Page 66 of The Infinite Light of Dust

“You have a funny way of showing your love for me. You always tell me how strong and capable I am but you keep taking the power of choice from me. That’s not love, that’s manipulation.”

He stepped closer to me, desperation on his gorgeous, traitorous face.

“I’m sorry. It’s in my nature to take on everything, and with you it’s nearly impossible to just allow things to hurt you. I can’t bear it. I will try if you forgive me, but please try to understand my perspective and how difficult it is to untrain my brain of my way of thinking.”

I let out a dramatic scoff. “Your perspective? You can’t expect me to put your perspective before my own, Kael. I get that you’re brainwashed by the Army to just take tragedy and silence your own trauma, to not have an emotional tie, analyze it, and come up with a solution, but out here in the real world, it’s not like that.”

I didn’t mean to hurt him with my words, but I couldn’t sugarcoat my feelings anymore. The fact that I knew he was a good person made this harder, and it was easier if I tried to be like him, emotionless and analytical. I had been rejected by my mother and that absolutely killed me, neglected by my dying father, and lied to by the man I loved. Again. When I listed it out, it was nearly unbearable, and there was no solution. I couldn’t force my mother to want anything to do with me, I couldn’t wish my father’s body back to health, and I couldn’t pray for Kael to stop being Kael. Knowing that his intention was to protect me made it worse because it made me feel helpless, spineless, and codependent, the three worst things to me. I held my independence to a high, high stature and losing it, even to love, was not something I was willing to do.

“I can’t live with you handling all of this on your own. Let me be here for you.” Kael interrupted my internal battle.

“And I can’t live depending on anyone else being here for me. I need to deal with all of this on my own. There is way too much going on in my life to have to worry about my heart and not my head. It’s easier to be alone. I want to be alone. Ihaveto be alone, Kael.”

“I’ll give up Atlanta for you, Karina. I’ll sell the house and stay here. I’ve already contacted a Realtor. I’ll give up whatever I need to, I’ll do whatever you need me to. Please—”

“Kael.” I swallowed the pain as I spoke. “That’s the thing, I don’t want you to give up anything. I can’t live with myself if I hold you back either. We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our entire lives and identities to be together. No one should.”

“Love is sacrifice, Karina.”

I shook my head, refusing to allow my fate, or Kael’s, to be like everyone’s around us. “No. Not to me.”

The front door opened, and the bell dinged. I was surprised to see Toni standing there. She looked tired but smiled at us, clearly not able to read the room. Kael stood as still as a statue; I wasn’t sure he was even breathing as Toni spoke. What awful timing.

“I tried to call but got voicemail. Any chance you have time for a thirty-minute walk-in? My back is killing me from yard work and cleaning up the house for the move,” she explained, her hands at her chest in a prayer gesture.

“Move?” I repeated.

“We got orders for Texas, didn’t Martin or Elodie tell you?”

I glared at Kael. “No, Martin didn’t tell me.”

Add it to the fucking list.

“When do you go?” I asked her.

“In about two and a half weeks. Right before Fischer ships off. I guess all of us are leaving,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Wow.” I wouldn’t say I was Toni’s biggest fan by any means, but I was a little sad that everyone around us seemed to be getting shipped somewhere else.

One day soon it would be just me here. The thought was chilling, but I had made my mind up.

“I’ve got time. Can you just write your name on the sign-in sheet while I put this away?” I gestured to the vacuum and looked at Kael. “I have to work now, so you should go,” I told him, low enough that Toni wouldn’t hear me. The last thing I needed was to be the topic of gossip at her last few FRG meetings.

He looked between Toni and me, clearly deciding whether to go or not. But in the end, he gave up, throwing his arms in the air in defeat and frustration. I knew the conversation wasn’t over, but at least it would be stalled so I could gain some strength before we continued.

“Are you two okay? He seemed a little tense,” Toni told me as we walked back to my therapy room. “Well, he’s always tense, but it felt like even more than usual.”

I almost laughed at her instinct to pick up on anyone and everyone’s business, but kept my mouth shut and just told her that we were fine. During her treatment she did not stop talking, not even for a second. She told me how stressed she was, how she didn’t know a soul in Texas, and that all her friends were here. She was worried about fitting in with the new group of wives in Tharpe’s new platoon. That was particularly ironic given the fact that she had been so hard on Elodie at first.

She also told me that she had heard about my dad being the one responsible for catching Phillips and how grateful she was that he was off the street and no longer a threat to any of us. She told me that Lawson would be taking Kael’s place in the platoon now that his discharge was final. She talked and talked and talked, but I found it soothing since I didn’t have to think or speak about anything going on in my life. It was a nice distraction provided by an unlikely person.

Her session went quickly, as most half hours do. She paid and tipped me. I didn’t know whether the tip or the random hug she gave me surprised me more. After she left, my day was fully booked, and I stayed late to clean the old poster glue off the wall in the lobby. I had already had new signage printed, and even though Mali had told me not to remodel, I knew once she saw it she would be happy I had. It was nearly ten at night when I finally ran out of stuff to do at the spa. I couldn’t think of another reason to keep me from going home, so I took a deep breath, locked the door, and walked home as slowly as I possibly could. Bradley was sitting on his couch with his blinds and curtains wide-open. He was watching some action movie that I didn’t know the name of, but I recognized Tom Cruise flying around the screen on a motorcycle, which did not help narrow down the possibilities since there were at least ten of those films.

Kael’s truck was parked in front of my house, no surprise to me. I braced myself again, repeating all the reasons I had to be livid with him, to finally distance myself from him. It was easier when he wasn’t in front of me, and I knew that. I wished I could go back in time to that first time he came into my work to meet Elodie and just tell him she wasn’t around instead of taking him as a client. If I would have turned him away, none of this would have happened and I could have gone on with my already miserable life without adding having my heart shattered on top of it. I’d thought I’d known what heartbreak was, but looking back on my life, I had never been in real love until Kael. The first time he broke my trust was painful, but having opened up to him again only to be betrayed again was something else, something I had never felt before and never wanted to feel again. I had to protect myself above all.

Even if I didn’t mean it, I wished to myself that I would have this same revelation someday when I met someone else. I couldn’t stomach the idea of even speaking to another man, but there would have to be a time in my future when I wouldn’t be in so much pain, wouldn’t there? But was being alone so bad? I’d done it before, I could do it again.

I took one last deep breath and opened the front door. Kael was standing in the center of my living room, his hands behind his back. He was wearing the same outfit, matching navy sweatpants and sweatshirt, as earlier, likely meaning that he had spent the entire day in my house waiting for me. I wanted to slap myself when the thought made me feel mushy and cared for. How quickly my mind took his side pissed me off.

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