that, I would never feel it.”
“Easier than grieving,” she said.
“Easier than one day, watching a wife be taken by an enemy. Watching them do to her what was done to me in the prison, and don’t think for one moment they would not. And how, Chloe, could I have gone out and fought in the battlefield if I had a wife at home? If I had loved what was in my household more than I loved my people?”
“You would be a man, rather than a machine,” she said, bitterness in her words.
“I could not afford it.”
“How can you afford this?” she asked.
“It is my life. It is my purpose.”
“Damn your purpose,” she said. “What about what you want?” She scrambled away from him, moving into a sitting position. “What about you?”
“I don’t matter.”
“You do! Sayid, you do.”
“I can’t,” he bit out.
“Your uncle was a bastard. And he was wrong. Do you know what? I’m stronger now that I love Aden. I was weak when I didn’t care. When I buried my head in books and cut my feelings off from everything. I had goals in my mind, and I even imagined I was passionate about them, but they were nothing compared to the love I feel for him. Nothing compared to the depth I’ve found in life, in myself, since his birth.”
“That’s good for you, Chloe, but it isn’t meant for me.”
She turned away from him and started collecting her clothes.
“Chloe,” he said, his voice harsh, “your back...”
“What?” She reached around and felt raised welts across her skin. “Oh, from the rock.”
“I hurt you,” he said, his voice tortured.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Sayid, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” he roared. “This is what you would take from me? Pain? Perhaps you truly are like your mother. And perhaps I am the monster.” He stood and tugged his pants on.
“Don’t say that. It’s demeaning to us both.”
“But it is close to the truth, I think.”
She shook her head. “It’s not. You didn’t hurt me on purpose.”
“But someday, I will cause you pain, and whether or not it happens by my hand, or by the hand of someone else, it is certain. And what you get in return will never match the risk. Because this, sex, this is all you will ever have from me.”
“It wasn’t just sex.”
“Listen to yourself,” he shouted. “Listen,” he said again, his voice lowering. “You know nothing of men, nothing of relationships. You know labs and theory. This is no theory, this is a certainty. I can give you nothing. I want to give you nothing. This,” he said, indicating her body, the wounds on her back, she imagined, “is all you will ever have from me.”
“That’s a lie, Sayid, and we both know it. You aren’t protecting me right now. You’re protecting you.”
“And you want to see what is not there.” He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pressed her palm to his chest. “There is nothing here,” he spat. “Not anymore. Not for you.”
He released his hold on her and turned and walked away, leaving her standing on the beach, naked, clutching her dress to her chest.
She would have given into the despair building inside of her, would have sank to the ground and wallowed in anguish. If she believed him.
If she hadn’t glimpsed the fear and desperation in his eyes that proved that he felt no less than any other man. In some ways, it seemed he felt more. But it was locked down so deep, a well of it inside of him that was ready to overflow.
What she saw was a man drowning in his own body. And unless she reached in to save him, no one would.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
STRATEGY WAS EVERYTHING. Knowing Sayid had taught Chloe that. It was the way he lived his life, the way he taught himself to survive. