Chapter Sixty-Four
I can see the hurt, betrayal, and utter confusion Serena feels. I stretch my hand out to wipe the tears streaming down her face before saying another word. One word that I know will be a final punch to the gut.
“Jensen.”
“What?” Serena asks between sobs.
“He made us all promise. Fuck . . . okay. Before I explain, just know there was nothing you could have done, he made his choice, just as we all have. I believe in his own way he was trying to protect you. We all knew he made the wrong choice—he knew he made the wrong choice, but by then it was too late.”
“What are you talking about?” She manages between strangled sobs.
I’m at a loss on where to start, so I start from the beginning—the day thirty years ago when he drove her to the airport. “He reenlisted—after taking you to the airport. After he finished signing he came back to the house . . . Jensen begged and pleaded with us to never tell you anything—if God forbid—something ever happened to him. He tried to reach out the night before he left for deployment, but Wyhtt and I stopped him because he was drunk out of his fucking mind. He had panicked when you gave him a year because he didn’t believe he would ever be okay enough to be with you. He had tried to hide how bad his depression was, he struggled with alcoholism on and off his entire life. He had been diagnosed with severe PTSD through a counselor outside of the VA medical centers. He tried to keep everything locked up so tight . . . none of us could have helped him, not even you Serena. Not even his Serenity could save him.”
Hearing the nickname only he ever called her had her gasping for breath again, but I continue, as if seeing the plea in her eyes. I know she has to have the truth after all of these years, she deserves that much. I watch in horror as her nightmare comes to life, as I confirm all her worst fears.
I go on to tell her how he panicked after she told him he had one year left of her love. Instead of being honest with her, instead of getting through it together, he was terrified he would destroy her, along with himself. So, he did the only thing he knew how: he reenlisted. Left from the airport and went straight to the recruitment office. He had texted Wyhtt and I to let us know and we tried to talk some sense into him, but we all know Jensen only ever did what he wanted to do or what he thought he had to do. There was no getting through to him.
“We both tried, I swear we did, Serena. I think he knew he fucked up right after the first letter arrived, but by then the contracts were already signed and he got his orders shortly after. He carried each one of those damn letters with him to every base he was stationed at. He reread them until I think we all knew what they said by heart. He got leave once, Wyhtt and I both thought he was going to go after you. But about two days later, he was back, still with the letters in his hand. When we asked what happened, all he said was ‘things are better this way.' We all assumed you finally turned him down until the next letter came. Then we all knew . . . we knew he didn’t come after you for whatever reason he had at that time.
It wasn’t long after that he was sent overseas with a small unit. I wasn’t there, neither was Wyhtt, but we knew the men who were. They were with him when it happened. He took a stray bullet. It wasn’t meant for him, but the wind shifted. From the reports I read—and what the other men had told me—chaos erupted right after that. The squad took on a small ambush. They were able to get everything back under control quickly, but by then there wasn’t anything that could be done for him.
It . . . it wasn’t a painless death, but it didn’t take long. I am not sure I should tell you this, I know it can’t make this any easier, but he did love you. They say he called out for you while he died, he kept mumbling about your children, he was having his life flash before his eyes and his life was you—his life was his Serenity.”
A guttural sob comes from her at my last words.
Over the next hour, not a word is spoken as she lets her tears flow freely. I simply hold her until she lifts her head to ask where he is buried. I point to the other side of the hill, where he rests near a tree with the sun shining through the branches.
I watch as she stumbles to his grave, where she falls to her knees once more. Mourning for a life that should have always been hers from the start. For the man she thought simply did not choose her, did not love her in the same intense way she loved him.
Something in Serena broke the day she learned the truth, as Jensen’s demons that he tried to defend her from ended up becoming hers anyway. Every day I watch as she visits his grave and becomes a ghost herself. Not living, not being happy, but still being his. It was as if their souls were trying to connect again, his soul called to hers through the grave she claimed.
“Is living as a ghost better than being actually being one?” I overhear her ask his headstone, as if she expects him to answer her.
Seeing her at his side goes on for days. She’s seemingly at his headstone at all hours. It’s how I know exactly where she is today, the day before she’s meant to be flying home to Nashville.
“There is no me without him, there never was,” she starts as I approach. “Yes, I can live without him. I have proven that to myself—to everyone I have ever known—and I proved that to him even if he never truly knew, but I never wanted to. Why would I want to live without the person who made me feel complete? The only person I ever felt at peace with?” Her words are solemn, forcing me to take a moment and choose my next words wisely for I feared it would be the last ones anyone spoke to her.
“He wouldn’t want this for you. This is why he begged and pleaded. This is why everyone kept it from you, Serena. You can’t continue to live this way. You have a life, you have a husband, children and a career. Just because he died, it doesn’t give you permission to die too. Live for the both of you.” I plead softly.
It was like she looked straight through me when she answers. “I would never kill myself over his actions. I know I can’t stay here forever. I know I have to return home and continue on with whatever resemblance of life I can make for myself, but I have basically lived as a ghost the last thirty years of my life, only bearing life at times because I believed he was out there somewhere, happy, healthy, and that he had simply not chosen me. I could live with that—knowing he was okay was all that ever mattered to me.
He did love me . . . knowing I was his life, and that in death it was me he yearned for, I can no longer handle this existence as I did before. I have always believed in fate, and I believe fate will bring us together in the afterlife, or in the next life. I will follow him wherever his soul has been sent. Come heaven or hell, I will find him, I will love him, and I will finally be by his side until our souls have become one—burned out of existence in this life and the next. Don’t worry about me, I will be okay because now . . . now I know Jensen loved me, just as I did and will always love him. I will live a life he would be proud of, until I meet him again,” she pauses, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “By natural causes, I swear.”
“That’s the first smart ass remark I have heard from you in a week, I’ll take it.” A small grin appears, and almost as quickly, it vanishes.
“I’m flying back home tomorrow. Promise to keep in touch this time?” Serena asks, looking up at me.
“Of course, someone has to keep an eye on your unstable ass.”
She huffs, but another partial smile appears. “Thank you for telling me, even if it was twenty-some years too late.”
“We were just trying—” I begin.
“Yeah, yeah I know,” she replies, waving a dismissive hand. “Following a dead man’s wishes.”
“I guess this is goodbye then?” I ask.
“I reckon so, I would ask if you’re going to miss me, but I am sure you are grateful to be off suicide watch.” She grins up at me.
“Jesus. You are just as bad as Wyhtt was.” I say, my tone nothing short of exasperated.
“Who do you think taught me? We did grow up together you know.”
“Oh, I know.” I say, rolling my eyes. I attempt the best big brother posture I could muster after the devastation of the last few weeks.
“You be sure to call or text when you arrive safely home.”
“I will,” she promises before sweeping me into a big bear hug.
I bend down to place a swift kiss to her cheek. “Be good, live well for us all.”
Without another word, I turn and walk through the cemetery, stopping to pat my brothers’ headstones and saying my own goodbyes. I turn to look at the woman that both my brothers loved so fiercely and nod in farewell.
The ones I have always loved most now rested. A tug on my heart, a bittersweet final goodbye stays with me as I pray she’ll find a way to be okay, and that my men—my friends, my brothers—had found one another on the other side.
They were simply now waiting for me to join.