“Oh no. Were you able to help?”
He rests his lips on my hair for a moment before continuing. “I engaged targets as soon as I had a clear shot. One after another, trying to stop them overrunning everyone immediately. But there were too many of them.”
I hear a rasp as he rubs a hand over his beard. “From where I was, I could see almost everything. That’s the part I can’t forget. I watched friends trying to reach each other. I watched men I’d trained with get hit. Some were killed where they fell. Others were dragged away before we could get reinforcements there.”
His voice becomes quieter. “One of our officers was captured. I saw what they were doing to her… and I couldn’t stop it.”
He stops speaking. I can sense him struggling to stay in control. I bite my lip hard so I don’t cry. He doesn’t need me bawling my eyes out right now.
“By the time the helicopters arrived,” he continues eventually, “it was over. We’d lost people. Others were badly wounded. I kept thinking… If I’d spotted the ambush thirty seconds earlier… If I’d picked a different target… If I’d fired faster…”
“Oh, Luke…”
“Therapists told me none of that would have changed the outcome. Maybe they’re right. Doesn’t stop me replaying it every night.”
I turn over to face him, slide my arms around his waist, and give him a big hug. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He buries his face in my hair, inhales deeply, then lets out a long sigh. “You smell nice.”
I hold him, wishing I could wipe away the memory of what happened. But ultimately, that’s not the answer. We can’t just erase the difficult parts of our lives. The bits we don’t like. It’s about coming to terms with these, and learning to coexist with them.
“What would you have done differently, if you could?” I ask. “I mean, was it possible for you to spot the ambush earlier?”
He rests his lips on my hair and doesn’t say anything.
“Could you have fired faster?” I ask.
Still no reply.
“Survivor’s guilt must feel like an impossible thing to cope with, I’d imagine,” I say. “But I know you. You’re conscientious. You work extremely hard. You’re very observant. You would have done your absolute best to save your friends.”
He remains quiet.
I lift up, prop my head on a hand, and stroke his face. “I wonder if every night, you’re trying to rewrite what happened. I don’t think the answer is to forget it. I think it’s to remember it without replaying it. It happened. And it’s incredibly sad. But you’re only human, sweetheart. You would have done your best.”
He shifts and mirrors my pose, facing me. It’s incredibly quiet here, but although I miss the sounds of the city, I find it peaceful, restful.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“What for?”
“For calling you princess. I thought you were a spoiled brat, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
I screw up my nose. “Oh, I think I was, on the night of the ball. I was cross that Marcus was making me have a CPO. And you were standing there, so handsome and stern, and I couldn’t believe I was going to have you by my side all the time. I knew I was in trouble.”
His lips curve up. “You liked me, even then?”
“I liked you when I was sixteen.”
That makes him chuckle. “At the beach?”
“Yeah. Don’t think I don’t remember you parading around in those blue surf shorts without any underwear.”
His eyebrows rise. “I don’t think that was me.”
“It was totally you. All the girls were giggling because you looked like you had a tube of Pringles down your shorts when you came out of the water.”
“Jesus.”
