“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Don’t worry about me, kiddo, you have enough to think about.”
Damian had called and asked to see me. We were in his kitchen and I knew he had come to the same conclusion about us as me because he looked how I felt.
“My dad left when I was five. He walked out and for all intent and purposes never looked back. Mom fell apart. She worshipped him and he left. It was like her whole life had been wrapped up in him and when he was gone, she no longer knew who she was.”
My heart broke. I had known his home life had been bad, but having a dad who walked out and a mom who checked out stirred anger too.
“As the years passed, she lost herself in the bottle and at first she was despondent, but her love gradually turned to hate that spread like a cancer forcing those around her to share in her misery.”
What a hateful, selfish woman. There was a special place in hell for people like her. “Including you.”
“Especially me. For years it felt as if I would drown in her hate, and then 9/11 happened. The worse act of terror in modern times and I found hope. Hope for a life away from her…a life where I could make a difference.”
“The army.”
“Yeah. Then I met you and it was like that life was dropped at my feet. All the beauty in the world right there, within reaching distance.”
“But?”
“I want you, but you were right. Working at a garage isn’t what I want. I need to work on myself first. To be better for you and for me.”
Even wanting this for him, I ached inside. I tried to keep the tears from my voice. “You don’t need to be better for me, you’re already perfect for me, but I agree that you should enlist.”
Surprise flashed across his face as did pain. “You do?”
“I want to be with you, the idea of a time when you won’t be around is too painful to contemplate, but we both need to work on ourselves. And as much as the idea of you enlisting and going off to war terrifies me, it is what you want. We can make it work. Long distance relationships aren’t so long now with technology.”
His face closed off and I realized he wasn’t just leaving. He was leaving me. “I have to ask something of you. As much as it goes against everything I want, please don’t write to me.”
I gasped on a sob. “What?”
He stood and pulled me from the chair, right against his chest. “I love you, Thea, more than is probably healthy. I’ve never loved anyone in my life.”
He loved me. I knew that and yet hearing those words was like feeling the magic of Christmas morning times infinity. “You can never love someone too much.”
“Yeah, you can, but the military isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. Are you going to leave your family and move around with me, or wait by the phone when I’m deployed to hear if I’m coming home? I won’t put that on you.”
“You don’t think I’ll be going through it anyway, whether you want me to or not?”
That sadness was buried behind his eyes again. “I can’t do this if I’m holding on to you, but I can’t let you go, I need you to let me go.” It was the pain in his voice, the obvious struggle he fought that had me agreeing even as my heart broke. “I don’t want this, I want you to know I don’t want this, but I understand why you think you do. So I’ll agree to not write to you, but I’ll be missing you, worrying for you, loving you and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”
He framed my face in his hands and for a good long time he just looked his fill before he whispered, “This isn’t over.” His lips closed over mine for a kiss that was more than a kiss, it was a promise. He took me to his bed and all night and into the morning he loved me, like he was getting in a lifetime’s worth.
He was leaving. Two days later, I stood on the front stoop of my parents’ house and watched as he said goodbye to my family. I bit my lip to hold back the tears that had been threatening, tears that I knew wouldn’t stop once they started. When I thought of him gone, away from me, I couldn’t breathe. I felt panicked, like I was trapped in a funhouse looking for a way out and not finding one. The idea that tomorrow I couldn’t walk to his apartment, I couldn’t call him, I wouldn’t see his face, hear his voice, I wouldn’t get to look into those eyes. I wanted to sob; I wanted to scream at him to stay even knowing he had to go. Four long years until I was out of college, we had four years…so much could happen in that time. It only took less than a year for Damian to change me, totally and completely.