Stripping Her Defenses (4 page)

She looked around the house at all of the things I hadn’t packed: all of the knick knacks Riley had bought me from around the world, all of our pictures hanging on the wall. Everything was still there, left untouched by me or my mother. I wouldn’t let her pack a single piece of it. I didn’t want any of it at all. No reminders of what I used to have or didn’t have. No remembrances of the dreams I’d once lived for or the life I’d been planning.

All the evidence I needed to remember of how I’d once lived were the scars on the side and back of my body and the empty arms I had to carry around which would never hold my little boy. That was enough torture to endure. The rest of it, I was leaving behind for my soon to be ex-husband, who still hadn’t come home from his mission. Yet another decision my mother didn’t approve of, and the real reason she was now asking me if I was sure about what I was doing.

Mom thought it was wrong for me to leave Riley and divorce him when he’d yet to come home. She didn’t get it. Riley was
never
home. That was the point. It was bad enough dealing with the missions he was given and enduring that time away, but to be brutally reminded that my husband wasn’t here with me when I had endured what no parent should ever endure—the loss of our child—because he had volunteered for that mission.

No
! I was done.

If I had meant half as much to Riley as his precious career had, he would have been here with me. I was done trying to fix things between us. I was done trying to rekindle our love. Even though I knew it was an epically shitty thing to leave him and let him be by himself when he came home to the loss of our child, I couldn’t bring myself to stay. I needed to leave before him. The memories of everything that once had been in this house hurt me more than our marriage already had.

A small voice that came from the area where my heart used to be whispered,
Didn’t we hurt each other mutually, though?

Maybe so. I had handed over my teenage heart, which he’d kept safe and loved for years. The scars on my heart, soul, and now body had never been intentionally given. If anything, Riley had loved me with everything he had to give at first. The problem was, eventually, I’d stopped being the love of his life. Somehow, the Navy had replaced me.

When we had been in high school, the idea of being married to an honorable military man had been absolutely romantic. I had imagined him leaving for his six month floats then coming off the ship to sweep me off my feet with breathtaking kisses. And Riley had delivered those devastating kisses just like I’d dreamed of, but only the first few times he’d come home to me. No, the injuries to my heart hadn’t started until he’d repeatedly volunteered for missions after his successful completion of BUD/S to become a Navy
seal
.

He had been voracious for the adrenaline high he got from the life threatening missions, while living solely for the camaraderie between his brothers in the unit and the things they set out to do to make things right in the world. However, for him to obtain those highs—those insane feelings of accomplishments he gained from successful missions that, to him, made the world a better place—he had caused injury to the very heart that beat in my chest for him because he had
chosen
to make himself that much harder for me to reach.

As much as I loved the man, unconditional became a question when he’d rather be on a mission than attending my induction to the honors society for my high grades in the degree that he’d pushed me to obtain. I might have been adamant about not following in the footsteps of my showgirl mother, but it had been Riley’s idea to be married to the kindergarten teacher.

In my absolute adoration of him and confusion over who I really wanted to be in life, I’d followed his ideas blindly. I had ignored my own creative passions that I was too scared to pursue because they might lead me away from that perfect life I’d dreamed of having.

A lot of good that had done me.

Regardless, I had endured for years, staying at home like the good, little
seal
wife, waiting for my husband to finally come home to me, ignoring the beating my ego took for every duty or mission he didn’t have to take, but did anyways. I had done my best to assure myself he still loved me. I had juggled a full-time college student’s schedule with part-time work. All the while, I had held my breath for an email or the phone to ring, hoping beyond all hope I could get an ‘I love you’ from the high school boy turned alpha man, who had claimed me in our junior year of high school. Over time, it had been harder to excuse Riley’s willingness to jump on the next mission to leave when he could stay home with me.

Talk about shooting what was left of your self-confidence down the shitter. Was I not pretty enough? Not good enough of a wife? Did he regret us marrying so young and used the military as his escape from what he considered a mistake, our marriage? I had thought I’d damn near go mad with the self-doubts plaguing me, and I guess you could say that I had.

Falling into depression sucks. Every day you look worse than the one before. Then there’s the denial over having a problem and seeking help. If it hadn’t been for another military wife from my husband’s unit pulling me aside to say that she’d been there, done that, and refused to see me suffer, if she’d never frankly told me that she would take me to the doctor herself if she had to, I would have never gone.

The sad thing was, Riley was never home long enough to even notice that something was wrong with me. Now, none of it mattered. All I had left was enough pain to fill the Grand Canyon and the mind-fuck of two words:
if only
.

If only
that thunderstorm hadn’t swept through and made the roads devilishly slick. Even with all of my careful diligence, there had been no avoiding the disaster that had happened.

If only
I hadn’t checked the urge to jerk the steering wheel to the right, away from the car that had flashed in my peripheral vision. Somehow, I’d been cognizant enough to remember there was a disastrously steep embankment to the right.
If only
I’d known that embankment would have been better.
If only
I’d known that jerking the steering wheel to the right could have changed everything. Could have saved my little boy.

Not jerking the steering wheel to the right had ended up being the worst mistake I’d ever made.

The oncoming car had hydroplaned at high speeds, moving from their lane to my own for a collision into the driver’s side door. The impact had caused my door to buckle harshly inwards, and jagged pieces of metal had penetrated my side and sliced up my side and back. The crash itself had somehow caused my uterus to rupture and sent my child into distress. The doctors had been unable to get him out in time.

When I had woken up in the ICU with a somber nurse checking my vitals, I’d asked her about my baby. She’d picked up the room’s telephone and told someone else to call the chaplain and the doctor. I was so hysterical by the end of the telephone call, I’d had to be restrained by three nurses and a doctor who’d injected a sedative into my IV.

