Breaking Point

He didn’t respond at first, but then nodded once, seemingly at a loss for words.

I sat down on our clothing and he kneeled before me, holding my face in his hands, his bruised thumbs stroking my cheekbones. This is it, I thought, swallowing. And I didn’t even have to remind myself to remember this, because I knew without a doubt, I would.

But his eyes drifted over my bare shoulder, to the floor and his coat, and his brows pulled together.

I covered my chest with one arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Is this okay?” The vulnerability in his gaze startled me. Made me realize he wasn’t asking if I was okay with this dusty room, but with him.

“Yes.”

He said nothing for a moment, then blinked. “You wouldn’t regret…”

“No,” I said. My eyes lowered.

He hesitated. “I’ve screwed up so much already. If you had second thoughts…”

“I wouldn’t,” I said.

He sighed through his teeth. “You say that now.” But he was already leaning back over me, brushing my hair out of my eyes and skimming his fingertips along my jaw.

“I wouldn’t,” I whispered again. “This might be our only chance.”

He stopped. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said hurriedly.

He sat back. “What do you mean?”

I pulled his jacket over my shoulders, feeling very exposed suddenly.

“We don’t have much time left in case… you know. In case something happens tomorrow.”

His jaw fell slack. “You’re not planning on coming back.”

“I am. I mean, I want to.” As if dying were a choice? I stared at my feet. “You haven’t thought about it?”

He jolted up and began to pace, leaving me alone on the floor.

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” he said roughly.

“Then what is it?”

“I’ll find you. If something happens I’ll find you. We’ll be okay. We’re going to South Carolina.” He sounded so desperate to believe that truth that I knew it was thin enough to shatter.

“And if it’s not okay?”

“It will be!” he shouted, making my back straighten. He inhaled sharply, trying to recompose himself.

“You’re not going.”

“Chase—”

“You don’t even think you’re going to live through this! What was I thinking?”

I stood as tall as I could, the tears threatening to spill over. My heart was breaking. I could feel it tearing apart inside of me. He knew, he had to know what this felt like, this guilt-punched hole inside of me.

“You were thinking that if you could change things, you would,” I said.

My mother’s spirit filled the room. Without blame or accusation, but she was there nonetheless.

He stopped suddenly and stared out the window, not at the facility, but down the street at the barracks where he’d lived when we’d been apart.

A minute passed. Two.

“I would do anything to bring her back,” he murmured.

“I love you.”

The words were out before I’d even thought to say them, released by some force beyond my control. Instantly they consumed me, overwhelmed me, like the fact of my love was the only truth I’d ever known. The only truth there was. Chase Jennings, I love you. I love the boy you were and the man that you’ve become and even when I don’t like you at all I still love you because you are you, kind and safe and good, because you understand me and are not afraid.

As the honesty of my words sunk in, he became very still. Statue still. And I waited, more raw and vulnerable than ever.

He took a long shaking breath, and in it, my heart clutched.

“You don’t fight fair.”

“Yeah, well, neither do you,” I said. It was true. Risks weren’t so risky when you had no one to lose.

With a short, dry chuckle he came to me and wrapped his arms around my waist and lowered his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. My fingers traced the pink corkscrew scar across his biceps, and I was reminded of a day he’d nearly died for my protection.

“Now’s where you say it back,” I prompted.

“Say what?” When I hit him he grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. “I love you, Em. I’ve loved you since I was eight years old, and I’ll love you my whole life.”

His smile was so unguarded, so true. The tears clouded my vision, and my chest hurt, and I didn’t know how it was possible to feel so happy and so terrified at the same time.

“What happens now?” My hands flattened over his chest.

“Now I go find Tucker,” he said reluctantly.

Of all the things I’d hoped he’d say, this was not one of them.

“Why?”

He kissed my temple, letting his lips linger there while he continued. “Because tomorrow, I need him to do what I can’t.”

* * *

CHASE came back an hour later looking edgy. I didn’t know what he’d said to Tucker, and he didn’t offer it. Instead we sat beside each other, watching the rehab center, and talked, really talked. About everything else.

We talked about Cara, about Wallace and Billy, about Sean and Tucker and Rebecca. About the guys from Chicago, and how I’d found Jack, in shock, on the tunnel floor, and seen my mother in some concussion-induced vision. We talked about Beth and the place we’d once called home, knowing that history carried itself in the body and soul, not a physical location, not in letters burned in a fire or a magazine trapped beneath the rubble, and that now we had each other when we needed to remember. And we kissed. Sometimes gently, sometimes with the same frenzied passion as before. Sometimes in the middle of our sentences, when we’d simply forget what we were talking about. In those short hours we purged our secrets and held each other and prayed that time would both slow and hasten because just like the night before he was drafted, we knew tomorrow would leave us forever changed.

Eventually, I fell asleep on the floor with my head on his thigh. The last thing I remembered was the feel of his fingers combing through my hair.

* * *

BEFORE dawn he snuck across the street to the hospital parking garage with the spare key given to us by Chicago. I bit my nails to nubs until light, when he pulled out onto the street like any other driver, and appeared around the backside of the abandoned building in an FBR van. Tucker sat in the front, and Sean and I slipped silently into the middle row of seats, where I rubbed the St. Michael pendant around my neck and hoped that I hadn’t used up all its luck.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you backed out.” It took me a moment to realize Sean was talking to me, not Tucker.

Was he crazy? Our plan was contingent on my presence. “I’m not going to back out.”

He nodded out the window, as if expecting this answer.

“What if I said I didn’t want you to come?”

“I’d say good luck getting Rebecca without me.”

He shrugged. “I’d figure something out.”

“Well you don’t have to,” I said. “I’m coming.”

He was quiet for a several seconds. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? I’m not losing you, too.”

“Sean.” I forced a smile, but it might have looked a little scary. “When have I ever done anything