Page 85 of Battle Scars

Even now, I want to go to her, take her back to bed and pretend this implosion never happened.

“What?” I bark.

“Nothing,” he says. “Not one thing.”

“If you have something to say to me…” I leave the threat dangling.

I wouldn’t.

I owe this kid my life, but I hate the judgment I see in his eyes. If I looked in the mirror right now, I’d see the same judgment staring back at me, but I’m not ready for truths yet. I still need to come to terms with how royally I’ve fucked everything to hell and back again.

“Like I said, not one thing.”

“Good,” I reply coolly. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“Roger that, boss.”

I push past him, past the elevator, and into the stairwell. Even though I just came like a freight train for her, my heart is pumping overtime and I need to get blood flowing normally before I get behind the wheel of a car. I jog down the stairs and push open the door at the main parking garage level. Then I jump in my SUV, and head out.

As soon as I clear the garage, the sky opens up and it pours. In the fucking desert. If that isn’t a sign of how my life is going right now, I don’t know what is.

“I love you.”

Fucking hell, she loves me.

And she wants a baby.

Maybe not now, but she does.

She was pushing my buttons—that much I know for sure because I know her, but the way she closed down when I threw her birth control in her face told me everything I needed to know. She wants a baby eventually, and she wants it to be mine.

The one thing I could never give Macy.

I never expected to find my one true love in a sophomore biology class, but there she was. Blonde and beautiful and so fucking shy. I knew she’d make me work for it. I also knew she would be worth it.

Somehow, I got her to go out on a date with me, and then I got her to let me kiss her. And then other things. I’ll never forget senior year. Manny knocked up Marisol, and he was scared shitless but also happier than I had ever known him to be, because even though they were young, he was getting everything he ever wanted.

I was jealous. I wanted what he had. So when Macy told me she thought she was pregnant, I was convinced all my prayers had been answered. I’d already enlisted in the marines like Manny and the rest could just fall into place too.

After graduation, I’d marry her, tie her to me in every way, and then we could start our lives together. I knew it wouldn’t be easy—military life never is—and we were young, so fucking young, but I thought it would be a beautiful life.

Two weeks later, Macy called me crying and asked me to come over.

Her parents were with her. They had always liked me, and I knew I was going to do right by Macy and our baby, so I wasn’t worried her dad was going to shoot me on sight. But still, it was a little daunting to an eighteen-year-old kid.

Then they sat me down, and everything changed.

Macy wasn’t pregnant, and she likely never would be. They prayed she wouldn’t ever be, because it would shorten her lifespan. I didn’t understand until her dad calmly explained that when Macy was two, she was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia. By all accounts, she had beaten it. That was, until right then. Her cancer was back, and the doctors who’d promised her a long life couldn’t promise her anything at all now.

My beautiful, sweet, so fucking shy Macy was going to die young.

I told her I loved her and I always would. We were going to do exactly what we’d said we would. Nothing had to change.

After graduation, I married Macy in a small church in our hometown of Ransom Falls, and two months later, I left for bootcamp. She had a setback while I was away, but she was fine. We arranged for her to move to San Diego where I was stationed, and we rented a little apartment.

Every time I deployed, she went home to stay with her family so she wasn’t alone. They kept her busy and kept her mind off of me and what I was doing.

On the last deployment, Eli’s army unit was working with ours, and he saw a suicide bomber when I didn’t. He shot the woman where she stood before she had a chance to get close enough to me and Manny to take us out with her.