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“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that wound up with a lot of people going to funerals this week,” I answer her sharply and wait for her reaction. I get none. Nothing. The blunt answer doesn’t faze her in the least.
“Why now?” she asks and when I feel a deep crease settling in my forehead, she elaborates. “Why didn’t you come back before? It’s obvious…” she hesitates, but doesn’t hold back when she continues, “It’s obvious he’s been putting people in the ground for a while now… yes?”
I nod, and my heart hammers. The skin across my knuckles draws tight as I flex my hands into fists and then relax them, thinking about all the shit that’s happened since we’ve been gone.
“He didn’t need me, but this time, it was important to him that he did everything he could…” I almost tell her how it was the first time he was fighting for something that mattered, but I don’t have to.
“Because of Aria?” she questions and again I nod.
It’s silent for a moment and I watch as the tension in her shoulders lessens. The hope that she’s been given just enough to drop it toys with me until she asks, “Did he need you to do what you used to do?”
I can barely nod in confirmation. Every muscle in my body is tight, waiting for her to run, to cower, to be afraid or angry or disgusted. I never liked the man I was without her, but it doesn’t change the fact that’s who I am. I can run away for years, but I’ll always be a murderer. I don’t want her to look at me that way. I don’t even know if she knows the extent of what I’ve done, both years ago and just last week. And what I’m willing to continue to do.
“Did you want to hurt them?” she asks quietly.
I answer her with questions of my own. “Why would I want to do this? Why would I want to hurt people?”
Another question is all I get. “Why wouldn’t you? That’s what you did before, and living out there, away from all this… nothing made you happy. You moved from job to job and you hated them all.”
“I was happy with you and bored with work… that’s life.”
“No,” she responds sharply, “you lost your passion.”
“I lost my family,” I correct her, raising my voice and stressing the statement. I feel the harsh words linger between us. The room feels colder than it ever has before. Anger simmers, although not for her; anger at my past, anger at this shit life I was dealt.
“You are my family, we are family. But Carter was too.”
She starts to speak, but her words turn to ghosts of thoughts as she stares back at me and starts to cry. “I wish we’d never left him behind,” she croaks and I swallow my confession that I wish we’d never left at all.
“Come here,” I say and hold her close, forcing her body to mold with mine. “I love you and I don’t want to see you like this.”
A shudder runs along her shoulders as she tries to calm herself down. Can’t she see this is the exact reason I don’t want to tell her these things? I don’t want her to live with the pain. I can bear it for the both of us.
As if reading my mind and finding fault in my conviction, she whispers against my chest, “I don’t want you to lie to me.” Her hot breath sends goosebumps down my skin in a wave.
“I don’t lie to you. I’ve never lied. I just keep some of this shit from you, so you don’t have to deal with it.” It’s a half truth. It’s always only a half truth.
“You don’t think I know? Or that I wouldn’t find out?” she questions as she lifts her gaze to me. Staring back at me are worry, sadness, and desperation even. And it stuns me.
“I know more than you think,” she says in my silence.
“I would never bring you into danger,” is all I can say, because it’s the only truth that matters to me anymore.
“Is that why you came up here before me? Because it was too dangerous?”
I almost lie, I almost hide it from her so she doesn’t have to know, but I can’t. “Yes.”
“Why not tell me?” she asks as if it’s that simple. As if I could risk her knowing who I am at my core and leaving me.
“I don’t want you to know. I want you to be happy and to trust that I’ll take care of it. All of it.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t want it to all lie on your shoulders. I want to help you. I want to be there for you.”
He sounds desperate when he tells me, “You do help me, and you are there for me.”
