Coming Home(186)

It had been so long since he’d allowed himself a fantasy of that caliber. Dreams like that cost too much to entertain inside these walls.

But her words were warm and palliative in his veins, and for a moment, envisioning what she described didn’t feel torturous. It wasn’t a cruel act of masochism. It wasn’t a hopeless pipedream.

Because Leah was sitting in front of him, momentarily turning that fantasy into a promise.

He should have been used to it by now; from the moment she came into his life, she started reviving him—making him feel again, making him appreciate things, helping him learn how to forgive himself, making him think he was someone worthy of love. And here she was, offering to save him all over again.

He wanted to let her. God, he wanted everything she had described and more. He wanted to give her things she’d never even thought to ask for.

And for a split second, with her looking at him the way she was, he believed he could have it all with her.

“Do you want that life with me?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

Two answers bubbled up into his throat simultaneously—the sincere one and the safe one—and Danny felt like he was choking on their scuffle.

Leah’s gentle eyes implored him for a response, but he couldn’t open his mouth, too afraid that the wrong answer would escape.

Instead, he nodded.

The tension in her shoulders melted instantly as her eyes pooled with tears.

“But Leah,” he said quickly, “I can’t make you promises like that. I don’t know who’s gonna be coming home to you.”

Danny ran his hands up through his hair; he could feel the words backing up in his throat, clogging like a traffic jam of candid statements desperately seeking an outlet.

And all at once, he lost the will to inhibit them anymore.

“This place, Leah,” he said, shaking his head. “I feel myself bending to it. Every day, I bend a little more. I’m doing my best. I’m learning how to manage my thoughts, and I’m trying so hard to keep myself…me.” He looked up at her. “But some days, no matter what I do…it’s just not enough. And I just don’t know how many times I can bend before I break.”

“But it’s okay if you bend,” she said earnestly. “It’s okay if you break. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want that,” he said with a firm shake of his head.

“Don’t want what?”

“I don’t want you to see it. Or to wait for me only to learn at the end of all this that I’ve become someone you can’t see yourself with anymore. It’s so much harder than I thought to be away from you all. And sometimes I just…I go to a dark place, and I’m not even me anymore. I don’t want you to have to deal with it. I’m not going to ask you to wait this out when I can’t guarantee you’ll be happy when it’s over. This is an ugly clusterf*ck of a ride, Leah. And I don’t want you to be a passenger.”

Danny could feel his heart thrumming as he looked across the table at her. He had thought it would be humiliating to admit how he felt, but there was an odd sort of comfort in confessing his fears—like the weight of the burden had somehow lessened simply because he had allowed it outside of his body.

“Why did you sit in the room with Bryan when he died?”

Danny felt a tingle run down his spine. “What?” he asked, startled.

“Why did you go in when they turned everything off and let him go?” she asked. “Better yet, why did you go visit him, day after day, with all of those horrible tubes and machines attached to his body? When all the doctors said there was no hope. That he couldn’t even hear you. Why did you do it?”