If You Leave

by Courtney Cole

  never get away from it because I’m the bad thing now.”

  I’m babbling, nonsensical. But I don’t know how to fix that because all I want is for her to hear me. To know what I am.

  Maddy’s face shudders, her eyes close, then open. “The bad thing?”

  Skeptical.

  Doubtful.

  I try to take a breath as I nod.

  “A woman in Afghanistan… afterward. She told me the bad thing had caught me. But she was wrong. I’m the bad thing, Maddy. And I shouldn’t be anywhere near you. I tried to tell you. And now you know. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Jesus Christ, I didn’t mean to hurt you. This is why I wouldn’t sleep with you. It happens when I sleep… the night terrors. They’re so real and I’m not myself. I’m not myself.”

  I close my eyes, hating the red burning that is behind my eyelids, hating the pressure in my throat, on my heart. Hating that I can’t breathe. Hating this fucking weakness.

  Hating myself.

  But Maddy’s cool hands are on me now and they shake as her fingers brush against my face, caressing my forehead. She ducks her head and whispers into my hair.

  “It’s OK, Gabe. I understand. You didn’t mean to hurt me. I see that now.” I know she’s afraid, I can see it in the way her body is shaking, the way her eyes are hooded and guarded, the way she’s ever so slightly curved away from me, like she’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice if need be.

  But even still, in spite of her fear, she’s here.

  Comforting me.

  “You’re OK,” she says again, and I’m not completely sure if she’s reassuring me or herself.

  “But you’re not,” I tell her in anguish, eyeing the already purple marks on her throat. They’re in the perfect shape of my hands. “Jesus Christ.”

  My head drops into my hands.

  “Now do you see?” I ask her. My throat is so dry that it’s hard to speak. “Do you see? This is why you can’t sleep with me. This is why you shouldn’t be with me.”

  She shakes her head and pulls at me, clutching, and now I’m practically sprawled in her lap. Her breathing is quick and mine is ragged as we try to calm down, as we both try to process it.

  “Tell me what happened,” she says bluntly. “Tell me the rest. Please. I’m trying to stay calm here, but I’m sort of freaking out. I need to understand.”

  A flash of the little girl’s face pops into my mind, dark-eyed and terrified. All the bodies, all the blood, the smell of the burning flesh. The smoke.

  Christ.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s all still there. It’s still haunting me and I know it always will.

  I open my eyes and glance at Maddy. She waits expectantly, one hand against her throat. I gulp.

  “The night that our Humvee exploded,” I begin roughly. “It was so dusty, dusty as fuck. We could barely see our hands in front of our faces and the darkness didn’t help anything. I was talking to Brand, keeping an eye on the horizon, when a movement caught my eye. Something made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I knew it was something bad. And it was.”

  I pause for a second and the silence yawns between us.

  “What was it?” Maddy whispers, her face pale, hesitant. She doesn’t want to know, but yet she does. She needs to know and I have to tell her. She deserves that much.

  I want to squeeze my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than to block the memory out, but of course I don’t.

  “It was a little girl. She was coming out of the shadows. I had to focus to see her face and when I did, I saw how terrified she was. And then I saw why. She had a bomb strapped to her chest.”

  Maddy gasps, then freezes, her hands stilled on her throat as she waits for me to continue.

  “If she detonated that bomb, Maddy, I knew it would tear us all apart. I knew that, but I hesitated anyway. I didn’t want to kill a kid.” I pause and swallow hard.

  I can hear my tongue moving against the side of my teeth because my mouth is so dry.

  “I watched her for a second—only a second—waiting to see what she would do. I was frozen, Maddy. Every bit of my training was suspended in my mind, because she was just a fucking kid. I saw her little fingers holding the detonator. I saw them shaking. And I knew she didn’t want to push that button.”

  “What did you do?” Maddy asks woodenly, although I can see in her eyes that she already knows.

  I swallow, the memories burning me.

  “I watched her through the sight on my rifle. I yelled out for her to stop. And she looked up at me. Her eyes were begging me. Begging. Black as night and full of fear. Terror. And I knew in that second that she was more afraid of whoever strapped that bomb to her chest than she was afraid of dying. I knew she was going to do it. Her finger twitched and I pulled the trigger.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to visualize my memories, trying not to remember the horrible smell in the air that night.

  The blood.

  “Everything exploded. Everything. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t feel. I couldn’t think. I crawled through the smoke and the dust and when I found Mad Dog, he was dead. His legs were gone and his insides were all lying on the outside, on the ground beside him. There was so much blood. I could taste it in my mouth. I can still taste it in my mouth. Every night, over and over.”

