Page 83 of Travis
“Naomi,” I said.
Sera flinched. Her whole body pulled back an inch, a small involuntary retreat that she caught and stopped but not before I saw it. Her hand went to the arm of the chair and gripped it, and when she spoke her voice had a rough edge that hadn’t been there before.
“Okay.” She swallowed. “Tell me.”
“Everyone knows she died on that op near the Canadian border. Everyone knows I was there. Partner witnesses partner’s death, partner falls apart. Clean narrative. Easy to understand.”
“But that’s not the whole story.”
“No.”
“You’re still in love with her. That’s why you ran out this morning. You’re still in love with her, and being with me felt like you were betraying her.” She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to keep herself from shattering into a million pieces.
I sat up, ignoring the pain. I couldn’t stand the look in Sera’s eyes. Couldn’t stand the fact that I’d put it there. I reached for her, but she flinched away.
“Sera—”
“You were right to tell me to leave. That’s the right call. It’s not healthy for us to be around each other. And then I forced you to do something you didn’t really want to do. I get it. And I apologize. I should never have?—”
“Fucking stop right now.”
“We both know it’s true.”
I sat all the way up and turned so my feet were on the ground. I didn’t care what it cost me physically. “It’s the furthest thing from the truth.”
“You’re still in love with my sister!” She yelled it.
“I wasn’t in love with your sister even when she died!” I roared back.
We sat there, staring each other down.
“What?” Sera finally whispered.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. The sentence was right there, fully formed, and my throat wouldn’t release it. Three years of keeping it sealed and the seal didn’t want to break, even now, even with everything else already stripped away.
“I was going to leave her.” It came out low. Barely voiced. “Before the operation. I’d already decided. I hadn’t told her yet, but I’d made the decision.”
Sera’s hands went still in her lap.
“Things had changed between Naomi and me. We’d been growing apart. Something was wrong. Missing. I’d known it for weeks, and I’d finally stopped pretending.”
“Did she know?”
“I think she sensed it. The last few days before the operation, something shifted. She was off. Distracted. Trying harder in ways she’d never had to try before. I think she could feel me pulling away even though I hadn’t said anything.”
Sera shrugged one shoulder. “Naomi was strong. She would’ve been sad if you guys broke up, but she would’ve gotten over it. That’s nothing to punish yourself over.”
“She was distracted the night she died. We’d gotten into an argument—another one—that morning, and things were off between us. That carried over into the field. I know it did.”
“Travis…”
I looked away. “Naomi had a stellar reputation at the Agency. She was ice cold. Brutal in her focus.” She’d been that way with us personally sometimes too. Hard. Cold. “But that night she broke cover too early. Moved before the signal. It was a half-second mistake, the kind she never made, and it put her in the open when the ambush hit. And I was right there, and I couldn’t stop it.”
“You think she was distracted because of what was going on between you guys.”
“I think she might have been. I’ll never know. That’s the part I can’t get past. There’s no way to run that and get an answer. The ambiguity is—” I stopped again. “Guilt doesn’t need proof. It just needs maybe.”
Silence floated through the room.
