AllFreeNovel
Share Us
COLTON
Ineeded to do something to find the guy responsible, but every part of me wanted to be near Remi. I felt torn.
“You okay?” Dexter asked as we walked out to our cars, ready to drum up some leads.
I paused at my driver’s-side door. “I can’t help but think we were too quick to pin everything on Corey.”
Dexter shook his head. “We didn’t have much to go on. All we knew was that someone was targeting the shops.”
I wasn’t ready to let myself off the hook. “I was all too happy to blame Corey and tie the investigation up in a neat bow.”
Dexter gave me a pointed look. “You didn’t do anything wrong. That was the information we had at the time.”
I grimaced. “I don’t know.”
“I’m in this with you, and Chief is overseeing the investigation. It’s not on you.”
“I should have done more to protect Remi.” Was my life doomed to repeat the same cycle?
“You couldn’t have stopped it.” Dexter’s voice was harder.
Dodging the blame or putting it on someone else was the easy way out.
“Is this about what happened to your friend in college?”
“Partly,” I finally said.
“Have you talked to him since?”
“I visited him in the hospital, but he was sleeping. Then I enlisted and never got in touch with him.” I’d looked him up online, so I knew he’d been in and out of rehab over the years.
“Maybe you should.” His tone was soft, but his words had the intended effect.
“Yeah, maybe.” I’d like to see how he was doing. I wanted to confide everything to Dexter. He’d become a good friend. “In the Marines, we were posted at the U.S. Embassy in Madagascar. It was supposed to be an easy tour. A kid approached, and I thought he just wanted to talk to us. So many of the kids were fascinated by our uniforms and our accents. He threw a makeshift bomb, and I wasn’t prepared.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Dexter’s tone was harsh, but it didn’t cut through the guilt.
My friend wasn’t severely injured, but it rattled me. It was the second time I’d been caught unaware.
“You thought you were safe. That he was an innocent kid. You’re not going to anticipate everything, no matter how good of a soldier or cop you are. You’re human.” Dexter said each word carefully like he wanted me to hear him.
I wanted to believe him because it meant I deserved Remi.
“You have to let go of this. The blame is destroying any chance of happiness you have with Remi.”
“I think a part of me never believed what we had was real. It was a dream I never wanted to wake up from.”
“You have to forgive yourself before you can move on and be the man Remi needs.”
That was the question. Could I forgive myself? It wasn’t in my nature to make excuses. That’s what forgiveness felt like.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to even think about doing it until you talk to Austin. If you love Remi—”
“I do.”
“Then do whatever it takes to be whole for her.”
“Yeah, okay.” I wanted to believe that this thing with Remi was somewhat in my control. That I could do something to keep her in my life.
