She took a few seconds to rally her breath, then eased the door closed quietly, keeping her position near it, just for the sake of sanity.
“This is who I am. I am tortured by memories of Iraq, of what I saw there, of what Ilostthere. You’re asking me to accept that loss, to accept more loss, by loving you. I can’t do that.”
His words rained down on her, harsh but somehow heartbreaking in what he was admitting.
“But the thing is, whenever I have these dreams, and I wake up, I reach for you. Not just recently, but always. Ever since I’ve known you, I’ve wanted you to be there, to somehow make it all better. Why? Why do you have that power over me?”
Why you?He’d said that to her before.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, the words unsteady. “You tell me.”
“I can’t.” He closed his eyes, his features tortured, and it was then that she really looked at him, reallysawhim. His face was roughened by hair, as though he hadn’t shaved in weeks, his features were more gaunt, like he’d lost weight. On closer examination, she saw that hehad,his body was slimmer, his shirt unmistakably baggy on his frame.
“I’m not asking you to love me,” she said, after a long pause. “I’ve accepted that you don’t. That you won’t.”
He made a groaning noise. “Then would you kindly get out of my head?”
She blinked at him, surprised by the harshness of his tone.
“You’re in here,” he banged his palm to his temple. “All the time. I could live with it before. I kind of came to like waking up to your smile in my mind. And then I saw you again waitressing at that damned party and you got in my blood, under my skin, until I couldn’t think straight, and all I knew was that I needed you. But once wasn’t enough. Once in a goddamned alley wasn’t enough. So I came here, and I pursued you. I suggested –,”
“You suggested we start having sex again,” she reminded him.
“Because I can’t see another way to do this.” He said frankly. “God, Abby, don’t you get it? I can tell you that you’re different, and that I want you in my life, that Ineedyou in my life – apparently I’m even willing to blackmail you into it – but I can’t admit that I want more than sex, to you, to me, because if I do –,”
“If you do?” She prompted urgently, when he simply stopped speaking.
“I can’t do it.”
Her eyes swept shut. “Then why are you here?”
“Because I needed to see you.”
She expelled a shaky breath. “I think you’re scared.”
He glared at her as though it was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“I think you’re scared of how much you love me, and what that means. You don’t know how to treat me, because you’ve never been in a relationship, and because you grew up seeing your mother mistreated by every guy she married. You don’t know how to treat me because you’re scared that if you love me, really love me, you might tempt fate. You’ve lost friends before, you’ve lost people you care about, and you think that loving me means you’ll inevitably lose me. So you’re pushing me away before that can happen, even though that’s crazy unfair to both of us, right?”
He ground his teeth together.
“I deserve better than this,” she said firmly. “I love you. I love you as much now as I did two years ago, actually, probably more, if I’m honest, and that scares me too. I love a guy who professes to not believe in love. I love a guy I can never be with. That’s scary, but I’m not hiding from how I feel.”
“Because you’re brave as all hell,” he said quietly. “Anyone who meets you can see that.”
She angled her face away, the compliment floating into her heart and landing with a thud against that vital organ.
“Brave, maybe. But still scared. Only I’d rather live without regrets. At least by owning up to how I feel, I know I’ve tried everything to make this work. I know that when I’m old and gray, and I look back on this time, on a relationship with the only man I’ve ever loved, I won’t regret my actions. I can live with myself, Gray. Can you?”
He made a groaning sound. “But what if I lose you? What if I hurt you?”
“What if you do?” She repeated quietly. “Would those things even matter if you didn’t love me?”
He turned his back on her, staring at the back wall of the kitchen. “Obviously I love you, Abby. Neither of us is stupid enough to pretend I’d be acting like this if I didn’t love you with all my heart. The question is how we live with that love? How do we make any of this work? I love you too much to live apart from you, but God, if I let you in, if I really let you, I can’t imagine –,”
“Stop talking.”
She walked into the kitchen, coming to stand right in front of him.