The Years Between (4 page)

“Asleep. He’s still not totally well. And he—“

“Had too much physical exertion last night?”

The laugh that escaped her lips was nice. Normal. After the freaky, surreal circumstances of the last day.
“Something like that.”

“And it’s… okay for you?”

“Yes. Better than it used to be. I mean, better even than before Mexico. Things were never good for me.”

Lindsey was quiet. “I’m glad, Jessie. You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.”

“Actually, I can.”

Lindsey cleared her throat. “So,
after you left I got a lot more information about the general. Do you want to hear it? I-I know more about what happened to you.”

Jessie’s heart clenched. She shut her eyes as if it could keep the images at bay. “I don’t want to hear it. Not now, Lindsey. Maybe not ever. Tell Will. I’ll ask him if I ever want to know.”

“I’ll call him next week. And I guess the general wanted to be cremated. I never knew that about him.”

Opening her eyes she stared absently at the wall.
She could hear the general’s voice as clearly as the wind chimes rattling outside the window. “
You’re a lazy, ugly slut. How do you find any guys to even touch you? You’re contaminated. You’re so bad. They smell it on you. They all know how bad you are. Why do you think this keeps happening to you? I’ll bet you—”
By “this,” he meant his friends who regularly touched her, breathed on her, sweated on her, heaved into her, and hurt her.

She shut her eyes. “I don’t want him. Not even his cold ashes,” she said in a fierce tone.

Lindsey let out a deep breath into the phone, before she replied. “I figured as much. What should we do?”

“Nothing. Let them do whatever they decide.”

Lindsey was silent. “It seems wrong not to care more.”

“To you, maybe. Not to me. He was wrong. Everything that he did to me was wrong.”

“Okay, Jessie. Okay. We’ll just… let him go.”

“Thank you. When will Elliot be home? You must be going crazy out there all alone. Do you want me to come over? Or do you want to come here?”

“I appreciate it, sis. But no. You two need to be alone. I’m okay. As you said before, none of it is new, he’s just dead.”

“That’s pretty new,” Jessie crossed the barren, sparsely furnished living room and flopped on the couch. “It’s harder to process today than it was yesterday. It’s hard to picture him dead. I never thought he’d be forever truly gone from my life.”
She was silent before she admitted, “It’s the best news of my life.”

“
Then, just concentrate on Will. Let the general stay dead. You’ve grieved enough.”

She blew out a long breath. “I’m trying. Will said he wants to get remarried, and take a honeymoon.”

Lindsey squealed so loud, Jessie had to hold the phone away from her ear, but it didn’t stop the huge grin from splitting her face in two. Finally, at the excitement from her sister, Jessie’s heart rate increased as if fueled by Lindsey’s joy, and she could finally believe it was something real. Something that was going to happen.

“Oh, Jessie! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me for you. That is the best news I think I’ve heard, besides Will being alive, since ever!”

“Will never dreamed I’d been told he was missing. Since I was not married to him, there was no notification to me required. At least next time, he’ll know, I know he’s missing or injured.”

Lindsey groaned into the phone. “Oh my God! Stop it.
There won’t be a next time. Don’t do this today, Jessie. Don’t go negative and cynical. That is not the reason Will Hendricks wants to marry you, and you know it. I’ll tell you what, in a few weeks, when Will goes back and you have to start living real life again, I’ll listen to it. But not today. Today is the day you start your life with the man you feared dead, and the man you love. Today is the day you are free of the man who abused you for over a decade. Today is the day, Jessie, so that is all I want to hear from you.”

“Okay, okay! I hear you. I won’t be cynical. I’m getting married, and for real this time.”

“For real this time,” Lindsey mimicked, her tone nearly in awe, and almost the same as what echoed in Jessie’s head.

Jessie glanced out the window. “His place is as depressing as ever. I feel like I’m sitting in the gynecologist’s office waiting for my yearly.”

