by Evans, LJ
“It does.”
“I miss you,” he’d said.
And I had missed him too, more than anyone I’d ever missed in my life, and he’d only been gone less than a day. I missed him maybe even more than my grandma. But just like time had eased the pain in my heart over her, I knew time would help us, too.
“I have to go,” I’d told him, and I’d imagined the sadness in his eyes at my words. “I just wanted you to know that I was so very glad that you got one of your friends back.”
“Georgie―”
“Don’t. Really. I need to go. Be safe, Mac-Macauley.” And I’d hung up before he could have said anything else. Before I could have said words that I would have regretted saying.
As time moved further away from the traumatic three days that we’d had, I felt some knots in my back and my stomach start to ease. I felt like maybe life could move forward.
I met up with Dani several times for dinner. Never at the apartment. Always at a different restaurant than the time before.
The storm of her terrible night with Fenway passed after he left office in a cloud of shame, and the next hot political topic had come up with some dirtbag in South Carolina who’d tried to fire a man when he found out he was trans. The LGBTQIA folks were circling new wagons.
“I’m glad things have settled down for you. It continues to appall me what goes on in our world,” I told her.
Dani laughed over her whiskey. “Georgie-Girl, I’ve been around Washington way too long to be surprised much anymore. It’s why I want out.”
“What? You?”
Dani nodded. “Yep. I want to go work for some normal business tycoon. Or maybe a regular old celebrity. Someone with no ties to D.C.”
“But what about Mac? He’ll be out of the Navy eventually and want to run for office.”
“He won’t,” she said with a surety that surprised me. She laughed at the look on my face. “My brother has always felt like it was his personal responsibility to not only keep the entire world safe but also make it better than it was yesterday. He’s just realized he can do that in a different way than he expected.”
“You think he’s given up his dream for good, then?” I asked. Dani nodded. This made me hurt for him in a new way, even though I’d sensed it in him from the moment he’d told me about Darren and put his uniform back on. After a moment, I said, “I know how hard that can be. There was a time when I didn’t think I could ever get back my dreams of the law.”
Dani took me in for a moment and then asked, “Truth?”
“Always,” I told her.
“I’m glad Mac gave it up. Everyone here skitters like toddlers determined to get the most candy out of a piñata. It would have made Mac into something he isn’t. It would have eaten at his soul to compromise on things that he values most, and he wouldn’t have been able to survive in Washington without doing that.”
I sat quietly, trying to digest her words. A small piece of me knew she was right. The Mac I’d fallen in love with wouldn’t have been able to sustain the hits that would come from those kinds of negotiations. Negotiations that would have made him feel dishonorable.
Dani twirled her drink.
“Have you talked to him?” she asked.
I had a feeling she already knew the answer to that. “We’ve texted. And I talked to him when he told me about Nash.”
“God, that was such a…relief. To know Nash was…” Dani choked and looked away. I hadn’t realized how close she was to the squad, but the relief in her voice spoke volumes. “The guilt of it is eating at both of them. And I think Mac needs someone to keep pulling him back from the edge.”
I looked down at my food, the chicken twirling unhappily in my stomach because I was pretty sure that person couldn’t be me. My ledge had completely fallen out from beneath me and taken them along for the ride. Mac needed to climb up on stable ground that wouldn’t continue to shift out from under him.
Dani reached across and put her hand over mine. “You’re both good at tormenting yourselves. Mac wants you to be that person. I hope you can be it for him.”
“Dani… None of you need my shit in your lives right now.”
“You make him happier than I’ve ever seen before. He gets all goopy and smiley. That’s never been him. I’m pretty sure he’s in love with you.”
I couldn’t look at her. If he hadn’t told her his feelings, I wouldn’t be the one to do so.
“Look. So, you’re the daughter of a Ponzi-schemer. So, your stepdad is some Russian businessman on all the agencies’ watch lists. So, your brother was dealing drugs. You act like those things are a reflection of you, when they aren’t. Sure, you have to deal with it, just like I had to deal with being on the losing end of a battle with an aggressive asshole.”
“I don’t think you lost that war.” I smiled weakly at her.
“You don’t have to, either. You don’t have to let their choices make you live a half-life.”
And that hit home more than anything Mac had ever said to me about my family. He’d hinted at it the day he left, but his words had just upset me, because it made me feel like I was having to let go of my family in order to have him. Dani could have let being a victim cause her to scurry away and hide. It would have been okay if she had. There were plenty of victims who needed that to heal. But it would have made Dani something she wasn’t, and that would have allowed him to victimize her one more time.
I wasn’t a victim, but maybe I was letting my family make me act like one. Maybe I was blaming them for things when, really, I was just afraid. Afraid of loving and losing. Afraid of having a life that might someday get ripped out from underneath me like had happened to me before.
♫ ♫ ♫
“So, you’re going to see Mac again?” Theresa asked.
I looked away, uncomfortable with the entire idea. Mac had been gone over a month.
