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Shit, Noah didn’t even have a job—or even a firm idea of what the hell he wanted to do. He lived on freaking disability checks and his savings. And despite the fact that seven months had passed sin
ce his discharge from the Marines, some of his symptoms seemed to be getting worse lately, not better. Like those fucking flashbacks. It was as if the fireworks had opened some kind of twisted Pandora’s Box in his brain that he couldn’t get closed again.
Sonofabitch.
A few amazing hours aside, the truth was that Noah was a wreck right now. No matter what he did or how much he improved, he would always be a partially blind, partially deaf man who suffered at least some of the consequences of a traumatic brain injury.
He’d heard what his docs had said and read enough online to know that, for most people with TBIs like his, the consequences were life-long. You could learn to manage them—though he was a long fucking way from that—but the reality was you would have to live with them. Because there wasn’t any other choice.
Intellectually, Noah knew he was lucky or, at least, luckier than a lot of other guys had been. Because others had head trauma and ended up in long-term care facilities learning to talk and feed themselves again. But it sure as hell didn’t feel that way. And, on top of it all, feeling sorry for himself made him feel about a million times worse. Fuck.
How had he gone from that peaceful ease when he’d first woken up to the shit storm now whirling through his head?
But that was his reality, wasn’t it? That’s who and what he was. At least for right now. At least for the foreseeable future. And maybe forever.
Noah shifted and stretched his neck, then heaved a deep breath. The change in the position of his head lifted his good ear from being pressed against the pillow, which was the only reason he heard it. Kristina, talking in her sleep.
He turned his head a little more, trying to bring his ear closer to where she lay behind him. And then he heard his name.
“Noah.”
He froze, listening hard for anything else. She said it again, and it made him remember demanding that she repeat his name as he’d kissed down her body. He’d wanted her to know that it was him kissing her, pleasing her, worshipping her. No one else. Him. And he had to admit, he liked hearing her say it in her sleep, too. It meant Kristina was thinking of him, dreaming of him, keeping him close even when she was asleep.
Low murmurs continued to spill from her lips every few minutes, and almost had him smiling into the darkness. He was totally going to tease her about this in the morning—
“But Noah,” she said a little louder, a little clearer. Prickles ran over his scalp and he nearly held his breath to see if she’d say anything else. And then she did. “You’re everything to me…”
For a moment, silence rang loudly in the room.
And then Noah’s heart was thundering so hard that the beat of his pulse in his ears was all he could hear.
Everything? He was everything to her?
How the fuck could that be, when he felt like so much…nothing?
His chest tightened. Restlessness flooded through him. His skin flashed hot. His quickened pulse had him breathing faster, and faster, until a sweat broke out on his forehead.
Suddenly, an aching in his knuckles made him realize that he was fisting his hands so hard that his fingers were falling asleep.
His chest got tighter. A ringing started in his ear. Pain bloomed behind his eyes.
Fuck. A goddamned panic attack. Because she’d revealed, unconsciously or not, just how much she cared.
Did you really need her to say the words to know?
You’re everything to me.
Running the words through his mind again made his gut go sour. The words hurt. Because friends didn’t let friends fall for a broken wreck of a man. And that’s exactly what Noah was. And it didn’t matter that her kiss had pulled him out of the flashback or that being with her tonight had soothed him, because there was no fucking way he was going to expect Kristina to make him better. It wouldn’t be fair to burden her with that kind of responsibility.
And it wasn’t realistic either. Because despite all she’d done for him tonight, here he was again, right back at the beginning—fighting for a deep breath, fighting the urge to strike out at the unfairness of the world, fighting for normal.
And losing.
It took everything he had to move slowly, but Noah eased himself away from her and to the edge of the bed. He rose and immediately listed to the side as the world went topsy-turvy due to a moment of perfectly timed disorientation. As if he needed the additional evidence of his failings to bolster his resolve.
He’d left his phone on her nightstand earlier, and he used the light from its screen to collect his clothes. He carried everything into the bathroom and made sure not to look in the mirror as he dressed. If he did, he was likely to punch his reflection in the face. Really, the only downside to that was that it would wake her up. And seeing Kristina when he felt like this was the absolute last thing she or Noah needed.
He stole out of the apartment, making sure the door was locked behind him. Down the stairs, out onto the sidewalk, into the parking lot. Which was when he remembered for the first fucking time that he didn’t have his car.
