John #2
I’m in his arms, and he holds me just like he used to—firmly, lovingly, perfectly. He buries his face in my hair and breathes me in.
“Ava,” he whispers, “my beautiful Ava. I’m sorry.
I’m so, so sorry. I love you so much. I never stopped.
Not for one second.” The words pour out of him, as if he’s afraid I won’t give him the chance to say everything he needs to.
“I thought of you every day. Everything I did was about getting home to you.”
I’m sobbing and clinging to him and listening. I listen to every word he says, each of them arrows to my battered heart.
His face is wet, too, and the realization nearly brings me to my knees. I’ve never seen him cry before, whereas he used to tease me about weeping over sappy commercials.
We stand that way for a long time. I have no idea how long it is before I begin to sense that he’s tiring. I don’t want to let him go, but his body is trembling.
“Sit,” I tell him.
“I need help.”
The three little words seem to cost him greatly.
I keep an arm around his waist and support his weight as we move the short distance to the sofa.
When he’s seated, I notice his face has gone white with pain. “What can I do?” I ask, sitting next to him.
He shakes his head. “Didn’t want you to see me this way.”
“The only thing that matters is that you’re alive.”
“Does it matter, Ava? Does it still matter?”
“It matters very much.” It occurs to me that this isn’t going to be as simple as I wanted it to be. This isn’t going to be about closure, but rather, about reopening recently closed wounds that never really healed.
“I have so much I want to say to you.” He takes my hand and looks into my eyes, his blue-eyed gaze as familiar to me as anything in my life.
“Beginning with I’m sorry. I hate that I did this to you, the last person who should ever be treated the way I treated you, the most precious thing in my life. ”
Tears run freely down my face. I’m powerless to stop them. He’s saying everything I’ve longed to hear for years, that I wasn’t crazy to wait for him or to mourn him or to yearn for him.
“That first night we met… I never should’ve left with you or stayed with you or fallen for you. But it was already too late. That first instant in the hallway outside the bathrooms… After that, it was too late.”
“For what?”
“To walk away. It happened that fast for me. Like being hit by lightning.”
I can barely see through my tears.
“I wasn’t allowed to have a girlfriend, Ava. It was against the rules. And I broke every one of them because I couldn’t bring myself to leave you.” After a pause, he says, “I tried a couple of times.”
That stuns me. “When?”
“Remember that weekend I went to Mexico with my unit?”
Nodding, I wipe tears from my face.
“I didn’t go to Mexico. I went apartment shopping.
I came this close to signing a lease, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I went home to you. Another time, I packed my stuff while you were at work.
I was going to leave you a note and tell you I’d met someone else.
I wanted you to be so angry you wouldn’t come after me. ”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“We weren’t supposed to have entanglements, but you were never that to me. You were everything. I couldn’t bring myself to leave you until I had no choice but to go.”
“I tried to find you. After you left… I went to the base, and I asked people, but no one had ever heard your name. I couldn’t find you anywhere, not even online.”
“I don’t exist online—or I didn’t until the Pentagon released my name after the video was made public.
” The words are tinged with bitterness. “They’re making me do an interview with 60 Minutes that’ll air in the next week.
That’s why I wanted to see you now, so I could tell you before I have to tell everyone else. ”
“After the video, I thought I might hear from you. Why didn’t you call me?”
“At first it was because I was really messed up, and then it was because I was afraid you wouldn’t take my call.”
“That was months ago.” I force myself to look at his face. He’s gaunt and hollowed, but it’s the same face that’s haunted my dreams. “What took so long?”
“I didn’t want to come back to you as a cripple.”
“Because you thought that would matter to me?”
“No, because it mattered to me.” He reaches for my left hand and zeroes in on my engagement ring. “Muncie told me you’re engaged.”
I nod, my heart beating so hard, I can hear it echoing in my ears.
“Who is he?”
“Eric… He’s…” I pull back my hand and pour a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. I take a sip and then another.
For the longest time, he stares down at the floor while I wonder what he’s thinking.
“I stayed in San Diego until last May. I… I gave it five years. I gave you five years, and then… I couldn’t do it anymore, John. I just couldn’t.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything.
“John…”
Turning those piercing blue eyes on me, he says, “I’m too late, then?”
The shattered expression on his face breaks my heart all over again. “I… I love him. He was there for me.”
“And I wasn’t.”
I can’t remain seated any longer. I get up and begin to pace as his gaze follows me.
“I didn't know if you were even alive! Every day for years, I scoured the news looking for something—anything—that would give me hope or closure or something, but there was never a single thing about you. I waited for five years. Five years, John.” My voice catches on a sob. “I was by myself with this for all that time, until I thought I’d go mad if I didn’t make a change. ”
“Come here,” he says.
I shake my head. I’m afraid to go anywhere near him. He’s taking apart my carefully reconstructed life one sentence at a time.