Chapter Thirty-two
Karina
Kael was waiting for me in the lobby at work when I got there. I had been ignoring his calls, so I couldn’t say I was surprised. I wasn’t sure what to say to him now that he had lied to me again. Hiding things from me was lying any way I looked at it, and I was so fucking tired of everyone around me acting like I couldn’t handle the truth. Even if I couldn’t, it wasn’t their choice to make for me. Kael had known my mom was back, had known she had no interest in seeing me, had known about my father’s health failing, and he’d kept it all from me. If this was the first time he had done something like that, I may have forgiven him, but not again.
No matter how much I loved him, I was too tired to continue on this hamster wheel chasing something that I would never be able to be sure was real. Not only could I not trust him, he had done it all under the guise of knowing what was best for me, and if he’d truly known what was best for me, he would have understood that I’d needed some kind of warning and time to process. I was so damn tired of being surprised and having one thing after another pop up and turn my already barely manageable life upside down.
“How can I help you?” I asked him, plugging in the vacuum.
We were opening in less than five minutes, and I still needed to vacuum and wipe down the counters in the lobby. I was working even harder to show Mali that I deserved the promotion she was offering. There were no clients scheduled for the first thirty minutes, so I had time to clean up a bit.
“You haven’t taken any of my calls. I was worried last night but knew you were with your dad and Estelle . . . and your mom,” he said as I turned the vacuum on.
It was much easier to act like I couldn’t care less what he had to say. I would deal with my emotions later, but being cold was the only way to keep myself somewhat sane. The rejection from my mom for the second time and the fact that everyone knew except me, it was a pattern in my life that I was not willing to keep.
“I’ve been trying to decide what to say,” I admitted, putting all my willpower into keeping a neutral face and tone.
I ran the vacuum over the small space and of course, he waited until I was done to speak.
“Karina, I’m sorry. I know you’re probably tired of hearing me say that, but I am truly sorry.”
I didn’t look at him as I wrapped the cord around the holder. “You’re right, I am tired of hearing you say that.”
He stepped toward me, his feet directly in line with the spot on the floor I was staring at to keep myself from looking at him.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
I made a dramatic noise, anger growing in my veins. “Yeah? And how did that work out? How does it always work out when you hide shit from me?”
He dropped his head. “Not well.”
“You keep lying to me, since I met you, and I keep taking it. Every single time. I’m tired of expecting the best from you only to be let down. You’re supposed to be the one person I can trust in this world, yet you have lied to me more than anyone, my dad included.”
“I know it sounds like an excuse, but every choice I made was to protect you. I always had your best interest at heart, Karina. I would do anything for you. You have to know that. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“You—or anyone else for that matter—don’t get to decide what’s right for me, Kael. It always ends up hurting more in the end anyway. Didn’t you learn that the first time? Or the second? How many times has it been now? My father, my mother, is there anything that you’ve actually been honest about since we met?”
“That I love you.”
My heart pounded, my pulse screaming behind my ears.
“You have a funny way of showing your love for me. You always tell me how strong and capable I am but you keep taking the power of choice from me. That’s not love, that’s manipulation.”
He stepped closer to me, desperation on his gorgeous, traitorous face.
“I’m sorry. It’s in my nature to take on everything, and with you it’s nearly impossible to just allow things to hurt you. I can’t bear it. I will try if you forgive me, but please try to understand my perspective and how difficult it is to untrain my brain of my way of thinking.”
I let out a dramatic scoff. “Your perspective? You can’t expect me to put your perspective before my own, Kael. I get that you’re brainwashed by the Army to just take tragedy and silence your own trauma, to not have an emotional tie, analyze it, and come up with a solution, but out here in the real world, it’s not like that.”
I didn’t mean to hurt him with my words, but I couldn’t sugarcoat my feelings anymore. The fact that I knew he was a good person made this harder, and it was easier if I tried to be like him, emotionless and analytical. I had been rejected by my mother and that absolutely killed me, neglected by my dying father, and lied to by the man I loved. Again. When I listed it out, it was nearly unbearable, and there was no solution. I couldn’t force my mother to want anything to do with me, I couldn’t wish my father’s body back to health, and I couldn’t pray for Kael to stop being Kael. Knowing that his intention was to protect me made it worse because it made me feel helpless, spineless, and codependent, the three worst things to me. I held my independence to a high, high stature and losing it, even to love, was not something I was willing to do.
“I can’t live with you handling all of this on your own. Let me be here for you.” Kael interrupted my internal battle.
“And I can’t live depending on anyone else being here for me. I need to deal with all of this on my own. There is way too much going on in my life to have to worry about my heart and not my head. It’s easier to be alone. I want to be alone. I have to be alone, Kael.”
“I’ll give up Atlanta for you, Karina. I’ll sell the house and stay here. I’ve already contacted a Realtor. I’ll give up whatever I need to, I’ll do whatever you need me to. Please—”
“Kael.” I swallowed the pain as I spoke. “That’s the thing, I don’t want you to give up anything. I can’t live with myself if I hold you back either. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our entire lives and identities to be together. No one should.”