  “The girl?” Maddy whispers.

  “The girl… she was in pieces. I found her head. I can’t get the look in her eyes out of my mind. Her eyes were still begging me to help and I couldn’t. I’m never going to get away from it.”

  Madison stops breathing as she stares at me in horror. “Oh my God. Gabe. Why didn’t you tell me about this? This is… I… it’s horrible. God.”

  I close my eyes again.

  When I do I see the girl’s face again, frozen in that moment. Dark skin, dark eyes filled with fear as I shot her, right before everything exploded. Right before everything froze, keeping me there with her forever.

  Fuck.

  Maddy still looks horrified, but her fingers are moving again, brushing comfortingly against me, soothing me in spite of her horror.

  “You didn’t kill her, Gabe. Whoever strapped that bomb to her chest did. Not you. You did the only thing you could.”

  “You didn’t see her face,” I tell her raggedly. “But I did. Right before she exploded, she looked at me and everything froze. It was just her and me. We were connected through the lens of my rifle. She needed my help, but I shot her instead. I’ll see it every night until I die. I can’t forget her face.”

  My voice breaks and Maddy’s fingers trail down my face, down my neck, over my back. Her voice spills out in broken whispers, empty words, because she can’t fix me and she knows it. There’s nothing she can say to fix me.

  I’m the bad thing. And now she knows it.

  “Gabe, this wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” She says it over and over and over. “Gabe… God.”

  “God didn’t have anything to do with this,” I tell her wearily. “Trust me. He turned his back on that shit a long time ago. And I haven’t told you everything yet.”

  Madison freezes, stricken, her fingers halting their movement on my back, her breath lingering on her lips in horror. “You haven’t?”

  I shake my head. “No. I haven’t told you the worst part.”

  Maddy closes her eyes.

  “The little girl was a distraction. They bombed my Humvee to distract us from what they really wanted us to see. They wanted us to see it, but not get there in enough time to stop it.”

  I close my eyes, trying not to see it all again. All the little bodies, all the mothers’ bodies thrown over their children, all the blood. All the death.

  I swallow.

  Then swallow again, tasting the horror all over again.

  “Taliban rebels wanted to intimidate a nearby village into supporting their insurgent movement. When nothing else worked, they rounded up most of the village’s women and children and slaughtered them in front of the
village men. They spared the boys… so that they could turn them into insurgents. Everything else was burned.”

  The bedroom is as quiet as a grave, the only noise being Maddy’s harsh breaths. Her eyes are wide, her hands are clutched in her lap so tightly that her knuckles are white.

  “Gabe,” she says limply, but whatever else she was going to say dies on her lips. I stare into her eyes.

  “I should’ve done my job and shot the little girl, Maddy. I shouldn’t have hesitated. But because I did, hundreds of girls and women died that night. When that bomb went off, it signaled the insurgents that we were close, that it was time to slaughter those people. Letting that bomb go off gave them time to do it before we got to them. If only I’d shot the girl. It would’ve stopped the bomb… stopped the slaughter… stopped everything.”

  My voice breaks and my head drops into my hands. My eyes are burning so much that I can’t hold them open anymore.

  “They burned them, Maddy. They burned the bodies. They even burned the ones who weren’t dead yet. I tasted their bodies in the air. I’ll never forget that taste. Or the smell. Or the sounds of the fathers wailing. I’ve never heard men screaming like that. It was… brutal and inhumane and sadistic. And it was my fault.”

  I keep my eyes squeezed closed against the terrible memories. The sights, the smells, the sounds. The tiny blood-spattered hands. The burned flesh. The lifeless eyes. The horrible screams.

  “I’ve never heard men screaming like that,” I repeat limply.

  I fight the urge to heave, even now, my stomach quaking as it rebels against me.

  Maddy buries her face into my shoulder, stroking my back.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she finally says softly. “You had no way of knowing what was going on, Gabe.”

  I look at her painfully. “When you asked me if there was any way I could’ve stayed in the Rangers… this is why I couldn’t. You can see now, right? I’m seriously fucked up. I can’t trust myself anymore.”

  Maddy’s eyes are full of pain as she looks at me helplessly. “Of course you can, Gabe. I trust you.”

  She’s so focused on everything I just told her, on how sorry she feels for me, that she has forgotten what I’ve just done to her. I reach out and touch the bruise forming across her throat. She flinches backward, then forces herself to remain still.

  “I’m a monster, Maddy,” I tell her simply. “It doesn’t matter if I mean to be. I am and that’s enough.”

  “Don’t say that,” she snaps at me. “You are not. You’re not.”

  Then why can’t you look me in the eye?

