Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
Austin
EIGHT MONTHS HAD PASSED ON Haroldeen Lane with no trace of my girl, aside from the belongings she’d left behind to remind me.
I refused to mail them back to her. Her suitcase, scattered toiletries, and the sheets she’d slept on—the ones I hadn’t changed since she’d left—were all I had to cushion the nine hundred fifty-two miles separating us.
We had so much unfinished business. There were so many things I needed to say. To explain to her.
But deep down, I knew that the only thing that stood a chance of helping her heal was the same thing I considered my worst enemy.
Time.
Elle’s faded perfume might have softened, but the scent of apples still haunted me when I entered the guest room. The lost aroma kept me company as I sat on the edge of the unmade bed, reviewing the paperwork I’d put off signing for months.
Time was running out.
The anchor insignia embossed on the top of the document I held in my hands was a huge part of my identity.
For ten years, it’d shaped me. It gave my life meaning and a path that nothing or no one else could.
Serving in the United States Navy was the biggest honor of my life.
But no honor came without sacrifice, and, boy, I’d sacrificed so much to get to where I was.
When Elle had disappeared again the day I took her to see Jesse, I had known she wasn’t ready—not for me, what I needed to say, or even to understand what she truly wanted.
Jesse had lost her by ignoring her needs and trying to control her future, so as much as my instincts told me to fight, to run after her and spill my truth, I knew she needed to come to that conclusion on her own.
I wouldn’t allow my selfishness to disrupt such an important season of her life.
She had a tremendous year ahead between graduation and everything that would follow. The milestones she’d worked hard to achieve—the ones she’d gushed about in her letters—would soon become accolades on her wall. She deserved every moment of her success.
Of course, I didn’t want to miss those highlights. I didn’t want to ruin them for her either.
I couldn’t.
“Standing Still” by Jewel played from the record player in the living room, an afterglow of our night together in front of the fire.
The ballad fueled my delusion that Elle was simply in the next room, making lunch for us or jamming out to her favorite singer while I made the greatest decision of my career. Neither scenario was true.
Except for the one where she was back in Pensacola, without me.
Two options presented themselves in deep blue ink.
A signature in the first spot would renew my contract with the Navy, increase my pay, and require an additional six years of dedication.
Signing there would keep me in my current job, bring me closer to the twenty years of service mark, and ensure a lifetime of benefits when I eventually retired.
It was an option many would die for—that many had died for.
I didn’t take that lightly.
The second signature line offered something I hadn’t known in a decade—untethered freedom. My contract expired in only two days, meaning I was free to leave the military as honorably as I had come into it, taking with me a lifetime’s worth of experiences to be proud of.
The grandfather clock on the wall ticked on, aloof to the magnitude of the decision being made in its presence. A million hesitations bombarded my mind. Still, none were strong enough to deter me from making the choice that, truthfully, had already been made for some time.
I paused one last time before glancing out the window toward my woodshed.
Confidently, I clicked the top of my pen, placed the ballpoint tip onto the paper, and signed on the line that made me feel most alive.