What do you want to talk about today, Mara?” Parker asked me as I gazed into space at the center of the group meeting. My body still hummed from Murphy’s attention, and my focus scattered the second I walked into the room. Reality cracked open a window, which let in an ice cold chill.

The words kept flowing on a loop in my mind. Over and over, and no matter how many times I wrote them down and ripped up the paper, I couldn’t dislodge them.

Murphy deserves better than you.

A simple statement, but my thighs had bruise marks from his fingers, and I wanted to be good enough for him. To be someone a man like him would find worthy to love.

My mind wandered again, and I focused back on Parker. “How can I be good enough for someone like him?”

It wasn’t the typical question for the group, as many of the men were married, somewhat happily, and didn’t face the dating challenges of a veteran in a post-war world.

“That’s hard to say,” Parker began. “I think it depends on your definition of good enough. What would it take for you to feel you are good enough to be with him?”

I thought about his question, and nothing sprung to mind. Not a single attribute popped in my head to label under the virtue column. Was I such a lost cause already?

“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. How could I explain Murphy to them? The way he cared about me, and for me, how I felt when I lay next to him in bed. Or the way his eyes crinkled in the corners and caught the morning sun.

Damn, I was head over heels in love. How did this happen?

“You love him, don’t you?” Parker asked gently.

I couldn’t admit it to myself, so I sure as hell wouldn’t say it out loud, so I nodded my ascent and refused to look at anyone. I’d gotten myself through four long, lonely years by telling myself love was a crutch, unnecessary for daily living. It would seem fate had plans of her own. I wish she’d share them with me sometimes.

“Did you tell him, yet?” Field’s asked.

After a couple weeks of seeing these guys regularly, I felt comfortable enough to open up, only a little bit at a time. Before, I’d have glared at the man and told him to mind his own business in colorful adjectives. Instead, I shook my head. “Not really. Or not properly, I should say.”

“Why not start there? If he thought you weren’t good enough to be with him, he wouldn’t be there for you. Men are simple creatures. Food, sex, sleep, a beer now and then, and we are happy. We don’t focus on some of the things that woman like to.”

I didn’t know if his proclamation could be called helpful or not. The plastic of the chair creaked as I shifted and crossed my arms over my belly. I didn’t like being the focus of the group for too long, and Parker shifted the conversation away from me on to someone else. Half-heartedly listening, I thought about Murphy getting up, checking over his inventory, meticulous with things he really cared about. So said the soreness between my thighs.

If I couldn’t show them enough respect to listen, I should probably leave. I sat forward, intent on getting up for a drink at least and debating on whether I could train my brain to the task at hand. The door of the room banged open with a loud clatter against the wall behind me. Murphy stood in the doorway, cheeks pink, chest heaving like he’d run a mile to get here.

I stood and walked over to him, hiding him from the group’s view. This part of my life was still fresh and new. I wasn’t ready to completely bare my shit to the group yet. Let them think I had a guy friend and we were figuring things out. I didn’t need him coming down here acting like an insane stalker. “Murphy, what the hell are you doing here?”

His face twisted into a look I’d never seen before in all the years I knew him, from before and after: fury. With his red rimmed eyes, I easily made out the tears which pooled at the corners. He spun in a circle, trying to catch a breath before throwing a curled up brown roll at my feet.

I picked up the mass of paper and turned it over. The journal I started because of this group. The one I wrote to Murphy the things I couldn’t say. He’d read it.

Hot shame curled inside me to mix with a cold rage I felt building brick by brick. “You had no right to read this.”

The group behind us was long forgotten, and I stepped up to him as he continued pacing to catch his breath. He spun to face me and stalked forward, grabbed my wrist clutching the book, and held it up. “You addressed it to me.”

He sounded maniacal, like a madman in a cartoon with their bulging eyes and veins popping out of their necks. With a shove, he released my wrist.

“Yes, but I did that to help me get the stuff out. I couldn’t do it without you.” My explanation sounded weak even to me.

He turned around again, and we squared off all over. Despite his size and the look in his eye, I didn’t doubt his character. He’d told me he’d never hurt me. I believed him then and still believed him now.

“So you just go into my hotel room and rifle through my things now?” The ice rage pressed in again, digging into my ribs with icicle talons. Soon, I’d say things I’d regret later. I needed to back this down, but his face told me he wouldn’t make it easy on me.

He made one more turn and came back, this time standing toe to toe with me. Now his tone came lethal and quiet. “Do you know what I thought when I read that?”

