“You don’t have any brothers or sisters?”
I shake my head. “Nope, just me. My father died when I was a teenager and I recently found out my mother never wanted children and has always hated the sight of me.”
Kat’s smile falls and I quickly let out a small laugh to reassure her.
“It’s fine. It’s something I’ve sort of always known. Eli was there when it happened. He made it better. He always makes everything better for me.”
My voice cracks with emotion and Kat reaches over to place her hand on top of mine.
“I want to help him, but I don’t know how,” I whisper, trying to hold back the tears.
“I have a question, and it might seem a little weird. When exactly did you two get back together after he came home? Like, the exact day?”
Pausing for a minute, going back through the time we’ve spent together, I’m shocked to realize it hasn’t been as long as I thought it was. Being with Eli always makes me lose track of time, makes me feel like I’m moving twice as fast as the rest of the world.
“Well, we saw each other again for the first time soon after he got back to Charleston. But it was a little complicated and difficult. So, technically, three weeks ago. Three weeks ago today, actually,” I admit, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment that I sort of just told Eli’s sister the day we first had sex again.
She ignores my discomfort and smiles the biggest smile I’ve seen yet.
“I think you already did help him,” she tells me.
I shake my head in confusion and she continues.
“Three weeks ago today, is when he stopped waking up with nightmares every night,” she tells me softly. “I remember because it was the same day my daughter was cutting a tooth and I was up in the middle of the night anyway. And he never woke up. He’d been waking up screaming every night since he came home, and that night, he never woke up once. Or any night after that until he moved out and I wasn’t keep track of his sleeping habits anymore, but I’m pretty confident he wasn’t having them at his new place either.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hoping that what she’s saying is true.
“You already helped him, Shelby, without even knowing it. I’m sure you’ll be able to do it again.”
“Kat!”
I open my eyes and we both look up when we hear the shout, seeing Daniel jogging across the cafeteria to us with a worried look on his face.
“I’ve been looking for you, I tried calling your cell,” he tells her when he gets to our table.
“Sorry, I must have left it back in the room. What’s going on? What happened?”
He looks back and forth between us before squatting down next to his wife and grabbing both of her hands.
“Eli’s gone.”
I gasp and Kat’s head jerks back in shock.
“What do you mean he’s gone? Where is he?” I ask, pushing my chair back and standing up from the table.
“I don’t know. I went up there and he wasn’t in the room. I asked the nurses and they never saw him leave. They’ve called security, but his hospital gown was lying on the floor and his clothes and shoes he came in with are gone, too.”
Daniel helps Kat up from her chair and we all move quickly out of the cafeteria. When we back get upstairs and speak to the nurses, he still hasn’t been located.
Running into his empty room, I grab my purse from the floor and snatch my keys out of it.
“We’ll go to our house and then stop by his,” Daniel tells me.
“I’ll drive to my place and a few others,” I confirm, promising to call them if I find him and making them do the same as I rush to the elevator.
I have to find him. I have to give him back his strength. He needs it now more than me and I will do anything to bring him back and let him know I’m not going anywhere. I will help him get through this, no matter what it takes. I’m going to believe what Kat told me and hope to God I can help him again.
Chapter 30
Eli
This is really depressing, man. Couldn’t we have gone to a bar or something?”
I continue staring at the headstone in front of me, trying to block out the man speaking next to me that I know isn’t really there.
“I mean, drinking away your troubles sounds like a much better idea than staring at this thing.”
He kicks the toe of his boot against the side of the cement marker with his name on it and I squeeze my eyes closed.
“This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real.”
When I hear nothing but the sound of cicadas chirping in the nearby trees, I slowly open my eyes and let out a low, irritated growl.
“Sorry, still here,” Rylan says with a smile, waving at me like an asshole. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere until you don’t need me anymore.”
I quickly look away from his face with the full beard and his hair pulled back into that stupid man-bun, rereading the words etched into the stone, trying to make it real, trying to make it hurt, trying to do anything to make this madness go away.
“I don’t need you anymore,” I whisper, choking with the lie as I say the words.
I hear a car door slam from somewhere behind me and the slide of shoes through the grass as they get closer.
“I have a feeling that isn’t true,” Rylan replies. “Buckle up. And don’t be an asshole.”
The light breeze in the air floats the smell of peaches around me before she finally gets to me. I feel her hand press lightly against my back, and for the first time since I met Shelby, I want to move away from her touch.
I clench my hands into fists at my sides while she rubs slow, soft circles against my spine until it’s too much, I can’t take it anymore and I jerk away from her hand. She moves around in front of me and I try to turn, try to keep my back to her, but she’s not having it. She grabs my upper arms and squeezes, using all of her strength to hold me in place and not turn away from her.
“What do you need? Tell me what you need,” she asks softly.
