Page 126 of Forged By Sacrifice

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“So, you’re going to see Mac again?” Theresa asked.

I looked away, uncomfortable with the entire idea. Mac had been gone over a month.

The ache in my heart that I thought would ease the longer he was gone had just continued to sit in my chest, worming into my veins so that there were days that I felt like my entire body was on fire from it. I missed him. I missed his blue eyes, and his laughter, and his self-deprecation. I missed how he made me feel like the most exotic being on the planet. I missed feeling like my life was a dream that had turned into reality.

“I’m not sure it will change anything,” I told her as we sat in her home library, drinking wine the day before I was scheduled to fly out to Texas. She’d gone to bat for me with my other professors so I could spend the extra days with Ava before the wedding. It meant a lot of work ahead of time and catch-up work when I got back, but it would be worth it.

“You still feel guilty. Like your dark shadows would overtake his light,” Theresa commented as she watched me.

“Yes.”

“You know, you can’t live in D.C. without being investigated and wire-tapped, especially if you make any sort of waves in the existing status quo. My bet is you aren’t even close to being the biggest reason Mac and his family would have multiple agencies interested in them. Vice Admiral Whittaker has a penchant for ruffling feathers inside the DoD and out. Robert Whittaker and his boss, Senator Matherton, make enemies as often as happy hour serves chips and salsa.”

“But I don’t want them to use my family as additional fuel.”

“Like they’re colluding with Petya Leskov?” she chuckled. “Matherton is putting together a gun bill that’s about to outlaw assault rifles. I don’t think that is exactly what Petya would want. Seems like it makes them enemies.”

I still didn’t say anything, because she wasn’t necessarily wrong, and I had slowly been getting used to the idea that maybe I’d just been using my family as an excuse—a shield of sorts.

“Look. D.C. families are always complicated. There are black sheep and white sheep and downright dirty sheep. Don’t let families dissuade you from being with someone who loves you. Love… It doesn’t come often. It can’t be found on every street corner. Sometimes, it only comes once in your life.” Sadness crossed Theresa’s face.

I’d wondered, many times, why Theresa—a successful, smart, caring woman—was alone. Why she didn’t have a partner by her side. “Is that what happened to you?” I asked. “You let your family keep you from the person you loved?” Then I flushed, aware that my question was way too personal. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

Theresa took me in over her wine glass. “Her family was in politics at a time when being lesbian wasn’t cool or a catch phrase. She couldn’t handle the heat. Got married to an Ivy League businessman and had three children with him.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She waved her hand as if I was missing the point. “All I’m saying is, if I had the choice to love someone with all my heart or walk because of some family issues, I’d always choose love.”

She closed the book she had opened, wished me goodnight, and left the room. I made my way to the apartment above the garage. Even though I had my own kitchen, Theresa and I often ate together. I hadn’t known she was lesbian. I wondered if people who knew thought we were a couple because I was riding to the campus with her most days. I didn’t care. In fact, I would have been honored to be Theresa’s partner.

Just like I would have been honored to be Mac’s. To be the person to show up at a reception with him, our fingers entwined, our bodies in sync. I could see that life. But what if the love in his eyes turned to disillusionment, and then disappointment, and then dislike because he was constantly being brought down because of me and my family.

And the greatest what-if… What if I lost him?

I picked up the music box my dad had given to me. The one the cops had taken away and then returned to me without the thumbnail drive that had incriminated him. The black and white swans had their heads twined together. Swans mated for life. Mourned the loss of their soul mate for life. Black and white. Pieces that looked like they didn’t belong together but did.

There had been so many what-ifs in my life. I’d never thought I was the kind of person to care about them. I hadn’t dwelled overly on the ones that had defined my life up until this point. What if Dad hadn’t been arrested? What if Mom hadn’t lived in Russia? What if Grandma hadn’t signed a new lease when I was eighteen? What if she hadn’t died?

I’d always seen those what-ifs as a path down a one-way street to hating life.

But ever since meeting Mac, I’d done just that. Let all the what-ifs define my actions. I’d used my fear of ruining his life to hide the truth. I was afraid he’d look at me like others had in the past, with judgment and condescension, as they walked away. Yet, even when I’d taken the drugs and been “arrested,” he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d said he loved me.

He’d said he wanted to work things out.

It was me who had walked?no, run?in the other direction.

I’d lost my parents at six. Like Mac had said, it wasn’t in the normal way you can lose people, to death or divorce. I’d lost the ability to grow up with either of them. And I’d lost my grandmother at twenty-two. I’d lost a lot of people in my life. But this… This was me using my family to shield me from the potential loss of Mac.

But what if, instead of loss, I only gained? What if I gave in to everything I felt, and in doing so, I gained not only Mac and his love, but I gained a family? Gained people who would surround me with love and acceptance as they had since our very first meeting. What if I gained a future I’d never seen for myself?

Reality or a dream.

Could it be both? Reality that was a dream?

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