“I’ll let you two get some rest,” Damon awkwardly excuses himself.
“Fine,” Chris exhales, pulling back the sheets for me. He kneels beside the bed, checking his pistol and setting it within easy reach before switching off the light. The tent drops into soft shadows, lit only by the faint glow of the sunrise seeping through the canvas. I remove his sweatpants I’m wearing, leaving me in just his oversized T-shirt, and toss them to the foot of the bed before climbing onto it. He slides in beside me, pulling the thin blanket around us.
We lie in silence, the steady rhythm of our breathing the only sound in the room. I roll onto my side, and my hand brushes against his chest. He doesn’t move away, and somehow, that tells me more than anything he could have said.
“Chris?” Reese’s voice is small in the dark, fragile in a way I’ve never heard from her before.
“Yeah?”
“You said you left to save me…”
All of a sudden, the tent feels smaller, making it hard to breathe. I stare at the canvas above us. The ceiling sways faintly with every gust of wind, shadows stretching and shifting in rhythm with my pulse.
“Go to sleep, Reese,” I mutter, because I can’t do this. Not now. Not after what happened tonight.
But she doesn’t stop. Not that I actually expected her to.
“No,” she whispers, her voice pained with the need for answers. “Talk to me, Chris…”
God…It’s been years since I’ve heard her say my name like that. It slips past her lips like a plea, and before I can steady myself, she rolls toward me. Her fingertipstrace along my jaw tentatively, trembling slightly. “Please.”
I exhale slowly. Every part of me wants to bury this, keep it locked down where I’ve kept it for the past decade. But the truth has been rotting inside me far too long.
“I left,” I start slowly, barely recognizing my own voice, “because I didn’t feel I was someone you could be safe with anymore.”
Reese pushes away a little, not out of fear, but so she can see my eyes. Her lips part, almost as if she wants to ask a question, but she waits. She gives me the time I need to find the words I’ve been wanting to tell her for years.
“The night we almost lost Mattis…” My voice comes out rough and broken at the edges. “I killed seven men that night, Reese. Not in the line of duty. They were on our side. And I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Because… Abby....”
I feel her stiffen beside me. She frowns, confusion and hurt washing over her face. “You left… because of Abby?”
“No,” I insist quietly, wanting to touch her but afraid she’ll pull away. “Reese, no. Abby wasn’t?—”
“You don’t have to lie, Chris,” she cuts me off, unable to hide the anguish in her tone, the cot creaking under her weight when she shifts to put more distance between us. Reese sits up and doesn’t say anything for a moment. Her eyes, still red-rimmed from everything tonight, stare into mine like they’re searching for answers. Any answer. “So… Abby,” she says finally, quiet and uncertain.
When I look at her, I let her see everything I’ve been holding back for the past decade. The exhaustion. Theguilt. The love I tried—and failed—to bury. She blinks hard, and a rogue tear breaks free, trailing down her cheek. “Oh, baby,” I breathe, the old endearment slipping out before I can stop it. “Is that what you thought all these years? That another woman…”
Her chin trembles slightly before she nods with her brow furrowing. “Then what?—”
“What happened that night isn’t my story to tell. It’s hers,” I share before she can finish. “But it’s not what you’re imagining. I didn’t even think. I just… ended them, because she needed me to.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. When she finally speaks, it’s so soft I almost miss it under the howl of the wind. “So you left because of what you did?” she asks, trying to understand what I am so poorly explaining.
“I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of you looking at me and seeing a monster.”
She stares at me, trying to hold herself together as I struggle—and fail—to piece together the conversation I’ve rehearsed for years. “Do you think that’s what I would’ve seen?”
“Yes. Because that’sallIsaw.”
Her throat works as she swallows. “And Abby?”
“Never… Abby is like a little sister to me.” The words come out easy now, like I’ve been waiting years to say them. “There was never anything between us. Never could be.” I rub my hand against my pec, the ache in my chest nearly unbearable, realizing she’s spent years wondering if infidelity drove us apart. “There was never anyone else. I never so much asthoughtabout another woman when I was with you. You were it for me.”
She smiles ever so slightly, tears trickling down her cheeks as she sucks in a soft sob. The sight of her pain and relief hit me like a punch to the gut.
“After?” she whispers.
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling. “Eventually. Years later. After I’d thought I convinced myself you were better off without me.”
