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I swallow over my parched throat and rasp, “I was back there.”
“I know. I saw. I saw everything.” Tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Marku,” she sniffs.
I lift my index finger and trace the delicate line of her cheek. A tear falls on my knuckles. My chest squeezes.Don’t be sorry, I want to say, but I remain silent. How can I say those words to her when I can’t apply them to myself? I won’t be the hypocrite she’s accused me of being.
My heart feels like it’s been sliced to shreds, flayed open like the chest of a butchered animal. “I want to go back there. I want to see him again. I want to touch him.” My heart aches. “I almost touched him.”
She shakes her head sorrowfully, tears still falling. “I know you want to be there for him, I know you.” The corners of her full lips push up into a small mournful smile. “You can’t save him.”
That’s Crina, always getting to the heart of the matter, but I reply petulantly, “I know that. I only want to touch him one last time.”
“Then you’ll want to stay there forever. You won’t come back to me. And deny it all you want, but you will attempt to save him. You can’t bring him back, and I need you here with me.”
“Let me go back,” I beg, my voice cracking. She shakes her head, refusing my plea. I’m begging, for fuck’s sake. “Figure out a way and get me back there.” I don’t know how she’d do it, but she has skills, powers from the Old Country. Desperation wraps around me with grasping fingers. I’ve had anxiety attacks before, but never with the chance of seeing him again. In my dreams he comes to me, but only as a voice. I never see him. I’d do anything to see him one more time. To be near him. To touch him. To beg for his forgiveness. And, most importantly, to beg him to take me with him.
She squeezes my hand hard. “I’m sorry…I can’t.”
“For the love of God, why,” I shout. “Why do you insist on keeping me from him?”
“Because I love you.”
My spine hits the back of my chair as if I’d been catapulted across the room and slammed against the brick wall. I hear a roar in my ears and shake my head as if to loosen the pressure inside.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
My hands tremble and I clench them into fists, hoping to control them. “Umm, I’m not sure I did.”
She nods sadly at me. “You did.”
She swats me on the chest and I grasp her hand in my quivering one, placing it against my heart. “I love you.”
“I know,” she replies matter-of-factly. “You don’t have to say it just because I said it. I already knew it. Since forever.”
I bring her hand to my mouth and drop kisses on her palm.
“I’m taking it,” she says.
My mouth pauses before pressing against her soft skin again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m taking that night with me.”
Anger catapults through me. It’s bad enough she’s witnessed my greatest shame, and only the fact that she loves me allows her to get away with that. But taking it from me? I shake my head vigorously. “You can’t. I won’t allow it.”
She lifts her chin high, anticipating a fight. “You can’t stop me.”
“Hey,” I warn. “I will strip your ass red if you take it. That’s not your burden to take. Just because you have the power to see and feel things doesn’t give you the right to butt in. It’s not your business.”
“It is my business, as you always say,” she insists. “I can help relieve your burden. Now that I see what you’re carrying, I can help. Iwantto help. It’s my job to help.”
“Like hell it is. Your job is to love me and to let me protect you.”If I can.“Don’t pick up more on my behalf. I won’t have you doing that.”
“But I can help…”
“I know, baby, and I love you for it. I love your big ole heart. I love that you want to save me, but this ismyshame. He wasmybrother. I wouldn’t be the man I am if I shifted an ounce of the agonizing burden onto you. And I don’t deserve anything less than what I carry. I willneverrelinquish it.”
She grips my wrist, her fingers tightening around it. Alarm is etched on the lines of her face. “But the grief is killing you. I saw big red welts spreading across your skin. I saw your heart hemorrhaging blood. You’ll kill yourself if you keep going like this, and I can’t sit by and let you bleed out right in front of my eyes. I can’t save my father, but I can at least try to save you.”
