He sets the quill on Byron’s Poems and stands. A look of purpose flashes in his eyes. He takes the five steps between us, while I try to calm my pulse thudding in my ears. I expect him to sit at the foot of the bed but he kneels on the floor next to me.
“Because you were right yesterday,” he says. “Ever since our first night together, I’ve been so consumed with pushing you away that I didn’t realize how much I don’t want it until you threatened to leave me. I’ve watched you sleep all night, afraid it was my last chance. This little wrinkle between your eyebrows didn’t go away even in your sleep. Thank God you took mercy on me and hugged my pillow or I’d have gone insane. I’ve been dreading this morning even more than on embargo night. Stay with me…please!”
Every word, every pause, every new, shy inflection in his tone is so close to what I have dreamed that for an instant I wonder whether I’m really awake. But then I see his dimming eyes and the dark circles under them and I know I must be. No matter how much he hurts me, I’ll never want this look of anguish on his face. His rare “please” echoes in the air.
“But all the reasons why you wanted me to leave are still here. What made you change your mind?”
He shakes his head. “I haven’t changed my mind. I capitulated.”
It sounds like a regret.
The tectonic plates start shifting and he pales. “Seeing you last night—white as a ghost, dress in shreds, running in the wind—” He shudders. “I haven’t prayed in twelve years and eighteen days but when I saw you, all I kept thinking was ‘Please, God, please let her be okay!’” He shudders again.
I shudder too, but for another reason. What happened twelve years and eighteen days ago? I want to ask but, instinctively, I know this is something he needs to tell me on his own. Abruptly, he grips my hand in both of his. “I’d rather be deployed again than be unable to protect you. If you hadn’t calmed me yesterday, I have no idea what I would have done…or whom I would have hurt.”
I shiver, replaying the violence emanating from him as he whirled toward Javier.
“Elisa?” His right hand flies to my cheek, then at the hollow of my neck. “I’ve scared you again.”
I nod. “Yes, a little.”
He leans away from me immediately, resting his hand on the bed. “I don’t want to frighten you.”
“I’m more afraid of what you may do to others.” I shiver again.
His jaw flexes. “I’ll destroy anything and anyone that may hurt you, Elisa. Including myself. On that point, I will not negotiate.”
“I understand that better than you think. I’d do the same for you. But it’s how little it takes for you to jump straight to destruction mode that scares me. A broken nail, Aiden? A burned dress? What if I’d fallen and sprained my ankle? Or got hit by a car?”
He says nothing but from his rigid shoulders I know that even these scenarios are triggering his vigilance.
I take his hand again. “Life happens, Aiden. One day, whether naturally or accidentally, something will happen to me. We can’t have you go on a carnage spree just because I got the flu. And what if we’re both very lucky, and one day when I’m ninety, I pass away in my sleep, probably dreaming of you. What will you do then if you’re still alive?”
He blanches. “Don’t talk about that.”
“But it’s a given. It will happen. Are you going to grab your dentures and beat people up with your cane?”
His lips twitch in a repressed smile.
“It’s not funny, Aiden. We need to prepare you for…for losing. For life.”
The semismile disappears. His eyes lose focus, as though this is a frontier beyond which he cannot see. I pull on his hand to lift him off the floor. I can’t watch him on his knees when he looks so vulnerable. I might as well be trying to lift the Coliseum but he understands my intention and sits at the edge of the bed. He grips my hand like a lifeline.
I take a deep breath, choosing my next words carefully. “Aiden, I don’t want to leave. I dread losing you like I dread boarding that plane to London. But it’s one thing for us to do this to each other and it’s quite another for Javier or Reagan or some other poor soul to bear the brunt of it. I think you should see a doctor for your anger…for your PTSD. You’re destroying your own health, your peace—”
“Okay.”
“I mean, the rate of heart attack—wait, what did you say?”
“I said okay, I’ll see someone.”
It takes me a while to find coherent words so instead I blink at him until he almost smiles. “Just like that?”
“It may be just like that for you but it has taken over a decade for me to try this again.”
“Try this again? You mean you’ve seen someone for this before?”
The tension returns to his shoulders. He looks away from me, his eyes resting on the frame I gave him on the nightstand. “Briefly—when I first came home.”
“How briefly?”
“Enough to know I didn’t want to do it.” His shoulders are straight, defiant, as though they agree with that decision, with the part of him that rejects any form of help.