The Years Between (16 page)

She sighed and greeted her animals. Her heart lifted at their contact, and wet kisses, and the cats’ purring. She sat down on the couch, deflated. She hated fighting with Will. And feeling disconnected from him.

She turned her head and lay down on the couch. It was still warmed from his body. She sighed as some tears trickled down, but sleep eventually overtook her.

She awoke to find his arms shuffling her around. She mumbled from a nearly drugged state. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid that you’re sleeping out here. I don’t like sleeping without you. I do that too much as it is.”

With that, he slipped her into their bed. She barely opened her eyes, but cuddled against the side of him. “I thought you were mad too,” she said, still half asleep.

“I am.”

“You hurt me,” she said finally, after minutes of silence.

“I know. But I thought I had to.”

“That was supposed to be the point of us now; you don’t have to treat me special anymore.”

“Before or after I wash the blood off you?”

She closed her eyes. “This is exactly why I sometimes think you were right. Other people would be easier for us to be with.”

“Well, sure,” he said too quickly. Her eyes finally popped open to find him staring right at her. “Because we wouldn’t love them, or give a fuck what they thought or felt because we feel it all for each other. There would never be room for anyone else, now would there?”

She swallowed. “No, there is no one else who could even come close to touching how I feel about you.”

“Don’t leave me like that again. I don’t deserve that.” His tone was intense. She caressed his face. He was really upset, not just mad like she figured. He appeared quite distraught over what she’d done.

“Will, I’m okay. I mean, I’m mad at you. But it’s tolerable.”

“Well, how could I know that? You weren’t here. You weren’t here for me to at least know how you were. Give me a little credit. I watched you take razor blades to your skin. I still dream about what some black-haired, sadistic fuck did to you in front of me. And now you want me to just assume you were fine?”

Her breath caught, and she held his face. “Will, I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m not, okay? Worrying about you is a full time job sometimes. Maybe my judgment is wrong too. But acting as if I’m not justified to be careful how I tell you things is juvenile and short-sighted of you. Acting like you can’t trust me?
Me?
I don’t deserve that, either.”

“I don’t like being treated like a fragile mental patient that you have to cautiously approach with reality.”

“I know. But there was a time; you were my fragile, mental patient, and I
couldn’t
approach you with reality. Don’t deny what you were like. I feared your life more than my own in active combat. So while you’re all pissed off because I used poor judgment in when I told you the news about the man who had you raped, repeatedly, you’ll have to excuse my skepticism that you left me over it.”

His jaw was locked, and his eyes were flashing. His entire body went taut. Holy crap! He was really angry at her. Apparently, she’d never seen him truly angry with her before. He’d been annoyed, puzzled, disgusted, confused, but never truly angry.

“Lately you’ve been doing that way too much.”

“What?”

“Simplifying what brought us together. What I know about you. What happened to you.”

“I want to simplify it. I want to forget it and live here and now. Why would you act as if that were a negative thing?”

“Because it’s all still there, here, in us and between us. You can’t pretend it away. I’ve seen what it does to you when you’re not managing it. You’re not managing it right now.”

“Why? Because I’m choosing to work, live, enjoy friends and actually make connections with new people? Maybe you prefer me
to be sad, broken, little Jessie Bains, so you can swoop in and fix me.”

His entire body stilled and tensed. He slowly lifted his head off the pillow. Her heart stopped. Shit! She’d gone too far. “
Wi—”

He shook his head.
“Jesus, I
never
did that. I never for one moment thought such a thing, or wanted that for you.” He suddenly flipped the covers off and stood up.

She sat up in the bed. “Where are you going?”

He barely spared a glance her way. “For a run. I can’t listen to this shit right now.”

“It’s dark outside.”

“I’m not afraid of it. You are. Enjoy your night.”

