LEXI
I’m numb. Sitting in Ty’s bed, with his down comforter bunched around my legs, all I can do is stare at him. The sun has just barely begun to rise. The faint glow through the blinds tells me it’s still early, but Ty looks like he’s been up for hours.
“When?” I ask, blinking back the tears that I’m not ready to let fall.
“I leave tomorrow.” He perches on the edge of the bed and puts a hand on my leg.
“For how long?”
He lets a long breath out through his nose, but doesn’t look away. “I don’t know.”
“Why? Why do you have to go?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“And so just like that, everything falls apart.”
Ty’s face crumples. “Who says it’s falling apart?”
I sigh and drop my gaze to the bed, the tears welling up behind my closed eyes. “It feels like it’s falling apart.” I look up at him. “I’m scared, Ty.”
“Everything is going to be okay.” His face is a mask and his words feel hollow.
“Is it? How can you even know that?” I reach for him and he takes my hand.
“I know it because I’ll do everything in my power to make it okay. You and me, we’ve got something real here, Lex. Something worth fighting for. We’re stronger than time and distance. If anything, our life has already proved that.”
Stronger than time and distance. I’d love to believe that because I can’t imagine being without him now that I know what it’s like to be with him. “How? How have our lives proved it?” I ask.
“We spent one day together seven years ago and that was enough to forge a connection between us that we couldn’t ignore the very next time we saw each other. Almost seven years passed between the first time I saw you and the next and I swear, I swear it felt like no time had passed at all. If we can survive seven years, we can make it through this.”
“But I don’t want to make it through this. I don’t want to leave you and I don’t want you to leave me.” I hang my head and swallow hard against the tears. “Just when things were starting to make sense, this happens and now I’m more confused than ever.”
“Hey. Look at me, Lex. Please, look at me.” Ty cups my cheek. ”Talk to me. Don’t close up. Not now.”
I meet his gaze. “Last night, I was thinking I’m ready to pack up my life and move out here with you, but now I find out I have to pack things up to move back home.” I blink against the tears.
“Really?” His eyes soften. “You’re ready to be with me for real?”
I take a long breath and suck in my breath. “Yeah. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you, Ty.”
He leans forward, blinking in confusion. “What did you say?”
I smile through my tears. “I love you. The kind of love that’s worth giving up silly jobs in Ohio and taking a great big risk to be with you.”
“You love me?” His entire demeanor softens. He searches my face.
“I do. I love you, Ty. I love you so much I don’t want to ever be without you, but, here we are. You have to leave which means I have to be without you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this happy and this sad at the same time..”
Ty scoots closer and takes my hand, his thumb running lightly across my knuckles. “I love you, too, Lexi. I’ve been in love with you since the day we met. All it took was one look and I was done for, but now that I’ve gotten to know you?” He smiles through sad eyes. “I don’t want to be without you either, but I don’t have a choice here.” He scoots closer. “But we will make this work. We will.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” He wipes a tear from my cheek. “Don’t you feel it? We’re stronger than time or distance.”
I nod. “I do. I feel it. I don’t care how long we’re separated or how far away from me you are, I’m yours.”
“And I’m yours. I promise.”
The day disappears in a frenzy of packing and last-minute arrangements. Ty says Gabe and I can stay here as long as we want, but I don’t want to be here without him. Plus, maybe being around my friends will help make me feel less alone. I try to stay strong, but every time I’m alone, I cry. When we tell Gabe, he cries, too and that just does me in. I sit down in the middle of the living room, pull my son into my lap, and sob. Ty wraps his arms around the both of us and doesn’t say a word. What else is there to say?
I finish the day on auto-pilot, making lists and checking off every item I can think of. Ty and I make dinner together, dancing around each other in the kitchen as if we’ve been doing it for years. It’s so comfortable and easy. I’m going to miss being with him.
“I don’t want to go back to Brookside,” I say, leaning against the counter. “I don’t think it’s going to feel like home anymore.”
Ty stops what he’s doing to look at me. “Then don’t. Stay here.”
