Most People Don’t Live Through That -Finn
Twelve
Most People Don’t Live Through That -Finn
As we sat in the dark, the world shrank.
It wasn’t quieter; the scraping and hollow cries still drifted up from the street below. But here, something had sealed itself off—a thin, fragile pocket.
I turned Libby’s words over and over in my head, finding nothing.
I’d been to war. That was supposed to mean something here—supposed to mean I had a framework for this, some hard-earned capacity to absorb the unbearable and keep moving. Perhaps my training did apply, and that was the problem.
But this?
You can’t fight this. Not with a gun. Not with orders or strategy or any of the hard-won discipline I’d spent years drilling into myself. This was different. The kind of damage that’s already done before you even know there’s a fight.
The anger came as it always had before combat—a narrowing, my breathing slowing without my permission.
None of that mattered. He wasn’t here.
But she was.
I glanced over at her. No sobbing, no gasping.
Only small—folded in on herself, shoulders trembling in the quiet.
As is she had learned long ago that falling apart only made things worse.
She was holding herself down to almost nothing, barely breathing, as if the world might pass over her if she gave it less to find.
Something flickered in my chest, old and dim.
I moved closer before I could think.
“Hey,” I spoke low, my voice rough at the edges. “Libby. C’mere.”
She didn’t argue. Didn’t hesitate. She simply turned to me like she’d been waiting for permission, hitting me somewhere I wasn’t ready for.
My arm came around her on an instinct I hadn’t answered in a long time.
I guided her across my lap—careful, unhurried—and she came without resistance.
For a moment she hesitated, uncertain, before something gave and she curled into me all at once, her fingers gripping my shirt.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured, one hand rising to cradle the back of her head, pressing her into the space between my neck and shoulder. Her hair brushed against my jaw. Beneath the ash and cold, something clean lingered.
For a moment, she held still.
Silent tears fell, warmth spreading against my skin, and then her whole body shuddered with it. She didn’t make a sound. That almost undid me more than crying would have.
“Shh,” I said. Not to stop her. Simply to let her know I had her. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
My hand moved slowly over her back. I wasn’t thinking about it—only moving, the way you do when something finally feels right to hold onto. Her breath hitched. She pressed closer, and I let her, tightening my arm around her and settling back against the sad couch cushion.
There was a small knot of tension between her shoulder blades that hadn’t loosened. Her head tucked beneath my chin, her breath warm and uneven against my throat. I listened for when it would slow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against my neck. “I just—I can’t—”
“You don’t have to,” I kept my voice low but steady. “You don’t have to hold it together right now. Not with me.”
Her grip on my shirt tightened. I let it.
My chin came to rest against her hair, a movement that seemed less like a choice and more like an inevitability I had no desire to stop.
The smell of her was still there, still faintly clean beneath everything.
My thumb traced a slow, absent line along her shoulder blade, and I let the silence sit without trying to fill it.
“You’re still here,” I said after a long moment. The words came out quietly enough that they belonged only to her. “You made it this far. That counts for something.”
Below us, something heavy slammed into metal. A guttural cry followed and faded.
Neither of us moved.
Her breathing had slowed. The trembling eased, and her grip on my shirt softened—not releasing.
Her fingers uncurled and settled over my heartbeat.
I covered her hand with mine, my thumb finding the pulse in her wrist. For the first time in years, my focus wasn’t on the mission, not on exits or threats.
There was no mission briefing running in my head.
Only the weight of her hand in mine. Only this. Only her.
The shuddering in her chest came less often and then stopped. I noticed only because my own breathing had settled into the same rhythm.
Outside, the world had gone completely dark. No streetlights. No traffic. Only the occasional groan of settling buildings, and the silence where everything else should have been.
I kept my arms around her. One hand resting at her waist. Grounding her. And perhaps myself.
My other hand reached for the bag.
She caught the movement and tilted her head up, her cheek sliding softly against my chest as she looked at me—eyes still glassy in the dim light, lashes damp, something open and unguarded in her expression that left me briefly, stupidly still.
