I try to swallow past the lump in my throat as I gently run my fingers over the bruises on her hips, but it’s no use. The tears pool in my eyes and fall down my face. I love her so much and all I’m doing is hurting her. The one person in my life who never lets me down and all I keep doing is breaking her apart. I let her down every time I leave, I let her down every time she has to handle something alone, I let her down when I come home and I’m not myself because I’m still stuck in a place halfway across the world and I let her down by touching her with anything other than loving hands and worshipful kisses.

I never even got a chance to say her name or tell her I love her or how much I missed her. I didn’t say a word to her tonight, so afraid that I would scream and cry and break down right in front of her if I opened my mouth. She puts up with so much from me, I can’t add that to the mix, as well. She would want to fix me, to put her life on hold to help me, and I can’t allow that. She’s already sacrificed so much. How can I continue doing this to her? How can I continue putting her though this when I’m not sure the bullshit in my head will ever go away? In the past, a few months between me and a combat zone and my Lucy were all it took to battle the demons that crawled into my head, but this go-round, the nightmares are getting worse instead of better with each mile I put between myself and the war. I won’t be going on another deployment thanks to the shrapnel I took to the back of my shoulder and the resulting nerve damage, but that doesn’t mean I’ll start to forget. It doesn’t mean the horrors I’ve witnessed all these years will just suddenly disappear from my mind.

I choke back sobs as I lean forward and press my lips against the bruised skin of her hip. Lucy sighs in her sleep and I hold perfectly still, not wanting to wake her. I came up to bed after sitting in the water, stripped out of my wet clothes and curled up against her, willing sleep to come, but it never did. I just held onto her sleeping body and tried to forget about what I’d done until it was too much to take and I had to turn on the light to make sure it really happened.

I wish she had screamed at me when I took her like that against the wall. I wish she’d told me to stop, pushed me away, forced me to look into her eyes and see her and realize what I was doing to her. I’m consumed with so much guilt that I don’t even know how to breathe. My chest feels tight and my heart rate starts picking up, feelings I’ve come to recognize as the beginning of a panic attack.

Moving as quietly as I can out of bed so I don’t disturb her, I try to slow my quickening breaths as I hurry out into the hallway and to the bathroom. My hands shake so hard that I can barely get the door closed and locked behind me. I flip on the light and take huge, gulping breaths as my heart beats faster and faster until it feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest. I run cold water and cup it in my hands, counting to a hundred in my head as I repeatedly splash my face. I glance up into the mirror and, instead of seeing just my own reflection with water dripping down my face, I see a man standing next to me wearing a white and black checkered scarf over his head, nose and mouth with a machine gun pointed right at my skull.

I let out a panicked shout as I whirl around and throw my hands up over my head to protect myself from the enemy. When I turn, I’m met with nothing but an empty bathroom behind me. Sobbing, I drop to my knees on the cold, tile floor. With my head in my hands, I rock back and forth, making a vow to never again allow Lucy to suffer because of my demons. I can’t do this to her anymore. I can’t trust myself around her and I refuse to hurt her again like I did tonight. God only knows what will happen if things get worse, and I do feel like they’re getting worse. It’s too hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. I’ve already hurt her countless times in the middle of the night with nightmares I can’t control, and I continue to hurt her every time she tries to help me and I push her away. She is my heart, my soul, my everything and I know it’s only a matter of time before I do something that could possibly kill her. The tears come fast and hard at the thought that my beautiful, amazing wife could be taken from this earth by my own hands. I won’t let that happen. I won’t let her fall down this hole with me. If I have to fall, I’m going to do it on my own where I won’t hurt anyone, especially her. I know she’ll never leave me on her own. She loves me too much to turn her back on me when she knows I’m hurting, so I’ll have to push her away.

I have to make her leave so that I can never hurt her again.

Chapter 12

Lucy

Present Day

“Damn, bitch! You look hot!”

I smile at Ellie when she whistles at me as I walk into the registration area of the front room. I do a little twirl and curtsey for her, laughing when she gives me a slow golf clap. With a teal, form fitting tank top that comes to a vee in the front and ties up around my neck, my boobs look pretty good, if I do say so myself. The incredibly short, white jean shorts I have on make my tan legs look longer than they normally do and the teal and white wedges on my feet bring me up a good three inches, adding to the illusion. I left my strawberry blonde hair straight, hanging around my bare shoulders and down my back, and I added a few peach bangle bracelets to my wrist. It’s not much, but aside from wearing a dress last night, it’s more fancy than my usual.

“Nice, very nice. Stanford won’t be able to keep his hands off of you,” Ellie informs me.

I blush, thinking about what happened last night over there on the couch in this very room. I’m pretty sure Stanford will be keeping his hands off of me for a while after that. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m going to relax with a picnic on the beach with the man I’m dating. The sun is shining and there is only a light breeze coming in off the ocean, so we won’t have to worry about sand flying all over the place, getting into our food. It’s a perfect day on Fisher’s Island, and I’m not going to let anything ruin it.