“Love is sacrifice, Karina.”
I shook my head, refusing to allow my fate, or Kael’s, to be like everyone’s around us. “No. Not to me.”
The front door opened, and the bell dinged. I was surprised to see Toni standing there. She looked tired but smiled at us, clearly not able to read the room. Kael stood as still as a statue; I wasn’t sure he was even breathing as Toni spoke. What awful timing.
“I tried to call but got voicemail. Any chance you have time for a thirty-minute walk-in? My back is killing me from yard work and cleaning up the house for the move,” she explained, her hands at her chest in a prayer gesture.
“Move?” I repeated.
“We got orders for Texas, didn’t Martin or Elodie tell you?”
I glared at Kael. “No, Martin didn’t tell me.”
Add it to the fucking list .
“When do you go?” I asked her.
“In about two and a half weeks. Right before Fischer ships off. I guess all of us are leaving,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“Wow.” I wouldn’t say I was Toni’s biggest fan by any means, but I was a little sad that everyone around us seemed to be getting shipped somewhere else.
One day soon it would be just me here. The thought was chilling, but I had made my mind up.
“I’ve got time. Can you just write your name on the sign-in sheet while I put this away?” I gestured to the vacuum and looked at Kael. “I have to work now, so you should go,” I told him, low enough that Toni wouldn’t hear me. The last thing I needed was to be the topic of gossip at her last few FRG meetings.
He looked between Toni and me, clearly deciding whether to go or not. But in the end, he gave up, throwing his arms in the air in defeat and frustration. I knew the conversation wasn’t over, but at least it would be stalled so I could gain some strength before we continued.
“Are you two okay? He seemed a little tense,” Toni told me as we walked back to my therapy room. “Well, he’s always tense, but it felt like even more than usual.”
I almost laughed at her instinct to pick up on anyone and everyone’s business, but kept my mouth shut and just told her that we were fine. During her treatment she did not stop talking, not even for a second. She told me how stressed she was, how she didn’t know a soul in Texas, and that all her friends were here. She was worried about fitting in with the new group of wives in Tharpe’s new platoon. That was particularly ironic given the fact that she had been so hard on Elodie at first.
She also told me that she had heard about my dad being the one responsible for catching Phillips and how grateful she was that he was off the street and no longer a threat to any of us. She told me that Lawson would be taking Kael’s place in the platoon now that his discharge was final. She talked and talked and talked, but I found it soothing since I didn’t have to think or speak about anything going on in my life. It was a nice distraction provided by an unlikely person.
Her session went quickly, as most half hours do. She paid and tipped me. I didn’t know whether the tip or the random hug she gave me surprised me more. After she left, my day was fully booked, and I stayed late to clean the old poster glue off the wall in the lobby. I had already had new signage printed, and even though Mali had told me not to remodel, I knew once she saw it she would be happy I had. It was nearly ten at night when I finally ran out of stuff to do at the spa. I couldn’t think of another reason to keep me from going home, so I took a deep breath, locked the door, and walked home as slowly as I possibly could. Bradley was sitting on his couch with his blinds and curtains wide-open. He was watching some action movie that I didn’t know the name of, but I recognized Tom Cruise flying around the screen on a motorcycle, which did not help narrow down the possibilities since there were at least ten of those films.
Kael’s truck was parked in front of my house, no surprise to me. I braced myself again, repeating all the reasons I had to be livid with him, to finally distance myself from him. It was easier when he wasn’t in front of me, and I knew that. I wished I could go back in time to that first time he came into my work to meet Elodie and just tell him she wasn’t around instead of taking him as a client. If I would have turned him away, none of this would have happened and I could have gone on with my already miserable life without adding having my heart shattered on top of it. I’d thought I’d known what heartbreak was, but looking back on my life, I had never been in real love until Kael. The first time he broke my trust was painful, but having opened up to him again only to be betrayed again was something else, something I had never felt before and never wanted to feel again. I had to protect myself above all.
Even if I didn’t mean it, I wished to myself that I would have this same revelation someday when I met someone else. I couldn’t stomach the idea of even speaking to another man, but there would have to be a time in my future when I wouldn’t be in so much pain, wouldn’t there? But was being alone so bad? I’d done it before, I could do it again.
I took one last deep breath and opened the front door. Kael was standing in the center of my living room, his hands behind his back. He was wearing the same outfit, matching navy sweatpants and sweatshirt, as earlier, likely meaning that he had spent the entire day in my house waiting for me. I wanted to slap myself when the thought made me feel mushy and cared for. How quickly my mind took his side pissed me off.
“You didn’t have to wait here all day,” I told him, hanging my keys up on the holder as I slid my shoes off.
“I wanted to.”
“What do you want to say, Kael? You’re sorry? I’ve heard it before, and I really don’t want to hear it again. I don’t want to argue with you, and I think both of us could use some space.” The reserve was clear in my voice, and his eyes told me that he could feel it too.
“I don’t want space. Not from you.”
“Then what is it you want exactly?”
He reached for one of my hands and caught me off guard. I didn’t have time to pull away.