The next time I had woken up to the beeping of my vitals, it had been to the reconciliation that my child was gone. I’d had the hysterical thought of,
What was the point of living anymore?

A passing nurse had heard my hysterical cries and they’d had to give me another sedative.

The third time I’d woke up, it was because a different nurse was in the room checking the many machines and readouts that had been connected to me. When my hoarse voice had asked her how long I had been out, she’d responded with ‘a week.’ When I had asked her if my husband was there, she’d given me a pitying look. It had been with that look that my thought process had become crystal clear for the first time in years. Through my haze of grief, I had known, without a doubt, that the loss of my son had changed my life in more ways than anyone could imagine.

When I left this house, I was not only leaving the memory of my beloved little boy who hadn’t had a chance to bless this earth. No, I was leaving as a woman who would no longer doubt whether she was worthy to love and to stand by instead of leaving behind.

If I found the will to live again at all, I was not going to repeat my past mistakes of trying to mold myself into someone I was not. Nor was I going to beg or bend over backwards for the love of someone else.

In fact, without a shred of doubt in my mind, I was aware of one solid fact: the old Kara was gone forever, and it was my turn to leave.

Chapter

4

Riley

Eight years later…

I rubbed a hand over my tired, gritty eyes and swore because I was covered in sand. My skin felt dry as hell, and I was itching in some uncomfortable places. I’d been pulling reconnaissance for two days straight with no sleep while we waited for our target to show back up at the Taliban hideout we’d been given an anonymous tip on. The whole mission had taken a fuck of a lot longer than I’d hoped it would, but we’d managed to terminate a high profile target that had caused the deaths of a lot of good American soldiers.

Looking down at my dirty
bdu
s, all I could think about was a hot shower and a good nap. I was going to need both before I dealt with my wife, who was probably pissed as shit that I had missed her college graduation.

I’d just turned in the last of my reports from the mission’s debriefing to one of my CO’s. Now, with my bag and gun in hand, I gave a wave to my remaining teammates who were still filling out their paperwork and turned to leave.

I’d made it five steps down the hallway before my commander called my name.

Turning around, I answered, “Yes, sir?”

He had a somber look on his face that made my gut churn. Suddenly, the lively looking officer looked older than the bit of gray in his hair would lead you to believe.

Shit. I hoped he wasn’t coming to tell me we had to turn around and go back out. Kara would roast my nuts on a skewer over the stove if I didn’t go home. I’d not only missed her graduation, but I’d been gone six weeks.

“Are we headed out again, sir?”

The commander came to a stop right in front of me before looking behind us. I followed his gaze back down the hallway and saw the other CO, who seemed to be waiting on standby. What the fuck was going on here?

A steady hand grabbed my shoulder. Looking back to my commander, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My guts weren’t just churning now, they were practically boiling. By the look on his face, whatever this was, it wasn’t good.

“Sullivan, I’m going to drive you home.”

Confused by this development, I responded, “Sir, that’s not necessary. I’m not that tired, and I only live fifteen minutes from base. I’ll be fine going home.”

He was shaking his head. “Hear me out, son. There was an accident while we were gone and somehow the Redcross message didn’t reach us…”

Covered in sweat and shaking from head to toe, I bolted to a sitting position in bed and tried to catch my breath. Waking up with a chest too tight from lingering emotions was never fun. Depending on what any given dream forced me to remember, there was a fifty percent shot at closing my eyes again for more shut eye. This time, after reliving that particular memory, there would be no going back to sleep tonight. Or, as I caught the glowing red numbers from my alarm clock that read three a.m., there was no more sleep to be had this morning.

Forcing my weary body out of bed, I decided to slip jeans over my boxers in case my brother’s somewhat noisy guest happened to come out of the bedroom. No sense in giving the woman a peep show, whoever she was.

I slipped silently out of my room, down the second floor hallway, and then crept down the stairs to the bottom floor. I should have headed for the coffee pot, but there was only one thing that seemed to help calm my nerves after waking up like this.

Walking past the kitchen to the cushioned chair facing our townhouse’s gas fireplace, I hit the switch to light up the fake logs before plopping down into the soft, suede chair. I watched the flames dance for a few minutes, giving myself something to concentrate on while I tried to get my body to stop trembling.

The flames writhed in slow, mesmerizing ways that beckoned me to get lost in them. They enticed me to let my memories burn to ash so that I could perhaps finally move on from my pain. How I wish I could do just that. Get lost in something. Move on with my life. Anything to help me forget the many things that weighed down my shoulders like ten ton boulders of torment, guilt, anger, and regret.

God, so many fucking regrets. There were days I thought the ‘if onlys’ that ran through my head would lead me to insanity.
If only
I had been home with her instead of on some mission I didn’t even have to be on, maybe I would have been driving our car instead of her that day. Maybe then my son would be alive, my wife still in my arms.

But the problems went further back than that, didn’t they?

If only
I’d shown my wife the kind of attention she’d obviously been needing, perhaps those troubling issues of hers would have gone away over time instead of worsening. Instead, I’d run in the opposite direction, hoping like the naive jackass I had been that her problems would just miraculously disappear.

If only
I’d known then what I knew now, my entire life would be completely different. I could have stepped up to the plate to help Kara with her problems and not run away from them like some pansy-ass chicken-shit who was scared of dealing with his own wife.

So much pain. For both of us.

The way Kara had suffered silently, afraid to push me away further than she already had, would probably haunt me, with my many other sins, for the rest of my life. What kind of man stood by and let their soul mate doubt their worth in their husband’s eyes?
If only
I hadn’t been so young and dumb as to assume she’d always know I loved her. If she’d known, without a doubt, of my feelings for her, Kara would have never run from the hospital in the opposite direction from me. She wouldn’t have hidden behind lawyers and mediators to put distance between us while seeking a divorce.