“Okay, then tell.” A shiver raced across her skin, and she wrapped her arms around her waist.
“I just . . . I can’t think straight, and admitting that, seeing me like this would probably get me kicked out before I even start, which is just ironic because I’m always the levelheaded one in our group. That’s why it didn’t surprise me when Pierson washed out the second week. His land-nav skills are solid, but the second the cadre started in on him, questioning his choices, he got all indecisive, and then he was gone.”
“Nate, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She shook her head.
A hysterical laugh bubbled past my lips. “Of course you don’t, because I’m not making any sense. But I don’t know what the line is anymore, not today at least. Am I allowed to not have my shit together when I buried Julian today? Or am I supposed to hold it together and just pretend his mother wasn’t sobbing in the pew ahead of me?”
“Oh God, Nate.” Her face fell and she reached for me, but I stepped back.
“Don’t. If you touch me, I know I won’t be able to hold it together, and as you can see, I’m already walking that line.” I rubbed my empty hand over my rain-soaked face, wiping the water away. “And the worst part is that I never really thought of him as Julian, you know? Sure, that was his name, but we never called him that. But his mother wouldn’t stop saying it, wouldn’t stop crying, and now that’s all I hear in my head.”
“What happened?” she asked, her voice going soft. “Is that why you didn’t show up? Because Julian died?”
“The trip. Right.” I nodded, trying to focus my thoughts. I needed to pick a path. I needed her to pick our path. Once I had my feet under me again, I’d be able to move forward.
I’d never felt so unmoored in my life.
“The trip,” she said again, slowly, and I realized I’d drifted into my own thoughts.
“I was supposed to be there.” I nodded like I was answering one of the interview questions, like the interrogation had never stopped. “The dates worked out so perfectly that it was like fate decreed it. Like it was always supposed to be this way.”
“What way?”
“Once we all passed selection, I’d have those ten days to spend with you, to figure out what you wanted, before moving on to OTC.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re not really supposed to. Damn, I did such a good job of keeping my mouth shut, didn’t I? Keeping you out of it all.” I rubbed at my forehead with the back of my clenched fist, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, shutting out all the noise, everything that happened today, and focused on the woman standing in front of me. “I’m messing this up.”
“Since I don’t know what this is, you’re doing just fine. But you definitely have me worried.” Concern etched two lines between her eyebrows. There was so much anger in her eyes, so much heartbreak, but there was love, too, right? I hadn’t killed everything she felt for me, had I?
“We were blacked out,” I said, grabbing hold of my focus with mental fists. “That’s why I couldn’t call you. Julian’s parents were on vacation, and they couldn’t find them to notify them, and since they had our cell phones, they kept them so someone didn’t run their mouth before they could be told through official channels.” The little blue box in my hand shifted, the edges giving way, and I eased my grip. “At first, I didn’t believe them, the cadre, I mean. I thought it was all part of the final interview, seeing how I’d cope with that kind of news. I mean, I’d just seen him and he’d been . . . him. But then a couple days passed, and they didn’t release us, even the washouts. And that’s when I realized it was all my fault.”
“Nate,” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at the closed door. “Why don’t we go somewhere?”
Because she didn’t want me in there with her father.
“I can’t. I have to get this out now. There are people waiting for me, and I have to know what you want, so that I’ll know what to choose, Izzy.” It all made sense in my head—at least that part—but it was coming out so jumbled.
The box. Right. The box would ask the question for me.
I opened my right hand, flicked the top of the box open with my thumb, and turned it toward her.
“Oh my God.” Her hand rose to cover her mouth.
“I know it’s probably not what you were expecting. I picked it out about a year ago, and then I second-guessed it about fourteen times. You come from money, and I know you would probably have wanted something bigger—”
“Nate, is that what I think it is?” Her wide eyes jumped from the ring to my face.
“It’s an engagement ring.”
Her mouth opened, shut, and then repeated. “You can’t seriously be proposing right now.”
“I am.” I nodded, my stomach twisting into a series of knots that had my head swimming.
“No. You’re not.” She shook her head. “I know that you’re not because you promised me you’d never do this, never shove a ring at me and ask me to give up everything I’ve worked for without giving us a chance to build something first. Weren’t those your words on that beach?”
“Don’t you see? It’s the only way we can be together. I’ve fought it for so many years, thinking this life wouldn’t be fair to you, that you deserved so much better—and you still do, but I love you, Isabeau. I’ve only loved you. I’ll only ever love you. And I was supposed to do this in the water, or maybe even the plane—kind of circle back to how we met, you know?”
“I know,” she whispered, her hand falling to the rise of her chest as she stared at me with shock. At least I thought it was shock. It could have been horror or even fear.
“But then Julian . . . died, and I realized that it just as easily could have been me. It should have been me. And I knew that I’d wasted too much time protecting you when I should have been giving you a choice, and I’m so sorry.”
“Nate, I don’t think you’re thinking clearly. You seriously want us to get married when I’ve never so much as seen where you live? We’ve never spent more than a week together at a time—”
“Nine days,” I argued.
“I don’t even know where you are half the time, or what you’re being selected for. Listen to yourself.”
“Exactly.” Shit, I was doing this wrong. “But you love me, and I just need you to choose, Iz. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll let you all the way in. I’ll tell you what I can, and we’ll go back to North Carolina together. Or I’ll get out if that’s what you want.”
“What?” Her eyebrows hit the ceiling. “You don’t want to get out. You’ve never wanted that.”
“But I would if it meant keeping you. I’m in, Iz. I made it. And I know you don’t really know what that means, but say the word and I’ll walk away. We’ll walk away. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it,” I begged. The choice was hers. I was hers.