I finally lift my head when she speaks and I wish I hadn’t. I look into her beautiful green eyes and I just want to let her wrap her arms around me and make everything better, like she’s done since I got home. But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t pretend anymore. Nothing will be better again and I can’t fool myself into thinking it will.
“I need you to leave,” I tell her in a low voice.
“Didn’t I just tell you not to be an asshole?” Rylan grumbles from next to me.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes closed.
“Eli, please. Just talk to me. I want to help you but I don’t know what to do,” Shelby pleads sadly, moving forward and pressing her body against mine.
It hurts so much I can barely breathe. She feels so soft and perfect against me and I just want to take whatever she wants to give me. I want to take it all and never give it back. I want to lose myself in her but I can’t. It’s not right. She doesn’t deserve this. She’s been through too much and I can’t let her take on this burden as well.
I step away and turn my back on her again, immediately missing the heat from her body, and I want to scream and cry and blame someone else for this mess, but there’s no one else to blame. There’s no one else to point a finger at and I need to take responsibility.
“There’s nothing to say and you need to go. You can’t help me. You can’t fix me, so just go.”
She whispers my name and it tears me in half.
“I’m not leaving you. I love you, I need you, just stay with me.”
Her words are like a knife to the chest, and instead of crying, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I go with another emotion. I whirl around to face her and let the anger take control.
“You don’t need me, I can’t save you, I can’t give you what you need so JUST GO!” I scream.
“I don’t need you to save me, I just need you to stay with me!” she shouts back.
Shelby t
akes a couple of deep breaths before taking a tentative step toward me.
“Just stay with me, please,” she whispers. “We’ll figure this out together. I’m not leaving you.”
I shake my head and try to give her a sarcastic laugh, but all that comes out is a strangled whimper.
“You saved my life and I ruined yours,” I tell her.
She shakes her head in disagreement, reaching for me, her face filling with pain when I move back before she can put her hands on me.
“I was too weak to talk to you before I was deployed. I was too weak to do anything but lie to you in a fucking note,” I remind her. “I’m the reason you got into your accident, I’m the reason you can’t dance, I’m the reason you let those people break you down, I’m the reason your life went to shit. There’s no fucking way I’m going to let you take on anything else, especially not someone as fucked up as I am.”
I take another step back from her when she tries coming at me again.
I want her.
I need her.
I can’t have her.
“Don’t you dare put all of that blame on yourself,” she argues. “I’m just as much at fault and I made just as many mistakes. I never danced again because I never tried. Not until you made me. You helped me. You healed me. You’re not fucked up, you went through something horrible, and you just need time.”
I close my eyes and do everything I can to block out her voice, her smell that still floats in the air, and the urge to give in and let her heal me. All I do by blocking out her goodness is allow the bad parts to get through, and before I know it, the sounds of the birds chirping and the breeze rustling through the trees are replaced with gunfire and screaming.
We were almost free.
Thirty more seconds and the Navy SEALs were pouring into the room.
Thirty more seconds and we would have been free.
But he pointed the gun.
My arms were still shackled and I couldn’t move.
But he pointed the gun.
I kicked and I screamed and I pleaded.
Oh, God, he pointed the fucking gun and he pulled the trigger.
I gasp loudly and my eyes fly open to find Shelby still standing here in front of me with a sad, worried look on her face and it kills me. It kills everything inside me until there’s nothing left.
“Can you really stand here and tell me you’re healed? That everything is better and everything is fine after what your mother said to you? After what she did to you? After what that asshole you let into your life did to you?” I ask, hating myself even more when I see her flinch, but unable to stop myself.
I shake my head at her and keep talking before she can argue with me again.
“Two broken pieces don’t make a whole. They just make a bigger fucking mess for someone to clean up. You don’t need any more messes in your life and all the time in the world isn’t going to fix mine.”
Without another word, I turn and walk away from her. I ignore her when I hear her shout my name and I keep walking, putting as much distance between us as I can before I show her just how weak I really am by giving her this burden.
“You’re really starting to piss me off,” Rylan mutters, running to catch up with me.
Chapter 31
Shelby
In another life, like the one I was living before Eli came back to me, I would have let everything he said to me at the cemetery crush me, break my heart, and fill my head with doubts and insecurities. I would have run away, locked myself in my room, and cried myself to sleep every night, playing what he said to me on a loop until I believed every word he spoke and convinced myself he was right—this could never work. We were both too broken to ever be one whole, united piece.
I didn’t lock myself away, I didn’t cry myself to sleep every night, and I didn’t replay his words in my head over and over until I had no choice but to believe them. I refused to believe them. I refused to walk away. I refused to think he was right. I didn’t know how to fix his mind and it killed me. I’ve spent so many years protecting him and trying to save him, and now, when he needed me the most, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help him say good-bye to Rylan, to grieve for the friend he lost and to stop feeling like it was all his fault, but I wasn’t about to give up. Eli never gave up on me. Not through a year of deployment, not through five years of hell, and not when he came back and thought I’d let him go and moved on.
