––––––––

Lying in bed, one arm folded under my head, I stare out the window. It looks over the street, and I see the building across and a strip of gray sky.

I bring my other hand to my mouth, trail my finger over my lips.

Her mouth. Her mouth pressed to mine, so hot and lush, her breath on my lips, then her arms around me, her body, her curves molding to my jagged edges.

I’ve replayed that kiss over and over in my mind, while lying in bed, or taking a piss, eating lunch, or daydreaming in the easy chair, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. Replayed that moment, even more than the moments that went before, when she said all those things I’ve been picking apart since then.

About how that evening wasn’t my fault. How she understands things about myself I can’t bear to think about.

How she was wrong to leave.

Then her arms were around me, and...back to her mouth, and her body.

Fuck, yeah. She’s so damn pretty, and I’m human. I’m a guy, and I’ve wanted her what feels like forever. I haven’t had a hard-on in ages, not since they got me started on chemo and radiation.

But I sure have one now.

I mean, she said all those things, and the world seems somehow brighter, and all these possibilities are there... The possibility of touching her, kissing her again, caressing her, pushing her down on the bed and stretching over her. Would she want...?

Goddamn, why is it so difficult to believe she might want me, my hands, my mouth on her, my cock inside her? She said she shouldn’t have left, she let me kiss her. That has to count for something.

My hand moves to the tent in my sweats. Arching up, I grip my hard dick through the fabric and hiss, pleasure mingling with pain when the healing cut bisecting my chest pulls.

I imagine it’s her hands over my hard-on, her mouth tracing the length of my cock, her dark hair loose around her small face, and groan when more blood rushes south, getting me harder.

Yeah, so good.

What does it all mean? All those things she said.

If she’d stayed back then, hadn’t gone with Marvin, what would have happened? I meant it when I asked what she wants from me. I’ve no fucking clue, no idea what a bright, pretty girl like her wants with the likes of me.

But it feels... good, fuck. Just the pressure of my hand on top of my excited dick is almost too much, after all this time of forced celibacy, and with the memory of her so recent, I’m ready to blow my load. Need zings through my body, heaviness coiling in my gut, more and more, until I’m about to explode.

Just like that.

And then the doorbell rings.

Fuck. Of course it does.

Carefully, I push myself to a sitting position, then swing my legs off the bed and heave myself to my feet. Is that Sophie? She isn’t supposed to be back so soon from work. It’s way too early.

Suddenly worried, I make my way through the hallway and living room to get the door. Another obnoxious ring blares through the apartment, jarring my bones.

My hand all twitchy, a headache starting behind my eyes, I pull back the lock and throw the door open. “Soph?”

But it’s not her, and fuck, fuck, what the hell am I doing, not checking before opening? My first impression is of a tall guy, and I reach for a gun I don’t have—after almost two years out of the army. Goes to show how well adjusted I am, doesn’t it?

“Oh, it’s you?” he then says and laughs, and I know that goddamn laughter.

“Marvin.” His name comes out as a breath, barely audible.

“What, you staying here now, with her? Shucks.” He sticks his hands into his pockets, gives me a mocking grin and steps forward, coming almost chest to chest with me. “So fucking sweet.”

“What do you want?”

He’s slightly taller than me, and I hate that I have to look up. In contrast, he likes it, obviously.

“What’s the matter,” he says, making a fake sad face, “were you afraid to open the door to me? Poor Griffin. What did you think I’d do? Did the doorbell rattle you? let me tell you a secret.” He leans closer, and I draw back my fist, itching to put it through him. “Everything rattles you. A girl like Sophie, she needs a real man.”

“Fuck you, Marvin. Get out.”

“But it’s not your apartment, is it?” He starts to step inside, and I shove him back.

“Fuck off.”

He puts his foot in the door. “She doesn’t need you, Griffin. How much time do you have left, anyway? Do you want her to spend her time caring for a dying invalid? She has needs, too. Like sex. Can you give her that?”

What the hell. I shove him again, growling like a cornered animal, not caring if the violence of the movement rips the staples out and my chest open, and slam the door in his goddamn face.

