Unconditional

I’ll be left with nothing. No sign they were ever mine at all.

Carina reaches for me. I flinch away, still wired with tension, but she takes my hand and holds tight.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her beautiful face stricken. “Oh God, Garrett, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said just now, you have to know that. I was angry at myself, not you. You’ve been better to me than anyone.”

I swallow back the lump suddenly choking in my throat. “It’s fine,” I say brusquely, hating myself for the admission of weakness. “It was years ago. You weren’t to know. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

Carina cradles my hand to her chest. I should pull away, I’ve already said too much, but I can’t bring myself to let go. The touch of her skin is pure silk, a brief ray of golden light shining through the storm.

I wish I could drown in that goodness, leave the dark behind forever.

Her blue eyes blink nervously. She bites her lip. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Carina starts, hesitant. “But…what happened? How did they die?”

Die?

I stare at her, confused. Then it crashes through me. The way I talked about losing them, about them being gone forever…

She thinks they’re dead.

“It’s not like that.” I finally pull away, shameful. “They’re not…I mean, they’re fine. Alive,” I add, then pause with the weight of the painful truth.

“They’re just not mine.”

Carina blinks at me, looking confused.

Guilt stabs through me. Dammit. I wish I’d never said anything to begin with. God knows what she’ll think of me, but if anyone deserves the truth, Carina does. She’s been braver than anyone I’ve ever known: facing her own past head-on, never once flinching from the ugly facts of her life. She’s shared everything with me, the good and bad, not thinking for a moment how it might make her look.

If she can do it, then so can I.

“Her name was Charlotte,” I start, my voice hoarse with all the times I’ve kept the story locked tight inside. “Is, I guess. We met after my first tour in Iraq, in a bar off-base. I was twenty-two, and she was eighteen. It was her friend’s bachelorette, and they were all wearing costumes, you know, the sashes and crowns.”

I can see her, even now, wearing a baby pink T-shirt and jeans, her dark hair falling in curls around her laughing face.

Carina cautiously takes a seat on the couch again, but I can’t stay still. I pace, restless, digging through the graves of my past again. “We hit it off straight away, she was just so easy to talk to, always laughing and happy,” I explain, feeling a pain echo through my chest. “We hooked up that first night, and just like that, we were together. Everything was great,” I remember, broken. “I got deployed again, but we made it through, skyping and letters and all of that. She would send me care packages with cookies and pies. The guys all loved her for that,” I add with a rueful grin.

I look over at Carina. She’s curled her feet under her, listening carefully. Her face is open, understanding, but I know that’ll change.

“When I got back, we got a place together off-base,” I continue. “Everything was going good, and then…she got pregnant,” I say, casting my eyes away. Shameful. “I…wasn’t ready. I was just a kid, I could get sent back at any minute,” I try to explain, even though I know there’s no good reason. “Her parents were traditional, so we wound up getting married. It wasn’t a big thing, just a couple of witnesses down at the courthouse. Part of me even wanted to run. It felt like my whole life was disappearing.”

I lift my eyes to Carina, hating myself. “So maybe all this is karma,” I say, hollow, “for the way I felt back then, but you have to understand, the minute the doctor put little Kaylee in my arms, that was it. I was ready,” I swear with everything in me. “I would have done anything for that girl, for my family. I would have laid down my life for them.”

“I know,” Carina says softly. “Of course you would have.”

I turn away, pacing again. “I thought everything was good. I served out my last two tours, then put in for a job on base, so I could be home with them. Charlotte seemed happy,” I add, with a hollow laugh. “She was taking night classes again, to get her diploma. At least, that’s what she said.”

I pause, the dark past crashing through me again. All the signs I should have noticed, all the clues I was too blind to see.

Would it have made a difference if I’d seen it coming? Could anything have lessened the pain?

“Kaylee grew so fast.” I force myself deeper into the past, to the most painful parts of all. “She was walking in no time at all, talking too. I didn’t realize I could love anyone that much. But when she smiled up at me, and called for me…” I stop, my chest aching with hurt. “I’ve never known a love that strong. She was everything to me.”

I have to stop now, too choked up for a moment to continue. Carina waits, patient. Silent, letting me take the deep breath that lets me continue.

“She was two when Charlotte told me. It came out of nowhere.” I remember back to that awful day, how I came home, unsuspecting. “Kaylee wasn’t there when I got home. Char said she was with her grandma, that we needed to talk.” I clench my fists at my side, remembering the look in Charlotte’s eyes. She could barely even look at me, she couldn’t even give me that.