“But I don’t think here will feel like home either.”
Ty puts the knife down on the counter and pulls me into him. “This is every bit your home.”
“That’s the thing. You are my home. I belong with you. Not Brookside. Not Oahu. With you. Wherever you are, that’s home.”
“Oh, Lex…”
I look up at him. “I love you, Ty. You’re taking my whole heart with you to Afghanistan.”
“And I’m leaving my heart right here.” He places his hand on my chest. “It’s an even trade.”
“You promise everything is going to be okay?”
“I promise. Everything is going to be okay.”
That night, we make love. There’s a ferocity to our movement, desperation. We are starving men eating our last meal, desperate to soak in everything we can. I touch his face, cup his cheeks between my hands as he moves inside me. I can’t look away, even as tears stream down my face and my heart swells until I’m afraid it might burst, I refuse to look away. This is the last time I’ll see him for who knows how long and that’s bad enough, but Tara’s voice keep echoing in my head.
We’ve lost friends…
That voice spent the day whispering insidious things to me. If they’ve lost friends, who’s to say you won’t lose Ty? This isn’t a standard deployment. This is something bigger. Something worse. What if this is the last time you look into those eyes? What if this is the end?
“I love you,” I say, my voice a whisper, choked by tears and lust.
“I love you, too.” Ty kisses me. “So much,” he says when he releases my lips. “I will move heaven and earth to get back to you.”
“I know,” I say. I believe him. He will do everything in his power to get us back together. The realization that I trust him that much is my undoing. I come, wrapping my arms and legs around him, holding him tighter and tighter because there is no such thing as too close. Not with him. When Ty comes, he drops his head to my shoulder and we stay like that, wrapped up, him still inside me, for a long time.
Morning comes and the hours pass, treacherous as ever. Ty drives us to the airport. Gabe hugs him tight, his tiny hands clutching Ty’s shirt. Emotions swirl in Ty’s eyes when he finally releases his son and then stands and reaches for me.
“I’ve never minded leaving,” he says, his voice thick. “But this time is tearing me apart. I’ve never had to say goodbye before. Not to people that matter.”
“This isn’t a real goodbye,” I say. “This is just goodbye for now. We’ll talk soon and be together again before we know it.” I pull Gabe close and Ty wraps an arm around the both of us. We don’t say much. Just stand there, soaking up the last few moments of connection we can before we have to let him go.
* * *
Ty
The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is watch Lexi and Gabe walk through the TSA gate at the airport. I stand at attention as she gathers her carry on and takes Gabe’s hand. Watch as she hands her boarding pass to the agent and then, when she turns back to wave one last time, tears streaming down her face, it’s all I can do to keep myself together. I blow her a kiss. Place a hand on my heart. And when she’s disappeared from view, I do a neat about face and stride out of the airport.
This isn’t a real goodbye…
Emotion threatens to overwhelm me but I lock that shit up tight and swallow the key. I have a duty to perform, a job to do. I am not the only Marine to have to say goodbye to his family. Men do it every day. Every damn day. And that doesn’t stop them from pulling themselves together and doing what needs done. This is my life. This is who I am. I am a Marine and a damn good one at that. My men need me to be operating at peak efficiency and that isn’t going to happen if I let my emotions rule me.
The past is over and the future is uncertain. What matters is now. My mission. My men. Going over there to do whatever it is that needs done to make sure the people we love the most are safe and then getting our happy asses back home to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
This is the way of it. The way it’s been and the way it will be. No one told me being a Marine would be easy. Shit, I signed up because I knew it was a challenge most men couldn’t live up to. I wanted to prove I didn’t have a limit. That I could push myself above and beyond and then above and beyond again in order to do the things that need done.
I stride through the front doors of the airport and out to the parking lot, my boots striking a heavy staccato rhythm on the pavement, my hands fisted, my chin lifted. The more I try to convince myself that I’m limitless, the more I question if it’s true because, damn it, leaving Lexi and Gabe sure as hell feels like a limit to me.