Page 40 of Worth the Fight

I’m shamefully thankful he didn’t tell me then.

If he had, I might have given up everything. I might have had to quit or take a leave of absence to pause, because I don’t know if I could have kept going, knowing what he went through.

But it kills me that I gave up on him. That I started to hate who he was that day when he was already hating himself so much.

I sit up again, a little abruptly, and Lukas’s brows tug together when he sees the look on my face.

“I’m going to ask you something, and I sure as hell hope that your therapist, or your friends, family, someone has said it to you at some point.” My hands slide up his chest and over his round shoulders until I cradle his jaw in my palms. I tilt his face up to mine, forcing our gaze together. “You know…” I start, knowing already that this next part is going to be hard to say. I dig deep, finding the courage within me, hoping I can get the words out without breaking. “You know that you didn’t kill him, right?”

Lukas’s eyes immediately well with fresh tears. His nostrils flare, and he tries to look away from me.

“You know it’s not your fault, what happened, right?”

The Lukas I know, the one I fell in love with all those years ago, would take on that loss. He would let it bleed into him, turning everything inside cold and hard before telling anyone how he felt. The Lukas I know blames himself for things that are out of his control. “Tell me, Lukas,” I plead. “Tell me that you haven’t been spending the last few years thinking that you could have done something to change his fate.”

“I could have pulled rank,” he whispers. “I could have pulled seniority or some bullshit. I was older than him. I should have⁠—”

“And then what?” I snap. “Because don’t you dare say it should have been you who died that day instead of him.” My eyes dart back and forth across his face, and I’m still holding onto his jaw, but even if I wasn’t, I doubt Lukas could look away. “No one deserved to die that day. No one…”

The hands that are holding onto his face start to tremble, and I let go, lowering one palm to rest on his chest. My hand covers his heart, the erratic thud tapping my palm with each beat. I curl my fingertips, wishing I could reach into him and wrap my entire body around his heart. “I’m not going to pretend I know why bad things seem to happen to the best of people. Or why some people don’t get to live a full life. I have no idea why.”

My last few words come out broken, ragged. I slide my hands up his chest, resting them both on his shoulders and squeezing, shaking gently. “Tell me that you know,” I beg again, and I see Lukas fighting against his tears. Fighting to get the control back, and it kills me. “Tell me you know it isn’t your fault.”

“I won’t lie to you, Mags. All I can tell you is that I’m working on it. I’m a big fucking work in progress all around. Some days, it still feels like I’m right there. The bomb just went off, and I’m silently counting the seconds as they tick by. Sometimes, I feel all right. When I’m home, with the animals out in the fields, and it’s a sunny day, I miss those guys. I think about them, but with the sun on my face, I can rationalize a little and tell myself I couldn’t have changed it.” His hands come to rest on my hips, and he wraps them around my waist, squeezing like muscle memory, I inch closer to him in the cramped cab of his truck.

“I keep asking myself why? And I don’t think I’ll ever get the answers. I just wish it didn’t have to go down like that.”

“Of course, that's what you wish. That's what we all wish.” I bring a hand up, thumb grazing along his cheek. His normally crystal-blue eyes, clear like ocean water, are dark and stormy. “I’m sorry you lost your friends, and I’m sorry you had to see it.” I can’t imagine what that would do to a person, seeing that, experiencing that level of loss and not getting time to decompress after.

If that happened to the average person, to someone who hadn’t dedicated their lives to the military, they would be able to leave work, find a therapist, and lean on family and friends to heal from the tragedy. But not Lukas.

He had those few seconds to reel it all in before he had to fight for his life.

“Were you scared?” I whisper, realizing immediately how stupid of a question that is. Of course, he was scared. I think anyone would be. But I wonder if it’s the type of fear that freezes you. The type that has your mind blank and body numb. Or is it the type that kicks your adrenaline in high gear? Body reacting and mind racing, movements fast and efficient. But in that moment, seeing the two Humvees in front of you, knowing that you might be next, what would that feel like?

“Actually,” he starts, his hands moving up to rest on my lower back. “Parts of it happened too quickly to really think. There was a second where my stomach dropped, where I thought ‘no,’ but my brain couldn’t get the words out fast enough. The military trains us for moments like that. I knew that was their goal in boot camp, and in the desert on mock missions, but I didn’t realize what they were doing had a real purpose until that moment. They wanted us to be able to physically react before our mind could truly process what we just saw.”

I nod at that, leaning forward until my forehead rests against his. He’s so close my vision blurs, but that could be the unshed tears pressing against my lids, too.

“Can I tell you something?” he whispers, his warm breath hitting my lips.

“Of course.”

“I haven’t told anyone this, not even my therapist. It’s something that I’m not sure I can really explain.”

“Can you try?”

He nods, his forehead rubbing against mine. His grip on my hips tightens, and I can feel each movement through my thin leggings. He’s clenching my skin but counting down on each of his fingertips. His pinky twitches first, then ring finger, then middle. Five, four, three, two, one.

“There was a brief moment where I thought I had died.”

My breath hitches, and I force myself to rein it in.

“When the Humvee that was carrying Collins exploded, it was thrust into the air. Brutus, the guy that was driving ours, tried to veer off the road, but we were stuck, wedged against large boulders on one side when their vehicle came crashing down, hitting us on the other side.”

I bring my hands up, lacing my fingers around his neck, needing to steady him as much as I need to ground myself.

“I was thrown to the side, and then another explosion hit. It was so close the sound wave was deafening. It blew out my eardrums. I had a nasty concussion from the impact, and I could see our Humvee was on fire. Thick smoke was filling the cab. Even now, back home, I’ll wake up at night, and I swear, I can still smell it. It stings my nose even on those cool nights when the air is still.” He clears his throat roughly, pausing for a beat. “I couldn’t hear shit, but I could see my Staff Sergeant was bleeding. Brutus was doing his best to put pressure on the wound, and I could see his lips moving, like he was yelling, but it was all eerily calm.