Someday Never Came

Chapter Forty-Eight

I kiss her as if it’s our final kiss, because I know it is.

I want to die in our kiss, suffocate within her, and mold ourselves into one. I want to leave the best parts of me within her and let the rest vanish. The only good within me will be gone as soon as she gets on that plane.

I can’t fucking breathe. The tightness in my chest makes each breath shallower than the last.

My pulse runs wild, and I can feel it through my entire body. The pounding in my ears is a warning that if I didn’t get myself under control, the unavoidable would occur. I refuse to let her last memories of me be a man too weak to control his own emotions, a man full of regret and of panic. As she slips from my arms, I feel my own heart trying to betray me.

I feel my heart breaking, being crushed by the weight at the chance of our someday sitting on my chest. The weight leaves me paralyzed and completely speechless. I want to voice the words: to tell her I love her and that I always have. I want everything she described and more. I simply needed to turn back time, I needed to never have that first drink and never let the poison consume me. Never let the liquid fire, warm my cold dead soul to bring temporary relief as it sets me ablaze when I could have always found my salvation within her arms. I needed to wash my hands of all the blood, all the pain I’ve caused, the horrors I have seen and created in the name of a safer nation.

Out of my arms and slipping farther from my reach, we lock eyes. A single tear was holding on for dear life as she looked at me. More like memorizing me, taking in every detail of what I’m sure is a panic-stricken face, a face full of rage and sorrow. Rage at myself for knowing I’m not the man she deserves, for allowing myself to fall so far from the good intentioned boy she once knew—the boy who loved her with reckless abandon. Rage for what I allowed the world to turn me into, at my own foolish mistakes that led me down this path. A path that seemed to have no return.

Sorrow for the woman standing in front of me . . . the woman who so obviously had and will always love me to some degree, regardless of if I was worthy of it or not. Sorrow for what will come next. I allowed myself exactly thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to convey the pain I felt, to let the cold expression so carefully placed upon my face falter as I allow one single tear to mirror hers. To show her—my soulmate—the woman of my dreams that I do in fact care. Action over spoken words, before I slipped my carefully crafted mask back into place. The panic that had originally settled so deep within me turns into resignation.

A simple nod and a final touch of her long slender finger stroking my jaw line is the last thing she offers before she turns away from me. An act that to anyone else may have looked heartfelt, perhaps a goodbye that would only last a few days and not a lifetime. I’m sure the gentle action looks nothing like a final goodbye, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. I want nothing more than to pull her to me again.

One more kiss, one more hug, one more touch.

The issue is one more would never be enough.

One more will never be enough when you are never whole without the other part of your soul.

As if the world slows around me, I watch the love of my life slip from me for the final time. No amount of pain—no amount of torture—could have prepared for the whirlwind of emotions that hits me. I feel as if I’m in a natural disaster with the winds tearing at me, ripping me to shreds. It feels as if the ground beneath my feet is collapsing, attempting to swallow me whole. Each step she takes leads her farther away from me. Each step feels like another part of my undoing. Something settles over me, something final.

In my heart, and in my mind, I know what I have to do next.

It was the only way I could protect us both.

Out of sight and out of reach, my sweet Serenity slips through my grasp, never to be mine again.

I have nothing left.

Even my brothers can’t save me from the reality I created for myself. All my training comes back to me as I race through the crowds of people back to my truck. The truck she would never be in again. She would never play songs that speak to me as the wind blows through her mess of wavy hair.

I shove those memories down as I approach my oldSilverado and pull my phone out. Without thinking I create a group chat with Wyhtt and Grayson before sending off a text I know will cause hell to break loose.

She’s gone. She should be boarding the plane as we speak…

Wyhtt

What happened?

Grayson

You okay?

I’m sorry. I know you both have sacrificed for me. I know you both only want what is best for me.

Grayson

I don’t like the sound of this…

Wyhtt

Where the fuck are you?

Grayson

What’s going on man?

Talk to us…

I wasn’t meant for civilian life, not after all this time. I can’t live this life without her, but I sure as hell can’t ask her to live this life with me as I am.

My phone starts ringing immediately. I decline the call as Grayson’s name flashes across the screen. I decline Wyhtt’s call not even fifteen seconds later before putting my phone on do not disturb. They don’t deserve this life either, one of constantly picking up after my messes. I had created a family not of blood, but of bond, and none of them deserve what I’ve put them through. They certainly shouldn’t have to keep cleaning up my messes, despite the fact I know they will if I give them the choice.

I drive straight to the recruitment office, knowing I could be gone within the week. Far enough away I can’t fuck up the lives around me when I turn back to the bottle, when the nightmares come racing back when she is no longer in my bed, chasing away the demons who haunt me. For just a moment I thought I could have it all, but that isn’t how life works for men like me.

I don’t deserve a happily ever after. I will never get the storybook ending that others spend a lifetime chasing. Men like me were created for war, as war lives within us. We can either fight it within ourselves or find it headfirst in an actual war. Fighting a real enemy—one who has a face, one who bleeds, one who can die at the end of the barrel of our guns—that is what someone like me was made for.

Pulling into the parking lot of the recruitment office, I put my truck in park, daring to take one final look at the text messages sent in hurt and betrayal from my brothers. We all made it out. We were alive, and I was willingly running back into the life of uncertainty.

Wyhtt

The fuck you think you are doing? If you do this, you do this alone. We are not following you back into a goddamn war just because you can’t get your life together.

Grayson

Think this through. It has only been six months. It takes everyone time to adjust, Jensen.

Wyhtt

What about S? What are you going to tell her? Don’t do this to her again!

Goddamn it. I followed you once. I went to war with you because you are my brother and I don’t regret it, but I can’t do that again. I want a family. I want a normal life.

Grayson

Answer the god damn phone…

Wyhtt

Did you tell her?

Grayson

We know you struggle but you can fight this. You can recover. You will recover.

There were around thirty more texts filled with a mixture of rage and sorrow. The texts reflect my own emotions from earlier. Wyhtt would never understand how I could do this to our girl again. He could never comprehend I wasn’t doing this to her, Grayson, or him. I’m doing this for them, to protect them from myself. A calm rage settles over me, a feeling of finality sinks into my bones as I step out of the truck to enter the cold, unforgiving office to sign my life away for the second and final time.