I don’t know how to heal his mind, but I know I can heal his heart. I know how to make those broken pieces fit back together again and I won’t give up, I won’t leave, and I won’t stop until he comes back to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”
I look up at Kat and smile, fluffing the pillow behind my back that I leaned up against the door.
“I’m good. I’ll grab something if I get hungry,” I tell her, getting comfortable in the makeshift bed I put on the floor right outside Eli’s room.
After he walked away from me in the cemetery, I gave him a few hours to cool off before I went to his house. He had locked himself in his room and refused to come out or answer me, no matter how many times I knocked. After Kat and Daniel both tried to get him to come out, we waited twenty-four hours before calling his therapist. When he couldn’t get Eli to answer his knocks or talk, he told us to just give him time. He assured us that he didn’t believe Eli would harm himself and that he just needed to be alone to heal. Since we could hear him shuffling around in there every so often, and could hear the muffled sound of his voice talking to himself, or most likely Rylan, we let him be. For the most part.
Kat and Daniel had a daughter to take care of and couldn’t be here around the clock. I had nowhere to be and nowhere else I’d rather be, so I sat down in front of his door and hadn’t moved in ten days other than to stretch, go to the bathroom, or take a quick shower. I always leave food for Eli outside of his door, and it’s always gone when I come back from those sporadic, few minutes I’m gone. Knowing he’s eating what I’ve left out for him, even if he doesn’t open the door when I’m sitting right there waiting for him, gives me a little comfort at least.
Both Kat and Daniel rotated shifts, stopping by as much as they could, checking in on me, sitting with me to keep me company or forcing me to eat. They stopped telling me to go home and get some rest after the first two days when they realized I was adamant about not leaving.
“I just cleaned out the fridge and filled it with fresh stuff from the store. If I don’t see at least an apple or some of that lunchmeat gone by the time I come back, I will hold you down and force-feed you,” Kat threatens.
I laugh quietly, picking up the shoe box and resting it on my lap.
“Thanks for asking Daniel to grab this for me,” I tell her, lifting the lid and setting it down on the floor.
“Are you kidding me? This has been the highlight of my life. YOU HEAR THAT, ELI? THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE. YOU WILL NEVER LIVE THIS DOWN!” she shouts at Eli’s closed door.
She can joke all she wants, but I heard her sniffling from the living room when I first started doing this, and I saw her red and blotchy face from crying when she hurried past me to go to the bathroom. Having her roll her eyes at me and yell that she had something in her eye has been the only thing keeping me from falling to pieces each time I did this.
Kat leans down and kisses the top of my head before turning and heading back out into the main part of the house. Shifting the pillow behind my back a little higher, I reach into the box and grab one of the envelopes, pulling the letter out and unfolding it.
“‘Shelby, remember that day in your studio, the week after you’d gotten home from college?’” I read aloud, forcing my voice to remain strong and level when reading Eli’s words all over again make me want to curl into a ball and cry for him.
“‘In case I forgot to tell you, that was the day I knew I was going to fall in love with you. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this and I’m not really good at
this whole letter-writing thing, so I’m just going to tell you a story in these letters. I’m going to tell you the story of us, from my point of view, so you know exactly what I was thinking. I’m hoping it will be a better way for you to see that I meant everything I said in my first few letters. I love you, Shelby. Only you. Always you…’”
I pause when I hear a sniffle from the living room and smile to myself in spite of my sadness. Resting my head against the door, I lift the letter up higher and raise my voice a little louder as I continue to read Eli’s story to me.
I want him to listen, I want him to hear and remember. Remember what it was like when two broken people could heal each other. Remember what it was like when he loved me so much that he lived through five years of hell to come back to me. Remember what it was like when two people from opposite worlds found everything they’d ever needed in each other, and never let it go. Not through war, not through death, not through pain, not through people trying to tear them apart, and certainly not through this.
We would make it through this as well, I had to believe that.
As I read Eli’s words, I imagine him leaning up against his side of the door, right behind me. I continue reading as I shift to my side, holding the letter in one hand and lifting the other over my arm to press my palm against the door. Resting my head right next to my hand, I keep right on reading, imagining him holding his hand up against mine through the door. It becomes so real that I can almost imagine I feel the heat from his hand against mine through the thick wood.
I keep reading until my voice gets hoarse. I keep reading until I have to struggle to keep my eyes open. I keep trying to get through to him the only way I know how, and I refuse to stop fighting.
I won’t give up, I won’t leave, and I won’t stop until he comes back to me.
Chapter 32
Eli
You’re an asshole, have I mentioned that lately?”