Chapter 24 Oak
Oak
How do you tell someone the darkest parts of yourself and expect them to still see the good?
I only ask because I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror for almost ten years now knowing the crimes I’ve committed, the sins I’ve done, and I don’t see the good man everyone else claims to see.
What I see is a man who lacks courage.
A man who isn’t brave.
But you want to know what I see the most?
I see a man who has constantly failed everyone around him.
How do I begin to tell all of this to the one person who means more to me than I ever thought was humanly possible?
And what if after I do, she finally sees me as the man I am, and discards me like I’m nothing?
I blow out a deep breath as I run my trembling hand through my hair.
It’s now or never, Oak. Let her in.
With feet that feel like lead, my heart pounding in my chest, and my hands trembling I walk back to my room.
The closer I am to reaching my door the more I am unable to breathe. My lungs feel as if they are shrinking and the air fucking burns.
I can feel myself being sucked into the black void that takes complete control and holds me in a fucking chokehold.
My breathing quickens as I desperately try to draw in more air but I know my attempts are futile.
Their screams. . .
Their faces. . .
I feel myself being dragged back to the past and I’m desperately fighting to stay in the present.
My body becomes paralyzed as their screams become louder than the bullets that were flying around us.
Tears, hot and heavy, press at the back of my eyes as my jaw clenches.
I need to save them.
How do I fucking save them?
My heart stops beating as the air evaporates.
In the distance, the far off distance, I hear my name being spoken softly in an achingly familiar sweet voice. It reaches out to me. And I find myself fighting my way back to it, back to her.
I blink my eyes rapidly as I gasp for air. My whole body feels like it was under siege and now it has been set free.
I blink away the images of the past and swallow thickly.
“You’re here, Oak,” she says softly, coaxing, her hand gently holding onto mine as her other is pressed flat against my chest, over my heart. “You’re with me. I’m always with you.” The strings on my heart pull.
With a broken cry that sounds more like a tortured growl I gather her in my arms and crush her against me.
I feel her body against my own and it’s not enough. I want to feel her closer. Etch her in my skin so that she can soothe the parts of me that no one else can reach.
“It’s okay, Oak,” she soothes in a gentle tone that wreaks havoc upon my battered heart. “I got you. I’m not going anywhere.” Another broken growl slips pass my lips and I hold onto her tighter, if that’s possible. She places a chaste kiss on my sternum and then says to me, “Come with me.”
Little does she know I would follow her anywhere.
Loosening my hold on her she takes my hand and leads me through the opened door of my room.
Because Grace is the most thoughtful person I know she doesn’t take me to sit on the bed, where I wouldn’t be able to handle the comfort, but rather the deep seated plush chair that’s placed in the corner of my room.
She goes to put space between us but I don’t allow her to. I place my hands on her hips and bring her back to me. Needing her close, needing her more than I need air, I situate her on my lap and she fits perfectly.
Her fingers softly trace the lines of my face before she caresses my face in the palm of my hand. I lean into her touch and her eyes soften.
“I thought you would want some space.” Her voice is calm.
I tuck away a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “All I want is you.” My voice comes out gruff as I give her a piece of my heart and hope that she never gives it back.
Tipping her head up she places a tender kiss on my lips. “You’ll always have me, Oak.”
My heart twists as I look away from her. She has none of that. Taking my face in her hands she forces me to look in her eyes. “Talk to me, Oak. Tell me what’s going on inside that head of yours. Open up to me and let me fight alongside you.”
“Grace-”
She shakes her head adamantly. “You told me that you are the sword and I am the shield. That we fight our battles together. That doesn’t mean just my battles, Oak. That includes yours too.”
“I know that, Grace. I know.”
Her eyes beg me. “Then let’s fight this battle together.”
My eyes bleed into hers. My voice is pained as I ask, “And what if you decide this is a battle not worth fighting?”
“You are always worth fighting for, Oak. I’ve been fighting for you since the beginning and now that I have you I’ll stay fighting to keep you.”
