by Laura Kaye
Huh? She frowned as she replayed his words. “You’ve lost me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I have.” He stacked his soup cups inside one another, gathered the remains of his lunch into his hands, and carried it all over to the trash and sink. After a moment, he turned around and braced his hands on the counter on either side of his hips. “I’m sorry that I didn’t respond. And that I made you worry. And that you had to come over here to…all this.”
Kristina stood and leaned against the breakfast bar opposite Noah. “I’m only sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“I’m not,” he said.
“Are you trying to push me away?” she blurted. She couldn’t believe she’d just asked that, but this cold, distant, unfeeling routine was crawling under her skin and making her crazy.
He cocked his head and stared at her, and then he nodded. “Maybe.”
With that one word, it was like he reached inside her chest and squeezed his hand around her heart. For a few seconds after he spoke, she found it hard to draw in a breath.
“Wow,” she finally said, finding it nearly inconceivable that they’d come to this…this emptiness. How had the best sex of her life broken them into so many pieces? “I’m going to leave now.” She nailed him with a stare. “Not because you’ve succeeded in pushing me away, but because I think it’s best to give you the space you so obviously want before you do.”
Kristina went to leave, and then she quickly turned back, stepped up to him, and pecked a kiss against his cheek. Everything inside of her wanted to linger there against him, breathing him in and holding him tight. She wanted that so much that pulling away was almost painful.
But she made herself walk away. She collected her purse and stepped to the door, conflicted words and thoughts tumbling through her mind. “I’m here for you, Noah. All you have to do is ask.”
She didn’t wait for him to reply.
Chapter Fifteen
Noah hadn’t slept a fucking wink all night long. He supposed that was only fair since he’d slept most of the three days before. Lying in bed, he stared at the white walls, watching how the early morning sun moved streams of light across the floor, the walls, the bedding that covered his legs.
He was so numb that he could almost convince himself that he wasn’t actually present in the world. Like he’d been in a state of such excruciating pain and mind-boiling rage that he’d totally flamed out.
That was fair, too, given what he’d done to Kristina.
Taking the amazingly intimate gifts she’d offered him without offering a word of kindness or gratitude in return. Stealing away in the dark of night like a thief—or a coward. Definitely a coward. Avoiding her, after all they’d shared. And coming at her with all kinds of attitude when she’d interrupted her day to make sure he was okay.
For God’s sake, she cleaned up his fucking vomit.
And, Jesus, on top of everything else, he’d actually admitted to trying to push her away.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her expression as devastated as it’d been after those words spilled from his lips. Sure, she’d schooled her reaction pretty damn fast, but after nearly twenty years as her best friend, even when she didn’t want him to know what was going on in that pretty head, he could read her like an open book.
It was just that, he was devastated, too. Devastated to realize how much he wanted someone that he had no damn right to want—not when he didn’t have the ability to take care of her the way she deserved.
Hell, as much as he’d hated her seeing him yesterday—covered in sweat and filth and blood—part of him was almost glad she’d come. Because watching her clean up his puke and the debris of his rage and worry over him like a little mother hen, her face all pinched with concern, drove home his fucking beliefs in spades.
He was no good right now. And that certainly included being no good for Kristina Moore.
It didn’t matter that he wanted her, cared for her…maybe even loved her.
Maybe? Really, Cortez? Now you’re lying to yourself, too?
Fuck.
Problem was, how he felt didn’t really even matter. Because Noah wanted everything for Kristina. And his definition of everything didn’t include playing nursemaid to him. He might be partially disabled and old before his time, but he had absolutely no intention of putting her in that same position. She was twenty-five—her life and career just blooming. Full of possibilities and optimism. And he was none of those things.
He was nothing.
On a frustrated growl, Noah threw off the covers and pulled his sorry ass out of bed. He made a stop in the bathroom, where he was relieved not to be able to see his reflection despite the disaster that made that possible. He put on some coffee and choked down a bowl of dry cereal, not sure his stomach could handle anything more. The only decent thing about this day so far was that the vertigo seemed to have gone away. Thank fuck for small favors.
When he was done eating, he grabbed his cell off the charger. He’d finally found it yesterday afternoon underneath the edge of his bed, and it’d rebooted to reveal fifteen missed texts—mostly from Kristina, but also two from Josh and one from his dad—the latter revealing that Kristina had contacted his parents after she’d left here yesterday.
Kristina said you’ve been sick. Need anything? Give us a call, his dad had written. And though Noah was a little irritated that Kristina had brought his parents into it, he also respected the hell out of her for doing it—after the way he’d treated her, no one would’ve blamed her for forgetting all about him the moment she’d walked out the door.
Noah also had two voicemail messages, one from Kristina and one from the Art Factory reminding him that the mask class started this morning.
Fucking hell.
He was nowhere near being in the mood. Someone asked him to decorate a mask right now and he was liable to smash it to pieces with a goddamned hammer and call it a masterpiece. It sure as fuck would represent how he was feeling, so there was that.
