Ava
We sit together until the buzzer sounds to announce Jessica’s arrival. Eric gets up to let her in.
Jessica comes in and makes a beeline for me, hugging me like an old friend.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I told you before—any time you need me, I’m here.”
“Eric told you the latest?”
“He did, and on the way over here, I tried to imagine what it must’ve been like for you to see him again and to hear the things he said.” She sighs. “I couldn’t imagine it.”
Eric sits next to me and takes my hand.
“I can’t get it out of my head.”
“And you won’t, probably for quite some time.”
That’s not exactly good news to me.
“Tell me what happened. I need to hear the details.”
I relive my hour with John, from the moment I arrived until the second I left.
“I found out things about him I didn’t know before.
He’d told me his father was a high-ranking military officer, but that wasn’t true.
He grew up in foster care and went into the Navy out of high school when a judge offered him that or jail.
They put him through college and recruited him for special assignment because of his lack of personal attachments.
I never knew, until I saw him the other day, that I was all he had. ”
“And now you’re feeling guilty for leaving him when he’s facing a long, arduous recovery. Am I right?”
Leave it to my Jessica to zero in on the heart of the matter. “Yes, you’re right. I feel awful.”
“He’s not your responsibility, Ava.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. He is not your responsibility. I want you to say that back to me. He’s not my responsibility.”
“He’s not my responsibility.”
“Say it again.”
“He’s not my responsibility.”
“Do you need to say it again, or is it sinking in?”
“It’s starting to sink in.”
“And you understand that no one is at fault here except for the terrorist who decided to blow up a cruise ship and the lives of thousands of people, including you, along with it, right?”
Placing the blame on Al Khad is much better than blaming John for doing his job and serving his country. “I’m trying to understand that. It’s a work in progress.”
“You wondered what became of John. Now you know. You wondered how he truly felt about you. Now you know. You wondered how you’d feel when or if you saw him again. Now you know. What else do you need to know?”
“N-nothing. I have all the answers I needed.”
“Then it’s time to move on. Unless…” She glances at Eric. “I’m not quite sure how to say this…”
It’s so unlike her to waver. “Just say it. Whatever it is.”
“Unless you’d rather be with John than Eric,” she says, grimacing in Eric’s direction. “Sorry.”
He looks like he’s been punched.
“That’s not what I want.”
“You’re sure of that?” Jessica asks.
“Yes.” John is the past. Eric is the present and the future. I have no question in my mind about that.
“Are you really sure, Ava?” Eric asks. “I don’t want you torn between me and him while we’re planning our wedding. If you want to postpone it, we can do that, but I need you to be absolutely certain that I’m what you want before you commit to me.”
I look at him and see everything he’s been to me since that day last June when he saved my life with a slice of cheese pizza. He’s held me up, supported me, helped me put the pieces back together and never wavered in his devotion to me, even when a lesser man surely would’ve said enough already.
I see him down on one knee with the Christmas tree lights twinkling behind him, asking me to spend the rest of my life with him.
I see him holding my hair back when I was sick when Al Khad was captured and calling in favors to find out whether John was still alive after the video surfaced.
I see him buying first-class tickets to get me home as quickly and comfortably as possible and not asking a single question even when he must’ve been full of them.
He’s already proven himself to me in every possible way.
It’s time now for me to return the favor.
“I’m absolutely certain that you’re what I want,” I tell him.
His relief is obvious and palpable.
“I’m sorry I ever gave you reason to doubt that.”
Eric hugs me tightly. “Don’t be sorry. If you’re here with me, I have everything I want and need.”
Jessica dabs at her eyes.
I close mine and thank my lucky stars that Eric Tilden found me when he did and loves me like he does.
I hope that in time, I’ll stop hearing John’s voice begging me to stay and give him another chance.
Sharing my dilemma with Eric and Jessica has helped me to put it into perspective and to free myself from the shackles of the past.
I want to focus on the lovely present and the beautiful future that’s ahead for me and Eric.
“I think,” Jessica says as we continue to hold each other, “that my work here is finished. Don’t get up. I’ll let myself out, and I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
She ducks out, and still I cling to Eric, my port in the storm, my love. “I love you so much,” I whisper. “I’ll never have the words to properly tell you the full extent of it.”
“I think I know, because I feel the same way about you.”
I’m not under any illusions that the path forward will be easy or that I’ll suddenly stop thinking about John or aching over the things he said to me. But I’ve made my decision, and there is peace in that.