by Evans, LJ
“I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know what I could,” she said. If I knew my sister at all, she’d wanted to use it as one of the reasons to get Georgie to stay, but I didn’t want her to stay because she felt sorry for me. I wanted her to stay because she loved me. I wanted her to stay because we fit. God help me, I still wanted her. I wanted her even more than I ever had. I wanted to bury myself in her skin and lose my guilt and anger there.
Dani let me go. “I’m heading to bed now that you’re home. But come get me if you need me. Or if you hear anything. I’d like to know.”
I let her go, gathered myself, and then headed up the stairs.
Georgie heard me coming and stopped to stare at me before returning to the box she was filling with books.
“Where are you going?” I asked, trying desperately to hold onto my emotions.
“To Theresa’s. She has an apartment over her garage she said I could rent.”
I just stood, hands in my pockets, watching her. And maybe she’d expected me to fight her more. Maybe she’d thought that, after my refusal to grant her favor this morning, she’d have to push me this evening. And she should have had to. She should have had to stop me from dumping her box out on the carpet and restocking the shelf she’d emptied. But instead, I stood there mute, watching as the woman I loved thought she was moving on without me. Maybe, because of all of that, it was my silence that stopped her more than my words and actions would have.
She looked up, taking me in. My face. My stance. My heartbreak. And her hands stilled.
“What is it? Is it Dani?”
“We lost contact with a S.E.A.L. squad today,” my voice cracked.
“Oh, no, Mac…not…” At my curt nod, she gasped, rising from her feet and heading for me.
Tristan’s smiling face and their tiny baby haunted me. Nash’s and Darren’s smiles and jokes. They were men I’d promised an oath to defend and hadn’t. The guilt took my heart in its hands again, squeezing.
Georgie wrapped me in her arms, and I buried my head in her neck. Her hands were at my back, rubbing in soothing circles.
“Wh-what happened?”
“They were on an op that I’d repeatedly shot down,” I mumbled, trying hard to breathe, to concentrate on her hands and her scent. “This time it got approved, anyway.”
“That’s hardly on you. You weren’t there.”
“That’s just it,” my voice broke as tears finally hit my cheeks. “I wasn’t fucking there.”
Both her hands came to my face, wiping the tears as I fought them again. “This isn’t your fault.”
“But it is. Darren died because I decided my dreams were bigger than his. Maybe Nash, too…” My throat clogged as I begged that it wouldn’t be more. That it wasn’t all of them. “He died because I wasn’t there to fight for him. To remind the fuckers pushing it that it was a death sentence.”
“Mac―”
I pulled away. “Don’t. Don’t defend me, or them, or any of it. Just like you can’t defend Senator Fenway for trying to take what he wanted. Just like you can’t defend Malik for being a weasel and leaving you to take the hit for him. I left my fucking unit. My brothers. And some or all of them have lost their lives because of it.”
I moved away from her, picked up her desk chair, and shoved it with all my might at the wall where it clattered and broke. The noise and exertion were better than tears. But it didn’t ease the fury pouring through my veins. It didn’t even come close. Everything in my life had come apart in the last three days, like layers of strata being pulled apart by an earthquake. Dani. Georgie. The squad.
I put my hand in my hair and let out a deep howl of grief. I turned to her windows. To the Capitol Building, lit up and sparkling as if nothing had changed, when really, everything had. I sank down onto the bed, head in my hands, and I felt her stop in front of me. She tentatively pulled me toward her so that my head was buried in her stomach, and the tears flowed, finally unstoppable. She brushed her hands through my hair.
I circled her waist with my hands, wishing I could just keep them there but knowing that I couldn’t. Knowing I wasn’t ready to walk away, because when I’d told her I couldn’t imagine letting her go without having tried everything I could to make her mine, it had been the truth. But also knowing that I wasn’t sure we could survive the things the last three days had thrown at us.
I’d already spoken to Dad and put into motion things that I couldn’t back away from. Come hell or high water, I was going to be on a flight to Florida and the Special Operations Command the next day. I was putting my uniform back on, and I wouldn’t be taking it back off. I wouldn’t be the reason some other squad got lost to the moneymen. To the greedy politicians. This was how I was supposed to change the world and keep it safe. I just hadn’t realized it until now, until it was too late for my friends.
So, even though I wanted the time to make her stay, I didn’t have it. All I had was this moment to show her that I loved her before I left. I didn’t deserve the moment. Tristan hadn’t been able to kiss Darren one last goodbye. She hadn’t been able to make love to him with sorrow and grief in her heart, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed Georgie’s touch. I needed it more than I’d ever needed anything.
I placed my lips on her stomach. Kissing. Pulling up her shirt and touching my lips to her skin. At first, she resisted, as if the touch was too much to bear, but then she gave in, straddling me, and pulling my lips to hers, and kissing me with such fervor that I thought we’d somehow lose our individual souls to something bigger and brighter than either of us. Our hands were not gentle. Our kisses were like brands―fire―marking us as we gave ourselves to the passion and the intensity that was begging for relief.
