“No, you’re not. We’re going to hash this out, then we’re going to take some amazing pictures.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Maybe I’m not ready…”
“You were balls to the wall ready until you saw my gun. Then you lost it. My fault. I should have been more sensitive to your history. I promise that will not happen again. I’ll be more mindful.”
“You shouldn’t have to change anything about yourself for me. You shouldn’t even need a gun. You shouldn’t have to open your home and do all this in your private space. Everything is so upside down.” The tears threatened once more and this time I had no hope of them not falling.
He reached for my hand and walked me over to the teal velvet couch. He sat down and tugged on my hand until I was sitting next to him. He turned so he was facing me.
“Addy, I want to be here taking these photos. And not just because you’re gorgeous and I want to date you.”
I could feel my cheeks heat again for another reason. This time not attached to shame.
He took both of my hands inside both of his. “I see in you what I see when I look in the mirror.”
“How so?” I frowned, uncertain where he was going with this admission.
“Fear. Shame. Courage. Insecurity. But most of all, I see the desire to get better. To find yourself amongst all the tragedy. That’s all any of us want to do, especially after a traumatic experience. Sometimes when I close my eyes, all I see are my brothers in arms being blown up. Children shot dead in villages that had been turned to rubbish. Women raped and mutilated beyond repair. It’s all there waiting like a villain in the back of my mind and I’m helpless to it.”
I shifted my body more toward him, pulling a leg up and under my bum. “That’s awful.”
“It is. And what you went through was awful too. You and I are not so different, Addy.”
“H-how do you get past it? How do you make it go away?” My voice shook and he rubbed my hands with his.
“One day at a time. Talk it through with friends, family, a therapist. All of these I’ve done, and it helped. Still, at night, the fear and trauma can pull me from a dead sleep and make me believe I’m back there, running for my life, fighting to survive, still capturing the events on camera. I’ve only been out of it for a year and a half, Addy. You’ve only just come out of your experience in the last few months and you’ve been tossed right back into your own personal Hell. Give yourself a little grace. You are not made of stone.” He ran his hands up to my inner forearms and the worst of the puckered scars. He traced them as I tried to pull back. I didn’t let anyone touch them. He didn’t relent but held tighter. “These wounds hurt and will forever be a part of you. The scars are now part of the story that is Addison Michaels-Kerrighan. And sweetheart…every inch of you is pure beauty.”
Tears tracked down my face. “And your scars…are they part of you too?”
He inhaled so deeply his nostrils flared and his brown eyes turned a darker shade of espresso. Then he stood tall, lifted the hem of his T-shirt, and pulled it up and over his head. A magnificent torso seared across my vision. Pecs that were squared off, a smattering of light brownish-blond hair that ran along the center in just the right amount that made a girl itch to run her fingers through it. I followed that line of hair as it went down not a four pack, but a solid, defined six-pack. Abdominals like speed bumps I’d love to run my tongue in between playfully. His jeans were fitted but slung low on his hips, giving my eyes a feast of those two indents between a man’s waist and his pelvis that made a girl like me go bonkers with lust. Before I could get enough eye candy he slowly turned around. At first, I thought he was gifting me a better view of his fine ass, until I saw the carnage that was the skin of his back.
White puckered lines ran up and down his muscular form alongside smaller, more rounded and jagged scars, some of them still pink and healing. They must have been deep like mine. I gasped and stood abruptly, hovering my hands over the destroyed flesh.
“Fitz…” I whispered as I touched a single finger to a scar at the top of his shoulder and followed the gnarled, bumpy flesh all the way down to his tailbone. He shivered and clenched his hands into fists. I could visibly see his chest rise and fall with the effort it took to stand there vulnerable to my gaze and touch. Without thinking, I pressed my body to his back, both of my hands curling around two mighty shoulders, and I rested my forehead to the center of his spine between his shoulder blades. “Who did this to you?” I whispered, my voice barely recognizable.
“IED loaded with shrapnel.” His head fell forward, but he didn’t move away so I didn’t either. “I was photographing my old unit when someone behind me stepped on it. The roar of the bomb going off was so loud I couldn’t hear for a full two days after that. I woke as a fire on my back was being put out. There were body parts of men I served with lying all around me. I’ll never forget opening my eyes and seeing a severed hand with the tan line of a wedding ring still visible, only two feet in front of my eyes.”
I let the tears fall as he shared his horrifying experience.
“And that wasn’t all, Addy. There’s more. So much more, but the experience scarred me physically and emotionally for life. I’ll never forget that day. How the sun hit the sky just perfectly. The sounds of people I cared about, loved like brothers, laughing only minutes before their lives were snuffed out. My camera survived. I have pictures of some of my friends only moments before they took their last breaths. That is part of my story. Part of my legacy. Part of who I am.” He spun around and pulled me into his arms. “What happened to you, it’s only part of your story. The rest is still unwritten. You have the power and the ability to move on. To live. That’s what I tell myself every time I feel sorry for myself over what happened. Over what I lost. I get to live when they didn’t. It’s my job now to make sure I don’t waste the life I’ve been given.”
I lifted my hands up and cupped Killian’s cheeks, his beard and mustache combo soft against the palms of my hands. “Thank you. For sharing your story. For showing me this part of you.”
He closed his eyes as though he were letting my touch sink into him. He blinked and put his hands to my wrists where I still cupped his cheeks. “Don’t give up, Addy. Push through. You’ve lived through hell. Now’s the time to live the life you want.”
“What if I don’t know what I want anymore?” I admitted a truth I hadn’t been willing to even entertain myself. Leave it to this man to dig straight into the heart and truth of me.
He smiled softly. “Then allow yourself the ability to find out. But don’t stop living in the process. If you do, those bad guys, the people that hurt you, they win.”
I nodded as he lifted my hand from his cheek and placed a warm kiss to the center of my palm. “I want to photograph you.”
“Okay… But can we let Brutus out now? He’s been locked up forever and I hate that my being here has messed up his ability to roam free in his home.”
Killian closed his eyes and let out a long chuckle. “Woman after my own heart.”
“More like woman after doggie snuggles.” I teased to lighten the heavy that we’d just shared. It was beautiful and I’d never forsake it or share it with others, but he was right. We both needed to move forward.