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"I know," Solomon replied, with a grimace. "It’s why he’s so protective of you, I think. Because he doesn’t want to lose anyone else."
Something clicked in my mind – about the way he had talked to me when I had brought up getting out of here. No wonder he had shut it down like it was the craziest thing in the world. He likely saw danger around every corner, whether or not it was really there, and he was just doing his best to protect me from it.
"Shit, don’t tell him I told you that," Solomon muttered. "He’d be pissed if he knew."
"I won’t," I replied. But, at the back of my mind, something was ticking away – something stringing the pieces into place again. Like me, he’d lost so much – my mother had left me when I was a child, leaving me with this deep, painful fear of being abandoned again, and he’d lost his unit while he’d been at war. Neither of us could stand to let anything slip through our fingers again, but we were coming up against each other in the process.
"You want to get something to eat?" Solomon suggested. "I always feel better once I’ve had something to eat."
I managed to clear the stress from my mind for a moment, and nodded, offering him a smile.
"That sounds great," I agreed, and I followed him to the kitchen. But, as I went, I couldn’t help but start forming a plan to get a little closer to Alex – and show him that he was safe being open with me.
No matter what he had been through, I was here now. And I wasn’t going to let him down.
Chapter Eighteen – Alex
A quiet knock sounded at my door, and I put down my book and glanced up.
"Come in," I called, expecting Solomon to duck through the door with his usual casual attitude, wanting to catch up about what we were doing for the next week of shifts. But, to my surprise, instead of Solomon, Olya was standing there at the door, smiling at me a little nervously.
"Hey," she greeted me. "Do you mind if I come in?”
"Sure," I replied. To be honest, I was a little surprised to see her. After our conversation the other day, when I had stopped her going out again, and laid down the law about her leaving, she seemed to have been giving me a little more space. Not that I could blame her. After all, I had pretty much made it clear that I wasn’t going to bend to the rules she was laying down, no matter how much she seemed intent on making me do so. I had figured she was done with me, but here she was, dressed in a bathrobe and a small smile, sliding onto the edge of my bed and fiddling with a loose sheet on the covers. I crossed my ankles and stared at her, waiting for her to say something.
"Something on your mind?" I asked her. She nodded.
"I...I figured we should talk," she explained. "After what happened the other day. I don’t want any bad blood between us..."
"There isn’t," I replied, and she cocked her eyebrow at me.
"So that’s why you’ve been avoiding me?"
"I haven’t been avoiding you," I protested. "I’ve just been busy with work."
"Mhm, right," she replied, brushing her hair back from her face as she looked at me. "I get it, don’t worry. I know...I know you just want to keep me safe. And it must have felt like I was going against that before. Am I close?"
I eyed her, with some nervousness. It wasn’t that I wasn’t glad that she was coming to me with this, but she was getting psycho-analytical on me, and that was shit I didn’t like to deal with. It hadn’t worked when I’d gotten back from service, and it wasn’t going to work now, I was sure of it.
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied warily. I didn’t want to shut her down right out the gate, not when I could see she was genuinely trying to help, but this approach...it didn’t sit right with me. No matter how innocent her intentions were here, I felt as though I was being put under a microscope, a sensation I didn’t really like.
"Okay, that’s what I thought," she replied, pulling at the thread until it came apart in her hands. "I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I can’t imagine, after what you went through in the army..."
She trailed off, as though she sensed she had gone too far. I tensed.
"What do you know about that?" I demanded. She hesitated before she replied.
"Not much," she admitted. "Just...just a couple of things that Solomon mentioned to me..."
"Shit," I muttered. "What did he tell you?"
She bit her lip.
"You’re not going to be angry at him, are you?" she asked. He had probably told her to keep her mouth shut about anything he shared about me – he knew damn well the only reason I had shared any of that shit with him was because I had been drunk, not because I wanted it spread around to anyone else.
"What did he tell you?" I repeated again, a little more sharply this time. She inhaled deeply and then forced herself to reply.
"That you...that you were involved in an attack," she explained. "That your unit was targeted. And that you were the only one to make it out alive..."