****

She paced her kitchen. His truck was gone. He simply grabbed his stuff this morning and left without showering or another word to her. She wasn’t sure what to do. They’d never really fought like that. She did things wrong, and pissed him off. But they didn’t usually fight. He never stormed out on her before with that remark: that he couldn’t listen to this shit.

Was this how they would be together? Was this why his first instincts were to leave her? How could two people stay together after experiencing the things they had? He was angry she was doing better? He didn’t trust her to hear the news about her father?
Well, maybe, she didn’t want to always be reminded of how he found her.

Was this the start of it? Of losing everything they both always feared about a long-term relationship with one another? How could a love born in hell survive the rigors and drain of real life?

It was sometimes easier to be around Finn and Bella and the other friends, as they never looked into her eyes or tried to judge how she was feeling. They didn’t watch her when they told her negative things to see how she reacted. They didn’t wait every other moment for her to run off and do something crazy, or harm herself.

Will did those things. What if they really couldn’t sustain the love they found with each other against the dark forces between them?

The shittiest part of it all was: those forces were neither of their faults.

No, no, no! The thought sent her brain panicking like a ping-pong ball around her head. No. They had everything they ever dreamt of and nothing they ever expected to find. They were not going to lose it because of the past. Because of her. Because of him. None of that mattered. The whole fucking point of it was that their love grew despite everything, and in a place where nothing more than a nuclear wasteland should have existed.

She scratched her wrists. It wasn’t funny, telling her to enjoy the dark. That was not how Will ever spoke to her. He was always kind to her. Solicitous even. Cognizant of the things that were inside her. Things that easily reared their ugly heads and haunted her.

As they were starting to now.

She tapped her fingers restlessly against her thigh, and drew in a breath. She let it out and closed her eyes. What if he could never trust her? Or see her as normal?

Did it matter? Even if he never became totally normal with her, how the fuck did it matter? If he was willing to be with her, what the fuck did it matter if she was perfect or not? Or if he didn’t tell her something? So what? Was it better to be alone and miserable while rotting in some mental facility? Everyone who saw her knew that without Will Hendricks beside her, behind her, holding her up, she would have ended up in a sanitarium, probably sitting in her own shit as she rocked in a fetal ball and stared at the wall.

He was right, she quit managing it. She quit feeling it. She tried to bury it. But there was nothing about that, which could ever truly, totally be buried.

She paced harder.

She didn’t like this. It was scaring her now. Where she first was angry, now fear started to seep into her brain.

Pain shot through her stomach and blinded her head. She grasped the table to hold herself up. What if he left her?

She closed her eyes. Breathe. Be calm. Be rational. Be normal.

She opened her eyes. When the fuck was she ever
normal
?

She searched the counter in frantic movements until she finally found her cell phone. Her fingers shook, aching to grab something. Her head was blind with pain now. Her skin felt tight and achy over her body.

She mostly wanted to take out the scissors and stab them deep into her thigh.

He didn’t answer. His voicemail came on. “This is Will, leave a message.”

No!
She needed to talk to him
now
. Right now. This instant. “Will. Please…” Please what? Don’t be mad at me? Love me? Come back to me? Don’t leave me? Don’t hate me for being a psychotic crazy bitch?

She hung up, but dialed four more times. Nothing.

Her heart was beating too fast. She swallowed over the sudden lump. Tears filled and fell over her face.

Alone. She was alone. She was…

Crazy. She was as crazy as people used to accuse her of being.

Don’t let me prove him right about why he couldn’t tell me.
She stared down at her fingernails. The nail beds were white. She had scratch marks on her wrists and palms where she pressed her fingers into her arm and hand. Normal people didn’t do that. She knew it. She was well enough to recognize that. But still, her fingers dug into her skin. Still, the desire to hurt herself grew stronger than her mental resistance.

But no. No. She was not that way anymore. She was better. She was so much better.

Why, then, was she staring at the scissors now in her hands?

