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Even when she’s facing off with me, I see the pleading in her eyes. And I know, that if I ever make the mistake of letting her see my true feelings for her we’d both be lost.
Now I let her go as she’d asked and stepped back, not looking at her but at a place over her head. “What did you mean by leaving?” Please don’t tell me you’re going away.
It’s selfish as fuck, but I can’t let her go. I could’ve paid for her to go to university, had even been tempted. But in the end I couldn’t stand the thought of her being that far away from me.
So instead she was taking classes at the local community college because it was all her family could afford. She wasn’t an apt pupil, my baby was more interested in fixing cars and building things with her hands than in what could be found in a book.
Not that she was illiterate, far from it. She just chose her own interest and apparently it wasn’t available in any high school in America. Her parents, were over indulgent. So instead of forcing her to keep her head in a book, they let her go her own way, follow her own interests.
“I’ve decided I’m going to join the navy.”
“Over my dead body.” I grabbed her collar roughly and pulled her back to me. Her words were like ice water dousing me from head to toe. They sent fear rushing through me, and my mind splintered into a million pieces at the thought of my sweet girl in the middle of that hell.
“You have no say in what I do. Besides, didn’t you tell me how great being a marine is?” She would throw my words back in my face, but when I told her that it wasn’t to sell her on the idea. Fuck it, she’s not going, that life is not for her.
“I didn’t tell you that so you could go get yourself killed you little idiot.”
“If you can do it so can I. Or is it because I’m a woman?” She put her hands on her hips and glared up at me, always ready for a fight.
“Your being a woman has fuck all to do with it. I know many women who have fought for their country and done it well. But not my woman damn you.” Fuck!
Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open, and what did I do? I let her go and walked away. What the fuck had I done? We’ve been playing this game for months now and I knew the only reason it hadn’t gone any farther was because I’ve been hiding what I feel from her. It was for the best.
But hearing her say that she was willing to put her life in danger to get away from me, from the specter of us and what can never be, was too damn much. Just how fucking much is a man supposed to take?
I headed back to the house and the privacy of my room to face this new thing, this door that I’d unwittingly opened. I knew she wouldn’t follow me, the hardheaded little shit. She has too much pride for that, and I needed to think. I haven’t been able to do that clearly since we started this little dance.
I slammed the door behind me and made my way to the window for one last look at her. I was just in time to see her enter the little cottage that was her family’s home while they worked for my family.
Her bent head made me feel like ten kinds of a bastard and I wanted to go to her. Funny how the things I’d once seen as soft and weak in others, the very things I’d sworn would never befall me, had now become part and parcel of my own life.
Love wasn’t the weak emotion I once thought it to be. If the shit could bring a man like me to his knees, then I’d say it was extremely fucking powerful. See, this is what happens whenever I try to think. My mind becomes crowded with that damn word and its tentacles.
She has me so wrapped up in her that I don’t know which way is up. I can orchestrate battles, face down death without a second thought, but I don’t know what to do with her. I know what I want to do to her, with her, for her, but my own principles won’t let me.
As if to compound that point there was a knock at the door before my mother opened it and walked in. “Oh, you’re here. I saw Helen has left, do you two have plans for this evening dear?” I looked at her, the woman I’ve loved since birth.
Her cool air and faint detachment not withstanding, she’s always been in my corner. Had she been any different, someone I could hurt and not give a damn, this would be so easy. But how could I break her heart? How can you hurt Lucia’s? Not now.