“Why don’t you change that? It’s your home too now. No more holding pattern. No more visiting.”

“I need to get some of my stuff. Find a job. I can’t sit around here. I can already feel it will make me crazy. I spent so long sitting here, doing nothing, while dreading everything.”

“Everything is different this time. Don’t forget to act it. Demand it. Embrace it.”

She smiled. “It’s easier having you like me than hating me.”

“It’s even nicer to like you and not hate you.”

“Will you call me if you need me?”

“I will. We have a wedding to plan. I’ll see you soon.”

She hung up from her sister and rose before rifling around the kitchen. Nothing. There were a few canned goods and boxes of noodles, and some condiments in the fridge, but nothing else. She sighed.
She refused to spend their life together like living in a bunker again.

****

Will stared into the mirror and grimaced at his reflection. The bruises on his face were tinged with a sickly hue and starting to spread over his face. His arm hurt and his stomach felt jittery.

Why, then, did he feel like whistling? He never felt so energized, or so alive in his entire life. Escaping death and illness, while finding Jessie unharmed, did a lot to raise his mood.

He stared at his razor as he lifted it to his face and started to shave. He needed to dump it. He switched to electric when Jessie was with him. But after she was gone, he returned to disposable razors. He liked the cleaner shave. But now he thought he’d better discreetly throw them out.

Shouldn’t he?

He didn’t know. She was acting fine. Good. Great. With only a few wary moments where he wasn’t sure what was ticking in her brain. She sometimes seemed like an unpinned grenade to him, which she’d find unflattering if he told her. But it was true. He never knew if something might set her off. He never could totally predict how her mood would be. He could never feel completely confident she could control the disastrous urges that used to ruin her, and made him unable to imagine being with her.

With a sigh, he rinsed the razor. He started to grab the pack and wrap them in toilet paper to hide the packaging, but stopped after three wraps. She hadn’t cut herself. She thought he was probably dead, yet she did not cut herself. That, more than anything else he could think of, was a pretty substantial test of where she was now.

And what was he doing? Hiding the razors? She could buy more. Or use scissors. He caught her using a sharpened pencil once. He sighed, removing the toilet paper and setting the unused razors back in the medicine cabinet. He had to trust her. He wasn’t going to be here all the time. He had to know what to expect when he was deployed next. He fisted his hand on the sink. He’d damn well deal with it and her better this time. He’d find a way. After how long it took them to get here; he’d find a damn way.

It was time they created some happier memories between them instead of only having all
that
to deal with, think about and get over. Now it was time to have shared memories. Of fun. Of normal. Of all the silly, couple-like things they never enjoyed before.

It was late morning, but he was still not up to normal.
He flexed his fingers. His arm was sore, but mostly fine. He sensed he was feeling better than he should have been simply for the circumstances he was now in. Jessie was okay. Her father was dead. And she was happy to be with him.

He found her unloading groceries in the kitchen. She was dressed in a pair of summery shorts and a shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She had little or no makeup on and hummed as she put what looked like every day, normal groceries away: milk, fruit, yogurt, bread, crackers, cookies, and it went on. Things any normal couple might have in their kitchen. Things they never had before. They never set up a household like other couples, so mundane, boring, and ordinary, were truly a stop-his-heart, freaking miracle to behold.

She swung around when she heard him. A shy, sweet smile turned the corners of her lips up. She swiped an errant piece of hair and tucked it behind her ear, and stood up straighter.

He stepped forward. A strange, electric current zapped through him and raised the hairs on his skin. She held his gaze, and he held hers. They didn’t move. It was like the first moment they ever really saw each other. Her gaze caressed his face, taking in his bruised features.

She licked her lips and twisted her hands. Finally, hesitantly she said, “This feels... weird.”

“Yeah, it really does,” he agreed, tapping his finger against his thigh.

She cleared her throat, but their eyes were still fastened on each other. She finally whispered, “Why do I suddenly feel nervous with you?”

