She doesn’t understand.
She doesn’t fucking get it.
“Then you’ve never seen it.”
I turn back around, but it’s not anger now. It’s not even grief.
It’s terror.
“I’m not scared of dying, Dax,” she says.
I walk toward her. Slowly. Like I’m walking through a graveyard of my own choices.
“I’m not scared of dying either,” I whisper. “But I’m fucking terrified of losing you.”
Her eyes water, and she looks away, but I grip her chin gently and force her to look at me.
“You think I can watch you walk into that and just breathe through it?”
She’s trembling.
So am I.
“I can’t even sleep without hearing the sound of bones snapping. I can’t take a hot shower without smelling burning flesh. You want that?” I whisper. “You think your fucking heart can survive that?”
“Then why do you get to go?” Her voice cracks.
“Because I’m already dead,” I rasp.
Her mouth parts.
I step closer.
“Every part of me that mattered died the first time I held a dying boy’s hand and told him I’d get him home.”
I reach up, press my hand to her chest.
“This?” I whisper. “This still beats. This still feels. You think it’s fair to offer that up to a war that’ll chew you up and spit you back in pieces?”
Her eyes close, and I feel her breathing stagger under my palm.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I murmur. “I didn’t ask for you to come into my life and start fixing things I didn’t know were broken. I didn’t ask to feel again.”
“But you did,” she whispers. “You felt me.”
I nod.
Once.
Twice.
Then I drop to my knees in front of her like she’s my altar and I’m the fucking sinner begging for grace.
“I feel you in my fucking bones, butterfly.”
Her hands cradle my face.
I let her.
