“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. Anotherdream. 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 Ihadgotten 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. I knew almost verbatim what she was going to say, and I couldn’t help the smirk that hit my face when she asked, “Want me to make you something to eat?”
I shook my head.
She’d asked me the same thing every day I’d been home. She knew I couldn’t cook much more than mac and cheese from a box. It had never been my strong suit. That was all Bee. My middle sister was like the offspring of Martha Stewart and Reese Witherspoon combined. Perfect in ways that seemed almost comical. The only thing not perfect about her life was her weasel of a husband.
“You barely eat anything,” Mom said. It wasn’t true. I was eating. I loved to eat. It was more like she felt the need to cook for me, as if mothering me was going to fix all the pieces of my life that were still bouncing around. She took out the cornmeal. “I’m making cornbread for dinner, but I can whip up some cornmeal pancakes if you want.”
It was close to lunchtime, but cornmeal pancakes were comfort food, and I was tempted to let her do it. Then, I shook my head. “Honestly, I’m good. Gabi and Bee have the entire day planned. I wouldn’t want to ruin my appetite for whatever it is they have on deck.”