After, we lay tangled in a pile of arms and legs. It was hard to see where mine ended and hers began. Skin. Hearts. Souls. But not lives. Our lives were being pulled, layer by layer, into different directions. Her family. My guilt. I wanted to reject it all. To demand to the universe that it let us be together like I’d said we were fated to be.
I kissed the top of her head that lay on my chest, my hand pulling at the white streak, letting it filter through my fingers. I finally found my voice and said quietly, “I’m leaving.”
My heart cracked at her stuttered breath and the word that came from her as if I’d stabbed her. “What?”
“I’ve reenlisted. I leave tomorrow for Florida.”
She turned so I could see her face, and there was so much pain there as well as another emotion that I wanted to label as love. I wanted to name it that way so I didn’t have to feel it alone. So it would make this time together more real.
“I have to figure out what the hell happened while we wait to see if any of them make contact.”
She still didn’t say anything. She just watched me with those damn beautiful eyes of hers that were golden tonight. That, no matter what color she wore, showed her emotions more than any facial expression and more than any tell.
“I never wanted this,” I said, my voice cracking again. “I never wanted to love someone and leave them like Dad always did.”
She swallowed. “You love me?”
And I couldn’t believe that she doubted it. That she hadn’t taken every moment of the forevers I’d spoken, every moment my lips had been on her body, every moment my soul had sat next to hers, and just knew, but she didn’t. I touched her lips and said, “It isn’t the best time to tell you, as I’m leaving, but I also didn’t want to leave without saying it.”
“Mac―”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare say you don’t love me. I know you do.” The words were harsh coming out of my mouth. Harsh because I couldn’t have stood it if she denied it. I couldn’t have stood one more fucking heartbreak.
“Loving you doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t magically wave away the things that aren’t right about us,” she said softly.
I nodded. “I’m just asking… I’m just hoping that you’l
l let me figure it out with you when I get back. I just don’t know when that will be.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just use this time for what it really should be? Time for us to move on, to walk away before we both are left so hurt that we can’t recover?”
It was too late for that. I wouldn’t recover if she left me now or later. If I lost the one thing in this damn world that could still give me hope. “You’d give up on us that easily?” I asked.
“On an us that shouldn’t have been. We were weak to give in to it to begin with. I should have moved out as soon as I knew you lived here.”
“You asked me to grant you the favor I owed you earlier today. And now I’m asking you for mine. Don’t give up on us yet. Don’t walk away just as we’re saying I love you. The story doesn’t need to end here.”
I wasn’t sure I deserved for her to agree. I wasn’t sure I deserved a happily ever after when I’d cost Darren his, but I also couldn’t leave D.C. without at least asking. Without, in some way, tying her to me. It was cruel. But I’d given up on thinking I was a decent human being. I was selfish. And I’d be selfish one more time if it meant a chance at her not walking out of my life.
Georgie
LAY ME DOWN
“You told me not to cry when you were gone,
But the feeling's overwhelming, it's much too strong.”
Performed by Sam Smith with John Legend
Written by Smith / Napier / Smith
Having Mac say he loved me and that he wanted me to wait for him to come back made me happy at the same time as it made me sad. The thought of never seeing him again, of walking out of his life and not looking back, was like a dagger to my ribcage, spinning and twisting until all I could feel was the jagged point. But I also still knew, as clearly as I had on the beach in Rockport, that we were an impossibility. A dream that could never come to fruition in reality. I’d just forgotten that. I’d let my senses sweep me away in the thunder and lightning of Mac. But our x- and y-graphs were splintering apart now, curving farther and farther apart. I wasn’t sure there was much we could do to bring them back together.
The first thing I’d thought on seeing his face burdened with sadness and so much guilt when he’d reached the top of the stairs was that I loved him. That I would do almost anything if I could erase those emotions from his face. Then, I thought of my boxes and the fact that, if I stayed, I’d just be adding more breaks to his heart…to my heart.
It didn’t matter that he told me he was reenlisting. It didn’t matter if he stayed in the Navy or eventually resumed his political goals, because being attached to a Russian gun dealer and his drug-selling son wasn’t any better for a career naval officer than it was for a career politician.
After our lovemaking, which had been fierce and wild and raw with emotions and loss, I stared into his blue eyes and could see all the truths. The love. It was the first time in my life I’d looked at a man and thought that…felt that…wanted that. It hurt so badly to know I couldn’t have it. I wanted to pout the way Raisa was good at pouting, but I couldn’t. Instead, I had to figure out a way to love him and leave him.
To not grant his favor, just as he hadn’t granted mine. It was exactly why we couldn’t continue this way, because granting each other these favors should have been easy. It should have been what we wanted to do…give in to the other person. But we couldn’t.
So, when he asked me not to give up, I just closed my eyes against the onslaught of his hurt as I said the words, “We aren’t a romance novel, Mac.”
“Maybe we should be.”
I turned so my back was against his front. I couldn’t look at him, but I also couldn’t walk away from his arms yet. He was in my bed. He’d have to be the one who walked away. But he didn’t. And I had to give him this…this one last night so that maybe he could escape his own thoughts and his own grief before he put back on his uniform and went to Florida with the guilt weighing him down. Guilt he didn’t deserve to wear but shouldered anyway.