Noah tossed his cell to the breakfast bar and leaned back against the wall. He scrubbed his hands over his face, wondering what the hell to do with himself.
You need some way to let this out, Noah.
The memory of his dad’s voice encouraging him to take the art class. To take as many art classes as it took. At the time, Noah had almost been relieved at the idea that maybe something from that course catalog could help release the pressure inside him, even if only a little bit.
Buzz.
Noah glanced down at the cell phone’s screen. Enjoy the class, son. Hope you’re feeling better. Give me a call after.
If Noah had it in him to chuckle, he might’ve just then. Okay, universe. I hear you. Guilt souring the cereal and coffee in his gut, he shot off a quick reply to his father: Feeling better. Thanks.
What the hell. Maybe he’d go after all. He could always leave early if it wasn’t working for him. And it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. And in a twisted way, he felt like he owed it to Kristina.
So, fine. Maybe, just maybe, the class would allow him to get his head screwed back on right enough to have a rational conversation with Kristina. And tell her why what happened between them could never happen again.
The Art Factory was located on the waterfront in Old Town Alexandria, right along the promenade where the previous week Noah and Kristina had walked eating their ice creams. It was a big cement-and-glass structure, and had actually been a munitions factory during the world wars.
As Noah walked in the front doors, he spied a glass case filled with historical photographs, including one with a group of men posing with a large torpedo painted with stars and stripes. The caption read, “The final torpedo made at the Naval Torpedo Station, Alexandria, 1945.”
He chuffed out a laugh, because there was a certain poetry in a former Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician coming to a former torpedo factory to try to recover from all the damage that repeated blast waves had done to his brain.
The long hallways were glass-filled, allowing him to see into the many classrooms and studios that filled the big building. He found his classroom nearly all the way at the end of one of them.
He hovered outside the door for a long moment, and then he found his balls and walked into the damn room.
Noah had come about three minutes before the class was scheduled to begin, and the room was more full than he’d expected. Fifteen people sat on stools at high tables around the room, and two men in wheelchairs sat at a low table in the front. Only three seats remained open, and they were all at tables where other people already sat.
Noah joined a big Mack truck of a guy with a bald head, shirt-straining biceps, and a thick neck at one of the tables toward the back, because if that guy was okay being here, then Noah should have nothing to say.
The man turned to him and extended his dark brown hand. “Moses Griffin. Everyone calls me Mo. I was First Ranger Battalion, mostly in Afghanistan, but a little bit of everywhere else, too.”
Noah returned the shake. “Noah Cortez. I was in the Corps, Second Combat Engineer Battalion.”
Mo nodded and smiled, and it was one of those grins that was so full of good humor that you couldn’t help but smile in return. “First timer?” he asked.
“That obvious?” Noah asked, glancing around the room. The students were about half men and half women—young and old, white, black, Hispanic, and Asian, including several people with prosthetic limbs.
“Yeah, you got that newbie what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here expression on your face.” Mo winked. “It’s all good, though. Jarvis is a kick-ass instructor and all around good human. He’ll ease you into it.”
Turned out Mo was right. Jack Jarvis was a former Navy clinical psychologist who now had a private practice and a prominent reputation in the field of art therapy for veterans. He was tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair and an easy, no-nonsense demeanor matched by the jeans and white button-down shirt he wore.
Everything the man said about his goals for the class resonated with Noah and alleviated his concerns that this experience was going to involve anything akin to sitting in a circle weaving flower chains while sharing their feelings. In fact, Jarvis made it clear that no one was expected to speak about anything beyond artistic procedures and techniques if they didn’t want to.
Which had Noah sitting more comfortably on his stool.
There was one other exception about the speaking bit—Jarvis had them go around the room and introduce themselves to whatever extent they were comfortable. And hearing about the military backgrounds of the others in the room eased even more of Noah’s discomfort. There were officers and enlisted. Vets from all of the services. Even a couple of other guys from the Corps. After seven months of being out of the military, it was a relief to be around others who’d had the same experience, who knew what it meant, who knew what sacrifices it required.
“Okay,” Jarvis said when they all finished. “There are four parts to this workshop. Today, you’ll write down a list of words that describe how you feel, in general and about yourself. You might also write down how you feel about your service, your injuries, and your discharge. There are no wrong answers here and you don’t have to share the list if you don’t want to. But this will give you a jumping off point for figuring out how to use the mask to represent those feelings.” He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled both of them up his forearms. “You’ll make the basic form of your mask using plastic facial molds—” He held up a smooth white oval generically shaped like a face. “—and molding clay. Once that’s done, you’ll create the actual mask out of papier-mache formed over the mold you make. The papier-mache will need to dry, so that’s where we’ll stop for today.”
Jarvis walked down the side of the classroom and handed out enough paper, pencils, boxes of clay, and plastic forms for the people in each row. Noah found himself staring into that totally blank facial mold and wondering what the hell he was going to make.
