Page 123 of Forged By Sacrifice

I nodded. “I’m just asking… I’m just hoping that you’ll let me figure it out with you when I get back. I just don’t know when that will be.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just use this time for what it really should be? Time for us to move on, to walk away before we both are left so hurt that we can’t recover?”

It was too late for that. I wouldn’t recover if she left me now or later. If I lost the one thing in this damn world that could still give me hope. “You’d give up on us that easily?” I asked.

“On an us that shouldn’t have been. We were weak to give in to it to begin with. I should have moved out as soon as I knew you lived here.”

“You asked me to grant you the favor I owed you earlier today. And now I’m asking you for mine. Don’t give up on us yet. Don’t walk away just as we’re saying I love you. The story doesn’t need to end here.”

I wasn’t sure I deserved for her to agree. I wasn’t sure I deserved a happily ever after when I’d cost Darren his, but I also couldn’t leave D.C. without at least asking. Without, in some way, tying her to me. It was cruel. But I’d given up on thinking I was a decent human being. I was selfish. And I’d be selfish one more time if it meant a chance at her not walking out of my life.

Georgie

LAY ME DOWN

“You told me not to cry when you were gone,

But the feeling's overwhelming, it's much too strong.”

Performed by Sam Smith with John Legend

Written by Smith / Napier / Smith

Having Mac say he loved me and that he wanted me to wait for him to come back made me happy at the same time as it made me sad. The thought of never seeing him again, of walking out of his life and not looking back, was like a dagger to my ribcage, spinning and twisting until all I could feel was the jagged point. But I also still knew, as clearly as I had on the beach in Rockport, that we were an impossibility. A dream that could never come to fruition in reality. I’d just forgotten that. I’d let my senses sweep me away in the thunder and lightning of Mac. But our x- and y-graphs were splintering apart now, curving farther and farther apart. I wasn’t sure there was much we could do to bring them back together.

The first thing I’d thought on seeing his face burdened with sadness and so much guilt when he’d reached the top of the stairs was that I loved him. That I would do almost anything if I could erase those emotions from his face. Then, I thought of my boxes and the fact that, if I stayed, I’d just be adding more breaks to his heart…to my heart.

It didn’t matter that he told me he was reenlisting. It didn’t matter if he stayed in the Navy or eventually resumed his political goals, because being attached to a Russian gun dealer and his drug-selling son wasn’t any better for a career naval officer than it was for a career politician.

After our lovemaking, which had been fierce and wild and raw with emotions and loss, I stared into his blue eyes and could see all the truths. The love. It was the first time in my life I’d looked at a man and thought that…felt that…wanted that. It hurt so badly to know I couldn’t have it. I wanted to pout the way Raisa was good at pouting, but I couldn’t. Instead, I had to figure out a way to love him and leave him.

To not grant his favor, just as he hadn’t granted mine. It was exactly why we couldn’t continue this way, because granting each other these favors should have been easy. It should have been what we wanted to do…give in to the other person. But we couldn’t.

So, when he asked me not to give up, I just closed my eyes against the onslaught of his hurt as I said the words, “We aren’t a romance novel, Mac.”

“Maybe we should be.”

I turned so my back was against his front. I couldn’t look at him, but I also couldn’t walk away from his arms yet. He was in my bed. He’d have to be the one who walked away. But he didn’t. And I had to give him this…this one last night so that maybe he could escape his own thoughts and his own grief before he put back on his uniform and went to Florida with the guilt weighing him down. Guilt he didn’t deserve to wear but shouldered anyway.

I understood that. But I wouldn’t continue to add to the guilt by staying and watching as my reality continued to tear holes in the fabric of his.

? ? ?

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to an empty bed just as the sun was barely brushing aside the night. I woke to Mac being gone, and the heaviness that overtook me made the tears come. Tears I hadn’t wanted to shed when he was in my bed but that I couldn’t stop now.

I heard footsteps on the steps and brushed the tears away. When I sat up, it was to see Mac in his Navy whites, approaching. I’d told Ava he was a ten. And I remembered her words about Eli being a twenty, and my disbelief. But I thought I understood her better now. Because loving Mac made him a gazillion in my eyes. And in his uniform, he was an infinite number of stars.

He stood far enough away that we couldn’t touch each other, but close enough for me to see how exhausted he was. How sleep had probably eluded him. He was scouring my face, looking for something.

“You’ve been crying,” he said.

I wiped at my eyes again.

“That at least gives me some hope,” he continued.

I started to talk, and he waved a hand at me. “Wait…God. I’m sorry. I do that all the time. Cut you off. But it’s because I’m always afraid of what you’re going to say. I wanted to tell you that you’re right, we need time.”

Holy hell, did that hurt, and try as I may, I knew it showed, and his eyes glimmered with the possibilities that I didn’t want to give him.

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