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“I’m your buddy who cares, that’s who I am. We’ve got you, Ghost, you just have to trust us to look after you and your family this time. It’s time to accept some help, let us be your pack. You don’t need to be the lone wolf anymore.” For the first time, I understand that I may not have my original family, but I have built a new one around me. I just have to let them in.
Stopping and looking at my beautiful wife who needs me, I say the only thing I can.
“Okay, make it happen.” I swallow the bile that is rising in my throat. “And Ashton… thanks.” I need him to know how grateful I am, not just for what he is about to do but for the day he came into my life.
Tate comes back on the line. “Ghost, Ashton will send you my number. I want you to call me if you need anything through the night. I don’t care what time it is. Or if Cassie is scared and just wants to talk to me. I’ll check back in with you in the morning, and I’ll send you a list of things to look out for. Let’s get Cassie here, and I promise to look after her. I’m married too, and if anyone or anything threatened Bella or my kids, I would end their life. We are wired the same, Ghost, and I won’t apologize to anyone for my caveman attitude. They are our everything, it’s that simple.” Tate’s voice is deeper and rougher than his doctor’s tone he used with Cassie.
“Yeah, it’s that simple. Thank you doesn’t seem enough.”
“It is. Talk soon.” The call ends in my ear, and I know Ashton will already be gone out of the call once I gave him the decision that we are moving Cassie to Chicago. Tate thinks I don’t know who he is, but I do background checks on everyone I know and all their friends and associates, no matter how much I trust them. It’s just who I am, and as Tate said, I won’t make excuses for that. Ashton will be busy now enacting the plan and taking over my workload, knowing that I need to be with my wife tonight.
Tate didn’t say what he was looking for in that MRI, but I have a fair idea. I’m not stupid, but I’m not voicing it out loud. No way am I giving it air, because it’s not happening. No way no how am I losing Cassie.
Her body is calling me, to be close to each other. She needs to know I’m here and she is safe.
Rolling her onto her side and spooning her from behind, I wrap my arms tightly around her and pull her back into me so there is nothing between us.
“We haven’t been through all this for nothing, bright eyes. You are my warrior queen. We can beat anything this world throws at us. I promise to protect you always.”
I made that promise to myself the first day I met her, and nothing has changed.
“She’s mine, and no matter what, I’m not letting her go,” I whisper to the universe so it knows. It can throw anything at us, but no matter what, I’ll fight back.
* * *
“You can’t ask me to leave my kids alone! Not happening! I’ll be fine, you’re just overreacting. This is why I didn’t tell you.”
And here we are again, my stubborn wife who is pushing me because she can. She’s the only one who has the guts to stand up and go toe to toe with me. But I’m not backing down this time.
No fucking way.
“Keep your voice down, I don’t want the kids awake while you’re being irrational.” Shit, that probably wasn’t the right word. Looking at her, I can see the explosion is coming.
“Irrational, you think I’m irrational. Fuck you, Ghost, fuck you! You have kept me here in this prison for seven years, and now you tell me it’s fine, we can just go to a huge city hospital with thousands of people. That I can leave my children behind when they have never had anyone with them except us. Irrational doesn’t even cut it. The way I feel right now is angry. No, I’m fucking furious! Once again, my choices in my life are being taken away from me. You promised you wouldn’t do that to me… yet here we are!”
Calling our home a prison feels like a dagger into my heart and the biggest kick in the guts. I know she doesn’t mean it, but those words will stay with me forever.
One of the things Tate told me to watch for was unusual behavior in Cassie. Part of me thinks this fits that description, but to be truthful, this is how she copes when her life is spiraling, and I’m letting her use me as her verbal punching bag.
I know she’s scared, and I am too, not that I’ll ever admit that to anyone. We just don’t have a choice, this is what we must do. Somehow, I have to make her see that.
“Cassie…” I walk toward her with my arms out, and she puts her hands up in front of herself to stop me.
“Don’t you touch me. I’m not finished. You think you can contain my anger, but you can’t. The only thing that will make me calm down is when you agree we just ignore yesterday happened. We are staying home, and we will worry about tomorrow when we get there. I don’t have a headache today, I’m fine… perfectly… fine.”
And we are finally at the point I knew would come. Ignoring her hands that she is trying to use as her wall of defense against her fear that I’m not letting her run from, I step straight into her personal space. Her hands land on my chest, but instead of them pushing me away, she’s fisting my shirt like her life depends on it, and the tears that always follow the rage are starting. I’ll take the yelling any day over tears. Seeing my love cry, and this time from fear, is the hardest thing to deal with.
Cassie’s body collapses into me, and I wrap her as tight as I can while she’s sobbing. She’s overwhelmed, and there is nothing I can do to change any of this. My body is at war with itself, and I can’t share that with anyone. The emotions that are engulfing me are the extremes of anger, down to the lowest depths of devastation I’m feeling at what my poor wife has had to tackle in her life. No one should have to keep standing up after being knocked down the number of times she has. I’d give anything to take her pain away, but knowing her, she wouldn’t let me anyway.
The woman who is in my arms, breaking down because she just can’t hold it in anymore, will come up swinging and ready to take on the world. That’s what she does, and I’m counting on her to do it again this time. Otherwise, I can’t fight this battle on my own; she has to be fighting it just as hard as I am. And all the while in the background, every other battle I’m fighting for her that she doesn’t need the worry of, because I won’t let them win.
“Noah…” Hearing my name in amongst her tears of pure desperation tells me how vulnerable she feels.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you,” I whisper, lifting her feet off the ground and walking us backwards to the window seat so we can see the amazing view of the valley. Pulling her into my lap, she curls herself up in a tight ball and tries to make herself as small as possible. I’ve seen her do it before, it’s how she copes. She’s retreating into her inner place where she feels like she can hide.
But she can’t hide from me. I see past any wall she tries to put up.
The tears are slowly subsiding, and her body is melting even further into mine and feeling less tense. Letting her take a moment to just breathe and collect her thoughts, we both sit staring out to the day that is just dawning. She slept solidly through the night in bed, and I must admit, I think I may have only slept for a few twenty-minute power naps. I was too frightened to let my body fall into a deep sleep in case she needed me. And since she has woken and we have moved to the window, I can feel the exhaustion in my body, but I need to keep pushing it back.