I understood that. But I wouldn’t continue to add to the guilt by staying and watching as my reality continued to tear holes in the fabric of his.
♫ ♫ ♫
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to an empty bed just as the sun was barely brushing aside the night. I woke to Mac being gone, and the heaviness that overtook me made the tears come. Tears I hadn’t wanted to shed when he was in my bed but that I couldn’t stop now.
I heard footsteps on the steps and brushed the tears away. When I sat up, it was to see Mac in his Navy whites, approaching. I’d told Ava he was a ten. And I remembered her words about Eli being a twenty, and my disbelief. But I thought I understood her better now. Because loving Mac made him a gazillion in my eyes. And in his uniform, he was an infinite number of stars.
He stood far enough away that we couldn’t touch each other, but close enough for me to see how exhausted he was. How sleep had probably eluded him. He was scouring my face, looking for something.
“You’ve been crying,” he said.
I wiped at my eyes again.
“That at least gives me some hope,” he continued.
I started to talk, and he waved a hand at me. “Wait…God. I’m sorry. I do that all the time. Cut you off. But it’s because I’m always afraid of what you’re going to say. I wanted to tell you that you’re right, we need time.”
Holy hell, did that hurt, and try as I may, I knew it showed, and his eyes glimmered with the possibilities that I didn’t want to give him.
He continued before I could speak again. “I need time to figure out what the fuck happened and find my friends, and you need time to decide how much you’re going to let your family screw with your life.”
This spiked the automatic defense of my family I always felt whether they deserved it or not. “They’re family, Mac. You know what that means.”
He nodded. “I do, but I’m not sure you’ve ever really had it. Maybe with your grandma. But definitely not with the people who have pursued their lives at the cost of yours.”
He swallowed hard, and I knew he was thinking that that statement reflected on him as well. That his pursuing his dreams had cost Darren his life…maybe Nash, too.
“You leaving the Navy didn’t cause this.”
He looked out the window to where the Capitol Building lights were flickering off as the daylight grew.
“It’s debatable. But what isn’t debatable is that I love you. That isn’t going to change tomorrow, or the next day, a year from now, or ten years from now. How many times did Darren get to say it to Tristan before he was gone? Life is so fucking short. Maybe we aren’t perfect, but we fit. Our bodies. Our souls.”
He shook his head and turned back to look at me on the bed, easing closer. “I don’t have my head on straight right now. I don’t have the ability to convince you because of all the other shit going on in here.” He tapped his head. “But this knows the truth.” He tapped his heart.
He closed the remaining distance between us so he could gently rap on my chest. “And this knows the truth. Everything else is the lie, Georgie. Everything else is the senses and the dreams that you can’t believe in. We’re the reality. And when I get back, we’ll figure it out.”
My heart leapt. My heart wanted to believe it. I just couldn’t see the end zone from the fifty-yard line. I wasn’t even sure it existed.
“I wish you were staying here with Dani. She needs someone.”
More guilt washed over me. But I would keep in touch. I wasn’t abandoning her completely. I just needed to remove my FBI or CIA or NSA tail out of their immediate world.
“I’ll look in on her. I promise,” I told him.
He went to the steps, and I couldn’t help calling after him.
“Mac?”
He nodded at me.
“Be safe.”
He nodded again and said, “Damn, you make it hard to walk away.”
But then he did.
/>
The heart that had been slowly splitting apart in my chest finally cracked open all the way, the pieces burning my insides. But I knew I’d survive it. Like I’d survived every other hurt that had come my way. I’d known ahead of time that I would have a scar left when everything with Mac ended. The white streak always reminded me of the losses of my childhood, and even though I didn’t have a visible mark from this, I’d always be able to feel the wound in my heart that was from Mac.
♫ ♫ ♫
I moved into the apartment above Theresa’s garage and threw myself into school and the research I was doing for her. It seemed almost impossible that it had only been weeks since I’d begun work on her immigration case when it felt like years had passed. I tried not to think about Mac. I tried not to think about his words about my family, because it came too close to the anger that I’d already been feeling toward them ever since I’d met Mac. Ever since I’d truly wanted something that they were preventing me from having.
The first day he’d left, Mac had texted me a few times on both my old phone and the burner phone, as if he wasn’t sure which I’d respond to. At first, it was just to let me know he’d arrived, but shortly after that, a text had come in with a picture of Nash. A Nash with stitches above his dark brows and sorrow on his face, but a Nash who was alive. I would never know what happened on the mission or how he’d gotten out, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Mac wouldn’t feel the heavy burden of losing both his friends.
I’d picked up the phone and called him, unable to not share in this moment with him.
“I’m so happy he’s with you,” I’d croaked.
“He’s messed up. Emotionally, physically. We lost Darren and two others, and he’s dealing with more guilt than I am for surviving it. I’m not sure we’re good for each other right now, but at the same time, we are—if that makes any sense,” he’d said quietly.
