Page 60 of Thaddeus

We were gonna live the life we’d both talked about wanting.

That life included us married, me teaching, and us having lots of babies. That was the life we’d talked about. The life I’d given up. The life I wanted so freaking bad I could taste the beauty of it on my tongue but knew I couldn’t have it. None of it. I’d screwed up my chance. And even though he was telling me he still wanted it, he wouldn’t later. Not after he knew the Emerson Pierce I’d turned out to be.

I wasn’t his Emmy. The innocent twenty-one-year-old with stars in her eyes and dreams in her heart.

“I want that so much. I want to believe we could have it, but I can’t. I won’t live through the heartbreak when you see me for who I really am. I’m not that girl, not anymore. I don’t deserve any of those things,” I whispered.

My vision went blurry, and Thaddeus’ handsome face swam behind the tears that had begun to pool. His thumb swiped a tear off my cheek and his soft touch triggered more.

“All you need to do is believe, agápi mou. I’ll do the rest. I promise you, Emmy, I won’t let you fall.”

“You don’t—” My protest died in my throat when he leaned forward. All the hurt had vanished from his face, leaving only determination.

“I see you.”

“What?”

“I. See. You.” He punctuated each word. “I know what you’ve done. I know why. I know who you really are. You’re not the same girl I met and I’m not the same man. But here’s the thing, I don’t give a fuck. I read your file and when I was done, I read it a second time. Those men you killed, they deserved it. I don’t give the first fuck how you lured them in, how you got under their skin so they’d trust you, and I don’t give a shit you took them out. None of that matters to me. But you have to know—while you have four hash marks on your soul, I have hundreds. In our time apart I did not have a desk job, I was out on the battlefield and I wasn’t there twiddling my thumbs. The government trained me well and took full advantage of my skills. You’ll never know where I’ve been, what I’ve done, how many men have died by my hand and that’s something you’re gonna have to live with. Because even if I could tell you, I never will.”

“Thaddeus, you don’t know what—”

“Just believe.”

“But there’s more—”

“Believe, Emerson.”

“I can’t!” I snapped. “I can’t believe we can get back everything I took from us until you know the rest. I just can’t. Living without you is so hard. So damn hard there are days I want to give up. But now, after seeing you again, then having you take it all back, everything you just said to me, I wouldn’t make it. I told you I marked your name on my skin because I needed you with me. What I didn’t tell you was it served as punishment as well. All I had to do was turn and look in the mirror, see your name, and the pain of losing you would hit and I knew I earned that penance.”

“Believe, agápi mou.”

“You’re not listening.”

God, why was he doing this to me? He needed to understand that this, his promise to protect me and give us the life we’d dreamed of, was worse than him hating me.

“I am listening, I’m just ignoring you.”

“Get off me.” I shoved.

I decided if we were going to have a conversation, I couldn’t do it with him mostly on top of me. And I didn’t need him screwing with my head by touching me, either. It was too easy to want to give into him.

“No. I want you pinned under me. Fair warning, I’ll do whatever I have to do to make you understand. And if that means playing dirty and giving you nowhere to go, I’m gonna do it. But since you got it in your mind there are things you need to tell me because you think they’ll change mine, hit me with it. I’m listening. Tell me everything so we can move the fuck on and make this good.”

He’ll play dirty? What did that mean?

“Well?” he prompted and I narrowed my eyes. “Come on, tell me all the bad shit you think I don’t know about you.”

Now that he was being a condescending asshole, I didn’t want to tell him. Childish? Probably, but I didn’t like that he was taunting me and acting like what I had to say didn’t matter.

“Right,” he muttered and my temper flared.

“You wanna know about the missing two years in my file?” I started. “I told you after Autumn came back, she didn’t speak, and when she did, it was torture. She blamed Mom and Dad for everything. At first, I understood. She was traumatized and didn’t know how to deal. But then as it went on and I’d see my mom break down in private, I began to get mad. And the day I found my big, strong, loving father on his knees—literally on his knees in his bedroom sobbing—I snapped. I hated Autumn for what she’d done. My parents fought all the time. Mom wanted to have Autumn committed, which I was all for. I wanted her gone. She was tearing apart our lives. But Dad refused. He said she needed to be with her family and if she was locked away in a hospital, she’d feel abandoned. They argued about it all the time.

“I’d moved home and was working in a grocery store. Yeah, the irony of that wasn’t lost on me. Months away from graduating from college and there I was working as a check-out girl. I hated it. I hated Autumn. I hated that my parents were so wrapped up in her shit, they’d forgotten they had a second daughter. I was a nursemaid. Autumn needs this, Autumn needs that. Emerson, can you try to talk to her—again. Emerson, your sister needs you.”

I stopped talking when the guilt and self-disgust hit.

“Emerson—”