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I hold my breath.
“Mom screamed for help and they pinned me down, shot me full of something that knocked me out. I guess I kept screaming your name. No one knew what had happened at that point – at least, my parents didn’t know. The video of your – of what they did to you -- showed up later.” He shifts in his chair, his hand moving slightly.
I don’t squeeze.
“My sister told me you’d been sent to a ‘meditation center’ to recover, but I knew that was bullshit. They put you in a mental institution. Your dad sent a letter explaining that I was to have no contact with you, and if I tried, the threat was clear. Harry didn’t even have to say it. He told me explicitly not to reply back, and to give my statement to investigators. I did. Never heard back.”
He makes a sound that echoes with helplessness. It’s so unlike him I almost open my eyes to make sure this is really Drew.
“And then I entered an emotional black hole.”
I let out a big breath. Black hole. I have one of those where my soul used to be.
“It was like there was this invisible shield between the world and me. One I couldn’t breach. One no one could see, but I felt it nonstop. At first, I thought it protected me.”
Oh.
“I could numb out. My body healed pretty fast, Lindsay, but my heart never did. It didn’t really start to heal until that day I picked you up at the Island and got you on that chopper. All that time, it was just dormant, the last part of me behind that invisible shield.”
Oh.
“I hardened myself. Became a revenge machine. Developed every tactical skill I could think of. Volunteered for diplomatic missions. Saved Harry after his helicopter crash in Lagos. Learned to be a sniper. Learned how to kill. More important – learned how to protect. And for four years, I told myself it was all for you, Lindsay.” He sighs. “You.”
Suddenly, his warm, reassuring palm is gone. Panic flutters in my chest like a butterfly. Wait! I want to scream. I wasn’t ready. Give me time. I’m so close! I just need more time, I want to plead. I even part my lips, ready to say something.
Drew stands and starts to pace. I know this because I’ve opened my eyes and I watch him, trying to calm my body down, trying to make my ribs stop ringing.
“All those years, I was wrong.”
He halts in front of me, bending slowly to eye level, his gun holster revealed, his shirt uneven across his ribs. Bandages. I realize the lumpy look comes from bandages. How badly was he hurt?
His hand covers mine again, and this time, he does squeeze.
“I wasn’t preparing to protect you.”
Our eyes lock.
“I was protecting me.”
The longer he lets me just look at him, our breathing in sync, his hand holding mine, the closer I can get to him. The darkness within doesn’t seem so vast. It gets smaller as I inhale, then exhale, the enormity shrinking just through the balm of time.
“I was protecting the ‘me’ in the past that I couldn’t protect then,” he elaborates. I look at his mouth, the curve of his nose, how intense his eyes get when he speaks with passion. With compassion.
With love.
“So for all those years I beat myself up. I told myself I’d never let it happen again. And then it did.”
No.
“I failed you.”
No!
“But worst of all, I failed myself. And when you fail yourself, you have two choices. You make it right, or you give up. Please don’t give up, Lindsay. Come back to me, but come back to me because you want to. Do it for yourself. Make it right for you. I’m here. I’ll be here to hold you up. Hell, if I could breathe for you, I would.”
He lets out an intense sigh, his eyes darting left and right, like he’s struggling. Then he looks at me again and says, “But I can’t. And I won’t. Because if you don’t break through this for you and do it yourself, then I’ll have robbed you of even more parts of yourself than have already been taken. I am not going to be that man, Lindsay. I won’t take any more from you. When you’re ready to connect, though, I’m here to give.”
A sound comes out of me, a breathy protest from deep in my chest, like my heart needs to speak but can’t figure out how. It’s a sound of yielding, a quiet plea.
