Fighting For Him
Jason
Their first night in Cartagena, Columbia was a hard one. Their new apartment was nothing like the rustic log cabin. It was located right in the heart of the city, in an area that wasn’t great, but it was safe. Located in a quaint yellow building with arches on the main floor and rows of white balconies rising above, it was nice enough. It wasn’t luxury, but they had time to move on and move out, once they had their lives together again.
Or at least, Amanda could.
The city didn’t afford the freedom Jason was used to. The hustle and bustle of people and vehicles below never seemed to die out or fade away. After years of silence, it was jarring.
At least the noise provided an outward distraction from the noise in his brain. He’d never wipe the sounds of gunfire and dying men from his ears or be able to erase the smell of smoke, his life going up in ashes, from his nostrils. The memories weighed him down like a physical burden.
He hadn’t lost Amanda yet, but he didn’t know how long they could last. He’d made promises to her the night he’d rescued her from that dingy house that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep. How long would she choose to stay with him, now that she knew the truth? He might not have pulled the trigger, but he was there the night those men died. He hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to intercede on their behalf. Not that they would have stepped in and saved him, had it been the other way around. Worse, they would have had no qualms about killing Amanda, Joan and Ross.
Their names had died that night instead.
Jason, now Markus, sat outside on the balcony, the apartment quiet behind him. Everyone had fallen asleep long ago. As usual, he hadn’t been able to sleep. Even when the danger was long past.
Will I ever sleep again?
A man on a bike rolled by slowly under the balcony and continued his way on down the street. A young man and woman, arms linked, walked slowly by on the opposite side of the street. They said nothing, but it was obvious they were lovers.
Jason started when the door opened behind him. Amanda stood there, a vision in her cotton t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. Her flaxen hair was mused from having slept on it for half the night and her mossy eyes were cloudy with sleep.
“You haven’t come to bed,” she stated matter-of-factly. It wasn’t a question.
Jason shrugged. “No.” He turned back to the street. There was another chair on the tiny balcony and Amanda slipped into it. He couldn’t turn and look at her. He hadn’t been able to truly look her in the eye once since the night he’d kicked down the door and found his family in that tiny, abandoned, decrepit house.
It could so easily have been the last place they ever saw.
“Jason?” Amanda laid a hand gently on his bare arm. It was warm, the night as humid as most nights were. He hadn’t bothered changing out of his gray plain t-shirt and jeans he’d worn all day even though he was probably stale and sweaty.
“Hmm?” He made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat.
“Can you look at me?”
It was the one thing he hadn’t been able to do and she knew it. He turned his head in her direction, but purposely didn’t focus on her face. He looked past her, to the teal building that butted up against theirs.
“You know that what happened wasn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?”
He sighed roughly, reached up and ran a hand through his hair. It was damp at the base, near the roots. “I don’t know how you can say that. Of course it was my fault. Everything that happened was my fault. I never should have hoped that I could lead a normal life. I dared to think that I had gotten out, gotten away, and that I would be unfound and unharmed. I let you depend on me, when I couldn’t even depend on myself. Worse, I endangered your mother and our son.”
“We’ve been through all that,” Amanda said quietly, infinite patience in her voice. “You can’t bring up the past anymore. What happened is over. It’s dead to us. It was another life. A completely different life. We were different people with different names. We can’t go back, we can only go forward.”
It sounded like a motivational speech, designed just for him. He said nothing, because there was nothing to say.
“That’s what you doubt most of all, isn’t it? It’s what you’ve been struggling with since that night you came for us. I thought it was over then, but that was just the beginning. It was the beginning of our new life. It was the beginning of you becoming a person I don’t even feel like I know. It was the start of all your doubts.”
His head cranked around so fast a sharp pain ripped up his neck and radiated down his spine. Amanda’s eyes burned bright with emotion. She was so incredibly beautiful, a touch of moonlight on her pale, silken skin, the curve of her cheek and her full lips so very alluring…
“You know that I’m right. I know you think that once we got here, once we settled in and got back to a life we both knew how to lead, that you’d leave. You’d leave because that’s what you think is best for us. You think that deep down, it’s what I want, whether I know it or not.”
“It’s not-”
“I can feel you pulling away,” Amanda cut in. “Each day, I can feel you slipping away, a little at a time. I feel like you’re not even mine, Jason. That you no longer want to be in our lives. You think it’s best for us. You think you need to go, even though what happened is over and there is no one else looking for you and we’re safe here. You think we’d be better off without you. You think your son should grow up not knowing his father because his father’s life has been soaked in violence and blood.”