I held up the whiskey.
“Seems appropriate,” I said.
The corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close enough.
I twisted the cap off and took a sip. It burned, and I welcomed it. Then I held it out to her.
She hesitated for half a second before taking it, her fingers brushing mine around the neck of the bottle. Incidental. I noticed it anyway. She tipped the bottle back and took too much, and went rigid, coughing hard against my chest as she tried to stifle the sound.
A quiet breath escaped me. Almost a laugh.
“Easy.”
She swallowed, pressing her hand lightly against my chest as she caught herself. Even in the dark, I could see the flush climbing her throat.
“God,” she said, her voice hoarse. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it really is.”
She shifted, a small adjustment that seemed to make her suddenly aware of everything at once: her hand on my chest, the line of her hip against mine.
I felt the change in her, a sudden tension that radiated from her.
Her gaze shot from my chest to my face, wide and uncertain.
The whiskey bottle, forgotten between us.
I tightened my grip. Not much, but enough to make the point.
“Don’t,” I said. Softer than I’d intended. “This is okay.”
For a moment, she hesitated there, eyes cast somewhere past my shoulder. Then her eyes dropped. Her shoulders slumped. And the hand that had pulled away from my chest slowly relaxed.
She settled back into me. Her head came to rest against my chest again, lighter this time—testing, as if she needed to confirm the permission once more before she trusted it fully.
I let out a slow breath, leaned back against the wall, and kept my arm around her. My thumb found a steady, unconscious rhythm at her waist. Back and forth, barely there. Neither of us acknowledged it.
The whiskey passed between us one more time. Her second sip slid down without a fight. She didn’t cough—just breathed deep, and I tracked the way her body softened another degree against mine.
Then I spoke.
“I spent almost a decade in the SEALs.” My voice was quiet, unhurried. Below, something shifted in the dark—a sound like wind through broken glass, there and then gone. Neither of us looked toward it.
She didn’t move. But her attention sharpened; I could tell by the shift in her breathing. Shallower. Focused entirely on me.
I swallowed.
“What you did,” I continued, my voice dropping lower. “What you did for Lily… I’ve walked into enemy fire, done things people call brave. It was always with a team at my back, with an objective. What you did… alone… that’s a different kind of courage.”
She stilled.
“No.” The word came fast—fragile but firm, like something she’d rehearsed in the mirror a thousand times and still hadn’t convinced herself of. “No, it’s not. I—”
“It is.” Not harsh. Certain.
She pulled back enough to look up at me. The darkness reduced her to outlines—the shape of her jaw, the faint shine of her eyes, the parting of her lips—but I could read enough. More than enough.
“You don’t know—” she started.
“I know enough.”
The silence stretched. Somewhere in it, her hand had come to rest against my chest, and I became aware of my own heartbeat in a way that was almost embarrassing. Neither of us mentioned it.
“Most people don’t live through that,” I said, my voice quieter. “But you did more than just survive.”
My hand tightened on her arm. Deliberate. Certain.
“You ended it.” Her breath caught—a sharp, involuntary sound in the silence between us.
“Let the world believe what it wants,” I went on, holding her gaze through the dark. “Let them have their story. It doesn’t cost you anything.”
I paused.
Then, lower—
“You know what really happened. That’s the only part that matters.”
Her hand slid up my chest slowly, fingers curling into my shirt just below my collarbone, knuckles pressing against my skin through the fabric. I went still, every nerve narrowing to that single point of contact.
“I didn’t feel brave.” A whisper, barely audible. Meant only for the two or three inches of air between us.
“You don’t have to.”
Her breath was warm across my jaw. Her fingers still hadn’t loosened from my shirt. I didn’t want them to.
She leaned back into me. No hesitation this time. She tucked her forehead into the curve of my neck and stayed there.
I pulled her closer—not carefully, not like before. My arm tightened around her waist. Her breath slow and even against my neck, and I closed my eyes.