I knew this house better than my own these days. The kitchen and living area were on the ground floor with two bedrooms upstairs. The basement was furnished with a sleeper couch and Darren’s unopened boxes. Whenever I was here, that was my place. It wasn’t a punishment, even when it felt that way, staring at the boxes with his shit in it, but the second bedroom upstairs was Tristan’s studio. The baby shared the main bedroom with her mama.
I handed Molly a treat from the container Tristan kept on the counter before I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and returned to the living room. My eyes caught on a set of pictures which had been hung on the wall below the staircase since I’d been gone. The first was a picture of their wedding day. Darren and I both in our dress uniforms, Tristan in a dress so full it would have made Cinderella jealous. The other pictures showcased their life together as teens and our life together since I’d become a secondary member of their family. Every picture stabbed at me.
I looked over to find Tristan watching me.
“My mom hung them. I couldn’t…” She shook her head against the tremble of tears and emotion. “I don’t think I ever would have put them up. But now that she’s done it, I can’t make myself take them down.”
I swallowed the majority of the water bottle before finding a seat in the armchair with Molly. The armchair had always been my spot, even when Darren was still alive. They’d sat cuddled together on the couch like they were one creature instead of two.
“Why are you here?” she asked again, a baby’s sleeper left unfolded in her lap.
“You know why I’m here,” I said.
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Need or not, I owe it to―”
“Don’t you dare say it,” she cut me off, dropping the clothes back in the pile, standing, and marching toward the stairs. “You don’t. Whatever he asked you…he wouldn’t want it to be this. He’d want you to find your own life. Your own person.”
She was crying. I’d made her cry, and the guilt hit me hard. Drunk, I wasn’t as good at holding back the guilt or the emotions I normally held behind my blank mask.
“It should have been me,” I croaked out.
“No. It shouldn’t have been anyone,” she said, tears running down her face. “But it was. We lost all of them, Nash, for some stupid political power move. It can’t be taken back. It can’t be fixed. We don’t get those kinds of do-overs in life.”
She finished her way up the stairs, and I leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. Molly let out a little whimper and rested her head on my thigh.
Things that couldn’t be fixed. No do-overs.
It was exactly what the commander had said when I asked if he wanted me to apologize for hitting Dainty. I hadn’t realized the kid was so well connected. No wonder he’d made the SEALs with a broken ego. Someone hadn’t wanted to piss off the general.
I was well and truly screwed.
Dani
WARRIOR
“Out of the ashes, I'm burning like a fire,
You can save your apologies, you're nothing but a liar,
I've got shame, I've got scars,
That I will never show.”
Performed by Demi Lovato
Written by Lovato / Goldstein / Kiriakou / Robbins
I woke covered in sweat. Another dream. A nightmare. Ever since the ride in the elevator a week ago, I hadn’t been able to escape it on a nightly basis. It hadn’t been this bad in a while. I’d mostly had it under control. But maybe it was the overall change in my life that was cueing it up like a string of horror movies for my nightly review.
Initially, reliving what had happened with Fenway during the police investigation and the talks with the district attorney had made me feel powerful in a way his attack had taken from me. It wasn’t until later―after he’d taken the plea deal and the news had died down―that the reminders of how helpless I’d been began haunting me.
Had sent me to a therapist.
Like the therapist had told me to do, I tried to push aside the sense of panic and remember that I had gotten the elevator doors to open. I’d escaped, even though the nightmares caused my brain to go to places reality hadn’t. In those dark moments, I couldn’t run at all, and I’d never made it to the bathroom where Mac had found me.
I threw the covers off my bed.
I wouldn’t lie there, allowing my thoughts to spiral. Not again.
I donned my exercise gear, grabbed my phone and my keys, and headed out of the house to the tennis club my family had belonged to since the beginning of time. I’d spend my morning in the fitness room, building my body up and not tearing it down.
Since I’d retreated to my childhood home in Delaware from D.C., I’d spent every morning at the clubhouse. I usually did an hour or two of spin class and weights followed by a round or two of tennis with anyone willing to play. Sometimes it was just me and the ball machine, but it got me up and moving.
I was trying to think of my time at home as a vacation. I was using it to unwind. But the truth was, I was already bored. It was what I got for quitting before I had something lined up to jump into. I just hadn’t been able to stomach another fall at the Capitol.
When I returned home from the club, Mom found me drinking water in the kitchen.
