Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
ALYSSE HAD GOTTEN USED TO sleeping with Jay and sleeping lightly enough that when he got out of bed he’d waken her. She’d thought at first that maybe he was just getting a drink of water as he sometimes did, but then, as the time lengthened, she knew he was leaving.
She’d lain there in her bed debating confronting him and suddenly it seemed so cowardly for her to be lying there while he was sneaking out. So she’d gone to confront him and found him standing at the front door with his hand on the handle and her heart broke.
He wasn’t leaving for work or an early meeting, he was leaving for good and they both knew it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. Just tell me why,” she said.
“I think I’m going back into the Corps,” he said.
As if that would explain everything and make this all okay somehow. “Really? Why did you stay last night then? What was that all about?”
She was beyond upset and well into angry now and she wasn’t about to take this sitting down. He was leaving her twice. This was her worst nightmare and here it was coming true. Dammit, she had been planning to be the stronger one this time, why wasn’t she?
“Can we not do this?” he asked. There was something in his expression that she couldn’t read and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
“No, we’re doing this,” she said. “The last time I just let you walk out on me. Well, to be honest, I didn’t hear you leave, but even if I had I would have lain there and let you go without a fight. But I’m not willing to do that this time.”
He sighed. It was a heavy one as he finally came toward her. He stopped when there was six inches between them but it might as well have been a gap as big as the Grand Canyon. He was eons away from her and there was nothing she was going to say that would bring him back.
But last night she’d admitted she loved him. Last night he’d been the tender man she’d always dreamed of finding and she wasn’t going to let him throw that all aside. She just didn’t know what she could do to make him stay.
“Leaving isn’t easy for me,” he said. “But I can’t stay. I saw your face last night when we were in the club with Lucien and India. I know that you hope that someday we will be that kind of a couple. But I can’t be like that. I’m always going to be more inward and less social.”
She shook her head. “I never asked you to change.”
“I know that. You won’t do it either. But I’d have to watch you wither and grow disappointed in me because I’m not the man you need me to be.”
She wondered if that were true. But then she realized that even if there were shards of honesty in that statement, the reason he was leaving was more complex.
“I don’t believe that’s why you’re sneaking out of here, Jay Michener.
You’re leaving because you’re afraid you will like it here.
That you’ll start enjoying the life that we could have together.
And you’re afraid. Afraid to change and let yourself really feel something. ”
“And you’re afraid to just let me go,” he said. “As much as I enjoy being alone, you’re afraid of that very thing. You surround yourself every hour of the day with family and friends, and you have to ask yourself why? What is it you are so afraid of?”
“I don’t see that,” she said. “You’re grasping at straws because if you aren’t looking at a target through the safety of your scope then you don’t let yourself relax. You aren’t living life. You are observing it.”
He looked taken aback. And she felt a twinge of guilt at what she’d said, but there was no hiding from this. He was leaving and there was nothing she could say that would make him stay.
“You may be right,” he said, a sudden quietness in him and in his voice. “But I don’t think I can change. I’m sorry, Aly. I wanted a different ending for us. But I think I was fooling myself into believing I was a different sort of man.”
She closed the gap between them and reached out to touch his beard-stubbled jaw. “You don’t have to be a different man, you just have to be the man you are inside here.”
She drew her hand down his chest and tapped lightly over his heart. She knew that as tough as he was on the outside, Jay was soft inside. And that was why he fought so hard not to let anyone in, even her.
She hugged him because she was going to miss him more than he could ever know.
His arms stayed by his sides and she felt her heart break wide open.
It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t love her and there was nothing she could have done to make herself not love him.
She’d thought she could bring her warrior in from battle and show him the beauty of being a part of her community, but he wasn’t ready to give up fighting and she doubted he ever would be.
“Goodbye.”
He stepped back and looked at her and she easily read the anguish in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you again,” he said.
It bothered her more than she wanted to admit that he knew that he’d hurt her but somehow hadn’t been able to see that she loved him.
