Chapter Six

Smith

I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling Megan might feel differently. I’ve yet to tell her about my meeting with Carina. I haven’t even told her the full story of what happened the day of my accident. It’s for selfless reasons. I don’t want to burden her with anything more than she’s already endured. Megan feels so much. My pain is her pain. It reflects in her eyes so delicately that it twists a knife in my heart. I got back from my skydiving training trip and she cried the second she saw me walk through the door. She’d been waiting by the window. I think it was tears of relief, but I’m never sure anymore. She’s distraught more than she’s happy. I’m confused more than I’m moving forward.

I keep things from her in an effort to protect our paper-thin bond. Carina is on her way over to my house right now. We’re going to continue the interview in a less public venue. It was her idea to meet at my place, and I wasn’t in any position to tell her no. Megan is in Georgia visiting her parents this weekend and essentially, I’m chomping at the bit to see Carina—to talk to her more.

When the doorbell rings I jump out of my skin. As Carina walks in, shoulders slumped and head down. I try not to look at her in any other way but friendly. “We have an hour,” she says matter-of-factly, smiling weakly as she turns back to face me. “If you have any monumental stories like last time, we should get to them first things first.”

I can’t help but return the grin. She’s straight to business. A fact that should please me given our circumstances.

Carina starts unloading her leather bag.

“I started with the bombshell—literally, in our first meeting. Hopefully everything that follows will be breezy,” I say.

She nods in return. She’s hoping for more.

My nightmares returned the night after I recounted my story. I’ve been told most people have false bad dreams—scenarios of an awful caliber that would never happen in real life. My nightmares, bless them, are the actual night the mortar launched into our world, destroying it completely. Henry’s smiling face as he joked about something he had for lunch. The green, watercolor screensaver on my open laptop; my hands, my scar-free hands clutching the rail of the top bunk as the whistle of the mortar pierced our senses. Reality forms my nightmares and it’s always too much to bear. I wake up in a cold sweat, praying for my amnesia to take something else. It never does.

As I close the front door, I catch sight of my neighbor across the street. Damn Mrs. Waters. She waves at me stiffly, her unruly gray curls peeking out of the bottom of her huge gardening hat. I put my palm up quickly and shut the door. She thinks the worst, and I can’t blame her. Mrs. Waters, like most women her age, lives for the daily gossip. I’ll have to tell Megan about the meetings. It’s not a conversation that will be easy, nor one she’ll understand, but my neighbor just made it mandatory.

Carina is perched on my sofa, eyeing one of the dozens of photo albums Megan leaves out. To help me remember. It’s Megan trying to forget. “Go ahead. Take a look. It’s part of my therapy.” I air quote the last word. Gently, Carina slides the album closer and opens it up. “My fiancée is a photo aficionado,” I explain. “I think she documented every single moment since we first started dating.” I laugh. Mostly, because it doesn’t make one damn bit of difference. The photos could be of strangers for all that they mean to me.

She looks up at me confused. “The photos are all in black and white.”

“Ah. Yes.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. It lodges there for several reasons.

Carina asks, “Why?”

I sit down next to her. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

“Sure, water. Please. I’ll still want to know why, though. Are all of these albums in black and white?”

I glance at the photo she’s examining. It’s me carrying Megan in my arms. Running away from the camera into the ocean. Her blond hair cascades down over one of my arms. The caption explains it’s a vacation cruise stop.

Heading for the kitchen, I nod, knowing she can see me. “Black and white lasts forever, Carina.” I chuckle under my breath. “It’s more permanent in some finite way, I suppose. That’s how Megan explained it anyway. My memories are gone, but they’re still there. On those pages. Color fades, sort of like memories. Black and white, though?”

“Is forever,” she finishes for me.

I laugh once more.

“That’s not funny. It’s actually quite romantic,” Carina says, closing the thick book. Folding her hands in her lap, she fumbles with her tape recorder and scratches a few lines down in her notebook.

I scratch the side of my head. “Is it really that romantic, though?” I hand her the water with my question. I tap the linen cover of another album sitting on a side table. “These books don’t contain my love story. Not anymore.”

She unscrews the cap and takes a long sip, her almond eyes focused on my face. “When you put it that way, I guess it’s tragic. I understand why she does it, but as a woman, I think deep down these photos are more for her. At this point anyways.”

I grin. “You stole my thoughts. I humor her. She’s a beautiful, kind woman. I love her in a different way now. I respect her.”

“I can tell,” Carina says, tabling the water and leaning back into the sofa. It’s a light brown leather that Megan and I chose a few years back. I don’t like it any longer. “She’s a very lucky woman.”

I sit in a chair opposite her and lean back, folding my arms behind my head. “Some would argue that, but thank you.”

Her gaze draws to my forearms. That’s all it takes to get the conversation back on track.

Carina presses the record button. “Okay, Smith. Tell me why you joined the military. Make it good.”

I laugh, and it brings a beautiful smile to her face. She shakes her head as her gaze darts down to her hands. Her black eye is healed. Her olive complexion is even and smooth. The way it should always be. She has the type of skin that doesn’t blush, but it scars easily. That I’m sure of. “I was eighteen and I wanted to kill Bin Laden,” I say.

Carina tilts her head shyly. “I think that’s why most our age got into the military.”

I sigh. “It is and it isn’t. I wanted to make a difference. In what way can a solitary man make a difference in the kind of world we live in? Truly, though. I went through many options when I was deciding how best my one human soul could affect the world the greatest. When I realized there’s no way for me to cure cancer in one lifetime, or solve the world’s greatest problems in one lifetime, the answer was easy. Join the Navy. Become a Navy SEAL. Make a difference with my brothers beside me. Try to rid the world of bad one bad guy at a time. It’s a daunting concept if you really think of it.”

