He sighed, long and hard. “My buddy, Duke, he’s from bumfuck nowhere in the middle of Dakota. Total travel time to get him home puts him there for just under fourteen hours. But he did it, grin on his face because he’s going to see his folks, his sister just had a baby and his girl is there. Most of the men on the bird over here had similar stories. People to go back to. People that care if they come back.” He paused. “I’m not most men.”
Sadness bloomed in my heart, cold and painful. “You don’t have anyone?” I asked.
“I guess I could visit my parents. Might be sober enough to recognize me,” he said. “But considering I left at sixteen when I got big enough to fight back and win against my pops, I doubt they would welcome me with open arms. Never been welcomed with open arms since I can remember. Doubt even when I was born.”
I struggled to not bawl all over his chest since his voice betrayed no emotion at the fact his parents beat him and didn’t care about him.
Obviously, there was emotion there. But the more hurt there was in some people, the tougher they seemed.
“What about friends?” I asked.
“Hung out in rough crowds before I left home,” he said. “Not people I imagine stayed off drugs or outta prison. Bounced around from sixteen to eighteen, didn’t stay anywhere long enough to make friends. And then I went straight into the Marines. So my friends are the ones I’ll be getting on a plane with come Monday.”
I digested this.
Or I tried to.
I could not imagine, I could not fathom a life like that. My life was full, bursting with people who I adored. I decorated my life with people I loved. It was what filled me up. I tried to think about not having a mom and dad who loved me for exactly who I was, tried to think of them hurting me.
Bile rose in my throat at the mere thought of it.
I struggled to imagine a life where I didn’t have Lucy, Rosie, Ashley—my safety nets and my shields from the world. People who would die for me, commit felonies for me. People made up big chunks of my heart.
“I’m sorry that you didn’t have people to treat you in the way you should’ve been treated,” I whispered.
“I’m not,” he replied.
I stilled.
“’Cause if I had somewhere to go tonight, maybe that asshole would’ve got what he wanted,” he said not taking his eyes from mine. “And if I went through all that shit just so I could stop the world from marking you with that kind of ugliness, then I’m at peace with that.”
I blinked rapidly.
I had no idea what to say to that.
How in the heck did someone respond to that? Because he wasn’t just saying it. Heath didn’t just say things unless he meant them. And he meant it. He meant that he was happy to go through years of utter misery to help protect me from a handful of moments of it.
“My life was ugly, it is ugly,” he murmured. “But you changed that.”
Again, my heart stuttered. Bled.
“Everyone is looking for something that will make the world a little less ugly,” I whispered finally.
My words gave him pause. Actual visible pause, and then his brows furrowed in that attractive and familiar way, scrunching up his features like a man staring at a puzzle without the right pieces. “That’s not something that I’d expect you to say.”
I smiled. And it wasn’t happy. It felt rather sad and melancholy. Because it was filled with truth. “Of course not. I am the literal Pollyanna, right? I’m not meant to see the ugliness, I’m the carefree, rather flaky yet loveable romantic. But there is no way to exist in this world and be carefree. It’s an impossibility. We’re all pretending. Just like you’re pretending to be all... you.”
He raised his brow in the moonlight. “All me?” he repeated. His voice now held a hint of teasing, just like his eyes. “And what is ‘all me’?”
I grinned shyly. “I don’t know. The strong and tough Marine who comes to a woman’s aid in a bar when really he needs someone to come to his aid. Show him that life isn’t just wars in one country and savage drunks in another. A person who fights ugly for a living and maybe needs a little beauty in his life.”
All teasing glint left his eyes. He searched my face for a long time. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I think I’ve found that beauty, Sunshine.” He stroked the side of my face in a way that unnerved me.
It was nice, of course, because whenever he touched me, it was nice. But there was something poignant, final, about it. Like in The Way We Were when Katie realizes she still loves Hubbel but there is no way they would ever be together, so they just bask in that last moment flirting with different futures, different pasts, until they go back to their mutual realities which will retreat their relationship into a memory.
But then again, I tended to romanticize moments.
“You know I’ve fought in battles, some of them I didn’t think I’d be comin’ back from. Survivin’,” he murmured, he grasped the side of my neck with one hand, the other biting into my bare hip. He stroked the side of my jaw with his thumb. “Somehow I did. But I don’t think I’ll survive you.”
And then he kissed me.
And neither of us survived that weekend.
Not really.
I fell in love with him that night, when I was too young, too naïve and too fearless.
When he left, I experienced the broken heart that would’ve jaded a lot of people. Turned them cold and cynical and closed. But I was determined, even though I was broken, even though I’d given him everything, my most precious of things, I would not give him that.
He could take my virginity and my heart, but he would not take that zest for life that was central to me. The zest for love. For the fairy tale.
He gave me first-hand experience of the fact it wasn’t real.
And I spent years after that trying to prove him wrong.
Trying to fall in love with a thousand different guys so I could fall out of love with one.
Because I did still love him.
Even though he treated me horrendously. Callously. Even though his actions were unforgivable.
Actions were unforgivable. But love was not as easily swayed.
Broken hearts sometimes crave the person that broke them. No matter how unhealthy, ugly, and painful that need is, it doesn’t go away.
But I tried to cover it up.
Ignore it.
Prove to him that he did not own me.
Give my heart to everyone because I maintained the illusion that it didn’t belong to any of them. Not even me.
Four Years Later
“Polly!” Lucy yanked me into an uncharacteristic hug.
Lucy wasn’t a hugger.
I was. I was usually the one that had to wrangle her into any kind of affection. It wasn’t because she didn’t feel it, though it would seem like it on first glance. She was always wearing black, always elegant and in heels, her beautifully sharp features mostly sculpted into a mask of indifference. Even when she was hurting. Especially when she was hurting.
Which had been a lot from the moment she’d met Keltan.
Because people are not all smiles and happiness when they fall in love. No, if it’s real and true—like what Lucy and Keltan had—the smiles were rare, and misery was common.