The ache in my heart that I thought would ease the longer he was gone had just continued to sit in my chest, worming into my veins so that there were days that I felt like my entire body was on fire from it. I missed him. I missed his blue eyes, and his laughter, and his self-deprecation. I missed how he made me feel like the most exotic being on the planet. I missed feeling like my life was a dream that had turned into reality.
“I’m not sure it will change anything,” I told her as we sat in her home library, drinking wine the day before I was scheduled to fly out to Texas. She’d gone to bat for me with my other professors so I could spend the extra days with Ava before the wedding. It meant a lot of work ahead of time and catch-up work when I got back, but it would be worth it.
“You still feel guilty. Like your dark shadows would overtake his light,” Theresa commented as she watched me.
“Yes.”
“You know, you can’t live in D.C. without being investigated and wire-tapped, especially if you make any sort of waves in the existing status quo. My bet is you aren’t even close to being the biggest reason Mac and his family would have multiple agencies interested in them. Vice Admiral Whittaker has a penchant for ruffling feathers inside the DoD and out. Robert Whittaker and his boss, Senator Matherton, make enemies as often as happy hour serves chips and salsa.”
“But I don’t want them to use my family as additional fuel.”
“Like they’re colluding with Petya Leskov?” she chuckled. “Matherton is putting together a gun bill that’s about to outlaw assault rifles. I don’t think that is exactly what Petya would want. Seems like it makes them enemies.”
I still didn’t say anything, because she wasn’t necessarily wrong, and I had slowly been getting used to the idea that maybe I’d just been using my family as an excuse—a shield of sorts.
“Look. D.C. families are always complicated. There are black sheep and white sheep and downright dirty sheep. Don’t let families dissuade you from being with someone who loves you. Love… It doesn’t come often. It can’t be found on every street corner. Sometimes, it onl
y comes once in your life.” Sadness crossed Theresa’s face.
I’d wondered, many times, why Theresa—a successful, smart, caring woman—was alone. Why she didn’t have a partner by her side. “Is that what happened to you?” I asked. “You let your family keep you from the person you loved?” Then I flushed, aware that my question was way too personal. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
Theresa took me in over her wine glass. “Her family was in politics at a time when being lesbian wasn’t cool or a catch phrase. She couldn’t handle the heat. Got married to an Ivy League businessman and had three children with him.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She waved her hand as if I was missing the point. “All I’m saying is, if I had the choice to love someone with all my heart or walk because of some family issues, I’d always choose love.”
She closed the book she had opened, wished me goodnight, and left the room. I made my way to the apartment above the garage. Even though I had my own kitchen, Theresa and I often ate together. I hadn’t known she was lesbian. I wondered if people who knew thought we were a couple because I was riding to the campus with her most days. I didn’t care. In fact, I would have been honored to be Theresa’s partner.
Just like I would have been honored to be Mac’s. To be the person to show up at a reception with him, our fingers entwined, our bodies in sync. I could see that life. But what if the love in his eyes turned to disillusionment, and then disappointment, and then dislike because he was constantly being brought down because of me and my family.
And the greatest what-if… What if I lost him?
I picked up the music box my dad had given to me. The one the cops had taken away and then returned to me without the thumbnail drive that had incriminated him. The black and white swans had their heads twined together. Swans mated for life. Mourned the loss of their soul mate for life. Black and white. Pieces that looked like they didn’t belong together but did.
There had been so many what-ifs in my life. I’d never thought I was the kind of person to care about them. I hadn’t dwelled overly on the ones that had defined my life up until this point. What if Dad hadn’t been arrested? What if Mom hadn’t lived in Russia? What if Grandma hadn’t signed a new lease when I was eighteen? What if she hadn’t died?
I’d always seen those what-ifs as a path down a one-way street to hating life.
But ever since meeting Mac, I’d done just that. Let all the what-ifs define my actions. I’d used my fear of ruining his life to hide the truth. I was afraid he’d look at me like others had in the past, with judgment and condescension, as they walked away. Yet, even when I’d taken the drugs and been “arrested,” he hadn’t.
Instead, he’d said he loved me.
He’d said he wanted to work things out.
It was me who had walked―no, run―in the other direction.
I’d lost my parents at six. Like Mac had said, it wasn’t in the normal way you can lose people, to death or divorce. I’d lost the ability to grow up with either of them. And I’d lost my grandmother at twenty-two. I’d lost a lot of people in my life. But this… This was me using my family to shield me from the potential loss of Mac.
But what if, instead of loss, I only gained? What if I gave in to everything I felt, and in doing so, I gained not only Mac and his love, but I gained a family? Gained people who would surround me with love and acceptance as they had since our very first meeting. What if I gained a future I’d never seen for myself?
Reality or a dream.
Could it be both? Reality that was a dream?
Mac
BRUISES
“Counting days, counting days
Since my love up and got lost on me.”
“I've been holding on to hope
That you'll come back when you can find some peace.”
Performed and written by Lewis Capaldi
I sat at a bar in Florida with Nash. We both had beers in front of us, but mine was hardly touched while he was on his second. I was leaving the next day for Rockport. For Eli and Ava’s wedding. I should have been filled with happiness. I almost was, except for Nash. I wasn’t sure I should have been leaving him. I wasn’t sure I could.
