"Give me a break, Ian. We didn't have intercourse, but we had sex. Let's not weigh this argument down with semantics. We have enough shit to fight about without word choice being one of them."
"Well, in this case, word choice matters because we did NOT have sex!" he says firmly.
"Fine, I'll ask it this way. If you didn't have feelings for me, why have we … gotten intimate … on three separate occasions? The last one being a week ago."
"I was horny," he answers, daring me to contradict him.
"Right, horny. Yeah, that's why you wouldn't let me touch you the first two times and you tried to push me off the third time too. You're a real horn dog." I say.
"Dammit, Kelli. I don't have to justify myself to you."
"Yes you do!" I'm shouting now. "I love you Ian, and maybe you don't love me back, but you do have feelings for me and I'm not going to let you shut this down out of fear."
"I'm not afraid! What the hell do you think I'm afraid of?" he asks, exasperated.
"Of allowing yourself to love me! Of admitting you deserve my love. Of forgiving yourself for what you did in Iraq! Shall I go on? I'm sure I can think of a few more."
My words freeze him, and his anger disappears. He sits down heavily on his couch, putting his head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. I follow him to the couch and kneel in front of him, putting my hands on his thighs.
"Let me love you, Ian. Please. You've suffered enough," I say.
He looks at me then and the sadness I see has become achingly familiar. It brings a tear to my eye and I put my hands on his cheeks and lean in for a gentle kiss. When we part, he falls back on the couch, looking dull and defeated. I move to straddle him, placing my hands on his chest. And like the last time we were in this position, there's no sexual tension. I just want to be close to him while looking into his eyes.
He's not ready to talk, so I sit quietly, petting his cheek, running my hand through his hair; gentle caresses that I hope help him feel my love for him. After a moment he catches my hands in his.
"Stop," he says softly.
I do, and although it is getting harder by the second, I remain silent as well. After another few minutes, he finally speaks.
Avoiding my eyes, he says, "I don't deserve to be loved by you, Kelli. I'm not worthy of your touch, of the joy your laughter brings me. Of the pleasure of being in your arms. I destroyed three lives. Not one, not two - three! One of which was just beginning. How can I forgive myself for that?"
I shake my head, "I don't know, I just know you need to. You can't live like this forever. What does Dr. Wyatt say?" I ask. I may not know how to get Ian to forgive himself, but certainly someone in the medical field should have a few good suggestions.
"He says that I was suffering from PTSD, that it wasn't my fault, that I need to move forward with my life." He says this all with a hint of anger in his voice.
"And you think all of that is bullshit," I conclude for him.
He looks at me and quirks an eyebrow. "Kinda hard not to. I pulled the trigger, it was my dick ... Kinda hard to figure out how that isn't my fault."
"And the fact that you were suffering from a well-known, well-documented disorder doesn't lessen your guilt in your mind at all? Or that you don't remember how you came to be there? Because I have to say, Ian, it changes how I think about it."
He shakes his head but says nothing.
"Alright, let me ask you this: if this was one of your buddies," I get off him and walk to one of the pictures with him and his unit. I retake my position on his lap, "If it was him, would you blame him?"
He takes the picture from my hand. "That's Tommy. He was from North Carolina. The youngest of eight." He shakes his head, smiling. "He had six sisters and I'd always joke that I'd make my way through all of them. He fucking hated that." He pauses again for a moment. "He was shot on patrol one night. In the stomach. It was a fucking bloody mess. I called for the medic, but he died before anyone arrived. In my arms. He died in my arms." He stops again, a tear slipping down his cheek as he looks at the photo. "Lying there, he begged me, he fucking begged me to marry one of his sisters. He said he couldn't think of a finer man to have looking out for them." Ian shakes his head, reliving the moment. I pull the picture out of his hands and hug him, forcing his head into my neck.
He's quite for a moment, allowing me to comfort him. Then he pulls back and continues, "That was before I did what I did. If he had known what I did, he would never have asked me to marry his sister. He would have told me to keep the fuck away. He probably would have beaten me to a fucking pulp."
I want so badly to contradict him, to say I think for sure Tommy would have understood, but I know he won't believe me and I want to save my credibility for things I knew to be true. Like how I love him. Because seeing this side of him, this broken, scarred Ian he doesn't show the world, has deepened my devotion.
After a few moments, he says, "See, I told you I was fucked up."
I want to laugh. Instead, I say, "Make no mistake, Ian, I know you are fucked up!" I say it emphatically, with a hint of humor and am gratified when he chuckles. I smile at him and continue, "But none of us are perfect. At least your flaws are obvious. Me, I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me, but clearly something is. I'm 32 years old, single, and up and moved across the country on a whim. Certainly I'm not a paragon of perfection."
He looks at me then, capturing my hands with his and bringing them to his lips. It is the most tender thing he's ever done to me and I lose my breath for a moment.
"I think you're perfect," he says quietly. "I think you are the most remarkable woman I've ever met. You're beautiful and brave. Your intelligent and kind. You regularly put the needs of others ahead of your own and I think that's what you are doing with me, Kelli. You think you should fix me."
I start to interrupt, but he puts two fingers across my lips and continues, "Not in a judgmental way, but you do want to ‘fix' me Kelli. You want me to forgive myself, to love again, to live a ‘normal' life. But I don't want that. I don't want to be fixed."
His words bring tears to my eyes. "Not even for me? You won't try to heal, for me?" I have never loved a man like I love Ian, and I want him to try so badly. I want him to try and love me. The fact that he won't hurts so much. It brings out all my insecurities, all my fears that I'm not worthy of love.
He shakes his head, "I'm sorry, Baby. I can't. I just can't."
I hide my face in my hands, as if their cover can hide my sobbing from him. I need this man to love me. He's the one I'm supposed to be with, I know it. He's a part of my soul. But he wants to stay broken. He wants to wallow in his pain, and guilt, and self loathing. I don't mean enough to him. If I did, he'd want to try and get better. He'd give up those negative emotions to embrace the love and happiness I can give him.
Fucking stop it, Kelli! He's rejected you. Get the hell out of his place.
I pull back suddenly and swipe my palms across my cheeks. My hands on his chest, I push off his lap and walk to the door.
I stop, intending to say goodbye, but the words won't come. Instead, I open the door and walk out. No backward look. I don't even shut the door.
And he lets me go.
******
I spend the rest of the morning in tears. I can't help but marvel at how much more this hurts than before. I thought his initial rejection hurt - but that was when I just thought he didn't really love me. Now I believe he does love me, just not enough. Why that should hurt more, I'm not sure. Maybe because at this point I am so utterly in love with him that I know I'd lay down my life for him. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for him.
And those feelings are unrequited. He loves me, but he won't do battle with his demons to be with me. My head understands what I'm asking. My head knows how hard, how terrifying that would be for him, and it sympathizes. It says I should be patient with him. We've only known each other a couple months. Give him some time. Maybe he'll come around.
But my heart can only feel the pain, the rejection. I'm inadequate.
I know I can't see him again today and so I send him a text:
Not going to make it in today. I'll be in tomorrow at 6pm.
He responds immediately:
K
K? K!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? He just decimated me and he writes, K? What a fucking asshole! Fine. Fuck him. I'm not going to sit around and mope. No way. There's a whole world out there. I live in fucking Los Angeles!
I jump up, ready to take on the world. I'll go … I'll go … where? I have no idea what to do. I stand in the middle of my tiny apartment and cast about for a way to keep this anger in my belly. It feels so much better to be angry than sad. But as I look around, depression swamps me.