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They’d get there.
She just hoped his demons, his family, and her past didn’t get in the way.
Chapter Eleven
Kyle returned home to his parents and stared at them, hoping this time they’d see things his way, that they’d be happy for him. He hoped they’d encourage him, instead of always telling him how he’d failed and that he was no good.
“I saw her again tonight. She looked happy. She and the guy she’s seeing, Eliza’s dad... they looked like they were getting closer.”
Kyle felt uneasy about the guy, but he wanted Shelby to find someone who made her smile the way she did tonight when she was with him.
His parents remained silent, seemingly uninterested, and it pissed him off.
“She wouldn’t talk to me tonight. In fact, she called me a monster.” He fisted his hands at his sides and tried to breathe through the rage brewing inside him. “The guy—Chase—he stepped in between us. He got in my way. I won’t let that happen again. Yes, I want Shelby to have the happiness she deserves, but why does he get to come back into her life like nothing’s happened? Why does he get to be a dad and I don’t?”
His parents stared at him, silent and disapproving.
“I get it. Chase just wanted to show Shelby how muchhe cares about her. He protected her tonight because Shelby thinks I’m some sort of threat. She doesn’t know yet that I love her. That’s why I took Rebecca away with me, so I could show her how much I cared, that I’d protect her and love her always. But then that hunter and the police interfered.”
His parents still refused to talk to him.
“I don’t need your silent judgment.” He slammed the door on them.
No one was going to get in his way this time.
If Chase did again, well, then he’d just have to remove Chase from his path.
Chapter Twelve
“I’m glad things with Shelby and your daughter are going well.” Dr. Porter’s face stared at Chase from the laptop screen. “You seem excited to spend more time with Eliza and work on building a stronger, more intimate relationship with Shelby.”
He definitely wanted things to get a hell of a lot more intimate. He loved spending time with her. He appreciated that she trusted him with her story about her parents. It couldn’t be easy to grow up knowing your very existence reminded everyone close to you about a tragic event and the cost and consequences that followed even though you didn’t have anything to do with it.
Most of all, he enjoyed spending time with her and Eliza. He felt like he was really becoming a part of their lives.
“Things are good.” Understatement, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high because he had a lot of work to do to get to where he wanted to be personally and in his relationship with Shelby and Eliza.
“Those things are good. Shelby’s made it easy on you because she wants what you want. But you need to talk about what’s not working right now, because for all your enthusiasm about them, I can see you’re not sleeping.Since things with you and Shelby are new, and you’ve said you’re taking things slow, that tells me she’s not keeping you up at night and something else is. Things from your past. That’s what we need to focus on.”
“Focusing on the good things in my life is keeping me from drowning in my past and losing myself in depression over the people I couldn’t save.”
“Couldn’t save, or tried your best to save but circumstances made it impossible to do so?”
“Using circumstance as an excuse doesn’t change the fact they’re gone. I see it in my mind and all I can think about is, what if I’d been faster, shot better, gotten there sooner, seen what was coming?”
“You can’t predict all of that in the seconds you have to react in war. Like the time your Humvee hit an IED, or a sniper picked off three members of your unit during a raid, or when your team got hit by an RPG.”
That rocket-propelled grenade came out of nowhere. “I should have been watching the rooftops and windows.”
“The enemy uses the element of surprise to catch you off guard, just like you try to do to them. Shit happens.”
Chase sighed, reluctantly agreeing. “Logically, I know all that, but reconciling it with someone getting hurt or killed and I’m still standing... I can’t seem to get past that.” He thought he’d made progress on that in rehab, but then Juliana died, and he was left standing yet again.
Why him?
Why did he get to live and others died?
Dr. Porter spread his hands over the thick file in front of him. “I read the notes from your therapist at rehab. He spoke to you about survivor’s guilt.”
