Chapter Fifty-One

Katy

The last four days without Noah have been some of the loneliest I’ve ever had to endure. My craving for isolation has ceased, replaced by longing to fill the home I dwell in without my family. Gavin is tearing me apart with this silence, and it’s more apparent than ever, the damage I’ve caused through my own inability to communicate. He needs to know. He deserves to know and maybe by coming clean, I can help to eradicate some of the wreckage. If I want things to work, I need to open up the lines of communication. I know my husband, and I’m almost positive that’s what Gavin is waiting for. I’m just not sure he can handle what I have to say.

I’m greeted at base by one of the guards who knows me well. While he rattles on with pleasantries, I glance in the rearview. I’ve gone all-out today, fixing my hair and putting on a little bronzer and lip gloss. After being ushered inside, I slowly roll through base in an attempt to capture the pride I once felt in being a part of it.

I wasn’t able to officially resign from the army until a month after I returned home—following my psych eval, and some needed time and thought.

Yeah, no thanks. Remorse for my stand buds inside of me, because I’ve always been so incredibly proud of Gavin.

I park at the building that houses his office and step out, making a note to hit the commissary for groceries. The fact that I’m not contributing is starting to grate at me, and I need to pinch pennies where I can. There are still perks of being an army wife, and sooner or later I’m going to have to suck it up and realize even though I’m done, I married in.

That’s life.

And it’s the one I chose. Gavin’s uniform used to be one of my biggest turn-ons, and he knew it.

And you told him to never wear it in front of you again.

But where the hell is he? Absent, avoiding, doing all the things I did to him.

We need a come-to-Jesus, and we need one fast. Which is why I’m sitting outside his building trying to muster up the courage to ask him personally for a dinner date.

A part of me wants to lash out, but I call that part unreasonable. The reasonable part of me wants him to see that I’m trying. But both of those women are getting pretty pissed off. I can’t fight this war alone, and maybe this absence is a way of letting me know it’s over for him.

Either way, I’m about to find out.

Marching into the building, I find myself greeted by one of his lieutenants.

“Serg—Katy, good to see you,” she says with a smile. Lt. Lowe has always been kind of a mentor to me. She, much like the other women in my life, is no bullshit. Not only that, she’s got that personality spark I’m drawn to. As I study her brown eyes, I realize quickly who she reminds me of. “How are you?”

“Good,” I find myself saying with a nod, to try and seem more convincing.

“I’m so glad,” she says taking a step toward me. “He’s out now. Full schedule today, but I can see if I can get him.”

“Nah, I’ll just leave a note on his desk.”

“Okay,” she says, as I search her face for any indication that she may know what’s going on. She doesn’t. That’s Gavin.

On base, or out in the field at any given time, he’s liable for around a hundred and fifty soldiers. It’s a huge responsibility, one he’s mastered.

Walking back toward his office, I sink into the familiar feel of it. It’s been so long since I’ve been here. A lump forms when I stare at the picture of us on his desk. It was taken shortly after our honeymoon. We’re both bronzed from the Caribbean sun and smiling like lunatics. Sitting in his chair, I pick it up and study it.

How can he stare at this every day and not talk to me?

For the first time since he left, I feel like I’m in over my head. Picking up a pen from the side of his keyboard, I snatch a piece of scratch paper from a pad close by. It’s not a love letter, just another dinner invitation, a plea for the chance to prove it.

After tracing the happy couple in the frame with my finger, I stand and say my goodbyes to Lt. Lowe with a hopeful beat sounding in my chest.

Here goes nothing.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Transfixed on the neon box, my throat fills with sand, and I can’t help the way my lips rub together. Wetting them with my tongue, the sound of the checkout grows distant as my mind wanders back to a time I would have moved heaven and earth just to reach for something this soothing and be rewarded so easily. Pulling the entire box of Carmex off the rack, I hold it up to the lady checking me out.

“The whole thing?” she asks with a grin.

“Yes,” I say without matching it. She studies the box to catch the count and rings them up before I dump them in my purse. My total doubles.

So much for pinching pennies.

Ignoring her crazy bitch stare, I’m almost out the door when I hear my name called.

“Scott!”

Looking back, I see Anderson, one of the medics I worked with closely at the clinic, before.

“Hey, Anderson, you’re back stateside.” Suddenly anxious, my eyes dart toward the door hoping this conversation will be brief. Today’s been a good day, and lately, I’ve been testing myself, but I don’t want to push too far.

“Yes. Damn, if I never see or feel sand again, it will be too soon.”

“Understandable,” I say as she scrutinizes me.

Time to go.

“I’m glad to see you’ve made it back safely, and I’d love to catch up, but I’ve got stuff that’s going to melt.”

“Sure,” she says, eyeing my scarcely-filled cart. “I’ll be honest, I’m shit for words right now anyway.”

“It’s okay, really.”

She looks sincerely apologetic. “I visited Mullins.”

“Me too.”

“I wish I could have been there, for the funeral.”

I nod. “That makes two of us.”

She winces. “Sorry, I just…but can you believe Briggs is going back?”

“Can’t you?” I say, trying to ignore the searing pain that comes with hearing his name.

She shakes her head. “I mean stateside is understandable, but volunteering to finish his tour, especially after what happened?”

The floor shakes beneath me. I should be ready to hear this—prepared. He’s a soldier, and it’s what he does. She takes a step forward. “I mean I get the adrenaline, I guess, but does that idiot have a death—”

Before she can get the rest of the sentence out, I’m gone.