She threw them out in the yard before running into their bedroom and ripping the bed apart. She heaved clothes off their hangers and tossed the shoes from the shelves.
She fell into the pile and closed her eyes, pulling herself into a ball. She eventually turned on her back and stared at the ceiling… falling back into the old memories that never stopped haunting her. Hurting her. And destroying her.

Will thought his heart might burst. He slammed on the truck brakes and screeched to a halt in their driveway. The body of the truck rocked forward as he came to a complete stop. He threw open his door and jumped out. His brain was chanting,
Jessie.
What had he done to Jessie? Her voice rang in his head,
Will, please…
Please what? He almost yelled it irrationally into the phone after he heard her voicemail and noticed her five separate calls. He left the base, citing a family emergency. It was. Who knew how he’d find her? He deserved it, didn’t he?
Enjoy your night?
How could he say that to a woman who had once been naked and getting raped before him? How could he? He didn’t know. Now, rational and calm, he did not know how he could do that to her. Or how to find her.

His mind went back to what he’d always wondered: if they could really make a relationship work outside the confines of loving each other. There were so many triggers. They couldn’t even fight like a normal couple.

He twisted the front doorknob. It was unlocked. Unlike her. He slammed it open and, in one glance, knew she was not there, so she had to be in the bedroom or bathroom. He knew the most likely place.

The bedroom was a mess. The covers were ripped off and her clothes were off their hangers and thrown about. But he found no Jessie huddled on the bed or crouched in the pile of
clothes. His stomach knotted. The bathroom door was open, but there was no sign of her. Where the hell was she?

His temples started to burn as blood flowed through them in a harsh rus
h. Where was she? What was she doing to herself? The pets. Where were they?

He ran out of their room and flung open the back door. The dogs were both out there, wagging their tales happily at his appearance before trotting over to his feet.

What the hell?

“Will?”

He turned when his name was called from the front door.
Bella.

“She’s with me,” Bella yelled as she scanned the room and stepped inside.

He gripped the edge of the chair in relief. “She’s okay?”

Bella stepped forward quickly, her expression tight and full of sympathy. “Yes, yes, she’s fine. Relax, Will. Everything’s okay.”

He let out a breath. Relax? Yeah, fucking right! Bella didn’t know what she was asking him.

“How did you get involved? Did you find her? Did she hurt herself?”

Bella’s expression turned to surprise, “No. She came over to my house. I take it, that’s huge. I didn’t realize it until I saw your face. She knocked on the door and asked to come in to talk. She’s been crying. But, Will, she’s perfectly rational. She’s just talking to me. She’s okay. Really.”

He pulled the chair out and sat down, suddenly exhausted, and feeling like he did after a particularly dangerous or stressful mission. The adrenaline that kept him going seemed to spurt from his body like blood from a gunshot hole.

“She’s really okay?”

Bella nodded firmly. “Yes. Really. I saw you pull in so I rushed over. She was in the bathroom.”

“Sh-she came to you? Of her own free will and told you what was wrong? Is she, I mean, was she bleeding anywhere?”

“She didn’t cut herself. She simply wanted to talk.”

Will didn’t know she told Bella her secret. “She’s in the bathroom?

“Going pee. I swear! I happened to notice your truck after she went inside. I ran out to tell you. Come over. Talk to her. You both really need to talk.”

He started to stand up and Jessie suddenly appeared in the doorway. He paused. His lungs hurt to breathe. She stared across at him, her eyes big and stark. The moment went on and on. He couldn’t move. His limbs felt like lead had suddenly flowed into them.
She was okay.
Bella cleared her throat. “Ah, I’ll leave you two alone.”

Jessie glanced at her with a soft, half smile as Bella passed by her with a little squeeze of her wrist. Jessie covered Bella’s hand with a quick clasp. He glanced at their soft, friendly, supportive contact. Holy shit! Jessie really had a friend.
Bella left.

