Last night he kissed me. His mouth was on mine, his hands on my face, and now he's acting like it never happened. Like he didn't taste my tears and swallow my panic and make me feel safe for the first time in eight years.
Back to the fake-happy routine. It's safer than whatever this raw, wanting thing is that's taken over my body.
"You're staring," he says without looking at me.
"I'm assessing threats. You should be proud."
"My arm is not a threat."
"Your entire existence is a threat to my sanity."
There's that tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth, the one I'm learning means he's fighting not to smile.
"Where are we going?" I ask, desperate to change the subject from his devastating forearms.
"Out."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
"You can't just kidnap me, you tactical banana. There are laws."
"You got in the car willingly."
"Because you used your soldier voice. Your 'I've already decided and resistance is futile' voice."
"I don't have a voice."
"You have seventeen voices. There's tactical assessment voice, disapproving of my life choices voice, counting my drinks voice—"
I stop mid-ramble as he turns off the main road onto a quieter stretch. The landscape changes, buildings giving way to palm trees and glimpses of blue between the green. My chest tightens.
"Nico."
"What?"
"This is the ocean."
"I'm aware."
"You brought me to the OCEAN."
He pulls into a small lot beside a stretch of beach I don't recognize. Rocky on one end, sandy on the other, more private than the tourist spots. "You mentioned you used to swim. With your mother."
The words land soft and devastating. He listened. At two in the morning, when I was falling apart by the pool, he listened to every broken piece I offered and filed it away. And now he's brought me here because… because what? Because he thinks I need to face it? Because he wants to fix me?
"I can't go into the water," I say, my voice smaller than intended.
"I didn't ask you to."
We stand at the edge of the parking area, and the ocean spreads before us like a memory made real. The sound hits first: waves against sand, that ancient rhythm I haven't let myself hear in eight years. Then the smell: salt and seaweed and something indefinably alive that makes my throat tight.
My mother's voice floats through my mind:The water is where God lives, mija. Can you feel Him?
I take off my sandals without thinking. The sand is warm between my toes, familiar and foreign at once.
"I can't go in," I repeat.
