“I just…I just want to say I’m sorry. That’s all. You don’t have to accept it. You don’t have to forgive me. I just need you to know.”
And the words, the anger, boil out of me before I can stop them. I round on her, giving in to the anger and the hurt. Permanently cauterizing the wound. Stopping the bleeding and any chance of healing things between us. "I don’t want to f*ck
ing talk about it.”
God love her, she doesn’t back down. “Don’t you think that maybe that’s part of the damn problem?”
Oh f*ck
this. “Do you want to talk about the choices you make with your hair? Then don’t ask me to talk about the f*ck
ing war, Abby. Just don’t.”
If I haven’t destroyed the fragile foundation of whatever it was we were building, I’ve done it now. I’ve crossed the line. Stabbed her where she is soft and vulnerable.
Hurting her so that she’ll walk away.
Hurting her so she’ll never have to know why I have to go.
"So you run away? The first time things get a little difficult?"
I recoil from her words. They hurt worse than if she’d lashed out and struck me. I can't stop myself from shouting at her. From lashing out. I see the hurt flicker across her face, and I am the cause. "You don't know what it's like to walk through life, to not feel any f*ck
ing thing. To feel completely cut off from everything."
I will be ashamed later. Right then, the shame and the anger and all of it comes crashing down on me. Pouring out in violence and rage at the one person in this life I care about.
She doesn’t back down. She steps into my space. “Because you run away from it. You just fight and drink and hope that it’ll be enough. It’s not. Not if this is the way it’s going to play out.”
And I am over the edge of control. If this is going to end, it might as well go down in a blaze of painful honesty.
“Why can’t the fact that I had some bad shit downrange be enough?”
“Because you tell me that you’re broken and the one time I screw up a little bit, you lash out at me? That’s okay with you?” she says quietly. It’s like she physically deflates.
It hurts. Like I’m cutting out a piece of my heart with a dull blade. “I was a goddamned fool for thinking that I could do this with you. That you wouldn’t push me for more. That you could just take me for who I am."
"That's not fair." Her words are laced with hurt.
"Life's not f*ck
ing fair. It's not f*ck
ing fair that your goddamned father died. It's not fair that I made it home but my f*ck
ing dick might as well be a paperweight. Life isn’t f*ck
ing fair."
She flinches but doesn't back away. I'll give her that.
And I'm going to destroy her. Because that's what I do. It's all I know. "I'm not a mind reader."
"Because I don't want to talk about it! I want to forget it. All of it. I want to come home and be f*ck
ing normal. But that'll never f*ck
ing happen." I'm gone. I can't stop. It's like the last two years have finally broken free and are tearing out of me. "You want to know why?" I back her up until she is pinned against the wall. "I was on a patrol. We got stopped. Do you know how bad burning tires smell? You can taste the burning rubber in your mouth. It penetrates your f*ck
ing skin." My fists are bunched by her head, and it is taking everything I have to not slam them into the bricks.
"You know why I have such a f*ck
ing hard time in class? Because f*ck
ing violence isn't theoretical to me. It's bleeding, pulsing, hot and raw. And here’s a little something no one tells you. It feels f*ck
ing good. Really f*ck
ing good."
The memories crash over me like a wave of violent crimson blood and gore. I can hear the screams again. The cries.
The helplessness. Blood dripping between my clenched fingers as I tried to stop the bleeding. “It feels f*ck
ing good to take the enemy out. To know that your buddies are coming home and f*ck
those guys for bringing the fight in the first place. But we can’t talk about that.”
I see Abby's eyes. Wide. Filled with disgust and revulsion.
“I’m supposed to hate what I did. I’m supposed to say I only did what I did to survive. I’m supposed to hate war.” I slap my palm into the brick next to her head. “Then why the f*ck
do I miss it? Why the f*ck
would I give anything to be back in the mud and the dirt and the shit?”
I see it then. The fear on her face. And I don’t f*ck
ing care. I can’t.
And then I feel it.
A terrifying sensation burns over my skin. It's so familiar, so long forgotten.
My cock stiffens.
A tightening, an ache. The latent edge of arousal. My dick swelling, like it's coming alive after a long winter.
From the fear I see looking back at me from a woman I’d dared to let myself love.
I yank away, a wave of nausea slamming into me.
I need to get away. I need to forget. To stop my sin even if I can't erase it.
I can never erase it. It has tainted me, corrupted the one thing that I wanted more than anything else in the world.
I will never, ever be able to forget the horrifying sensation of arousal and violence, twisting together in dark, erotic heat.