Page 40 of Anders and the Girl Worth Fighting For
She gave me a soft look and moved closer to me on the couch. “You are taking care of me.” She reached out and placed her hand on my arm. “You have taken care of me from the moment I showed up on your doorstep.”
A part of myself that I routinely ignored clawed at my chest to get free. The part of myself that I buried under duty, or maybe it’s the part of me born from what came after. It was ugly and selfish and cruel. It wanted to lock Grace away from everything. It wanted to wail and scream and tear through anything thatcould harm her. It was the part of me that led me to the end when I got blown up. I saved those kids, but what if I couldn’t save Grace?
An image came to me then of Grace lying in that road blown to pieces by the IED. I was running to her, but couldn’t reach her. My feet were trapped by quicksand. I heard her screams and smelled burning hair and skin. I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t save her.
“Anders,” she said softly. Her hand had moved to my face and cupped my cheek. “Are you with me?”
My body demanded air, and I took a big gulp. The smell of cookies and spice and Grace flooded me, chasing away the horror, back to the far reaches of my mind where I could bury it once more.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said. My throat was raw, like I had been screaming. Hell, maybe I had. I wanted to get up, I wanted to run, I wanted to get away from her. She didn’t need to see this. She didn’t need to see me weak.
“Good,” she left her hand on my face, gently running her fingers through my stubble. “I’m safe and so are you.”
The role reversal wasn’t lost on me. How many times had I had to help her through a panic attack since I met her? Too many, given that it had only been a week.
I took another breath and realized her other hand rested on my chest, the weight of it centering me. I don’t know when she put it there, but I reached up and grabbed that hand, holding onto it like it would anchor me to this world.
I didn’t run. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I sat right there and let her pet me and soothe me.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said, embarrassment threatening to take over.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” she whispered. “How many times have you helped me through the same?”
“Yeah, but I’m the marine.” I tried to joke.
“Which just means you have had to deal with more than most.”
She was too fucking good for me. I knew that and I didn’t care. I wanted it all.
We sat there for a time. My breathing had returned to normal, but she didn’t remove her hands from me. She had moved one hand from my face to play with my hair, but the hand I held in my grip was still there. She hadn’t so much as twitched to take it back.
“When I first got home,” I said after a long silence. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say this, but some force drove me to open up to her, anyway. “That happened all the time.” I swallowed once and then continued. “I didn’t have such a pretty lady to help me through it.” I tried to smile at her, but landed on a strained and awkward grimace.
Grace just sat and listened to me. She didn’t prompt me to continue. She didn’t try to make anything right.
“I think while I was actually in the Marines, I could push everything I’d seen over the years down. I focused on the next mission and forgot about the last.”
She still just sat there, running her fingers through my hair.
“I thought I was better. I thought I had worked through it.” That admission hurt the most. That admission showed I wasweak. “I guess not.”
I didn’t know where to go from here. I didn’t know how to keep my head in the game if my brain betrayed me. How could I keep her safe when war haunted my every thought?
She still didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t know what to say. How do you find the right thing to say to that? I expected her to pull back in pity or revulsion. She didn’t move, though. Her hands were warm and soothing on me. She hadn’t run screaming. Instead, she raised her chin and pursed her lips,determination lighting her features.
“I think,” she said tentatively before she licked her lips and continued. “We have to take care of each other.”
She may have said it cautiously, but the look in her eyes told me she was set in that course. She wanted to take care of me just as much as I took care of her.
I haven’t had that since my mom died. A lodestone sat on my chest where the weight of her death drew me towards danger and recklessness. It weighed me down as much as it drove me on. It was right below Grace’s hand. Somehow, she had unerringly found the exact spot I kept my grief and had provided a barrier for me between it and the world that would drag me under.
“I think you’re right,” I said in a whisper.
I sat there uncomfortable with this maudlin side of myself, but unwilling to dislodge her touch and disrupt whatever soft glow had come over us. Maybe it was the cookies. Maybe the spell worked, after all. Maybe all would be well and this would never have to end.
Chapter Twenty
ijumped when Anders’ phone went off. I don’t know how long we sat in silence, my fingers running through his hair, his hand holding mine to him like he held pressure on a wound. Maybe he did. His eyes were closed, and he was more relaxed than I had seen him yet. I wasn’t sure about God, but I thought this moment was pretty close to heaven.
