Page 34 of The Ones We Fight For

Talia gripped Walker’s hand hard to hold on, pulling herself along behind him as he marched out toward his car. Pissed that he was failing again, he ripped open the door to the driver's side, so unaware of his surroundings the he failed to notice that Talia was standing too close. A loud crack filled his ears, and Talia reeled back, holding the bridge of her nose, eyes watering.

Walker shattered.

The last vestige of control vacated his body as he slid down to the ground, breathing heavily, heart beating so frantically that he thought it might explode from his chest. The sound of the blood pumping through his veins and Talia’s nose snapping played on a loop in his head. And the ringing. The ringing was loud. So loud.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated over and over again through short breaths that weren’t giving him nearly enough air. Clawing at his throat, he felt the edges of his vision start to fade to black. Talia thrust herself on the ground next to him, wincing as she swiped the blood away from her nose.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she repeated in a soothing voice as she wrapped her arms around him. “Breathe. Everything is going to be okay. I’m going to help you.”

His breathing steadied and his vision returned minutes later when he focused on her face and her hands gripping him. His face was sopping wet, and he felt so outside of his body that he wondered absentmindedly where the moisture had come from. Rain? Butit wasn’t raining. The only thing grounding him back to reality was Talia and the bruise that was already forming on her nose, the bruise that he had created—another reminder of how reckless he had been with everyone in his life lately.

It didn’t even matter how much Walker cared for her—and he was starting to realize just how much he did—he could never be with her. Cole must have sent Talia as some sort of angel to protect his family from his irresponsible brother’s care. The kids, they all needed Talia more than he needed to be with her, and he refused to ruin that for them.

He leaned his head into the crook of her neck, taking several deep breaths and closing his eyes as he regained full consciousness, now aware of the tears streaming down his face.

“I’m failing at everything except for becoming friends with you. And I hurt you." His voice cracked, the same way his heart did.

“You aren’t failing. This is near impossible to do on your own. You’re holding everyone together with your bare hands. You’re strong, Walker. You care so much about them that Cooper being bullied made you have a panic attack. And as far as my nose goes, we’ll just have to come up with some super far-fetched story as to how I got this bruise. What do you think? Hit by a tiny meteor? I secretly have a night shift as a superhero and defeated several ninjas?”

Walker let out a breathy laugh and pulled his head off Talia’s shoulder, peering into dark brown eyes that held all the warmth and strength he needed to get up off the ground. Rising to his feet, he reached a hand out to help Talia up before lightly brushing over her nose and running his thumb under her eyes, which were still watering from the impact, steady tears streaming down her face.

“The second one. You are a superhero.”

And I'm the stupid, lovesick ninja you defeated.

Chapter 13

Talia

Staring at herself in the mirror, Talia let out a soft groan before again picking up her concealer and wondering why it concealed absolutely nothing. She wasn’t normally a heavy makeup wearer, and all the caked-on products looked so out of place on her face that she found herself wiping it off for the second time. The citrusy sting of her grapefruit-scented makeup wipes against the raw skin under her eyes made her wince and suck in a sharp breath through her teeth. When the makeup was finally removed, she examined her battered face, out of curiosity more than anything else.

After giving up on another round of makeup, Talia ultimately decided there was no help for the bruising on her nose and slid her sunglasses over her face to cover the black and blue splotching. It looked atrocious. It didn’t matter so much to her and only really hurt when she touched it, but it was still a shock to wake up that morning to see how horrible her face looked. She had the ridiculous notion that her injury would magically heal after Walker gingerly touched it the day before, swiping his fingers over tears that were a mixture of tear-duct-induced trauma from the wound on her nose and the sheer misery of seeing him ripped apart by the events of the day. When Walker broke, Talia broke too, unleashing tears she wasn’t aware needed to be shed.

Talia couldn’t remember how her mom used to do it, or if she had even attempted to cover the bruises. Being as young as she was when the abuse was going on, Talia couldn’t remember much. What she did recall was that her mom always seemed to know how to do everything. This was a woman who had helped Talia practice for the bar exam without ever taking a single law class, leaving her stunned by the amount of information her mom retained. If Talia’s mother had been born to a different family, one that had built up her best attributes, then she could have taken over the world. Instead, Lydia focused every ounce of herself on making sure that Talia would succeed in life.

Being the walking Israeli proverb that she was, one of the many pieces of wisdom Lydia gave was the idea that it was everyone’s responsibility to raise their children better than their parents before them. Lydia did better than her parents and always told Talia it was her job to continue the healthy cycle, raising her own children better than Lydia had raised her. A stab of pain that had nothing to do with the superficial bruising on her face washed over Talia. The likelihood that children would be in her future was slim to none. The vice grip around her heart was always there, like twine pulling taut, an ever-present reminder in the back of her mind that her body wouldn’t allow her to have that joy.

She couldn’t have those dreams because she mightnever be a parent.“To not to have felt pain is not to be human,” her mother would say. “The best thing to do when you are down, neshama sheli, is to get out of bed, bathe, use that fancy lotion I got you for your birthday, and put on a bit of makeup—not enough to cover your beautiful face, just enough to enhance the features that you love most about yourself. Nothing will get better unless you first practice self-care.”

The “fancy lotion” her mother used to purchase for her wasn’t fancy in the New York City sense of the word. It could be purchased at a drugstore for less than twenty-five dollars. Even though Talia’s budget was on the higher end now, having saved most of what she made at the law firm, she still continued to purchase lower-end things. It was what she was used to, growing up on a budget. All her clothes were secondhand, even after she could afford to drop three grand on a Chanel purse. The idea of spending that much on a purse was ridiculously frivolous to her. Her well-made purse that cost a fraction of a designer purse was way cuter and more practical, in her opinion. It was professional, yet could still be worn with a laid-back outfit. It matched most of her clothes and had plenty of pockets to carry the standard items: reading glasses, chapstick, tissues, antacid tablets (because being an adult meant having a love-hate relationship with all foods and never knowing when your stomach was going to rise up against you), whatever book she was reading, her planner, and the obligatory wallet. All these things worked for her. If she needed a label to impress a client in the city, eBay was always an option.

What Talia did not have in her purse was a color-correcting palette of various hues. That was what people used, right? Green to correct red… or maybe green to correct yellow? Pulling out her phone, Talia fired off a text to Walker, hoping to postpone their itinerary of planning and scheduling every facet of his life until she had watched a YouTube video on how to cover up the unattractive bruising. Walker would notice she was hiding her injury, no matter how hard she attempted to keep her sunglasses glued to her face, and she didn’t think she could handle seeing the pain on his face. It would be worse than getting hit a million times with the door.

Talia 7:23 AM

Running a bit behind. Can we push this till later?

Walker 7:24 AM

I'm already outside...

“Shit,” Talia hissed out, adjusting the sunglasses carefully to make sure they were properly covering everything. The frames rested painfully against the gash on her nose, but she was too worried about Walker’s reaction to face him uncovered.

The knock on the door sounded a second later, and Talia bit her lip as she walked to the front of the house, hoping Walker wouldn’t question her on why she was so intent on wearing her sunglasses inside. The thought sent an immediate song into her head, and she quickly flipped to her ‘80s playlist on her phone and scrolled through until she found quite possibly the worst excuse ever. “Sunglasses At Night” by Corey Hart started to blast in surround sound, and Talia sang along.

You’re fucking insane, Tal, but this might just work.

“Hey!” Talia said, entirely too cheerily, when she whipped open the door, ducking out of the way to protect her nose. She was still a bit shell-shocked and on high alert around swinging doors. "You're early."

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