  I sigh. “Whatever I am, I’m a Ranger, Maddy. I’m trained to kill. And in my sleep, when I relive that night over and over, I’m like a fucking runaway train. It seems so real to me, so fucking real. We can’t know what I’ll do when I think I’m in a life-and-death situation.”

  This is why you shouldn’t be with me.

  She shakes her head, still not meeting my gaze.

  “You might’ve been trained to kill, but you were also trained to protect. You’re a protector, Gabe. You were protecting Mad Dog and Brand and the other three Humvees. You were protecting that little girl when you didn’t want to shoot her. You won’t hurt me.”

  “I already did,” I insist, staring at the bruise on her neck. “And we have no way of knowing if I’ll do it again, Madison.”

  My voice is anguished and rough and full of pain.

  “You won’t,” she says firmly, finally looking me in the eye. The fear is still there, even though she’s trying to ignore it.

  Because I taught her that fear is a choice. Fuck.

  “We can’t know that,” I tell her limply. That’s what I say.

  You need to stay far away from me. That’s what I think.

  “I know it,” she insists, her voice adamant, yet soft and scared. I have to admire her loyalty, even though it’s misplaced in me.

  I’m suddenly so tired, so very tired. Tired of carrying this weight. Tired of worrying about what I am or what I might do. I’ve already hurt Maddy and that’s the worst possible thing. The only thing I can do now is make sure I never do it again.

  The resolve feels good. It gives me something to focus on.

  “Let’s talk about this in the morning,” I suggest, hating the way those words feel in my mouth. I hate lies. “I want you to rest. This is a lot to take in. And I know your throat must hurt.”

  I pull her close, lifting her into my arms and holding her on my lap. She’s soft and beautiful and trusting, even as she’s afraid.

  “You’re not going to stay, are you?” she mumbles. “You’re going to leave just as soon as I’m asleep. You’re never going to stay all night again.”

  She sounds saddened by this, even though I could’ve just killed her.

  “Maddy, don’t worry about this right now. Just sleep, give your throat a rest. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you again.”

  Guilt, for the thing I’m not saying, weighs so heavily on my chest that I can barely breathe.

  I won’t hurt you because I’m leaving Angel Bay and I’m not coming back.

  “I’m not worried,” Madison answers quietly, her hand on my chest. “I’m not worried that you’ll hurt me, Gabe.”

  But she is. I know she is.

  Fear might be a choice, but she should fear me. I’m the most dangerous thing in the world to her. If she won’t acknowledge it, then I’ll have to do it for her.

  You’re a protector, Gabe.

  She’s right. I am. And even though she won’t understand it, even though she’ll probably never forgive me, I’m going to protect her now.

  Madison takes forever to fall asleep tonight, but I don’t mind. I hold her cradled in my lap for hours, long after she has fallen asleep. I watch her, the way she turns to me instinctively, the way her body molds to mine, the soft way she breathes in the night.

  My throat is hot and tight when I finally ease her onto the bed and settle her into the cool sheets. In her sleep Madison is open and trusting, unafraid. It’s the way she should always be. But it’s the way she’ll never be able to be with me.

  Because I’m the scariest thing of all. The bad thing. And she’ll always have reason to fear me.

  But not if I’m not here.

  I stand above her, looking down, unable to swallow the lump that has formed in my throat. Bending, I kiss her forehead.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  With long determined strides, I walk from her room.

  I don’t look back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Madison

  Oh. My. God.

  I’m still in shock as I pull into the Hill’s parking lot, completely oblivious to the beautiful morning around me.

  The sun peeks over the top of the stucco building, making it seem as though it’s glowing. The scenic beauty surrounding me seems like something out of a painting, with the rolling hills along the beach and the water crashing into the sand. It’s nature at its finest.

  But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but what happened last night.

  As I turn off my car, I glance into the mirror, adjusting the silk scarf knotted around my neck to hide my bruise. Every time I swallow, it hurts. When I talk, my voice is hoarse. It’s a nasty reminder of what happened.

  I’m almost glad that Gabe wasn’t there when I woke up. He’s going to freak out even more when he sees the bruise.

  Gabe.

  I close my eyes, remembering the look on his face last night. The terrifying look of a lethal killer. His eyes were almost black and filled with the single-minded purpose of killing me.

  My heart races as I remember. He thought I was someone else.

  He thought I was a Taliban radical.

  But that doesn’t make my heartbeat slow down. Or my worry disappear. Or my fear go away.

  Fear is a choice, I tell myself silently.

  And last night I was afraid of Gabriel.

  Just like I’ve always been afr
aid of my father.

  But Gabe isn’t my dad.