Asshole fuckface traitor who stole my girl and made fun of me. Her words, not mine. Made fun of all the things that make me cringe about myself, that force me indoors, hurt me and annoy me.

That make me feel like less of a man.

The thought stops me in my tracks on my way to the kitchen. Oh hell... Fucking hell, that asshole’s probably right.

***

The thought stays with me as I warm up something to eat, not to take my meds on an empty stomach, as I check the bandage on my chest, all erotic fantasies snuffed out.

He’s right. I should go. I’ve known this from the start, only chose not to dwell on it. From the moment she turned up at my door in Memphis, not long after I got the final diagnosis, I wondered what she was doing there with me, why she’d decided to spend time with a sick, grumpy man. First I thought it was an act of mercy, of charity.

Then I thought maybe my days were truly numbered, my remaining time shorter than I realized, and she knew something I didn’t, so this was her way of saying goodbye.

But as the weeks and months passed, as she rubbed my back when I retched and helped me to bed when I was too dizzy to stand, when I reacted bad to the chemo and had to rush me to the hospital twice, it seemed like an overlong goodbye.

Overlong and overdue.

I’ve often wondered how she heard about me being sick. She never said. I don’t remember telling anyone.

It doesn’t matter. It’s about time I left.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at my plate, the pill bottles on the side, and turn this over in my mind. It’s time I gathered my stuff and walked out the door, leaving Sophie free to live her life, free of my baggage, free of any possible guilt over me being sick.

I should do it before she comes back. She’s a sweet girl, the sweetest of all, and she might try to stop me—and if she doesn’t try...

Yeah, that would be so much fucking worse.

The thought of her letting me go without a fight, without an argument, terrifies me, much more than loud noises and crowds ever could. I realize I’d rather not give it a chance, pretend I know the outcome, and that I’m not sweating bullets.

Pushing the chair back, I struggle to my feet, and grab the bottles of pills and my walking stick I have left leaning against the table.

Yeah, better go now, while I’m still moving, not thinking too much about what it means. Leaving Sophie behind. Not waking up to her pretty face every morning, not sitting across from her at night, pretending not to notice her but watching her every second when she’s not looking.

Wishing every second for her, for a different outcome, a different possibility.

But I don’t want her pity. It’s her love I want. So better cut my losses, quit while I’m ahead.

Even if there’s no place else I wanna be.

***

And no place else I can go, I think, as I throw my few clothes into my suitcase and sit down on the bed to catch my breath. Even the simple act of opening the closet and moving my T-shirts and pants into the suitcase has left me winded.

Where can I go? My bank account is empty, my apartment gone, my only friend turned enemy. A shelter? There are shelters for penniless, about-to-become-homeless veterans. I’d just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Because my stupid pride won’t let me think I’ve sunk that low. That I’ll be fine. That I’ll find another way. But maybe it’s time to acknowledge that I’m in no shape to make my own way right now, not while recovering from surgery, not while waiting to see if I’ll die in the next few months or not.

My mouth twists. My lungs squeeze. I put my hand over my chest, over the stitched-together slash. I don’t wanna die. And I don’t wanna die alone. Does that make me a coward? You’d think after fighting in a war and seeing my friends die around me I’d be immune, that I wouldn’t care one way or another.

But I want to live. I wish... I wish I had a chance with Sophie.

Goddammit, what’s the use of chewing on the same thoughts over and over? On regrets and wishes. If wishes were horses...

And if my mind wasn’t a twisted, barbed maze where I tend to get lost with no way of getting out, my life would be so much easier.

I snap the suitcase shut, give the room one last look. The narrow bed, the nightstand with the lamp Sophie put for me there so I can read when I can’t sleep at night, the books she lent me. The small TV she took out of her room and placed in mine. The colorful bedspread, to make the place look cheerful, she said, even with the gray sky outside.

Every thoughtful, kind gesture displayed around me, making leaving harder. But it’s for her, I tell myself. I’m leaving for her own good. She’s way too kind. Won’t let me go now.

I’m the one who should walk away.

