A Thousand Letters(15)

She shook her head, pulling her hands back, taking my heart with her. "I can't believe you're doing this. I expected it from them, but not from you. What I'm asking isn't unreasonable. I'm not saying no, Wade. I'm saying yes. I'm telling you I want you, but you're telling me that it's now or never. It's not fair. None of this is fair," she said, voice raising, trembling. In the moment, I couldn't see how right she was.

"You want to honor them over us." I watched her slip away, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The finality of the situation dawned on me, our future, our dreams fading in the light. "They've done nothing for you but tear you down, and you're not willing to walk away from them. You're not willing to come with me. You're choosing them."

"And you'd rather lose me forever than give me more time?"

I took a breath and squared my shoulders. "I'm asking you to take a leap. To trust me."

"I do trust you, but you're asking too much. Too much," she whispered, eyes shining, heart broken.

"You would choose them over me when all they've done is hurt you. When all I've ever done is love you. And if you really loved me, you'd come with me." I watched her, resigned, defeated. "I don't know what else to say."

Her tears fell in sparkling trails down her cheeks, and I watched, my soul folding in on itself as she reached for her left hand, ring finger, and she twisted, twisting the knife in my heart along with it. The ring slipped off her long finger and she pressed it into my palm.

"Then I guess we say goodbye."

And I was so broken, so hurt, that all I could do was turn around and walk inside, closing the door to my heart behind me.

I'd never opened it again.

I left the next day with everyone sending me off but the one person I needed more than anything, and my anger, my hurt overwhelmed me. At the time, I felt like she'd abandoned me, that she'd broken the promise she'd made. That she'd left me the second she put that ring in my hand. I just didn't realize it was me who had forced her to take it off, not until much later. Not until it was too late.

Boot camp was a blur, and the second it was over, I was whisked away to my new station, my new life. And after a few weeks of training, I was on a plane headed for Iraq.

I had no idea what waited for me there.

In the back of my mind, I think I believed that when I finished my first tour, I'd go home and we'd find a way back to each other. A little bit of time was what we needed.

Stupid and young, that was what I was, so angry and betrayed at first that I couldn't see past the feeling. But when I did, I found regret.

I'd been wrong, so wrong, and I hated myself for giving her an ultimatum, for pushing her away. I'd lost her because of my fear. I could have had it all, if I'd only been more brave. If I'd only given her what she'd asked for.

A few weeks into my tour, I found myself in a convoy headed out for supplies with my buddy Perez sitting next to me, smiling and joking as he always did, making light — a useful skill where we found ourselves, when nothing was light or easy. We'd been together since day one of boot camp, not only stationed together but deployed together.

I thought we hit a hole at first — the truck bounced once, and time slowed as gravity shifted. Everything floated for a stretched-out second as the truck flipped, and when we crashed to the ground, there was only nothing, only the deep blackness of unconsciousness sweeping over me.

I came to a few minutes later with my ears ringing, the sound of my name far away, the scent of gasoline and smoke in my nose. And as I got my bearings, I found Perez lying across from me, staring at me. He looked strange, his eyes distant and glassy. Then I noticed the blood that seeped from his head in almost black threads as they wound through his hair and across his forehead.

It was only then that I realized he was dead.

I tried to call his name as they pulled me backward, into the blinding light. Fire, someone yelled — the truck was going to blow — and they dragged me away only a heartbeat before it exploded. Heat passed through us in an unbearable wave, knocking everyone down.

We'd survived. But as I lay in the dirt and sand, I had a singular realization.

I was right to be afraid.

I had nothing to offer Elliot. I had nothing to give her other than pain. If I died here, would she ever recover? Would she ever move on? I regretted so much. I'd hurt her so much. But this was one thing I could spare her.

It was then, in the heat of the desert, that I made the decision not to speak to her again.

At the end of every tour they would ask us who wanted to stay. I volunteered every time.

By the time the war was over, it was too late. It didn't matter that I wished I hadn't gone silent. Because by the time I realized my mistake, it was too big, the distance too far, the wrongs I'd done too deep and wide to breech.

My regret was infinite. And that regret had made me lonely. Angry. It had changed me, twisted me into the man I was now. And now … now it was impossible to see a way back.

I told her now or never, and that mistake would haunt me until the day I died.





6





Thin Soul





Thin soul,

Stretched and pulled

Left to bear the weight

Of the world

On its own.