Page 45 of Velvet and Valor
“What about us?” I ask softly. “We have a lot of fun together, we enjoy each other’s company. Isn’t that something to be happy for?”
Axel stands up quickly and walks halfway across the living room. He stares out at the ocean, his back muscles tense.
“Things are good now,” he admits. “But will they stay that way? Sooner or later, the glow fades and then you’re just two people sleeping together. And then you get married, and you don’t even do that.”
It hits me like an icicle stabbed through my belly. I can’t believe Axel is saying these things. It hurts, it’s depressing, and suddenly I just don’t want to be around him.
I get up off the sofa and walk toward the guest room.
“Where are you going?” he asks when he realizes I’m halfway out the door.
“To take a nap.”
I slam the door shut a little harder than I have to. Then I sink onto the bed and cover my face with my hands.
12
AXEL
You ever know that you’ve fucked up, but you’re not really sure how you let it happen? That’s exactly how I felt when June slammed the door to the guest room.
Now I’m just standing here like an idiot, wondering where the hell I went wrong. Things were going great at first. We were eating, and flirting, and I was sure we would wind up back in the bedroom after our lunch. Then it all went to Hell.
I start thinking over the things I said to her in our conversation. Maybe I poured the jaded soldier bit on a little thick? No, that’s not right. I have to admit. I spoke from the heart. Fuck.
I lean on the wall and put a hand over my chest. It hurts me on the inside, knowing that I’ve hurt June. But coming to the realization that I’ve run out of hope is its own kind of pain and despair.
“Oh, come on,” I mutter to myself. “Get it together, Axel. You’re not some whiny goth edgelord. You don’t have existential crises. You drink beer and play darts and sleep with hot women…”
My words trail off, because ever since I met June, I haven’t thought about other women. At all. She’s special. Damn special, and I just drove her away.
I need to think. The closeness of the house is stifling all of a sudden. I need blue skies overhead, clear skies with plenty of air to breathe. I know leaving her again is risky, but I can’t seem to take a full breath.
I push my way out the glass door and stumble out onto the patio, then keep going onto the sand. I know there’s air all around me. I know there’s plenty of it to breathe. But my sides heave as I suck in gasp after gasp of air, while the memories of darker times take hold of me.
Like when our convoy got hit on the Red Sea road, and the transport I was in caught on fire and the interior filled with smoke. A sound like rain outside the hull told us we were under heavy fire. There seemed to be two choices at the time.
I could stay inside the transport and suffocate or go outside to meet a faster, messier death.
Thankfully, a chopper came in and scattered the rebels like dust in the wind. We got out. I remember ripping my helmet off even while my CO bellowed at me to keep it on. No matter how much air I breathed in, it didn’t seem like enough.
Just like now.
I sink to my knees in the sand, forcing my breathing to slow. I tell myself that everything is fine. I’m not in the desert any longer. I’m on a totally different kind of sand, where no one is pointing guns at me. Well, at least not at the moment.
The panic fades, but not the despair. I want to have hope for humanity like June does. God, I want it so bad! I want to think things are going to get better, that everything happens for a reason, even suffering.
But I just can’t.
The blue sky overhead is gorgeous. The perfect shade of azure. But when I look up into it, I can still see black plumes of smoke blotting out the perfect blue. I can’t hear the cries of the gulls over the screams of the dying, or the wailing of those in mourning.
Raise a family? In this world? For fuck’s sake, why? So they can suffer, too? I can’t be like June. I just can’t. There’s no hope. We’re on a long, slow march back into the muck humanity first crawled out of.
I’ll admit, though: Sulking on a gorgeous beach is hard. It’s even harder when there’s a stunning woman you’re totally into just inside the house. And it’s harder still when you’ve recently upset said stunning woman. I feel the pin pricks all over my body, urging me to get off the sand and go make up with June.
I take about ten steps toward the house, but then I slow. Why should I go kowtow to June? I’m entitled to my own philosophy, aren’t I? Do we have to agree on everything? Why can’t I call it like I see it?
No, she’s the one who messed up here. She left without giving me a chance to even explain my position. I’ve seen a Hell of a lot more than she has! I’ve been all over this world and seen all the awfulness it has. What’s she done, sat in a movie studio office and gone over scripts?