Probably should leave her a message, though. The old-fashioned way, no text messaging that could have her hurrying home. That would defeat the whole I’m-leaving-before-she-returns thing. Pen and paper, that’s what I need.

Besides, she likes hand-written things.

Heaving myself to my feet, wincing at the ache in my leg, the pulling in my chest, I go in search of said materials. I thought I’d seen a notepad and pen in the living room, but nothing comes up as I scan the tables and shelves. The kitchen also proves empty, and I’m starting to think I should just send the damn text, and run out.

Stumble out.

Whatever.

But as I pass outside her bedroom door and see her bed, the notepad and pen on her nightstand, the indent on her pillow where she rests her head and dreams, I turn and enter before my conscious brain catches up with the urge.

Never been inside her bedroom before. On the bed is an old-fashioned lacy bedspread, white curtains, a dresser with a mirror and mysterious bottles and boxes arranged on top. Books are stacked on a low table, their spines colorful. There’s a frame hanging on the wall.

I turn my uneven steps that way, not even sure why I’m curious. I stop a few feet away, blinking at my handwriting, broad pen strokes on a slightly wrinkled piece of paper behind the glass.

The poem.

I trail unsteady fingertips over it. I never thought she’d keep it. I wrote that, in a moment of madness. I’m no poet. And it’s only four lines.

But it’s right here, in front of me, tripping me up inside my head.

Why is it framed, why is it here?

Something is squeezing inside my chest. I force myself to move, to take a step back, and another. It means nothing, I tell myself, it can’t mean anything—but God, I wanna ask her about it, ask her why, even if it makes everything even more complicated.

And then I trip up for real, because that’s how unlucky I’ve always been in life, and crash to the floor in a shock of pain and panic and curses.

Fucking shit, fucking goddamn hell.

Fucking mess.

I slam my fist to the floor, teeth gritting, wondering if I finally managed to pull the staples in my chest, or break my leg all over again. By the time I’ve grabbed my cane and pushed to my feet again, everything throbs in time to my racing heartbeat, and it goddamn hurts.

What the hell was I thinking, entering her room, looking at her stuff, imagining things... I need to get going. Fuck the pen and paper. I limp out of her room, and go get my suitcase from mine. I grab the handle, heave it to the floor, then stare at it.

Hesitate.

Think of that poem, hanging on her wall, across from her bed.

Clenching my jaw, steeling my resolve, I lift the suitcase, welcoming the physical discomfort, the pain, even if it doesn’t manage to drown out my churning thoughts.

What if...?

What if Marvin is wrong, what if...?

The noise so loud inside my head I don’t hear her until she’s right in front of me, her eyes wide.

“Griff...”

My fingers tighten around the handle of the suitcase, my pulse thundering in my ears. “I should go.”

I lost too much time staring at the poem, cursing on the floor where I fell, thinking, and hesitating.

Hesitation can get you killed in war. Love and war, they feel like one and the same sometimes.

She swallows hard, face paling. “You’re leaving. Why?”

A strand of dark hair curls against her cheek. Her mouth is made to draw my gaze, small and soft. Her body is made to mold to mine.

“You can’t take care of me forever, Soph,” I say quietly, when I want to yell and rail. “You’ve put your life on hold for too long. I’ll be fine.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Please, don’t.”

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t. it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” I hold my breath, my throat clogged. “Soph...”

“Please...” She shakes her head. “Don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”

And rising on tip toe, she cups my face and presses her sweet lips to mine. The feel of her mouth, her subtly sweet taste, the brush of her body against mine breaks me. I don’t want to leave her, now or ever. I need...

I need her.

The suitcase handle slips from my hand, thuds on the floor, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her to me, kissing her back. Hard. Overwhelming. I want to crush our bodies, our mouths together until I don’t have to doubt and think anymore, only feel her.

Soft curves, a narrow waist, a scent of vanilla and flowers, the smoothness of her skin when I move my mouth to the corner of her lips.

Oh God, she’s addictive. I’m discovering a hunger for her that has always been there, kept under lock and key, scratching at the lid, and if I let it, it will consume me, eat me alive.

