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He lets go of my hand and rolls over to his side and props his head up on his hand.
“Gracie, talk to me. Please.”
“Jonathan, don’t.”
“Give me a chance, baby. As long as it’s not another man that you’re going back to, I think we can work through anything.”
I move myself in closer to him causing him to put his head down and roll back on to his back. I cling to him like I’m never going to let him go, but the truth is I know I have to.
“Are you scared to leave on Tuesday?” I ask him quietly.
“Scared of leaving you, yes. Scared I may never breathe again if I don’t know that you’re out there waiting for me, yes. Scared that you haven’t given me your last name or your phone number on purpose so that I can’t find you after tomorrow. Hell yes. I am scared shitless right now.”
Shit, he noticed that I hadn’t given him my information. There is no getting anything over on this man.
“That’s not what I meant. Are you scared to leave for Afghanistan?”
“I know that’s not what you meant.”
“Are you going to answer my question? I don’t know how you couldn’t be scared.”
“Honestly, we’re well trained and damn good at what we do. I’m more worried about the men that are going to be by my side. I’m their squad leader and their lives are in my hands. I know much of what happens over there isn’t in our control, but I still take my role very seriously and vow to get each and every one of my Marines back home alive and well after this tour.”
“I’m scared for you, Georgia. I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. I need to know you’re out there; that this love and goodness that I’ve found in you is always out there somewhere in the universe. You’ve done something to me that I can’t explain. You filled the piece of my soul that I never knew was empty, and I need to know you’re out there living and happy if I am going to keep breathing. I need you to stay safe over there. I need you in this world.”
The tears slowly run down my face and on to his chest after releasing the emotion that’s been bottled up inside me all day.
“I love you, Gracie.”
“I love you too, Georgia.”
“Then why won’t you wait for me? What is so bad that you can’t be with me? Are you sick? Are you dying? What the hell is going on? If your life is a mess, let it be my mess too. You don’t have to do whatever this is alone. I know, you aren’t alone. You have Cami and your friends and family. But what about a partner? I would rather be in your mess of a life than not in your life at all!”
Still tucked into his side, I exhale a deep breath. “I don’t want to be the person that throws a monkey wrench into your life. You need to stay focused on you and your boys while you’re away and you don’t need my problems to distract you. I come with a lot of baggage. Right now my baggage is a hot mess with no sign of improving on the horizon. You have enough to deal with just being over there in a war zone, fighting for your country.” I lift my head so that I can look him in the eyes while I say, “Listen, I know how selfish it is of me to tell you that I love you, but that I can’t be with you . . . but I do love you and don’t ever want you to think that I don’t want this. I never knew that I could feel this way or want to be in a relationship like I do when I am with you, but with my life a complete mess and you still having a year left in the Marine Corps, I just think our timing is all wrong. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t really know. Part of me wants to say no, but I know there was a reason that I met you last Saturday.”
“Well, I do and I know we’ll be together again one day. I don’t know how or when but I refuse to believe that fate would bring us together just to tear us apart. I know I’ll see you again, Gracie. I refuse to believe that this could be goodbye.”
“Jonathan, please don’t do this. Let’s just spend the rest of the night like this and not think about it.”
I throw my naked leg over him and try to push myself into him until we melt into one. I hate that I know that this is hurting him. I want to remind him that from the beginning I told him it would never be more than this week, but that would be cruel. Things between us are not what I thought they would be. But that isn’t really true because I knew the first time he touched me that this was different; that there was something extraordinary between us. I tried to tell myself all week that I could do this. Now that the end is upon us I’m not quite sure how I plan to walk away.
“How do I not think about it?” he growls. He’s angry and I understand where he’s coming from, but I feel like I’m saving him from a life he never wanted or asked for. If he’s right and we do see each other again and I tell him he’ll thank me for not agreeing to wait for him.
“Let me try to take your mind off of it.” I say as I climb on top of him.
He doesn’t stop me.
I take this opportunity to show him how sorry I am . . . the only way I know how.
We don’t sleep.
We don’t talk.
We just touch.