His heart sunk and his stomach clenched violently. He heard the truth of his thoughts echoed in her words. There was no use denying what she said. Amanda knew him better than anyone else in the world. It had taken her all of eleven days to figure him out.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I do think that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, as if doing so would protect her from the harsh reality of the truth. “Well you’re mistaken. How could you even think those thoughts? Why would you want to pull away when we’ve been gifted this new chance, this fresh start. We both know that there was a chance that we might not be here. We beat the odds and we’re here together. What about your promises? Promises to make me your wife? To love me and your son?”
“I…”
“No!” A steely glint flashed through Amanda’s eyes. Her lips pressed into a thin, hard line. She didn’t have to raise her voice for him to understand that she was dead serious. “There is nothing you can say that I’ll accept as a reason for you to leave. What happened was a product of the life you led, but we both know it was not your fault. I know that you love me. I know that you love your son. If you think for a second that I’m not strong, you’re mistaken. If you think that I’m not a fighter too, that I won’t fight for you and our life together and our love, you have another thing coming.”
All Jason could do was stare at his woman, his warrior, goddess of a woman. She did indeed look fierce enough, eyes blazing, her heart on her sleeve, the air thick between them with her emotion and her love, to ride into battle. A battle she’d fight, time and time again for him. For his soul and his heart, for his body and his life.
He tried and failed again to say anything. His throat closed up, aching with regret and unspent emotion. If a thousand years passed, he could never tell her enough times just how sorry he was.
“You didn’t ruin my life, so stop thinking that right now. You saved it. You brought my mother and I back together and you were the one who gave me the gift of my son. I feel like I never lived a single day in my life before I met you. So stop. Stop sitting out here by yourself. Stop staying awake all night like you have to keep guard over us or because you can’t bear to be near me since it would make it that much harder to leave.”
“Amanda…”
“No. That’s not my name any longer. My name is Dawn. I chose that name so that it would always remind me of our fresh start. Of this amazing second chance, this opportunity to live out a life of peace and love together.”
“You have no idea…”
“What you saw that night? I can figure it out. Don’t think that I’m so innocent that I don’t know what happened. I know you’re haunted. I know that you’ll probably wrongly blame yourself for this for years to come. Maybe you’ll never forget and maybe you’ll never let go of the guilt in your heart, but you can’t stop fighting for our love either. Don’t let go of it, please. I would fight or beg or do anything in my power to hold us together. I love you, Markus.”
His name sounded strange on her tongue. He wished she didn’t have to call him that, but Jason hadn’t been his real name either. He wished for a lot of things, prime among them, he wished that she could truly forgive him. He knew that would never happen because she was not the one withholding it. It was he himself who felt that forgiveness had to be earned.
“The one thing I would never forgive you for, is leaving,” Amanda whispered brokenly, tears welling in her eyes. Her lips quivered and he knew she was battling hard not to cry. “I would never forgive you if you abandoned us. Not now, not ever. You are my heart and soul. It’s always been true and it will always be true. I swear that I will never take another. I will never be able to be happy while I know you are alive and out there. If you want me to have a life worth living, then stay. Stay and fight for us. Fight whatever demons are in your head and in your heart and let me help you. You promised that I would be your wife. I’m going to hold you to it. I know that you want to mean it. I will be your wife and you will be my husband. I will love you until my last breath, and hopefully even after. I knew pretty much from the minute I saw you that you were my heart and my heart was yours. So don’t give up now. Don’t leave me now. Clear the smoke and ashes from your head and move forward, Jason, please.”
Jason’s heart stirred at Amanda’s impassioned speech. He was struck at her loyalty and her absolute, unwavering love. She taught him what it meant to be a good person. It was her bravery that pulled him through, that put the love and life back into his heart and soul.
He rose slowly, setting his chair back an inch. The balcony was so small he only had to go a step before he reached Amanda. He knelt at her feet, gripped her hands and stared earnestly up into her gorgeous, tender face and luminous eyes.
“My love,” he whispered, completely and totally humbled. “I can say nothing, nothing in the face of your unwavering love. I needed to hear this, most of all. I needed to know that I am truly forgiven in your eyes and that you want me by your side. I know of no other honor greater in the entire world. There is no other place I would rather be.”
“All you had to do was ask.” Her hands came up and cupped the side of his face. Her fingers gripped his cheeks. She bent her head and when she was just an inch away, her breath warm and seductive on his lips, she whispered, “I know you didn’t know how. You don’t have to ask me ever again, you just have to promise that for the rest of our lives, it’s just us.”
“I swear it.” The oath was ripped from his too tight throat and as Amanda’s face bent to his, he began to weep and their tears, the sweetest tears he’d ever shed in his life, mingled with hers.