They stared at each other again. She swallowed. “Will—”

He shook his head, crossed the room, and picked her up, drawing her to him in a hug that nearly squeezed the life-blood from her. He was done being stubborn and right. Or not right. He was just done hurting her.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as his lips found her skin just below her ear. There was so much more to say, but he couldn’t, not right then. The magnitude of what they should say was lost to him. He moved his mouth to her cheek and kissed it, trailing kisses to her mouth. Lifting a foot, he kicked the door shut, and brought her to the couch, where he set her down. His lips touched hers, and he kept his mouth carefully closed. He kissed her for minutes, touching her hair, face and forehead.

She finally laughed softly and drew back far enough to put her small hands on his wrists, where his hands cupped her face. “I’m okay. Really.”

He shuddered. “I was afraid. When you weren’t here…”

“I realized that as soon as I saw your truck. I know what you were afraid of. I didn’t think you’d come home.”

“How could you think calling me five times with a vague, pleading message wouldn’t make me come home to you?”

She closed her eyes. He touched his thumb to the corner of her eye. “Why did you tear apart the bedroom? Not your usual thing.”

She slowly fluttered her lashes and finally met his imploring gaze. “I was so mad. I wanted to cut. I wanted to do something. I felt so bad.” He drew in a breath as he realized he caused her to feel that way. “But then, it made me so mad that I was reacting like that. It made me so mad we couldn’t just fight. By wanting to do those things, I was merely proving you were right about me. I was being fragile and broken so you would be right and not tell me things.”

“It made you mad?”

“Yes. Furious. I’m not normal. I don’t react normally. And I simply only want to be normal.”

“So you ripped the room apart?”

She smiled faintly. “I was frustrated.”

“But then? You just went to Bella’s?”

“I did. I was huffing and puffing after the five-minute burst of anger and taking it out on the room. While laying there on the floor, amidst all the clothes, it occurred to me how stupid I looked and how stupid I was acting. I didn’t have to be alone. I didn’t have to do this. I could simply go to my friend’s house. So I did.”

“So you did?” he repeated as if she spoke in a foreign language. She sought her own help? From someone besides him?

She nodded slowly. “Bella sat me down at her kitchen table, and made me calm down and tell her what I was so upset about. And I did. And she talked to me and made some good points.”

“Yeah? And what did Bella point out?”

“That it was just a fight. We are allowed to fight. We are allowed to disagree. It doesn’t mean anything. I had it built up in my head that we could not fight. That we had to be perfect, or I had to accept you were always right. We can’t really be together in a way that lasts. She pointed out that she and Finn have fights. They yell. They argue. They say things they shouldn’t. She said…”

“What?”

“Welcome to being married, Jessie.”

He stared at his wife for a long, moment. She stared back and started to smile. He was shocked when he felt like smiling back. “Welcome to marriage, huh? What’s her point? We aren’t that special?”

She nodded. “Yes; all couples fight. All couples disagree. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be married. Doesn’t alter their love for each other.”

It was such simple, obvious advice. Stuff they missed, because they just weren’t used to being normal. “Do you think… she’s right?”

Jessie grinned fully. “I do.”

He frowned, appearing confused. He never fought with Gretchen. She didn’t fight. She had a logical, calm demeanor. Anytime they disagreed, he just listened to what she had to say or vice versa, and they compromised. He never worried too much about it. Or how she felt. Or how he felt. He leaned his forehead into Jessie’s. “I like that better than what I was thinking.”

“Which was?”

“We are so fragile, we can’t talk about anything.”

“I don’t think we are. I think we just have to learn how to talk to each other.”

“Okay. So I guess we need to talk this out.”

He
stood up and stepped back. She hopped off the couch with a nod. “Okay. Talking. No leaving the room until this is worked out. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

They sat at the kitchen table straight across from each other. She waved her hand. “Who goes first?”

“I shouldn’t have said the parting shot last night.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. That was mean. And unlike you.”

He had to touch her so he reached across the table and took her hand. “I won’t be mean again.”

