Page 93 of Finding Fate

With an unconvincing chuckle, she rushes out the door with Dobby on her heels.

"Hell," I say to the ceiling as I stretch my arms over my head and my legs out wide along the mattress. A stab of pain bolts up my leg, making me wince. Pushing up, I start my morning massages to ease the stiffness. Normally these are the first things I do in the morning, but.... A happy smile fills my face at the more important things I had to do.

I'm so lost replaying the morning’s events that I don't hear her come back into the room.

"Does it hurt?"

My smile falls when I look up and find her staring at where my shin and foot should be. I've dreamed about this, though hopefully this plays out better than those nightmares filled with her overall disappointment in me.

"Only in the morning." Ignoring her wide-eyed stare, I flip the blanket to cover both legs. "Can you stop looking at me like that?" I nearly hiss. "I'm fine. Sorry if you’re disappointed to what you came back to. I had no damn choice. It wasn't my fucking choice."

"Nash, I—"

"I'm going to start breakfast." The sheets slide beneath my thighs as I rotate on the bed, tossing my foot to the floor. Fuck. I run a hand through my hair, making it fall like a curtain, shielding me from more of her disappointed stares.

Behind me, the bed dips and freezing hands grip my shoulders. Pale pink hair cascades down my chest as she leans forward, placing her lips at my ear, she says, "If all the broken pieces of me, the hell storm that comes with being around me, is perfect to you, how can you not see the same in yourself?" She tugs me back to lie on her lap, and I stare up at her sweet face. Damn, how does she not see how gorgeous she is? "Don't you dare tell yourself that I'm looking at you differently." Steady, soft fingers trace the edges of my lips. "I'd never do that, but this, your leg, it's a reminder of your courage. How nothing was going to stand in your way to protect me."

"But I didn't. Haven't you realized that yet, Pops? I sure fucking have. That night... you shouldn't have had to see that girl and those men abusing her. I didn't protect you from shit. To me, this injury is a reminder of how I fucking failed you. Every day I failed you."

A smack across the face stings my left cheek. I turn with a hand on my assaulted skin and narrow my eyes at my assailant. "What the hell what that for?" I yell.

"If I can't blame everything on myself, all this"—she waves her hands in the air like this shitty world is hers to be blamed for—"then you can't think you failed. That's my rule. My only rule. You didn't fail me. You didn't fail anyone. You saved me. Every night you saved me. Every joke, every question, every touch, you saved me. So don't you fucking dare think you did anything less."

She's across the room, arms crossed over her chest and glaring before I can process it all.

"Wh-what?" Bending down, I grab my shorts and prosthetic to slide both on. Situated, I stand and inch toward her, palms raised like I'm cornering an angry cat. "Why did you just get so pissed?"

"I'm not pissed. I'm... proving a point. You can't have it both ways, Nash. You can't demand that I stop pitying myself when you're content with wallowing in your own. Is that what all the beer in the fridge is for?"

Averting my eyes from her accusatory stare, I look to the clock on the nightstand. "We have an hour before the FBI gets here to start their debriefing. We should get ready."

"What, no funny lines, no cocky answer? Come on, Nash, tell me."

Falling to the bed, I stare at the ceiling. "Yeah, okay, is that what you want to hear? That while you were missing, I couldn't move on, so I drank myself into oblivion every night. Most of all, I was pissed at myself for not saving you, protecting you. The drinking helped numb it all. Helped me get a few hours of sleep."

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

"You. Your crying, screams for help, sometimes even my own. Last night was the first decent night’s sleep I've had since I got on that plane to Africa five months ago."

"You didn't fail me."

Still unable to look, I keep my eyes trained on the ceiling as she curls up beside me. "Yeah well, Pops, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one."

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