“Why is my girlfriend such a bonehead?” I tried to lighten the mood while I could.

He ground his jaw together. “I thought you left to kill yourself. I couldn’t find you, and then I read that, and you weren’t answering your phone.” He ducked his head into his arms and swing them away, all while pacing frantically back and forth. His boots created echoes through the small room.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer when you called, or that you misunderstood what I wrote here, but I have no intention of killing myself…don’t you know why?”

His eyes burned into mine, and he was well past the point of no return. “Please, tell me this revelation you’ve had.” His tone fell heavy with sarcasm.

I blinked and tried to capture my thoughts. The second I tried to grab hold, they scrambled again. I’d look like an idiot all over trying to explain my feelings like a too-old toddler.

“I just…”

He stepped forward and cupped his hand around his ear. “You just what? I know you aren’t going to say you love me, because you’ve been making it very clear since we had sex that you didn’t want me for anything else.”

My turn to be angry and irrational now. “I never said anything like that…”

“Of course not, Mara. You don’t say anything at all. That’s the fucking point.”

I jerked away from him, trying to overlay this man with the one I knew and loved. Not even an hour into deciding to tell him I loved him, and this was my reward. Way to go, Mara.

We stared at each other, and I tried to hide all the emotions I was sure cascaded across my features, but his were set in stone. He gritted his teeth one more time and stalked out of the room, slamming the door again behind him.

The shaking started, and I didn’t realize until my knees began to knock against one another. I crumpled, and a cool hand fell on the back of my neck. “Just breathe,” Parker told me.

How could I breathe without Murphy? He carried my heart, but also my lungs, my voice, my brain, and any other body part he felt like claiming. He walked out the door with them, and right now, I felt like an empty husk of a person. The sheer wrapping around corn stripped away for the trash.

I pulled myself from Parker’s hands and swiped my notebook off the floor. As I walked to the door, I didn’t look at anyone. “I’m going to go,” I said at the exit and walked out, clutching the warped brown paper against my chest.

When I got back to my hotel, I feared seeing him. I feared looking into his eyes so full of anger and betrayal directed at me. Like I was capable of hurting him? Never. Not in a million years.

If the world crumbled to dust around our feet, I’d give him my very last breathe, if only to see his eyes as I fade. No. I shook Murphy from my head, everything from my head, and entered my hotel room. The few items on the desk had been swept off the edge, and the chair lay tilted on its side by the bed.

I couldn’t consider it now. Ignoring any signs of Murphy, including my rumpled sheets, I swept into the closet and grabbed my Army issue green duffel. It took minutes to throw all my possessions inside, latch it up, and strap it to my back.

The thought of leaving Murphy gutted me. And not fucking gently.

But his words made it clear he didn’t want me anymore. Not the darkness, nor the pain, not the woman I was, or the one I clawed my way toward.

I sat on the bed, the bag still strapped too me and studiously ignored the scent of his cologne and soap wafting from the sheets. “Was he right? Did I write all that to end it all?”

No. Why would I? In the short time I’d been back home, I’d found some semblance of happiness, of peace. The words I wrote were meant to convey what I was unable to put into words, and Murphy took them as parting sentiments.

“Would it be better on both of us if I left? Permanently? Obviously, better for Murphy, but I thought I was past thoughts like this. The ones which stole my breath and made me question my own mortality.”

How would I do it? I traced the blue vein under my skin along my wrist. No. I wasn’t strong enough for something so violent. I had enough pain killers in my bag to put down an elephant. Seemed a more a peaceful way to go.

I lulled myself on thoughts of a world better off without one Mara Williams. And I rocked myself on dreams of no more pain, no more pitying glances, no more uncontrollable emotions. I’d be free. And Murphy would be free of me.

I sat there on the bed, and all I needed to do was switch my bag around, take out the pills, and pour them down my throat. Simple, right. Too easy. But I couldn’t force myself into it. I’d spent weeks building something here, with Murphy.

I loved him.

I fucking loved that man.

I stood up, threw my bag to the floor, and screamed. I let it all out the pain and rage and everything that welled up inside me telling me the world would be better off with me.

No. Fuck no.

I survived a God damn bullet to the brain bucket. Nothing like this would take me out.

I slid the cell phone out of my pocket and stared at the green squares lined up down the screen. One from Parker, three from Murphy before he showed up at the center. I wouldn’t read them. I couldn’t.

The notebook I’d been using was all but ripped to shreds. I snagged it off the floor and lay it on the desk next to the notepad they provided for phone messages.

If Murphy wanted a letter to read, I’d give him one.