She shrugged. “You probably will. We both probably will. Don’t you think over our years together it is bound to happen again?”

“Years together?” His face reflected his surprise.

“You never really think of us being together for years, do you?”

He frowned as he realized her words struck home. He was only thinking of getting through now. “Years. I’m starting to see that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about my father?”

“He wasn’t your father.”

She slipped her hand from his, leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “He was, Will. He was my father. Good or bad, he’s the man who raised me. And the only one I think of as my father.”

He sighed. “I know.”

“I got so upset because years ago, you didn’t tell me he was responsible for Mexico, or that he was not my biological father. You turned around and treated me as if I were that same person you left in your apartment all those years ago. I am not. And I don’t deserve to be treated as such. I understood why you didn’t tell me about my father back then. I did. But now? I don’t deserve your doubt.”

“Okay, said that way, maybe you’re right. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. Maybe it is a habit, left over from when I really couldn’t tell you things. You get mad now, but you also forget sometimes what I live with and have witnessed. Sometimes it makes me nuts when you forget what I watched. What I know was true; and I witnessed the emotional fragility that was you. It wasn’t my imagination. It was a real, awful thing. So it’s easy, a habit really, for me to feel the need to protect you.”

She bit her lip. “Okay, fair points. But we agreed to be honest with each other. Then you immediately turn around and aren’t. I don’t understand how could you do that.”

“I did it,” he admitted honestly, “because I feared you might disappear from me. I’ll do anything to keep you from getting hurt. You have to understand that. It kills me to think about what was done to you. What I witnessed. What I can’t stop you from feeling still. If I can prevent
you from hurting yourself, I will.”

“But you hurt me more by not trusting me. I do a lot of things to work on my problems. But you’re undermining those, and ignoring the progress I’ve made. The recovery I’m in often pushes me back to feeling like helpless Jessie Bains again.”

“I
never
want you to feel that way again. That is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

She leaned forward and put her small hand on his forearms. “I should never have said that either. I know that you don’t. I do. I’m sorry I said that last night. That was meaner than what you said.”

He set his hand over hers on his arm. “We agree we said things we shouldn’t have. And acted inappropriately. Do you want to hear it all now? Everything I know? What I think? You’re not going to like most of it. It scares the shit out of me to tell you. It’s easier for me to leave here and face insurgence than to tell you what I know, feel and think.”

She took a sharp breath. “Because it goes back to my father?”

“Yes.”

She shut her eyes. “Okay. Then tell me what you know, feel and think.”

He kept his hand firmly on hers. “I took the money. I want to use it to buy acreage when we go back to Ellensburg. I want to take a year off work and build a house on our land. I want to build you, I mean, us, the home neither of us ever had as kids, teens, or even adults. I want to spend all my time with you in-between simply because I’ve never had the luxury of doing so. I want to stay in your old apartment at the Clapsmiths and let you tend the horses, or whatever the hell you want to do. And then, when we’re ready, I want to move into a home we can build our future in. Grow our family in. Our own place, where we can change the entire course of what made our lives isolated and sad, and start a happy one together.”

Her eyes grew rounder the longer he talked and her mouth dropped open. She finally closed it as she swallowed. “Oh my God. That is not what I expected you to say. I expected… my God. It’s beautiful. What you just described. You’ve actually thought of all this?”

“Yes. Intensely. I think about it all the time. While I’m on duty. While I’m training. While I’m lying down, bored in the bunk. I think about it all the time. But I can’t afford it. If we don’t use the money from Fuck-face’s estate, we will be scrimping, saving and working hard. I’ve worked hard all my life. You’ve suffered all of yours. I just wanted a fucking year where we aren’t working hard and suffering. Where we are just… together. This could provide that. So you know what? It is about the money. The money does matter. And I think it’s owed to you. He was your father. Part of that money came from the household of your mother. So I fucking think you deserve to use it if only to snub his sadistic, perverted ass in the face.”