“I was thinking the same thing. Maybe because it’s the first morning we’ve ever just…
had
.”

“Do you think it will be the first of many?”

He released a breath and finally grinned. “I think it will become so easy, familiar and normal, that we’ll soon take each other for granted and never again think it’s any big deal.”

She finally smiled, stepped forward and touched his cheek.
“I can’t wait to take you for granted.”

He opened his arms and she suddenly clung to him, her face against his chest. She was so small and
vulnerable. Anytime he held her, his overwhelming feelings of protectiveness almost choked him. He loved her for so long, yet it felt different this morning. Loving Jessie usually felt like a far off mirage, a pond deep in the desert that he hoped, prayed, and longed for a glimpse of. But, this, holding Jessie in their apartment, felt like he suddenly landed right next to Lake Erie.

He loved her for so long with a sense of helplessness, it nearly incapacitated him. He detested failure, and not being able
to accomplish whatever he set his mind to. But with Jessie he couldn’t fix even one thing that was done to her. He couldn’t eradicate the pain she had inside of her. He never believed he couldn’t do things until he fell in love with Jessie. It was the opposite of what most people probably felt about falling in love. For him, it was not a good thing. Loving her before meant finding the broken pieces of a shattered vase scattered all around him. It was like trying to locate all the pieces and glue them back together with Scotch tape, which didn’t hold too well. And he knew it. He had no clue how to help her, fix her, or even make her have a good day. So loving Jessie had never really been a good or positive part of his life.

The problem was: it was also the only true, real and deep emotion he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t shake it, forget it or get over it. It grew worse. It began to choke him, and panic him. Until the last week of his captivity, when he was face-down in a darkened cell, pretending to be sicker than he really was, all he could picture was Jessie. Jessie hurt. Jessie crying. Jessie bleeding. He worried about what she’d do when she heard of his death. He was not delusional, he knew she loved him. He was the only one she ever let touch her. It wasn’t his ego, but simply a fact. He never felt as impotent as he did then. Not even when he confronted Jessie’s pain, cutting, nightmares and self-loathing. He could deal with all that.

He just didn’t realize it until the fucking moment he was held captive by terrorists who wanted to kill him. It was then that he discovered what he couldn’t face: living his life without Jessie. No matter what that life entailed. If she were miserable and cut herself everyday for the rest of their lives together, then he intended to be by her side, drying her blood if necessary. He’d had enough. He stayed away. He went away. And he truly believed he wasn’t the best thing for her. He was the face of Mexico to her. A living, breathing reminder of what happened to her. He witnessed it. There was nothing that could eradicate that, not even the love they found.

So he left her twice. The first time, he was content with the knowledge he had to. There was no choice for either of them. The second? He truly believed she’d be happier, better, and healthier without him.
And he thought he could get over her.

He never needed anyone, not since being a kid. Early on, his mother abandoned him in favor of the whiskey bottle. From late elementary school and on, he had to take care of himself, and became completely self-reliant. He met Gretchen when he was thirteen, and they started dating in high school. They married in his early twenties. He thought he loved her, and he did love
her. But nothing like how he felt for Jessie.

But he thought, and truly believed, at that time, he could function and continue his life without Jessie. He tried to bury his love for her because he pictured their life together turning to shit at some point. Mostly because he feared he symbolized the living reminder of a nightmare that few could survive.

Five minutes locked in a cell quickly cured him. That’s when he realized he needed Jessie, no matter what. He paced it like a caged, bitten, furious lion. No. Fuck whatever happened. He loved Jessie; and Jessie was the one he intended to share whatever life he had left with. However that shared life played out, they were spending it together. He could not die there, alone, and send her spiraling into grief that would destroy all the recovery she had worked for so long to accomplish. No one worked harder than she. And to reward her? He all but patted her on the head and said “go live your life now, without me, with someone else.”