Fallon

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Tia says, wiping the tears from her eyes as I peel out of Kate’s driveway and head back to our place.

I don’t trust myself to speak. My fury knows no bounds. She left. Again. After she promised me she wouldn’t.

We pull up to the house and I slam the truck door shut. I storm towards the house, but turn when I realize Hypatia isn’t following me. Dammit, is this woman so hell-bent on refusing to heed every one of my warnings?

“Just say something, Fallon.” Her voice is small and scared. I turn to face her but she’s still standing next to the truck.

I pulled her from Kate’s house before she could grab her parka and now she stands out here, the snow starting to fall, the dark afternoon covering the moment with a thick blanket. It’s heavy--her choices and my anger and the state of the goddamn world.

Would I care that the outlook is so grim if I weren’t married? If I wasn’t responsible for another person?

Till death do us part.

It doesn’t matter--the what if’s. The truth is she’s my wife, and if that means pissing her off to keep her safe, so be it.

I rake a hand through my hair. “You can’t do that, Hypatia.”

“Do what?” She shakes her head, clutching her arms, looking so fragile out here in the open. So vulnerable. This is why she can’t leave the house alone. “Be a person? No one else in the house wants to keep me prisoner. Just you. And yet I’m supposed to believe you have my best intentions at heart? How could you when you don’t even trust me--”

“Dammit, Tia,” I cut her off, stalking across the driveway, desperate to look in her eyes as I tell her the truth. “It’s not you I don’t trust.” Pointing to the woods beyond our property as I shout, “It’s them.”

“I’m not naive Fal, I get it. The world is a disaster and there’s no hope for humanity and maybe I was a fool to think there might be some hope for me here. And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never should have come.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I tell her, reaching to pull her into my arms, but she backs away, wiping her eyes. “You see me as a bully, a man who refuses to hear anyone else, who only wants what I want, but that’s not me.”

“Then who are you Fallon?” she asks, eyes blazing and hair whipping around her. She looks swept up in something I don’t understand, like she’s already drifting away, and I can’t pull her back. Everything I say seems to push her further from where I want her.

Here. With me. With us.

She continues, fervor in her tone and regret in her words. “Because all I see is a man who keeps trying to push me down. If I wanted that, I would have...” She shakes her head, and the way she looks at me is heartbreaking. Anger. Frustration. Resentment. Fear. But mostly despair. As if the man I am is nothing but a disappointment.

I imagine her wishing I were like the other men she married. Funny and charming and fucking oblivious to what’s happening around us.

But I’m not that man and I never want to be. It’s not what she needs, either. She needs a man who will stand up for her, fight for her, because Alaska has turned into the wild west, the rules have changed.

“I believe in a better tomorrow,” I tell her. “Maybe I don’t wear my heart on my goddamn sleeve, but I joined the military and fly bush planes for a reason. To help the greater good. To work for a better tomorrow.” I take a deep breath, knowing I need to lay it all out there if I want her respect. Right now, she sees me as a threat to her happiness, not a man who will fight for her until the bitter end.

I run a hand over the curve of her cheek, and when she flinches, trying to pull back, I don’t let her. She doesn’t seem to understand that I know what she needs.

I am hers and she is mine.

“I saw you on the boat,” I tell her, my throat gone dry. “The day you were rescued.”

Her green eyes flash, specks of gold lighting them up as she remembers the night she was found.

“I saw you there, Hypatia, nearly frozen, lips blue and you were so alone. All I could think…all I wanted…was to make sure you were safe.”

She shakes her head ever so softly. “I don’t remember you-”

“I know. You were dehydrated, famished, at death's door. The medics came, took you in their ambulance and I followed them. I kept vigil all week, staying in the waiting room at the damn hospital, praying for you to recover.”

“You were there? But you never came to me…”

“It’s not the man I am. I knew I might not have you as my wife, so I didn’t want to give myself false hope. I never considered the lottery before you. Never wanted to consider falling for a woman who I might watch…” I can’t finish the sentence. My conversation from earlier today, with my father, fills my mind with the worst.

“A woman you might watch die,” she whispers.

I nod.

“You entered the lottery for me?”

“Only you.”

“If you wanted me so badly, then why have you been so hard on me? The other guys give me their key cards, let me out of the house. They trust me.”

“It’s not trust. It’s stupidity. Women are raped and killed in the wild every month Hell, my dad was just telling me about that very thing happening down at the wharf. This isn’t about control. It’s about survival. It might be safer to deliver a child here, but not safer to be a female. You are at risk every time you walk outside.”

She closes her eyes, and I draw her close. She’s so cold, and I want to bring her inside, but I also need to speak to her without anyone else around. I need her to know why I care so much.

“The others-”

“They don’t understand. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen. But I’ve lost people I care about Hypatia, and I won’t lose you too.”

Under the pale light of the moon it’s easier to share my most intimate thoughts. She doesn’t say anything for a long time and I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin atop her head.

“Why is it so hard for you to do as I say?” I finally ask.

She exhales slowly, looking up she answers plainly. “You see me as the fragile woman you rescued from the cargo ship. But that’s not all of me, Fallon. That was me at my worst. I’m more than a shell of a girl, I’m a woman. And every time you tell me no, I want to fight it, because it’s all I’ve ever been told by men my entire life.”

“It’s going to get you killed. You realize that, right? If you keep taking chances...” Emotions swell inside me, thinking of her suffering the same fate as Caroline.

She furrows her brow, resolved to fight me on this too. “At least I’d die kicking and screaming, not pushed into a corner.”

I step back, wanting to howl at the moon, scream until I knock some sense into her.

“I love you Hypatia. But I don’t fucking understand you.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” she says, her voice hushed and reverent, as if she believes her words with all that she is.

“Don’t you hear me?” I shout. “I love you.”

“This is not love, Fallon,” she says, tears streaking her cheeks. “It’s fear.”