Carina’s eyes are wide and enrapt. I smirk. She swallows. “Daunting how?” she asks, voice small.

“Trying to make a difference by chipping away at a huge stone with a toothpick. I know I won’t live to see the end of this conflict. Knowing that and having that knowledge, is overwhelming. I wish I could do more.” I open my arms to the side and clasp my hands between my knees. “I want to save the world.” I want to save you.

“What a philanthropic heart you have, fine sir.” Carina crosses her legs at the ankle and shifts on the sofa. My gaze draws down, but I quickly look away.

I lean forward, placing my elbows on my knees. “It’s actually quite self-absorbed at the root of it. I want to die making a difference. A big difference, actually. I want to change something. Be someone worth remembering.”

“I like that,” Carina says. “That’s a fantastic tag line. I think you label it as self-absorption, but it’s not. Not really. You aren’t what I was expecting. Especially for a Navy SEAL.” She takes another sip of her water.

“I can’t help the stereotypes they place on us, and yes, I may subscribe to a few.”

She smiles widely. “You have the frog tattoo?” she asks, her voice more brazen.

I nod, eyes closed. “I do. You did your research?”

Carina laughs. “But you’re obviously not a womanizer,” she says.

I smirk. “Are you asking? Or is that an invitation?”

Carina’s mouth pops open. “No, of course not.”

I hold up a hand. “I was joking. Using some of that inappropriate humor we’re stereotyped for, you know?” I laugh. “I’m not a womanizer. I’ve only been with Megan. Or so I’ve been told.” I flash her a megawatt smile.

She shrinks back into herself a little more. “Noted.” My sexual non-promiscuity is a little embarrassing, but at least it’s an honest answer. Even now, with Megan, our sexual encounters are scripted and dull. I haven’t steeled enough nerve to ask if our sex life has always been this leaden, or if it’s because she’s afraid to break me more.

“I was just lightening the mood a little. This is going to get heavy otherwise. Can I ask you something personal?” I want to start our one-for-one game again.

She hits the pause button on her recorder. “I can take a joke. I’m not used to your humor. That’s all. It depends on what that personal question is.” She runs a hand through her ponytail, and I watch as another photo album catches her eye. Standing from my chair, I pick up the offender in question and open the album on the table in front of her. It’s a recent one from before I deployed and got blasted into smithereens.

“I’m giving you all of me here. I want to get to know you—the person who sells tall tales for a living, the person who hides behind a false name and big sunglasses. You have to know how intriguing you are to others.” I sit on the coffee table next to the album. I’m close enough to touch her, but I won’t. I’m thinking about sex with Megan and how lucky I am to have her.

She shifts again, and her skirt rides up a hint. I don’t look. I’m merely made aware in my peripheral vision. “There’s not much to know about me. I was born and raised in a small town north of here. My mom is dead. My biological father whom I’ve never met lives somewhere in this city, and my stepfather, who was a monster, is also dead. I don’t have any siblings. I’ve always used my writing as an escape from reality, although I mostly write sad stories, which doesn’t make much sense.”

I pick up on it right away. “Why doesn’t it make much sense?”

“I write to escape sadness, but it trickles into my writing anyways.”

“Why are you still with Roarke?” I remember his name from her cell phone. It’s an awful sounding name. It makes a guttural noise in my throat. I searched his name and found a company photo of him. All white, fake veneers and bad hair transplants. The portrait of a wife beater. My skin prickles at the memory. I almost broke my iPad while I read his biography. From a well-to-do family, with a penchant for sailing and bourbon tasting. I wonder how much bourbon he had in him when he gave her the black eye.

She sighs. “That’s the one place I won’t go. Please. Don’t ask. He’s a good man. He really is. I have a lovely home and a nice life because of him. It’s not fair to talk about him when he’s not here to defend himself.”

There would be no defending. I’d kill him outright.

“You couldn’t have those things without him? I think you could. A good man would never hit a woman. You don’t have to be afraid of him, you know? You could leave and never look back.”

This is what I’ve learned about domestic violence. Women tend to blanket themselves with fear and never come up for air. It’s a crippling, mind-numbing, reality-altering terror.

She smiles sweetly. “That’s very kind of you to say. I better be going now, Smith. Thank you ever so much for today. Shall we meet again soon?” Carina isn’t ready to come up for air. She’s not denying the abuse either. That, perhaps, is the best thing of all.

She stands. I stand. The black and white photo peeking up at me is Megan kissing my neck. My eyes are closed with a blissful smile arching my face. It makes my stomach hurt. I’ll never feel that again. Not with Megan. And I’ll have to pretend. Carina catches me staring. “You’re very lucky, Smith. Very lucky indeed,” she whispers.

I shake my head. “Luck never has anything to do with it. Be well. And, Carina? I want you to know something.”

Gathering her things, she heads for the door. I open it wide. Mrs. Waters is gone. “What’s that? I could guess, but you’re surprising in that way. I can’t predict what you might say next. With regards to me, it’s very much so a mystery. Tell me. What do you want me to know?” Carina’s voice seems emboldened.

“That I’m not hiding from you, so you shouldn’t hide from me either. I’m here for you. In whatever capacity makes you most comfortable. If we’re going to continue this, which I hope we will because it seems therapeutic for me, then we should be friends. Give and take. Okay? Let me be there for you.”

Her big eyes turn down in the corners. “Oh, Smith. You can’t save everyone.” She lays her smooth palm on the side of my face. The bad side of my face, the one that is hard to look at. Carina sees well past the surface into the uncomfortable, ignored zone of my psyche. And with such ease. Bringing my hand up, I grasp her wrist. She leaves her hand on my scars.

“I can try,” I say, smiling.

“You can,” she returns.

And so I will.