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“Because I fucked up. I called out another person’s name when she was giving me a blow job. Didn’t even know I’d done it until she yelled at me.”
“When we’re at our most vulnerable, our most raw, sometimes our true selves come out. I know you were struggling with whether you were into her. Maybe your subconscious answered the question for you?” Pausing, she added, “What prompted Levi’s message? You live with them.”
“I called out their names,” he whispered. “I haven’t been able to face them. I haven’t gone home since it happened.” Connor sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Where are you staying?”
“With Katy’s cousin and his wife.”
“That’s a lot of upheaval and stress. Have you had any more episodes?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “At the garage. One of the boys knocked a toolbox off the bench. The noise set me off.”
She sat quietly and assessed him in the way she did sometimes, waiting to see if he’d fill in any more of the details, but he couldn’t. The flashback he’d had was a bad one. It’d freaked out most of the guys, but Kevin’s father was a Vietnam vet. He’d seen his fair share of episodes, so he’d known what to do. “Connor, you need your family. And Katy and Levi, they’re it for you.”
“No,” he rasped, shaking his head. What was he doing? He couldn’t live like this anymore. He couldn’t stay so close, yet so far. The yearning to see them, to be with them—and not even sexually, although that was definitely part of it—was slowly killing him. Every day he stayed at Nick and Emma’s was a day he was delaying the inevitable. But he was living with a dead dream and clutching its rotting corpse, unwilling to let it go so he could live. And wasn’t that the promise he’d made to Rob? To himself when he’d been discharged from that shithole he’d been stationed in for far too long?
Tears sprang to his eyes, and the remaining pieces of his heart crumbled into dust. Clutching his chest, Connor curled up on the couch and sobbed. He was mourning for himself, the lifetime friendship he’d once had, that was now destined to end if he wanted to survive into the future, even crying a little for the hope that he’d be able to have a normal relationship with someone like Miranda. He’d managed to fuck that up spectacularly. Connor hated being alone, but that’s how it looked like his future would pan out. The vast void stretched beyond him, bleakness wrapping its tendrils around his heart. The screen on his phone blurred more as the tears ran down his cheeks and his chest heaved with sobs.
Leslie, his counsellor, moved to sit next to him, rubbing his back with warm hands. He turned away from her, not able to face her anymore. “Shh, it’s okay.” she murmured, over and over.
Tears fell down his cheeks as he rested his head against the scratchy material of the deep blue couch. He had nothing left, physically or mentally. Exhaustion overwhelmed him. Nightmares had plagued the nocturnal hours, but now they’d morphed into some sick and twisted mind-fuck. It wasn’t just Rob who he was reliving losing in that desert, it wasn’t just his bloodied body he cradled as the life left him, but Lee and Katy too. Watching their eyes dull and them take their last breath had him jolting awake, drenched in sweat and shaking so hard he had trouble unscrewing the cap off a bottle of water.
“I have to go.” Connor tried to sit up, but after not having eaten for two days, his body didn’t even have the strength to do that.
“Your attacks, and I’m guessing your nightmares, are getting worse because of the stress you’re putting yourself under. Talk to me. Let me help you get through this.”
Connor wrenched himself off the couch. Standing on shaky legs and lightheaded, he threw his hands up in the air. He didn’t shout, but it wasn’t far off. “You wanna know what’s wrong? Fine. I’m in love with them, okay? Both of them. And they don’t feel anything like what I do. It’s killing me watching them, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop loving them. And I can’t watch it anymore. Every time I see them, it’s like my guts are being carved out with a rusty fucking blade, and I’m slowly bleeding out on the floor.”
“Have you talked to them about it?”
His laugh held no humour. “Yeah, because I can tell my best mate and his girl that I wanna be between them when they fuck. That’s gonna go down real well.” It was torturing him, but the only way he could think to fix the mess he’d got himself in, was to extract himself entirely. Airlift himself out of the quagmire that his life had become and start afresh in a place where no one knew him, where he could carve out a future for himself away from the two people who meant the most, but who he could never keep. The thing was, they’d never been his to begin with.
Katy
Cold. So, so cold. A shudder wracked her body, rattling her bones. Her muscles seized and Katy groaned. When had she been hit by a freight train? Pain radiated from her very pores and the hacking cough she was suffering from only made things worse. Like a kick to the ribs every time her lungs spasmed, she sounded like a sixty-year smoking veteran. Katy tried to lift her head from her makeshift bed on the couch, needing another blanket from the hall cupboard, but fell back instantly. The daggers shooting through her temples made her vision swim.
The TV was on, but she just wanted quiet. She did her best to keep her head still when she looked around for the remote, but it was a few feet away on the coffee table. Without getting up, she had no hope of reaching it. Whatever exercise equipment they were advertising was just noise, and it hurt her head even more listening to it. Katy bit back tears, slowly lifting a heavy hand to wipe the errant ones that had slipped free. It matched the ones she’d shed since Con disappeared, leaving them as soon as he’d jumped into bed with Miranda.
She hadn’t been well for a few days, but that morning it was far worse. She was only at the shop for twenty minutes when Dylan had insisted she go home. The throb of her four-day headache had turned blinding, the bright sunlight outside her shop acting like a lance to her eyes, spearing right through her. Katy had barely made it home, staggering in the door. She should have fallen into bed, but instead, she’d gone over to the couch, shoved the half-folded clothes out of the way and laid down, watching TV instead of sleeping like she should have.
But the blankets she had folded on the armrest weren’t enough to keep her warm. Desperately trying to reach for another of Levi’s polo shirts in the pile of folded laundry on the floor, Katy let out a frustrated cry when she couldn’t get it. The move sent another jolt of pain through her head, radiating through every inch of her body. She curled in on herself and let the tears fall. She needed painkillers, but she couldn’t get up to get them. And another blanket. She needed her man, but her phone was sitting in her backpack near the front door.
The bang of the screen door closing had Katy letting out a shuddering breath, thanking the stars for answering her pleading. “Lee, babe, I need you.” Her voice was husky, damaged from the barking cough that had slammed her.
“No, Cupcake, it’s me. What’s wrong?” Con asked, the thump of his footsteps quickly announcing his approach.
Katy steeled herself against the agony of moving and wiped her eyes. Con didn’t need to worry about her. He had his own girl to care for; there was no way Katy was going to be a burden on him. She’d manage herself. Hell, she’d been sick before—this was no different. “Never mind, I’m fine.”
Another shudder rocked her, and Katy clamped down her groan, biting down on her tongue to stop it escaping.
“Katy, you’re sick.” Con lay his cool hand across her forehead, and she sighed. She wanted to melt into his touch, let him soothe her.No, no I can’t. He’s got his own priorities. And he left us. He doesn’t need us anymore. I shouldn’t need him.Unreasonable as it was, it hurt that he hadn’t even made time to call and let them know he was staying at Miranda’s for a while. He’d barely even bothered answering their texts. It wasn’t like they were his keepers, but Katy had thought they were friends. And friends didn’t just disappear.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Katy croaked, forcing the words past her throat. Every swallow was like knives shredding her oesophagus. Talking only made it worse. “Get what you came for and go back to Miranda’s.”
“Shut up, Katy,” he chastised her. “You’re burning up. You need to get this fever down or you’ll do some damage.”
Katy moaned, the ache intensifying to screaming pain when she tried to push his hand off her and sit up. “I’ll be okay, Connor.”
