"By making me feel unwanted?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "That's not safety, Cade. That's just a different kind of a cage."
The words hit like a punch to the gut. I stare at her, this woman who walked thirty miles on cracked ribs to escape a monster, who trusted me enough to let me into her body and her heart, who's standing in my kitchen at two in the morning calling me out on my bullshit.
She's right. I know she's right.
But knowing and accepting are two different things.
"I don't know how to do this," I admit. My voice sounds wrecked. "I don't know how to love someone and not be terrified of losing them. Every person I've ever cared about, I've either failed or buried. My team. My patients. My fiancée who left because she couldn't handle what I came back from the war as." I meet her eyes. "I'm not good at this, Natalie. I'm not whole."
"Neither am I." She takes a step toward me. "You think I have any idea what I'm doing? I married a man who put me in the hospital twice. I stayed with him for six years because I thought that was what love looked like. I'm thirty-one years old and I'm just now learning that I deserve to be treated with basic humandecency." Another step. "We're both broken. That doesn't mean we have to stay that way."
"What if I hurt you? Not physically, but... what if I shut down? What if I pull away? What if I'm too damaged to be what you need?"
"Then we deal with it." She's close enough to touch now. "Together. That's what we said, remember? We deal with what's in front of us."
I want to believe her. Want to believe that we can figure this out, that my damage and her damage can somehow add up to something whole.
But the nightmare is still clawing at the back of my mind. Natalie running. Natalie bleeding. Natalie slipping through my fingers while I fail her like I've failed everyone else.
"I think..." I force the words out. "I think maybe we should slow down."
The silence that follows is deafening.
"Slow down," Natalie repeats. Her voice is flat.
"Just until we know what's happening with Kevin. Until the situation is resolved. I can't think clearly when I'm worrying about you, and I need to be sharp if we're going to..."
"Stop." She holds up a hand. "Just stop."
I stop.
"You're not saying you want to slow down because of Kevin." She meets my eyes, and the hurt there guts me. "You're saying it because you're scared of how much you feel. And instead of dealing with that like an adult, you're using my ex husband as an excuse to push me away."
"That's not..."
"Don't." Her voice cracks. "Don't lie to me. Not you. I've had enough lies to last a lifetime."
She's shaking. I can see the fine tremor running through her body, the way she's holding herself together through sheer force of will.
I did this. I put that look on her face. Me and my fear and my inability to be vulnerable without immediately trying to protect myself.
"Natalie." I reach for her.
She steps back. "I need some air."
"It's two in the morning."
"I'm aware." She's already moving toward the door. "I'll be on the porch. Don't follow me."
The door closes behind her with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot in the quiet cabin.
I stand there for a long moment, staring at the space where she was. Luna whines from her bed by the fireplace, sensing that something is wrong.
"I know, girl." I sink into a kitchen chair and drop my head into my hands. "I fucked up."
The minutes tick by. I should go after her. Should apologize, explain, make her understand that I'm not trying to hurt her, that I'm just terrified of losing her in a way that makes me stupid and careless.
But she asked me not to follow. And after everything she's been through, the least I can do is respect that boundary.