Those words spoken from her lips with absolute conviction makes her more beautiful to me. I see her love shinning brightly for me in her eyes.
And she deserves to have that love shinning back at her.
She deserves to say it out loud without the fear of scaring me away.
“Whenever you get deployed in the back of your head you aways think to yourself, will I make it out alive?” My voice sounds as if it’s sandpaper.
I swallow, forcing the saliva down my dry throat and continue.
“My unit and I were deployed for combat in Iraq. Usually when you get deployed you can expect to be there for six months. But this time was different. We ended up being deployed for a little over two years before. . .” I swallow again, my jaw clenching as I remember how our last deployment had ended.
Grace caresses my face and swipes her thumb along my tense jawline to ease the tension.
I close my eyes and allow her touch to soothe me. When her hands are upon me it feels like salvation.
Turning my head I press a soft lingering kiss to her palm. Then I take her hand in mine and hold it against my chest.
“When you enlist you know what you are signing up for. But you don’t quite grasp it until you actually see it.
And you begin to lose little pieces of yourself.
Seeing all the violence and bloodshed, the horrors of combat, it changes you.
It changed me. And to this day I wonder if it changed me for the better or just left me damaged. ”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “You’re not damaged, Oak.” Her voice is a soft whisper. “You might be a little lost or feel broken, but that doesn’t make you damaged. Not to me. It makes you a fighter.”
My heart clenches as I bring her closer to me and tuck her head underneath my chin. I kiss the top of her head softly.
“Miguel, a brother in my unit, would always tell me to look at it from another perspective. He was always the one who kept reminding me that what we did didn’t make us bad people.
Most days I believed him, but there were others when I couldn’t.
Where taking a life took its toll. But it was kill or be killed and we had to do what had to be done.
I don’t regret killing to save my brothers.
I’d do it again and again if it meant they would come out of it alive. ”
She nods her head against my chest. “I understand that, Oak. I think anyone would.”
“You’d be surprised,” I say flatly. Clearing my throat I then push ahead knowing what lies ahead of me.
“We have done countless of missions before. And we always came out unscathed. A scrape here or there but in the grand scheme of things that meant nothing. If you came back with all your limbs and a beating pulse it was a good day.” I remember all those who hadn’t came back unscathed.
How many we lost. How many we still continue to lose.
“On this mission of ours we had to save women and children who were being held against their will from their own people. They were being used as puppets. They used all their people as puppets, even the kids who would come charging at us with gunfire.” A group of militia children had killed a group of men during combat.
And it was fucking heartbreaking on both parts.
Heartbreaking that we lost our brothers and heartbreaking that those children were trained to kill.
She shifts from underneath me and shows me those eyes of hers that hold nothing but compassion.
I don’t want to look in her eyes for what I have to tell her next. I don’t want to watch them change from compassion to disgust.
“Did you save them?” She asks quietly, helping me push forward.
I nod. “We did. I led the mission and we freed three women and five children from being tortured then killed. That’s where it was supposed to end.
” It’s where it should have ended. I should’ve been the villain and stopped us from pushing ahead.
They would’ve hated me for it, especially Roman and Miguel, but they would be alive.
And I’d rather have them hate me alive than respect me dead.
“What changed?”
Fuck.
I feel the tears, hot and heavy, pressing behind my eyes as the air becomes thinner.
“The woman kept pointing to the building over. She was frantically pointing from her daughter and then to the building. She was panicked, frightened and begging us. We realized she was telling us there was more kids being held captive.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It was but at the time I was Sergeant and we had done what was asked of us. We didn’t know what lied ahead and proceeding would be going in blind.
Jude, another brother in my unit, had no desire on pushing ahead.
He had a wife and a young kid back at home.
I understood his reservations. He was the only one of us who had a kid, and he wanted to go back home and be a father.
” That same love for his baby girl Blair, also led him to changing his mind.
“How did you feel?”