23. Twenty-Three #2
“I know. I don’t want to miss the cotton candy.”
She’s unamused.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Oh? For which part?”
I meet her narrowed gaze and stumble over my words. “For all of it.”
She groans, returning her attention to Ruthie and making me feel worse than I already do. She said all the right things earlier when we were alone—exactly what I needed to hear.
How did I repay her support?
With anger, humiliation, and dancing with my ex.
I silently align with her, determined not to leave her side. Ruthie chomps on cotton candy as we explore the offerings. She has her fill of the rides, and the Ferris wheel turns her a worrying shade of green.
Lena suggests leaving soon.
Her hand slips easily into mine as we cross the lawn to the Rileys’ opulent corner, and she gushes with her usual smiling warmth as we deliver thanks and goodbyes.
But the ride home is unnervingly silent.
Ruthie falls asleep in record time, less than two minutes, a preferred outcome to the potential alternative—hot dogs and cotton candy bits all over the backseat.
Lena languidly fixes her eyes on the passenger window. I feel her disappointment, and it makes me want to shrink into my self-hatred and disappear.
Still, I manage to say, “I’m sorry for being short with you about speaking for me… and for dancing with Lauren. It wasn’t—I didn’t want it to happen.”
She doesn’t respond and keeps her eyes directed out the window. Her good hand fists her pant leg, and I wonder if she’s staving off a panic attack.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay.” Her voice shakes with emotion.
“I’m sorry for bulldozing you in the conversation.
I do it all the time, and I shouldn’t. But I worried you couldn’t hear them and thought you might want me to step in like I always do.
Maybe I deserved your pushback, but it felt sharp and humiliating.
And that’s after feeling like a jealous shit over you suffering through gruesome horror movies with Lauren while refusing a mid-level one with me the other night—”
“Lena, slow down. Please.”
She takes a breath, twisting in her seat so I can read her lips and hear her better. She repeats herself before saying, “You danced with her, Ben. Fucking danced with her. How should I feel?”
“Upset, like me over your hay games with Matt Kirby.”
She glances at Ruthie, still asleep in the backseat, and leans closer to me. “I’ve never fucked Matt Kirby… and I wouldn’t. And don’t want to. It’s not the same.”
I take a breath, my grip white-knuckling against the steering wheel. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You hurt me at every turn, Ben.” Her voice becomes breathy and strained. I glimpse her purple cast moving toward her face. She covers her mouth with her hand. “Pull over… Can you pull over? Please.”
With a sharp turn into the empty parking lot of a closed CVS, Lena bursts from the Jeep and throws up into overgrown bushes. I rush to her, hand going to her back. She coughs and spits as I hand her a napkin from my pocket.
Soon, her nausea subsides enough for her to stand upright. “I’m not pregnant.”
“I didn’t suggest you were.”
She breathes into the napkin like she might hyperventilate. “I was too nervous to eat at the thing. Or before it. The pain pills didn’t like that. Plus anxiety. Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. Everything’s okay.”
Lena’s disorder often leads her to bad decisions, like not eating out of fear that her anxiety will upset her stomach. Still, it adds to my guilt that this event agitated her nerves and worse for not noticing. I usually pay attention.
I go to the Jeep’s tailgate and return with a water bottle. She takes manageable sips, and her color returns slightly.
“We passed a McDonald’s. Want fries and a shake?”
This earns me a short smile. It was her go-to craving with Ruthie.
“Okay,” she says, breathy and uneasy. She leans against the Jeep. “One more minute.”
“Take all the minutes you need.” I nod toward Ruthie, who has her head back and mouth open in a deep sleep. “Our passenger doesn’t mind.”
Lena smirks again.
“I don’t mind, either. I’m sorry I keep hurting you. I don’t want to. It just happens,” I say, pinching my temples between my fingers. “I understand why you speak for me, and it helps. But sometimes, you overcompensate, making me feel incapable, and here, I wanted to make a good impression.”
“You did,” she says weakly. “I’m sorry for helping too much. I’ll try not to take over so much anymore.”
“Sorry about the dancing, too. I didn’t want to. She was trying to avoid ‘Ryan from accounting,’ an overly determined suitor,” I say, though my excuse sounds lame.
Lena chuckles, rolling her sapphire eyes knowingly. “Ah, the old fake-dance trick.”
I give her a stunned look. “Fake? What do you mean?”
“We used to do it at high school dances with guys we liked. Oh, please, kind sir, will you dance with me so so-and-so thinks I’m unavailable and stops bothering me? ” She uses a high-pitched voice. “It always works on the good guys.”
I groan. “It seemed legitimate.”
“Maybe it was,” she allows. “But I didn’t like it.”
“Understood. It won’t happen again.”
She nudges my shoulder as we lean against the Jeep, and I rest my head on hers, her wild tendrils tickling my chin.
“I don’t like how things have been with us lately. Up and down and… tense.”
My chest tightens with nonsensical pressure, hearing her say that. “Me, neither. It’s my fault. My indecision. My…”
“Please, talk to me, Ben.” She edges in front of me, much like in John’s office, studying me with her huge eyes. “What’s making you so angry?”
My mouth feels full of sand, dry and uncooperative, but I push the words through. “I hate that my life continues to revolve around one damn day in Afghanistan. I keep reliving it. That day stole everything from me, and I’m afraid it’s happening again.”
“No, we won’t let it.” She wraps me up awkwardly around my folded arms. “You are not your circumstances.”
I unlock my arms, pulling her into me as her words—my words to her years ago—resonate.
“You’re more than that day, Ben. More than your injuries. More than your hearing,” she says as I bury my face in her neck. “I love you, no matter what. You’re safe with me. Safe and loved and never alone. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”
Her words pull me closer to her than anything has in ages, like she’s my anchor, holding me in place.
A long beat passes before she says, “Do you think we should see someone?”
She is as gentle as possible, but I jerk back like she’s sprung it harshly. “What? Like who?”
“A therapist? For couples? Maybe Dr. Reese—you like her.” Her brow forms that hard L again. “We keep having setbacks, and I worry that…” Her voice trails off. “Am I overreacting?”
The idea irks me. My hands clench at my sides, and my eyes close to the noises in my head. I spent years on the proverbial couch.
During the army.
After the army.
After Lauren.
Times since.
I’ve done my fucking time. Needing help makes me feel weak, incapable, and vulnerable. But for Lena…
“No. I’ll make the call Monday.”
She wilts slightly as if she hoped I’d refute her. I can’t play my usual role—strong, stable husband, calming her in her distress, confident that nothing can break us.
I know better.
So, does she. She nods. “I think I’m ready for fries now.”
“McDonald’s it is.”
I escort her to the passenger side in case she feels additional weakness. Before I close the door, her hand falls on mine. She nibbles her bottom lip like she wants to say something but can’t find the words—I relate.
I wrap my sausage fingers around her dainty ones. “Everything’s okay.”
And she nods and smiles like she believes it.
Ruthie stirs in the backseat. “Did someone say McDonald’s?”