“Is that really your only regret?” she asked.
“No, but we don’t have time for me to list them all,” he said, turning and walking toward the door.
“Coward,” she said. “There’s no pride in walking away now. You are just proving that you aren’t all you can be.”
“That’s the army slogan,” he said.
“I don’t care whose it is. You pride yourself on being a soldier, a warrior, but you don’t have the guts to stay and fight for something you said you wanted. Or have you changed your mind?”
JAY HADN’T EXPECTED Alysse to let him just walk out the door but he didn’t expect this amount of anger.
Why not? Was he that insensitive that he’d missed something important here?
He knew that she’d been hoping—hell, he knew nothing.
She was still a big mystery to him and it seemed as if she always would be.
“I’m not a coward. I’m doing this for you,” he said.
“For me?” she asked, the incredulity in her voice enough to make him take a step back toward her.
“Yes, for you. Do you think I like knowing that even though you are with me I’m not the man you want? Do you think I like seeing disappointment in your eyes?”
“No. I never meant for you to feel that way,” she said. “I can work on that.”
She could try, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he was always going to be who he was inside and she couldn’t change that or accept it. He needed to make this break and never come back here again. He needed to walk away and keep Alysse tucked safely into his memories.
“You can’t. We’ve been trying to build something out of nothing here. That’s my fault. I’m sorry this didn’t work out better.”
“Sure,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I love you.”
His heart stopped beating for a second. No one in his adult life had uttered those words to him and he wanted to hold them close and hold her close. Was there a way he could make this work? Could he be the man she needed him to be?
He’d thought about the job with Lucien but to be honest he was afraid to risk it and find that he couldn’t stomach the job.
He was a mess and had not been in the right place to start up his relationship with Alysse again.
He’d made a mistake but he couldn’t bring himself to say those words out loud.
She watched him carefully, he suspected she was looking for some kind of sign that he’d figure out how to work this through, but he was tired of keeping them both on this roller coaster.
He just wasn’t the right kind of man for the long haul.
It didn’t matter that he felt like he should want something more.
He was too afraid to go after what it was he wanted.
He deserved the moniker of coward that she’d given him.
“Your love is a gift I will treasure forever,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, you won’t. You’ll shove it deep down inside you so you don’t have to deal with it. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t show you that life is more than your missions.”
But she had. And that was the part that scared him. He stalked back over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Of course I saw that. Do you think I don’t crave this idyllic life with every fiber of my being?”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Because I know how quickly this can be taken away. You know who makes the biggest sacrifices in Afghanistan?”
She shook her head.
“Those with the most to lose. Those with spouses and kids back home. It’s never the loners. And I’ve been shown a lot of karma in this life. Who’s to say if I try to make this work that we will have a lifetime together?”
“No one can guarantee that. No one,” she said.
She lifted her hand toward him, brushing her fingers over his brow. Then down the side of his face.
“I’m willing to take the chance, Jay.”
He knew he could make this easy on himself.
Just open his arms and draw her into them.
Pretend for her sake that everything would be okay.
But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to cause her more pain by staying.
And a part of him was sure he would. Or worse—he’d stay and she’d realize that the love she thought she had for him wasn’t real.
He didn’t want to leave her. Hell, he wasn’t an idiot.
It was just that he knew that by going now he’d save them a much bigger heartbreak later.
“I’m not willing to.”
Her arms dropped to her sides. She stared into his eyes with that electric-blue gaze of hers and he felt that she was peering deep into his soul.
He hoped that she didn’t really see into that bottomless well because he’d seen too much in this lifetime.
Things he never wanted her to know about. She sighed and then nodded.
“Okay, then.”
She walked around him to the front door and opened it. The sun was coming up over the horizon and the neighbors were out walking their dogs and getting ready for work. A perfect normal morning and yet he felt shell-shocked. As if he’d just withstood a barrage of enemy fire.