I’d been there the day he’d climbed out of the plane on the tarmac at SOCOM. Nash had been responsible for getting the team out from under gunfire and to their backup rendezvous spot, carrying what was left of Darren and two other team members’ bodies with them. They’d come straight from Africa to Florida—no stopover in Germany for our covert ops teams—so I’d seen the blood on all of them. I’d witnessed the rough stitches that the medic on the plane had given Nash, the bloodied bandages on two others. The flag-draped bodies. I’d seen the look on Nash’s face. If I was riddled with guilt, Nash was consumed with it. He’d lost not only his team leader but also his best friend. He might as well have lost a body part.
I hadn’t left his side for several days after he’d landed. Not because I was afraid he’d take his own life, but afraid that he’d take someone else’s. Afraid that he’d be the guy with a gun, shooting up the place. He’d been pissed at the fuckers who’d approved the op, and I think, deep inside, he’d been pissed at me, and I shouldered it, because I deserved it.
We’d both be testifying against the assholes in charge of the operation in a few weeks before a Senate committee. There were several careers ending because of this. I had made it my new mission to make it happen. It was too little, too late, but it was all I could do when faced with the reality I didn’t want.
“I gotta get outta here,” Nash said, and he waved his hand at the bartender. When the bill came, I swiped it out of his hands. I wasn’t letting him pay. Never again. If I was there, I was paying. I didn’t know how else to show my sorrow and regret.
We walked out of the bar, and the humidity instantly weighed me down. Florida in October might as well be October in June. At least it felt that way this year. I’d almost forgotten what it was like because it had been awhile since my last stint in Florida, but after this, I could easily say that it was nowhere I wanted to live long-term. I liked weather, but I wanted variety. I wanted snowstorms, and fall leaves, and spring blossoms. The humidity I could always do without, but I’d take it if I knew there would soon be the scent of fall on the wind.
“Let me drive you home,” I said, waving my keys at the rental I’d had for a month.
He didn’t say anything until we got in the car. “Don’t drop me at my place. Take me to Darren’s.”
I grimaced. I wasn’t sure Tristan wanted his drunk ass showing up at nine o’clock at night. But I also knew arguing with him wasn’t going to work. He’d just get out of the car, get in his own, and drive there anyway. He’d somehow convinced himself that it was now his responsibility to look after Tristan and baby Hannah. While I could understand where his feelings were coming from, I also knew Tristan wasn’t going to let him get away with it for long. She had her own grief to deal with; she didn’t need his as well.
Besides, Tristan’s mom was there, helping her until the Navy packed their things and sent them back to Delaware where Tristan would be moving in with her family. Nash would be here, trying to put his squad back together. If it was even possible. If the powers that be would even let them.
My worry for him grew.
“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” I asked.
“To a wedding? Uninvited?” He grimaced at me.
“There would be lots of people there happy to see you.”
“It’s a goddamn celebration, Mac. Do I look like I’m ready to celebrate?” The anger in his voice bounced off the windows it was so strong.
We drove in silence as pain washed over us. Guilt. Anger. Neither of us had gone through all the stages of grief yet. I wasn’t sure I was ready for a celebration, either. But I ached to see people I loved. I ached to show them I loved them before it was too late. I shoved aside the voice that tried to tell me I d
idn’t deserve it. I knew the voice was wrong. I’d been talking with my dad a lot about the weight of the guilt. He’d experienced his own losses in his career—even this one he felt. He was good at reminding me that all of us left behind deserved a life that was full. We just had to learn from the godawful lessons we were dealt along the way.
When I parked in front of the darkened house, Nash got out. I turned off the car, got out, and called his name. He stopped, turning back to me, the moonlight making the hollows of his eyes look even darker than they were these days. I didn’t have words, but I stepped up to him and pulled him into a hug. His body was stiff and tight. Unforgiving. I just held on, and eventually, he hugged me back. Then he pushed me away.
“Get off, man. I know you want me, but geez, don’t you have a girl?” he teased in a tone that was almost his old self. Almost.
But his words hurt almost as much as Darren’s death. I’d had a girl once. A woman. A lady who smelled like cherry blossoms. A woman who fit. But she’d cut and run, and even though I’d still been texting with her off and on over the course of the last month, she was still holding me just out of reach. A glass wall had come down between us that I hadn’t been able to break.
Nash didn’t know this because, crazy as it seemed, we hadn’t talked about Georgie once since I’d been there. We’d been focused on recovering. We’d been focused on funerals and retaliations.
“I did, but I’m pretty sure she left me,” I said with a wry, half-smile.
“Pretty sure? You don’t even know?” He chuckled, and it felt good to be the reason he laughed. It was good to hear it escape his lips when he’d been nothing but sorrow for the month I’d been here. Darren’s funeral had been the worst of it for me, but Nash had had to bury two more members of his squad. He’d had to stand by at every funeral with the people there wishing that their loved one was standing there instead of him. As he wished the same damn thing.
I shrugged.
“Didn’t think you were a quitter, Mac.”
