Chapter 41
764 Words
“This morning, I woke up and I was just lying in bed and watching her sleep," Dean said slowly. "And I started to think, well, maybe I can make a go of it with her. Maybe I can try. And I got up and made coffee and she called me and when I got to the bedroom, she was covered in blood. I thought – I thought that someone had broken in while I was in the shower and knifed her, you know?” He shivered. “And she wouldn’t wake up and I couldn’t figure out where the blood was coming from, and then I couldn’t stop it. I was scared to death. I was so close to having her, and now she’s just gone. Taken away from me. Like Kimberley – just taken right out of my arms.”
“Not yet, she’s not,” Jim said. “She’s still here, just nobody can say for how much longer.”
“No. I’ve lost her,” Dean said. “She’s got something eating her alive from the inside out and there’s not one damn thing I can do about that.”
“So do we.” Chris spoke so quietly, they barely heard him. “We all have things eating us up, things we don’t talk about.”
“What?”
“We never talk about any of it,” Chris said. “About Afghanistan and what happened there, and that’s just fine. But the fact is that we’re dragging around our own invisible monsters eating us alive from the inside out.”
The others were watching him, their eyes steady. They wondered if he was actually going to say all those things out loud. If Chris was really going to call the dead out from where they had jammed them down in deep, dark places. If he was going to drag the demons kicking and screaming into the light.
“Emma has leukemia.” Chris’ gray eyes were soft. “You’ve got Kimberley. I’ve got Tiegert, Jim has that five-year-old he couldn’t save. And Dallas – well, he’s got sixty-three heads exploding in his sights, all because he was told to take someone out. Don’t think none of that weighs on us, eats us up. You know it does. You’ve seen us all at our lowest and worst.”
They all sighed, knowing Chris was right.
“I know, man,” Dean said. “But it’s different with Emma…”
“Yeah, sure. Insofar as there’s a damn good chance that she’s physically going to die in a few months. The rest of us are just dying more slowly, and we aren’t even being honest about that fact.”
Dean was silent.
Dallas studied him. “OK. Let’s hear it all. You care about her, Dean?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“You care about her enough to want to be there for her through this?” His blue eyes were unwavering. “Can you handle watching another good woman die right in front of you? Maybe in your arms again?”
Dean thought about Emma. Her sweetness and kindness; those amazing eyes glowing up at him, warm and trusting. “Yes. I want to be there for whatever time she’s got left.”
Dallas looked at him, hard. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“OK,” Dallas said. “Then you go and do that. And us? We’ll be here for you, when you need us.”
Dean glanced around the room at the guys. They were all nodding at him.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, really,” Jim said. “We’ve always had your back in hard times, Dean. We ain’t leaving you on your own now.”
“OK.” Dean breathed out. “Then we need to get to work on her friends.”
“How come?” Jim said.
“Because,” Dallas answered for Dean. “Those women are not going to let Dean within ten feet of Emma unless they’re sure he’s serious about her. He has to convince them that he’ll stick around, even when things go to hell.”
“Oh, right.” Jim ran his hands through his cropped brown hair. “How are we going to do that?”
“Time,” Dean said. “The one f*****g thing that Emma doesn’t have.”
“Yeah, time.” Dallas grinned. “And lots of runs to the coffee shop.”
The men stared at him, perplexed.
“What?” Chris said.
- Writer