But I can’t fight it anymore. Deserving or not, crazy or not, I want her—no, I need her, the need going deep, digging claws into my bones, into my chest and mind.

Parting her lips with my tongue, I taste her, and groan, the desire pooling in my gut, hardening my dick, turning it to stone.

So hard. The ache from before returns, like fire building inside me, the flames licking every part of me. My muscles lock, my stomach clenches, and I haul her against me, dying to bury myself inside her. Fucking dying.

But she breaks the kiss, panting softly, looking up, into my eyes. Her hands smooth over my cheekbones, over my eyes and brows. “Don’t leave me,” she says again.

Nobody has ever asked me that. I’m helpless when she’s looking at me with those dark eyes that reflect every emotion that goes through her.

Even if I can’t read the one lighting up their depths right now. I feel... lost, fucking lost at sea, adrift, dark water lapping at me from every direction. Her touch, her warmth is the only salvation.

“Sit with me?” she says, and all I can do is nod and hold on tight.

***

She tugs me toward the sofa. I let her pull on my hand, curling my thick fingers around her delicate ones, wondering dimly if one can die of desire.

Not a bad death, maybe.

“We have to talk,” she’s saying, and I’ve no idea what she wants to talk about, except my failed attempt to leave before she came back.

Biting back a groan, I sit down on the soft cushions, surprised at the various pains that I’d lost track of as we kissed.

It reminds me of who I am, what I am: crippled by disease, scarred, emaciated. A shadow of myself.

She distracts me when she tugs on my hand, reminding me our fingers are still laced together, and when she scoots closer, I suck in a breath.

Her gaze dips to my crotch, and her cheeks color.

I’m so fucking hard, and it’s impossible to miss, a reminder of how much I want her, and that she stopped it from happening. Though she did kiss me first, and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

“Soph—”

“Why were you about to leave? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. You’re not my nurse. You came back to me because I’m sick, but—”

“I didn’t know, Griff, when I came back to you, I had no idea you were sick. I only wanted a second chance, because life without you seemed too sad and awful. I’m glad I’ve been here with you. No matter what the outcome is. If it was this year I got with you, or a lifetime... I want it. I’m lucky I got it. I’m lucky to be by your side.”

“How can you say that? I’ve been... such a dick to you, Soph. both before I got sick, and after.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Sure I have. That’s who I am, how I am, and it doesn’t look like I can change.” My free hand curls into a helpless fist. “I’ve tried, but it’s not working. I’m not made for love.”

I’m not made for love.

Love. That’s what it was, the new feeling I had with her. New or dormant, and it came awake when I met her.

And oh fuck, I just more or less confessed to loving her.

Holy fucking shit, Griffin.

“Oh Griff...” She looks away, so I can’t see her eyes and can’t begin to imagine what she’s thinking about this slip-up.

This fuck-up.

The doubts return, flapping big black wings like crows, blinding me. What have I done? Have I scared her? Will she run away again?

“Griff,” she says, her voice seeping through the blackness. “You don’t need to change. I only need to understand you. And you need to understand yourself, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me refresh your memory. Redirect it. Change it. Do you remember that day Mrs. Morris’ apartment below caught fire?”

I blink at her, forcing my mind back to the present—and then the past, and the day she’s just mentioned:

“The fire,” I whisper.

***

I hadn’t thought about that night in a while. Not a pleasant memory, that one. It wasn’t long after the mess I made of the Fourth of July party, and I hadn’t seen or talked to Sophie for a few weeks.

Then she’d called, invited me over to show me a book she’d discovered. A book of drawings based on poems. A perfect combination, she’d said, and that had sent my thoughts spinning once more, and my hopes flying as I tried to figure out if it meant anything.

Anything more, if there were hidden meanings between the words. If it meant she liked me.

That’s always been my struggle with her, and with myself.

I’d barely come out of the elevator, when there had been that noise... The noise of things crashing, exploding, glass bursting, people screaming, and then, the stench of burning. Singeing. Charring.

