"You owe me an answer—"
"I owe you nothing," I shot at him, my back straight and breath shallow. "You did this to us, Wade. You put us here, but you're asking me why? When I've given you everything I have, you ask me why? Three days, and I heard nothing from you, and now you come here and accuse me of being the ruiner? I have questions of my own. Why don't you tell me? Why didn't you answer my letters? Why didn't you give me more time? Why have you treated me the way you have since you've been back, through everything with your dad?"
He said nothing, the shock written on his face at my anger, and I realized he didn't think I'd fight back. He'd expected me to bear his pain, shooting me down with his words. No more.
My heart hardened at the thought, forged by my pain at remembering what he'd done, how he'd hurt me. "Why did you come here that night, Wade? Why did you take without giving? And why do you presume to know what I feel, what I think? No one cares to ever ask me anything, you all assume and push and take until there's nothing left." I shook my head at him, finished being a rubber band for him to stretch. I'd finally snapped, and clarity found me with the sting. "I can't keep doing this with you. It's killing me, Wade. You're killing me."
He shook his head. "You don't understand. You never understood."
"I understand just fine, and I'm not participating in it anymore. I'll love you forever, but that won't stop me from telling you that I'm through. It won't stop me from telling you that I don't know the man who would do what you've done. I refuse to be hurt by you again." I stepped back into the doorway with my heart a jackhammer, and he panicked, eyes flying wide, stopping the door with his palm.
"Just tell me why," he begged.
"You first."
But he said nothing, his eyes searching mine as if he'd find courage there. In the end, there was none, only the war behind those eyes I loved so much.
I swallowed hard and nodded. "That's what I thought. Goodbye, Wade," I said gently and moved back, leaving him, closing the door to the vision of him standing there in the cold in his uniform, strong and weak, broken and begging me once again to acquiesce without saying a single word.
But I'd already bent as far as I could go.
21
Displacement
Displaced by the weight,
The excess of what we believed
Spilling over curling edges,
Kissing the floor sweetly
As it crawls away,
Lost to the cracks,
And gone.
* * *
-M. White
* * *
Wade
I stood there on her step, staring at the door in the freezing cold, the madness that had consumed me ebbing as the wall I'd built so carefully crumbled, falling to the ground.
Her questions had hit me in a burst of explosions, each one ripping me apart a little bit more. She was right — I couldn't answer her. I couldn't give her any answers because I was broken. I couldn't be honest because the truth hurt too much to speak. I'd piled up that truth like sandbags and had been hiding behind them for protection.
I'd given her nothing, but expected her to give me everything. But she didn't owe me a thing, and I owed her everything.
I turned slowly and walked down the stairs, my jagged thoughts needling me from the inside.
The whys tormented me, all the whys I'd pointed at everyone else like weapons, holding them in front of me for protection when I should have turned the barbs back on myself.
Why had I done this to her? Why did I keep hurting her when all I wanted was to love her?
Why was I so broken? Why couldn't I do the right thing?
Why couldn't I be who she deserves?
The whys had been on me the whole time.
The truth of the circumstance was a relief and a regret. I'd pushed her to this, forced her to fight, backed her into a corner. All she'd ever done to deserve it was give me everything without condition, without expectation.
I chased the fleeting thought of confessing to Dad, realizing too late that he was gone.
The pain in my chest was unbearable, the loss so complete.
There was nowhere to go but home.
The blocks passed under my feet in a haze until I was standing on the stoop with my hands shaking as I tried to unlock the door. When I walked in the door, I found Ben waiting for me in the living room. His jaw was set and his eyes narrowed.
I kept walking, passing the entrance to the room, not ready to talk. I didn't know that I'd ever be ready.
"Wade," he called after me, his voice firm.
"Not now," I answered as I reached the stairs.
"Stop."
The command gave me pause, and I turned to face him, exhausted and drained. "What do you want from me?"
"Just to talk for a minute."
I eyed him, and he put his hands up in surrender.
"I'm not going to yell at you."
I relaxed only by a degree.
"But I might say some stuff you don't want to hear." He didn't wait for me to respond, just gestured for me to follow as he headed for the kitchen. "Come on. You need a drink."
I watched his back for a second before following him, still wary.
"Sit," he ordered, and I did, at the island bar. He poured us each a neat whiskey and handed mine over, which I took gratefully, sagging into the counter, propped up by my elbows.
I took a sip, and so did he, setting his drink on the surface. Neither of us spoke for a long moment.
He was the only safe place I had left. So I told him the truth.
"I was wrong."
Ben only watched me, letting me breathe.
My eyes were on the amber whiskey. "All this time, it's been me. I've hurt everyone I love with my own words, with my own hands."
"Elliot?"
I nodded. "I went there today. I needed someone to blame, and I chose her. I wanted to blame her for everything: Dad, my life, us." I ran a hand over my mouth, ashamed. "What is wrong with me? Why do I destroy the things I love?"
"Because you don't know how to give or receive love anymore. You've been this way as long as I've known you."
I took a drink, the heat burning a trail down my chest.
"War never healed anyone, especially not you."
I shook my head, still unable to meet his eyes. "I don't know who I am anymore, Ben. Do you?"
He took a long, heavy breath and let it out. "Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, though the longer we've been away from the war, the more often I feel like myself. But we can't just shake off what we've seen, what we've done, what we've survived. It's a part of who we are now."
I swallowed, my voice low and shaky. "I don't want to feel like this anymore."
"Then you've got to change."
"I don't know how."
"I do."
I picked up my drink to take a sip. "Please, enlighten me."
"You've got to own up. You've got to be honest with yourself and with the people you love. You've got to apologize and make amends." He shook his head. "You're so busted up inside, and still you keep smashing the bits with a bat as penance. To make yourself pay over and over again when all you need is forgiveness. Forgiveness that they'll give you, if you'll only ask for it."