Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Don’t do that. Don’t give up what you want just because they’ve finally decided to show up for you.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“No. I’m asking if you want me to give everything up for you.” Couldn’t she see that?
Her mouth opened and shut.
Fear clawed up my spine. Of all the outcomes I’d pictured—me moving to New York, her moving to North Carolina, us being anywhere together—I’d never contemplated her not wanting me. This whole scene was wrong.
“It’s because I’m doing it wrong, isn’t it?” I dropped down to one knee and held the box up. “Marry me, Isabeau Astor.” We were supposed to end up together. It was just a matter of timing. That was the foundation I’d built my life on ever since Tybee.
“Nate . . . ,” she whispered, staring at me as a thousand emotions crossed her features.
“Please,” I said softly. “Please choose me, Izzy. Choose us. Choose us over whatever life your parents want you to lead. Choose us despite the fact that I’m asking when we haven’t had time to build a life. Choose to give us that time. Choose our future. I’ll do whatever you want. Just marry me.” Every muscle in my body tensed, hanging on her answer.
Her shoulders fell and took my hope with them. “I can’t, Nate. Not like this.”
My chest tightened, clamping down like it was trying to contain the carnage of my heart as it shattered behind my ribs. “You’re saying no,” I said, enunciating every word just so we were clear, and I slowly rose to my feet.
“I’m saying this isn’t right.” She shook her head.
But she was the only thing right in my entire life.
I snapped the box shut and crammed it into the front pocket of my jacket as my mind scrambled for purchase, for a direction. Army, no army. Delta, no Delta. None of it mattered without Izzy, and she wasn’t choosing me. She didn’t want me.
All you’ve ever done is waste her time. Her father was right.
I was fine for vacations and weekends, but not good enough to marry.
“I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” I said, taking one last look at her deep-brown eyes. Eyes I’d caused to cry far too many times. I’d wasted years of her life.
Time to stop.
“You didn’t waste—” she started, but I was already moving, logic centering me with each step now that I knew which route my life was going to take. “Nate!” she called after me.
I had to get out of here before I fell apart.
I threw open the front door and walked into the rain. I’d be fine. I’d gotten back on a plane hours after the previous one had crashed, and this would be no different. What had Izzy said about going to therapy? It had given her coping mechanisms. I had a career most people would kill for. I was among the best of the best. That was all the coping mechanism I needed.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
Melting into the crowd, I walked down the block to where I’d somehow managed to find a parking spot.
I opened the door and slid behind the wheel, then started the ignition. “Fuck!” I shouted at no one and everyone. “What would you do?” I asked Torres. “If you were me, what would you do?” I closed my eyes, wishing I could block out the world as I waited for him to answer.
“Guess that didn’t go the way you wanted it to,” he said from the passenger seat, cracking an eye open like he’d been napping while I’d been pouring my heart out. “What am I saying? Of course it didn’t, or you wouldn’t be back so soon.”
“What would you do?” I repeated.
“You don’t need to ask. You already know the answer.”
“And yet here I am, asking.”
“You need me to say it? Fine, I’ll be the one to say it. Only eight were selected out of our class.” Of course he’d use logic. That was his strong suit.
“I know that.”
“You can wash out and be like the majority of our class, or we can drive back to Bragg and be part of those eight. To me, the latter sounds a shit ton better than the former.”
He was right. He usually was.
“Bragg it is.” I twisted the knob next to the steering wheel, and the windshield wipers swept away the rain and what was left of my indecision.
I put the truck in drive and pulled into traffic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NATHANIEL
Kabul, Afghanistan
August 2021
“Nate,” Izzy whispered, staring at the ring I’d carried with me for nearly three years.
“You didn’t want me. You didn’t really love me. Maybe the idea of me, but not who I actually am.” It was the simple truth I’d told myself every time I put the chain on or laced it into my boot on missions that didn’t require being sanitized. I said it to remind me why it was okay that I gave my life in service to my country, why it was necessary that I not show up on Izzy’s doorstep between deployments and beg her to reconsider.