I sprinted through the house to get to my room. Slipping my feet into a pair of flip-flops, I grabbed my phone and the keys to my truck and ran back, waving to my dad as I went by. I was afraid if I was gone too long, she might leave.
“Let’s take my truck.” I pointed to the F-150 that I’d had since high school. It was old as dirt, but it ran like a rock star.
Stella followed along beside me. I opened the passenger door for her and waited until she had her seatbelt on before I closed the door and hightailed it around the front to slide in behind the steering wheel.
I thought maybe she’d talk while I drove, but instead, Stella looked out the passenger window with a death grip on her phone. Luckily, where I was taking her wasn’t far because I was dying to know why she’d sought me out. Pulling up to the public beach, I turned to look at her.
“Is this okay?”
When she started to open the passenger door, I assumed she was fine with the location I’d chosen. I wasn’t fast enough to open her door or help her out, which irritated me. I wanted to say something but held my tongue.
Once her feet hit the sand, Stella kicked off her sandals and held them by their straps with one hand as she headed in a direction where it was less crowded. I let her pick the spot, and once she sat down in the sand, I moved to sit beside her. My pinky finger itched to reach out and touch her silky skin, but I didn’t give in to temptation. Instead, I waited until she said whatever she came here to say.
Her gaze stayed on the tide coming in and out. Never once looking at me. “I need to know why you ended things with me. Even if it’s awful, I need to hear it.”
“That’s why you came here?” She could have called or texted, but I hadn’t answered those questions when she’d asked before, so maybe she knew I couldn’t deny her in person. Even though I hadn’t responded to her texts, it still killed me when she stopped contacting me. I knew I’d fucked up royally, only now she was here in the flesh. Now was my chance to tell her about my dark past. Would she look at me differently after she knew how damaged I was?
“I’m nowhere near good enough for you, and I knew if I stayed, I’d be one of the men in your life who broke you.”
“And you don’t think you broke me when you ended things?” Her voice was wobbly as she spoke while her eyes were set on the ocean in front of us.
“It wasn’t my intention to break you but to save you from me. When I decided to volunteer, I thought I was better, but the night that I fell asleep and had that nightmare, I realized I still had so much more work to do.”
“Did you ever think if you explained it to me that I might have understood and given you time? That maybe I could have helped you or at least not cried nonstop for a week straight wondering what the hell I’d done that made you run away from me?”
Wrapping her arms around her legs, Stella rested her cheek on her arms and looked at me for the first time since we’d arrived. Her face was wet with tears. Knowing I’d been the one to cause her heartbreak made it difficult to breathe.
“What was your dream about?” She nibbled on her lower lip as she waited for me to answer.
It was now or never. I knew if I didn’t tell her now, I wouldn’t get another chance, and Stella would walk out of my life forever.
“You know I was in the military, but you don’t know why I left.” This time it was me who couldn’t look at her as I spoke. I didn’t want to see how she’d take the news. I hated the pity on everyone’s faces when they learned of what happened that day. “Growing up, I had a friend named Damon. We were like brothers. We did everything together, much to our parents’ dismay at times. If one of us got in trouble, so did the other. I’m not sure when I knew I wanted to be a Marine, but so did Damon. Or at least that’s what he always said. Sometimes I feel like I talked him into joining, or he knew he had to enlist since I wasn’t going to college. Anyway, we went through boot camp together, were in the same unit, and even deployed together. I thought Damon would be by my side until my dying breath.” Closing my eyes, I continued to feel her eyes bore into me as I spoke. “Instead, it was me by his side as he took his last breath. We were ambushed, and Damon being the heroic man he was, threw himself on top of me when a shower of bullets came down on us. He died saving me.”
I hadn’t realized I was crying until I felt Stella begin to wipe my tears away. When she was done, Stella rested her head on my shoulder and held me while not saying a word. Somehow, she knew exactly what I needed in that moment.
“I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for not saving him. When I left the military, I didn’t come home because I thought my dad would be ashamed of me, and I couldn’t face Damon’s family. Instead, I started working on boats. I’m sure you’re wondering where this is all going.”
Looking down at the sand, I continued. “After you left, I would go onto your Instagram and look at your pictures. One day I saw my friend Tyler had died while overseas. The guilt was unbearable, but it made me realize I needed to stop hiding from my past. Once the season was over, I came back here and started to see a therapist. I thought I’d made progress, but the dream that night made me realize I wasn’t as put together as I thought.”
“No one’s perfect, Remy,” she said quietly. Her arms around me tightened as she spoke. “We’ve all got baggage, but it’s how we deal with it that matters. I wish you would have told me all of this before. We could have talked, and if you needed space to work on yourself, I would have given it to you. It was the not knowing that killed me. I couldn’t understand why...I—” She broke off and turned away.
Unsure if she’d want me to touch her after she’d pulled away, I slowly put my arm around her middle. When she didn’t tense up, I took that as a good sign and pulled her back to my front. With her between my legs, I rested my chin on top of her head. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Stella. You have to know it was never my intention.”
Her body shook as I held it tightly to my chest. Again, I was causing her pain when I didn’t mean to. Would I ever be able to take away the hurt I’d inflicted on her?
We continued to sit like that, watching the waves crash and people roaming about until her body relaxed into mine. It was then I remembered she’d mentioned she’d come for two reasons. What the other could be, I couldn’t imagine.
Rubbing my hands up and down her arms, I kissed the side of her head. “Are you okay now?”
“For the time being.” She sniffed.
“You came for something else. What is it?”
Tensing up, she extricated herself from my hold and moved to sit in front of me. A sense of foreboding filled me. Was she sick and came to tell me goodbye?
“I told you about Brock and me. The troubles we had. How I was unable to get pregnant and him subsequently cheating on me and getting someone pregnant from his office.”
Was she back with that douchebag? Had I driven her back into the arms of the man who’d broken her?
“Yesterday, I was doing a photoshoot with Lexie, and I wasn’t feeling well. Actually, I’ve felt off for at least a week. When I’m writing, days kind of blend together, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, Lexie started to ask me questions about my symptoms, and then it all clicked.”