What If

“Alright. We have a deal. Take a seat, Briar.”



I’m not sure how many people in life experience what was happening in mine. Seeing someone from the past, someone who took place in the best times of your life, but also some of the very worst moments, causes a raging imbalance of blissfulness and bewilderment. Questions that I had tried to forget about, pushed away from the front part of my brain, and forced so far back that it was virtually covered in the cobwebs of my mind came rushing forward, demanding to be dusted off and visited again.

Yet, when Arrow said those words about still being alive, it took me back to the day that Darcy told me Arrow might die. That is the single worst memory of my life. I wanted nothing more than to hop on a plane to Afghanistan, fall to my knees next to his hospital bed, to beg and plead for him to hear me through his broken state. I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t leave me, that he still had answers to give me, that he still had to explain why I wasn’t good enough for him. Why I wasn’t ever enough.

When I found out he was going to make it, I pushed those feelings back again. He was alive, which meant I could, again, put off all the answers I needed from him.

Having him in front of me again telling me that he needed those answers too, I had to give that to him and I had to let him give that to me. The fact that he was even alive felt like a sheer act of God in his whiskey eyes; they looked clear and full of life, a life that was almost lost and gone from this world.

Still, I wasn’t ready to dive straight into the nitty-gritty, dirty parts of our past that rubbed my spirit raw. I wanted to know more about him and what he’d gone through in the most recent years. I had to get to know this new Arrow before I could revisit the old one.

We sat on that hard slab of wood for what had to be hours. The sky was well past dim and closer to pitch black. The night was full of clouds, covering the sparkling stars above us. We spoke about the big and small things that happened in the past six and a half years.

“We got married a couple years ago,” I explained to Arrow about Killian. Arrow seemed interested in my and Killian’s relationship. “We moved in together about six months after we started dating. Another six months later and we were engaged. We stayed that way through college. We bought a house, moved in, and soon after that we got married.” All the beautiful memories between Killian and me still had the power to make me feel regret for not giving him what he wanted. “He’s a good man,” I said severely. “One of the best men I’ve ever met.”

Arrow was clearly confused. He looked around like he was trying to make out a difficult math problem. “Then what happened? If everything was good, why did you want to divorce him?”

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable talking about this.” I looked up at Arrow, trying to decide if I could let myself open up to him, even about a part of my life that had nothing to do with him.

“We’re just talking,” he reminded me.

Just talking. It’s not like no one else had asked the very same questions. “He’s the one that wanted to divorce me.” I paused and looked up at the sky. I couldn’t believe I was telling Arrow all of this. “He wanted kids.” I swallowed, my throat clenching. Arrow’s eyes still looked cloudy with confusion. “I didn’t.” That surprised him. He must’ve remembered all the times I told him of what I wanted for my future, and one of those things was a large family. “I want children. I’d have a bus load of them if I could,” I corrected myself quickly. “But I wasn’t ready for it yet. I’m still not, and he was tired of waiting. I guess… Well, I guess I didn’t realize how much it bothered him until it was too late.” I shrugged my shoulders, ending my long speech.

“Stop that,” he commanded.

I snapped my neck up in question. “Stop what?”

“You’re wearing that remorse on you like a second skin. If you don’t let that go, you’ll never be able to move on.” His jaw ticked from clenching his teeth. His face held no other emotion except for serious features.

“He left because I couldn’t give him what he deserved. It’s going to take me longer than a few months to get over that fact, Arrow.”

“If the fact that you weren’t ready for kids is what caused him to want a divorce, then that’s on him, Briar. You can’t control the way others are going to handle what you think is best for you. The right person will support you, cherish you, and listen to you when you say you’re not ready,” he said sternly.

Arrow. There were still parts of him that was still very much the boy I fell for as a teenager. He was still hot tempered; I could see that from how he reacted to my snippy attitude towards him. He still seemed to read me like an open book, which made me uncomfortable. His eyes were still the same color, but now there was a haunted glaze about them. He stood straighter and took up more room with not just his body but also his overall aura. Then there were these things he kept saying that were so full of wisdom, something the old Arrow would have never said. I reached up and cupped his jaw in my hand and moved his head around like I was searching for something. “Is Arrow Donovan in there somewhere? I think he’s been taken by some sort of philosophical scholar,” I teased.

His rough hand came up and held my palm to his face, moving it over to his cheek. He closed his eyes; his fingers moving up and down the back of my hand.

“I’m right here, Briar.” When his eyes reopened, they were full of heat. I recognized it from the night in the hotel room before he left for boot camp. I slid my hand down to his neck; feeling the beating of his heart against the large artery resting there. His hand wrapped around my wrist, holding me against his skin. I scanned his arm, noticing the veins mapping out their paths to his limbs. His forearms had doubled in size. In fact, the majority of his muscles were larger than they’d ever been before. He was a massive man with his height and muscles. The ink on his forearm caught my attention. Semper Fi.

With his hand still holding my wrist, I moved my hand down to his arm and traced the lettering. “Always Faithful,” I quoted the meaning. I’d heard of it before, but when Arrow joined the Marines I did my research. I wanted to learn as much as I could about it so that I would be prepared and know what to expect from his new life. I also wanted to be able to hold a conversation with him and his new friends and not have to ask what they meant every five seconds. The knowledge I gained from my research was never needed with Arrow, though, because I was never part of his new life.

He smiled with all of his teeth. “You know the meaning.”

“I do.” I stopped tracing the letters. “I like this. It looks good on you,” I admitted. The letters were strong and blocky, masculine, just like the man who wore them.

“Do you have any more?” I asked.

“If you’re lucky, I’ll show you one day,” he teased in the way he used to in high school. It was flirtation, but I learned long ago that was simply Arrow’s personality. Yet the teasing nature made me more nervous. Admittedly, I enjoyed the part of me that awakened around Arrow, but it also reminded why I had to be careful around him. I slid slightly on the bench, putting more distance between our bodies.