“I want to be by your side until your hair is silver, until our backs hurt and our joints ache. I want to stay next to you as we make something of our names, struggling then succeeding, and until our memories fade. That’s what I want. And I know you do too. I don’t understand why you’re fighting against yourself so hard.”
Using every single tiny ounce of energy I had, I blocked his words from entering my chest. Once they settled in there, I would be a goner. I would forgive him and wrap my arms around him and lose my sense of self in him, again, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. Everything from my mother’s hatred for me to my brother’s aloofness and my father’s coldness reminded me that I could only depend on myself. Maybe Kael was used to having a platoon, an incredible mother, and a group of friends by his side, but I wasn’t. I had never known what it felt like to know that if I fell someone would be there to catch me, or at minimum help me up.
“There’s nothing left here for you, Karina. Your father might not be around long, your mother left again, your brother is leaving in a few weeks. Come with me and let’s start over, please.”
“I have memories here, Kael. I have a life here. I have a job and my house and Elodie.”
“Elodie is going to move to wherever your brother gets stationed,” he harshly reminded me. I knew that, but there was a small chance he would be stationed here.
“Estelle will be here, and eventually she will be alone.”
“And? You can barely stand her.” He was onto my excuses, but I kept them straight.
“We’ve been getting along.” I defended myself by a thread. “For better or worse, she’s my family.”
I had grown closer to Estelle in the last two weeks than I ever imagined possible. She wasn’t my only reason for wanting to stay here, but she honestly was one of them. At the bottom of the list, sure, but still on it. I wasn’t even sure what the hell else was on my list, but I was so damn afraid of feeling trapped, giving up the only things that make me me , like my house, my job, all for a man who continued to hide things, very fucking important things, from me, and an uncertain life.
“I can’t pack up and follow you to Atlanta. And a few hours ago you said you were ready to give up that dream.”
“And the offer still stands, but what the hell can you do here that you can’t do there?”
“A lot . . . nothing? I don’t know!”
“Can you please think of yourself for once? Every choice you make is based on someone else’s feelings or well-being and never your own! It’s always about your brother, Elodie, your father, even the damn neighbor. Everyone except you and your happiness.” He raised his voice, clearly exasperated.
I took a step toward him; my living room felt like it was shrinking.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Kael. Thinking of myself. I told you from the moment I met you that I was never going to be a woman who follows a man to another city, abandoning her life and her goals for his. I can’t do it.”
“And what exactly are your goals?” His voice turned dark, defensive.
“Don’t you dare act like I don’t have any goals. Just because my dreams are smaller and less lucrative than yours doesn’t make them irrelevant. I want a quiet life, Kael. One where I don’t have to worry whether I can believe the person I’m sharing it with. I want to be alone. That’s all I want.”
He scoffed. I knew his emotions were getting the best of him, and it wasn’t like him to be ruled by his anger more than logic, but that made two of us.
“A quiet life? Like being in constant danger and constant hustle? Always chasing something that you don’t even know you truly want? Is that the kind of life you want, falling apart? Like your house for example?” He pointed to the crack in my ceiling that had been growing as the weeks passed.
I threw my hands in the air. How fucking dare he. If he wanted to be harsh, I could be fucking harsh. My sadness was drowned by my anger.
“And what? You’re going to keep me safe, Kael? Before I met you I was never in any danger, I had never had my trust betrayed in the worst way, and I had never, ever questioned my own sanity while being gaslit by a liar who claimed to hide shit from me to ‘protect’ me!” I used air quotes for the word protect to emphasize my point.
He stared at me, eyes full of fire.
“Go ahead, what’s your next excuse? If you were serious about having a future with me from the beginning, you would have consulted with me about Atlanta in the first place instead of buying a place there and hiding it. Now you think because you waited until the last minute that I’m going to jump when you say jump? And don’t talk about my house like that. I work my ass off to have this house, and you know what it means to me. And my father is slowly decaying? So what, I should just leave before he dies and pretend he doesn’t exist, like you do yours?”
I knew I had gone too far, but so had he. We were both taking our anger out on one another and neither of us seemed to be able to stop. This was for the best anyway; he should hate me and leave me too. If he longed for me after we split he would be even more miserable, and even if it didn’t seem like it at the moment, I didn’t want that for him.
He looked at me like I was a stranger he had never met, never touched, never claimed to love.
“Wow. My father? You’re bringing up my fucking father right now?”
I’d been shocked into silence by my own words. I waited for him to say something else as both of us paced around my living room, but he didn’t. He grabbed his key chain from the table and slammed the front door on his way out. I was still catching my breath as his truck roared to life and he drove off.
An hour later my temper had calmed, and I already missed him. I didn’t feel the closure or the ultimate ending that I’d expected to feel. I felt like complete shit for bringing up his father to purposely hurt him. I stared at my ceiling fan and felt my body sink lower and lower into my mattress, digging my fingernails into my palms until the tears stopped coming.
I texted him an apology but never heard back. I had finally managed to push away the only man in my life who had ever loved me. The real me. I felt accomplished and defeated at the same time. A devastating and shameful mosaic of my parents.