The mind's ability to self-heal wasn't a boon, it was a nightmare. If I could still call up the exact, piercing, debilitating pain that I'd felt when I lost Will, I wouldn't have ever allowed myself to fall for Gray. I'd have protected myself. Maybe I could've had sex with him, or maybe I would've just stayed away because then I wouldn't be reduced to this cold, trembling, little girl thing on the floor of my condo. I wondered at my endless capacity to generate tears. Was salty water all that I was made of?
My face throbbed where Drake had hit me, but that blow was nothing compared to the knife in my gut. How could I not have foreseen the danger Gray presented? Why hadn't I done a better job of protecting myself? I curled up in fetal position and cried until I didn't have anything left in me.
I'd never felt so betrayed and misused in my entire life. If this was love, I was better off a widow for the rest of my life.
I don’t know how much time passed. Maybe it was thirty minutes but it felt like hours. A pounding at the door startled me. Standing up, I looked out the peephole, afraid that Drake was back but the person on the other side was almost worse.
“I don’t want to talk to you or see you ever again.” I leaned my back against the door and started crying again. I’d told him I loved him. I said I’d move to Japan for him and he had to test me?
“Baby, forgive me.” I heard him say and whatever hope I’d had that Drake had made it all up burnt to a crisp under the flame of his apology. If Gray was sorry then Drake hadn’t been lying.
“Why?” I asked. My hands were trembling, and I was shaking all over. “How’d you ever get the idea that I would cheat on you? That I needed to be tested? Why’d you bring that awful person into my life?”
“I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking right. I’m so, so sorry.” He jiggled the doorknob. “Let me in,” he pleaded.
“No, you knew exactly what you were thinking. This was cold and calculated. I'm a person. Not a thing. You don't test me. You either trust me or you don't.”
“I trust you, baby. I swear it.” A thudding against the door had me moving away. It was like he was…running and jumping against it.
“Stop it.” I pounded on the door right back and the thudding stopped. “You take your tests and get the hell out of here. I never want to see you again.”
“You don't mean it.” He sounded anguished but it didn’t touch me.
“I do. I'm done with you. I'm done with military men. You aren’t good enough for me!” I cried, and then I left the door and ran upstairs to my bedroom. I heard him plead and knock on the door, but I buried my head under my pillows and curled into a tiny ball. I searched out that place I’d discovered back when Will died. That open cavernous place where I’d spent so many nights after Will’s death, and I enfolded myself in the cold loneliness that I thought I'd left behind.
Gray was a bump in the road. I'd get over him, and I'd never fall in love again. There was no room for that anymore. My heart couldn't take it. I wrapped it up, surrounded it in concrete blankets. Safe, secure, and…dead.
From a distance I heard him call my name. And I thought I saw him. I ran toward him but he kept moving farther and farther away and I was so so tired. I'd forget him in time. That's what I’d spent the last two years learning. How to forget.
I closed my eyes. The voice that called my name was distant and indiscriminate and finally the thudding stopped.
It was done.
Deep down in somnolence I found peace. And I never wanted to wake up again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Gray
THE DRIVE BACK FROM SAM'S condo was a blur. I could have hit five cars and four pedestrians and I wouldn't have realized it. I was just that numb. A few careless words had laid waste to my life. For a moment there, I'd had everything. A gorgeous girl who was loyal and loved me and was willing to see through my decision to stay in the Marines. She was experienced and knew what deployment felt like. She was self-sufficient and had her own hobbies and plans. She wasn't reliant on me to make her entire life, even though I was beginning to realize that I wanted her to be my sole focus. But because I had a moment of insanity, I'd ruined it. Give her time, I thought. I just needed to give her a few hours to cry it out. Then we’d talk and I’d make her see that I was over that moment of indecision.
I pulled in blindly to the driveway and into the car pads. The rain was making it hard to see. I switched on the wipers but the wet spots remained and I realized it wasn't rain but that I was crying. I swiped the back of my hands against my cheeks and they came away wet. The driver's door opened and I looked to see Noah and Bo looking down at me with concern.