I always had one foot in the army and one at home, never fully committed to either. I kept telling myself I was providing, protecting, doing the right thing. But really—I was hiding. From responsibility. From disappointment. From the terror of being boxed into a life I hadn’t chosen.
I volunteered for deployments I didn’t need to take. Missions that suited the part of me that knew how to disappear, how to do things, and know things I could never explain to her. She once asked what my unit actually did. I changed the subject.
And then, six years later, she died.
Not quietly.
Not gently.
Not in a way I could pretend was fate.
We fought over the phone.
She begged me to come home.
I said we’d talk when I got leave.
She said she couldn’t wait that long.
The line went dead.
She drove angry.
Didn’t see the lorry.
By the time the call reached my unit, she was already gone.
By the time I made it home, Lily was crying in someone else’s arms, and the house in Houston smelled like stale coffee, shock, and everything broken in an instant.
I failed her before I even tried.
Failed them both.
My throat tightens. My hands clench—useless, empty, too late.
This is why I can’t do this.
Why I can’t let myself want Lucky, or anyone.
Because someone always pays for the parts of me I can’t give.
A sharp breath punches out of me. My eyes burn, but nothing falls. Nothing ever does.
I grip the steering wheel until the leather bites into my palms.
Wanting Lucky is dangerous.
Wanting anyone is.
But wanting her—someone who could crack me open without even meaning to—feels like stepping toward a ledge I know too well.
So I shut it down.
The way I was trained to.
The way I’ve survived since I was nineteen.
I close the door inside myself. Hard.