The memory warps, losing clarity. I remember glimpses of hallways and stairs, black smoke... Someone hitting me, fighting me, glass crunching underfoot, my arms heavy, the smell of blood and piss in my nose, making me dizzy...

Somehow I’m in the desert. It stretches in every direction, hills and scraggly bushes, a huge sky above, and dust rising down the road. It’s all desert and sky and I can’t move, every attempt to sit up sending screaming pain down my leg and blackness crowding my vision.

“Griff?

“What?” I blink, my eyes blurred. Sweat is running down my back. “What is it?”

“Just...” She’s trying to pull her hand away, and I open my fingers and let go. “You okay?

“Sorry, I... Yeah.” I look down at my hands, almost expecting to see blood and soot. I look at my leg, almost expecting to see it torn and twisted, bleeding out on the dry earth. “I’m good.”

Such a lie.

“Look at me,” she whispers, and against my will, I tear my gaze off my leg—still bloodied and torn in my memory, the pain bowing my spine all too real, my heart thumping so fast I feel sick. “Remember that night? When you dragged me downstairs, and then went back up and carried Mrs. Morris down, too?”

“I hurt her,” I whisper, frowning. “She said I hurt her.”

“Just bruised her, but it wasn’t on purpose. Griff... you were trying to protect her, save her. In your mind, you weren’t in this building, were you? You were in the desert, on a dirt street, after a bomb attack, trying to save your friends.”

A shudder racks me. “That doesn’t change the fact... I hurt her, Sophie.”

“She was shocked. She didn’t expect your reaction, that’s all. Neither did I. because I didn’t know.”

“Soph—”

“Listen to me.” Her eyes are intent, locked on my face. “She didn’t have a scratch on her. You carried her downstairs and outside. You made sure she was safe. But you’re a strong guy, and your grip can be bruising. You startled her, that’s all.”

“Then why?” I snap. “Why did you tell me to go?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

I hate how my pulse races, how close I am to breaking—from the memory of the desert, of the fire, of the past, and her voice telling me I had better go.

Go and get myself under control, go and calm down.

“Because... you were like a different person. Wouldn’t listen to me, or her. Wouldn’t reply. Didn’t seem to hear us. We kept telling you the fire was small, that there was no need to leave the building, but you wouldn’t listen. Or couldn’t. You were shouting at us to move, hauled us along if we didn’t comply. It was... a bit scary.”

I rub my hands over my face. “Oh fuck. I’m fucked up in the head, Soph.”

“No, you’re not.”

I give a humorless laugh.

“Back then I didn’t even know you’d been in the army, you know that? I had no idea where you’d been in the past two years. I thought you had gone to college or something.”

I glance up sharply. “I never told—?”

“You never told me. When I found you again and asked how you’d been, you said it was a long story, but you never told me that story. Never told me anything much.”

That... makes sense. I don’t like talking about myself. And I don’t like talking about my deployment. What happened there. How it fucked my mind up. Twisted it more.

“I’m sorry, Soph.” My voice cracks as the memory replays in my mind, the angle different, the details clearing. She was right. It does all look different now. What I did. How I reacted. Her sending me away. My failure to explain my actions, my strange behavior.

“Hold me?” she whispers.

My breath goes out in a rush. My heart starts to pound. Her pretty face is sad, her lips trembling.

Slinging my arm around her slim shoulders, I tuck her into my side. No clue why holding her feels so good. The closer she is, the calmer I feel.

Turning in my hold, she slides her arms around my neck and kisses me, and the desire that had dropped to a low simmer flares back to life, scorching me.

It’s all too much, and I wrap myself around her, kiss her like I want to breathe her in. My cock is suddenly so hard it hurts, more than my leg, more than the incision in my chest, more than the memories.

I tear at her clothes, wanting to feel her skin pressed to mine, to see and touch and taste. I pull at her sweater and she tugs on my shirt, and all the while we’re kissing and kissing, lips and teeth and tongues clashing and meeting.

What the hell, right? Why the hell not?

If I’m to die soon anyway, I want to experience this, feel this, have her now before she changes her mind and lets me go.