“Start with the list of words,” Jarvis said as he finished handing out the materials. “Then Mo and I will come around and help you get started.”
Noah’s gaze cut to the big man beside him.
The guy winked and gestured to himself. “Repeat offender.”
“You’ve taken this class before?” Noah asked, surprised.
“Fifth time in as many years,” Mo said, his expression almost serene. “These masks make a great benchmark for how the shit in my head is progressing. Know what I mean?”
Noah nodded because, even though he couldn’t relate to the idea of progress—not at all, the very fact that Mo felt that he was making progress and could see an actual, tangible representation of it in these masks all of a sudden had Noah looking at the facial form in a whole new way.
After a moment of hesitation, he pulled the paper and pencil in front of himself. Noah felt ridiculously exposed even contemplating putting this particular list to paper, despite the fact that no one would see it if he didn’t want them to. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied others already getting to work, so he picked up his pencil and wrote the first thing that came to mind.
Nothing
It soured his gut to see that word in black and white, but it definitely was at the very top of the list of how he felt about himself. He thought about the other things on which Jarvis had asked them to reflect, and jotted down a few more words:
Proud (of service)
Embarrassed (by weakness)
Noah tapped his pencil against his bottom lip, then continued writing.
In pain
Partial
Off center
Broken
Wrecked
His pencil moved faster and faster until it was almost an exercise in stream of consciousness.
Blind
Deaf
Muted
Fake
Uncertain
Adrift
Sad
His heart was beating harder now, and tension was settling into his shoulders, his arms, his fingers where they gripped the pencil.
FUCKING ANGRY
Noah underlined those two words so hard he broke the point off his pencil. He dropped his head into his hand and sighed.
“Here, use mine. I’m done,” Mo said.
“Thanks,” Noah managed, pressure building inside his chest.
Re-reading the list, Noah had prickles running over his scalp and an uncomfortable, hollow ache ballooning behind his sternum. Because, holy fucking shit, he’d just admitted more in the two minutes it’d taken him to write that list than he had to any doctor—any person, period—since the IED explosion that had caused his injuries almost a year ago.
Noah pressed a hand against his chest and heaved a deep breath. Christ, he was going to have a panic attack. Right here in front of all these people.
Mo slid out of his chair, stepped behind Noah, and gave him a single, solid squeeze on the back of the neck. Without a word or even a look, the big guy headed to the front of the room to help one of the students who was getting started with her clay.
And that single touch was filled with so much fundamental understanding that it pulled Noah back from the edge.
In that moment, despite the crush of bullshit in his head, Noah tossed aside his ignorance about the potential usefulness of an outlet like art and opened up to the possibility that this process—and these people—might actually help him start to get better.
At least, it had to be better than the nothing he’d been doing.
Jarvis interrupted them to explain the basics of using the molding clay, showing a short video tutorial on the screen at the front of the room to demonstrate the process. Afterward, Noah dumped the soft, colorful rectangular blocks out onto the table. The colors didn’t matter, since this was just the base on which the actual papier-mache mask would be made, but Noah still found himself gravitating to the red and blue clays nonetheless.
He squeezed the cool material in his hands, making it go pliable, as h
is gaze skimmed over his list of words again. Broken, wrecked, blind, deaf, and muted jumped out at him, and ideas started coming to mind.
The room was mostly quiet as everyone got to work. Noah pressed the clay thin and began to lay it out flat all around the face. Whatever he did was going to reflect his reduced hearing and sight on his left side, which made him realize he needed to shape a little clay on the right side—and only on the right side—for an ear.
Hmm. He wasn’t entirely sure how to do that. And that wasn’t the only place where he wasn’t sure how to get the clay to do what he wanted it to do. Because he felt like the side of the skull on the left side also needed to be misshapen or cracked or maybe in pieces. Somehow.
Which made him realize he needed to ask for help. It was suddenly very important that he get this right, that he use it to reveal his truth. Because maybe he could start finding himself again if he could just stop running from the wreckage in his head.
Noah had been working at the clay for a few minutes when Jarvis stopped at his table. “Jack Jarvis,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Noah Cortez,” Noah said, returning the shake. “So, I have a couple questions about how to do some things.”
Jarvis stepped around the table to his side. “Shoot.”
It took everything Noah had to resist the urge to flip his list face-down. “Okay, well. I want to create an ear on this side, and I’m not sure how to do that. And, uh, I think I want the skull up here by the temple and forehead to be cracked or broken.” He spoke quietly and swallowed around a lump in his throat, working hard to ignore the embarrassment spreading heat across his face as he spoke. “And I was thinking that I only want the lips to be raised on one half of the mouth. Can we, uh…” He shrugged as an uncomfortable idea came to mind, but then he thought, To hell with it, and gave it a voice. “Can we maybe decorate the finished mask with something like duct tape? Because I’m seeing something like that on the one side.”
