in Emily. She hadn’t yet conquered all of her fear, but she had tackled the most dangerous of them all alone, and won.
“Circumstances weren’t exactly conducive for either of us to keep any promises we made back then.” She took in a shaking breath. The look in her eyes was soft and full of hope where just moments ago there had been none. Though he’d been partly responsible for it, he had to accept it was in the past and he couldn’t change it, but he could change every day in the future by being present in it with her.
“I would like to make you a new promise, right now.” The feelings in his heart swelled and his chest grew tight as the words emerged from someplace deep in his soul. There was no stopping them, and he’d never been more vulnerable than at this very moment.
“Chase, let’s not make promises neither of us is prepared to make or keep. One thing I’ve had to learn is to live in the moment. Let’s do that now.”
“I’m prepared, and I will keep this promise.” He cleared his throat and looked deeply into her eyes. “I promise to love you and respect you, to be your friend and your lover as long as you will have me in your life.” He slid the ring the rest of the w
ay onto her finger, then brought it up to his lips and kissed it.
“Chase Montgomery, you were the love of my life then and one I could never forget, no matter what happened to me or what happened to tear us apart.” Tears lingered on the tips of her lashes, and she blinked to clear them away. “You hurt me more than anyone ever has, and you have the power to hurt me again.”
Speechless, he opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. Was she going to deny him now? Would she walk away from him again the way she had before? Anxiety stirred in his gut. Please. Don’t walk away from me again.
“I can live my life alone, be without you, but I don’t want to anymore.” She placed her right hand on his chest and looked at the ring she hadn’t worn in three years, then looked up at him. “I want you in my life, in my bed and in my heart.”
“I don’t know what the future will bring, but I want to be there for you, and you to be there for me.” The anxiety lifted at her words, and he knew there would never be another moment like this one for them. Living in the moment. He had to learn to do that. With her new skills and her teacher’s heart, maybe she could help him learn how.
She rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his in a kiss of honor sealing their promise to each other. They didn’t need a ceremony. They didn’t need witnesses or a church for the vow they just made to be sacred. “I love you, Chase Montgomery, and I need you in my life.”
“Emily.” The joy that bubbled up in him was out of control. “I don’t know what to say, how you can say that, but I’m so glad you did.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know where we’re going from here, and I don’t care. As long as you’re with me I know we’ll be okay.” This was living in the moment, and now he knew what it was.
Unable to contain himself any longer, he kissed her deep and hard, wanting to impress himself on her and imprint her on him, wanting to fill his mind and his heart with all of her.