I close the guest room door and lean against it, trying to remember how to be the soldier I’m supposed to be instead of whatever I’m becoming around her.
My phone buzzes. Gunner. A welcome distraction. I asked him to contact me with any security threats, and he's come good.
Cesar’s nephew is asking questions. Wanted to know about the new boyfriend. Told him to fuck off. Also, Logan says the Zayas are moving product through the port.
A threat circling. Multiple threats. I should care more than I do. Should be planning tactical responses instead of thinking about how she arched beneath me.
A soft knock on my door.
“Horse Man?”
I don’t answer.
“I know you’re in there. I can hear you brooding.”
“I’m not brooding.”
“You’re aggressively not-brooding. It’s very loud.”
We’re talking through a door like teenagers. It would be funny if everything wasn’t so fucked.
“I’m not going to make this weird,” she says. “We can pretend nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen.”
A pause. Then: “Right. Nothing. We were training, and then nothing. That’s why you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Very convincing through a closed door.”
I hear her sigh. Then, quieter: “For what it’s worth… I wouldn’t have minded. If nothing had become something.”
Her footsteps retreat. Her bedroom door closes.
I stay frozen for five more minutes before emerging. The apartment is quiet, her presence confined to her bedroom, but I can feel her everywhere. In the air that smells like her perfume. In the space where we trained, where I had her pinned, where I almost…
I find myself at the rooftop door, looking through the glass at her pool. The water is perfectly still. Not a ripple. She hasn’t been in it once since I’ve been here. Eight years of avoidingwater because it reminds her of her mother, of before everything broke.
I understand that now, standing at the edge of something and being too afraid to dive in. She’s brave enough to see my monster, to name it, to not run from it. But not brave enough yet to face her own ghosts.
We’re the same wound. Different scars.
I press my palm against the glass. On the other side, the pool waits. Still and perfect and patient. She’ll swim again someday. When she’s ready. When she’s brave enough.
The thought that I might not be here to see it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.
But standing here, I wonder if my discipline is just another word for cowardice. Wonder what would have happened if I’d kissed Marisol when she arched beneath me, lips parted, offering everything. Wonder if all this control is just fear with a tactical name.
The monster wanted her. Wants her still. And for the first time in years, I’m wondering what’s so wrong with letting it have what it wants.
Just once.
The pool reflects the afternoon sun, and I stand there watching it, wondering which one of us will be brave first. Wondering if discipline is keeping me safe or keeping me from living. Wondering how long I can be a coward dressed up as a soldier before she sees through that lie too.
8 - Marisol
Iwake with his name on my lips and humiliation burning through my chest like acid.
