***
At the gate in San Diego, Jim waited for Ashley to get off the plane.
She looked neither happy nor surprised to see him standing there.
“Thanks,” he said. “For, you know…”
“You really need to learn to stand up for yourself,” she told him, half tongue-in-cheek. “People want to help. Like, right now. You could ask for a wheelchair.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” he said.
She nodded. “Right. Well.” She looked around as if to get her bearings.
“Baggage claim is this way,” he said, leading her in that direction.
“I didn’t check a bag,” she said.
“Ground transportation’s in the same place.”
“Ah, yes,” she said. “I made arrangements for a car…”
God, this was awkward.
She cleared her throat. “I’d offer to give you a lift, but Coronado’s in the opposite direction from San Felipe.”
“You’re going home?” He asked it as a question, and she looked at him like the idiot that he was.
“Yes, because… I live there…?”
“Right. Of course. I just… should’ve told Taylor and Skelly to change the locks,” Jim said. “Your intruder’s still at large.”
Ashley stopped. “You’re not responsible for me,” she said. “You never were, and you certainly never will be.”
Jim nodded, setting his duffel down at his feet. “I get that. I just… I care. About you. Your safety is important to me.”
“Really?” she said. “You want me to be safe. Said the man who tried to goad me into getting angry, who accused me of, I don’t know what—being weak because I chose not to throw down with Bull and Todd, when I wasalonewith them in a dark hallway, in the middle of the night…? What the hell do you think I was doing? I was making damn sure that I stayed safe! What planet do you come from, that you think my getting angry with men like Bull and Todd would do anything other than make me very,veryunsafe? Together, they’re three times my weight! How do you live to be as old as you are and not know what most women have learned by the time they’re ten years old: That there’s potential danger in any—any—disagreement with a man. So we de-escalate. By default. As quickly as we possibly can.To stay safe!You know, I came out of the bathroom and Bull and Todd were standing there, using their very large bodies to trap me in the hall. And you seriously thought I should’veshoutedat them for disrespecting me? I’m sorry, butno. I’m going to do what I did. I’m going to be polite. I’m going to use the only weapon I haveto stay safe—words and logic and the norms of society—although those so-called social norms have decayed drastically over the past year and a half, thanks to the motherfucking pussy-grabber-in-chief!”
“God, I really do love it when you’re angry.” It was not the right thing to say—not by a mile—but he couldn’t stop himself, because it was true.
“Fuck you, Lieutenant! Because you look at me and you think I’m never angry, but you are so wrong. If you want to know the truth—if that word meansanythingto you, lying liar that you are—I’m always—always—a little bit afraid. Andthatmeans I’m also always angry. It’s hard not to be. I just don’t have the luxury, like you do, of showing it!”
“Excuse me, ma’am, is everything okay over here?”
The airport security guard was a woman, and she was looking at Jim as if she was sizing up the fastest way to take him down. Her dark brown eyes lingered on his knee braces, and he knew that wasn’t by accident. Her message was clear:If you think your knees hurt now, wait’ll you wrangle with me.
“Everything’s fine,” he said, but she ignored him, instead waiting for Ashley to answer.
“My friend is an asshole,” she told the guard as her own eyes filled with tears. “But I know he’d never hurt me—not that way, not physically.” She turned to Jim even as her tears escaped down her cheeks. “Oh, the irony of finally finding a man I can be honest with, to unleash myself like that and trulynotbe afraid…”
“Ash, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please—”
He reached for her, but she stepped back, and the guard stepped forward.
“I have to go,” Ashley said. “Don’t follow me, Jim. I really don’t want to see you again. Not just tonight, not… ever.”
She hurried away from him then, the wheels of her bag clattering on the airport floor.
Jim must’ve made a move—purely involuntary, total SEAL brain-stem,gotta follow, gotta fix, gotta have, gotta win…But the guard stepped in front of him. “Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to wait. Just for a few minutes.”
