I wonder if Landry knows how much I want to scream every time he looks at me like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. I wonder if he notices the guilt clouding my face when he touches me and it never sets my body on fire. I know it would break him if he found out that the only reason I’m with him now is because I have to protect the only person I ever truly loved, and I hate myself for doing that to Landry. I always thought my feelings for him would change and grow. I assumed the love he gave to me would be enough to fix my broken heart and make me whole again, but it’s done the opposite. I’ve become this numb shell of a woman I don’t even recognize anymore for a man who probably only used me, but I don’t know how to stop. He left this town without saying good-bye and then he left this earth without giving me closure. He left me to pick up the pieces and protect his family and his name and I hate him for that. I’ve allowed someone else to make all my decisions, rule my life and crush my dreams because I don’t know how to stop loving him more than I hate him.
Shouting voices and the pounding of footsteps in the hallway outside my room distract us. Landry walks quickly to the doorway, stopping one of my mother’s household staff as she rushes past. With his back turned and his attention focused away from me, I slowly and quietly slide open the bottom drawer of my jewelry box and lift the lid of the hidden compartment. I run my fingertips over the dog tags and wish I could forget how the cold metal used to feel warm against my skin from the heat of his body. How they would dangle down between us, grazing against the skin of my chest when he moved above me. I know I should have gotten rid of them a long time ago, but they’re a constant reminder that everything I do is for him, even if what we had was all a lie.
The quiet conversation in my doorway penetrates my thoughts when I hear the staff member tell Landry there’s some sort of emergency and it’s all over the news.
“Your mother is in a panic and needs all hands on deck.”
I close the drawer to the jewelry box right before Landry looks over his shoulder at me. Putting on a smile, I wave my hand at him.
“It’s fine, go see what’s happening and I’ll meet you downstairs,” I tell him.
He tells the woman to let my mother know he’ll be there in a few minutes, walking back across the room to me when she scurries away. I keep the smile on my face when he grabs one of my hands and brings it up to his mouth, kissing the top quickly and then sighing as he lowers our joined hands.
“I won’t be long, I’m sure it’s nothing. Your mother panics over everything,” he laughs softly.
Landry has been in love with me since I was a teenager and he worked as an aide for my father, the senator of South Carolina. Ten years my senior, Landry came from a family as wealthy and affluent as my own and my parents never shied away from trying to push the two of us together once I turned eighteen. I wanted to hate him simply because my parents approved of him and because of the pathetic way he followed my father around like a puppy. I spent all four years of high school faking politeness when he’d try to talk to me and every year after that turning down his requests for a date. I’d like to say I did it for the sole purpose of pissing my mother off after my father died and she became obsessed with pushing the two of us together, but I’d be lying. While Landry spent our high school and college years chasing after me, I spent those years chasing after someone else. Someone who gave me butterflies each time I saw him, someone whose life was different from mine in every way and someone who took my heart with him when he left, making it impossible for me to ever give it to another.
“And as her financial advisor and the man she’s backing to become our new state senator, you’re required to panic whenever she does,” I remind Landry. “Although considering you have your own things to worry about with your upcoming election, she shouldn’t lean on you so much.”
Landry chuckles, giving our joined hands a squeeze. “Your mother let me stick around after your father died and helped me make all of the contacts I needed to make a bid for the senate. If I win this thing, it will be because of her. Whatever Georgia wants, Georgia gets.”
I paste a smile on my face at his words instead of rolling my eyes sarcastically. Landry kisses my cheek and I watch him leave the room, wishing I had something left to give him. Wishing I wasn’t a liar and a fraud. Wishing I could magically glue the broken pieces of my heart back together and give them to him, because I know he would cherish it. He’s a good man, even if he is one of the sheep in my mother’s flock and I was coerced into dating him.
Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I grab the remote from my nightstand and power on the television hanging on the wall across from me, using my free hand to rub the pain from my aching leg. I know I’ll be briefed immediately on whatever major crisis my mother is having a conniption over so I won’t say the wrong thing if I’m questioned by reporters at her charity event this evening, but since I have nothing else to do while I wait, I might as well get the scoop ahead of time.
When I get to CNN, the reporter’s voice fills my quiet room. I’m barely paying attention to what she’s saying, busy smoothing down the front of my dress and checking for stray pieces of lint. Every word she speaks runs together in a blur of background noise, until she says a name I recognize. A name I haven’t heard or spoken in years, but couldn’t stop thinking about every second of every day. A name that makes my heart beat faster and my hands start to shake. My head whips up to stare at the television with wide, unbelieving eyes, and my heart drops into my stomach. They flash a picture of him on the screen from Marine Corps graduation day, but the sight of him in his dress blues isn’t what makes my world tilt on its axis. It’s the sound of his name coming from a stranger’s lips in the quiet room that steals the breath from my lungs, making it impossible to do anything but stare at the television as my hand flies up to cover my mouth and hold back the sobs.
“In a top secret mission yesterday evening, a team of Navy SEALs were sent into the small Afghanistan village of Sangin to rescue Commander Stephen Whitfeld, who was taken hostage earlier this month. We have just been informed that during this rescue mission, several United States Marines who were presumed dead have been found alive. Five years ago, only days away from the end of his year-long deployment, Lieutenant Elijah James was involved in an IED explosion that killed several members of his team and only left behind the men’s dog tags as identification. There were rumors that a traitor existed on the team who was working with the Afghan army. But those rumors were quickly put to rest just days after the explosion. Now that Lieutenant James has been found alive, we can only hope no truth will come from those rumors.”
The rapid thump of my heart sounds like a drum in my ears, making it impossible for me to hear anything else the reporter says. A wave of nausea rushes through me and I press a shaking hand to my stomach as I stand on unsteady legs while a memory from so many years ago rushes through my mind. Even though I want nothing more than to forget about that moment and the day I signed my fate, I’m unable to stop my eyes from closing as I relive it.
“It’s a lie. He would never betray his country. You have to fix this, please!” I begged my mother as I stood in her office with my broken heart clutched tightly in my hands.
She scoffed at me. She didn’t care about my pain, the tears streaming down my cheeks, or my conviction that he would never do something like that.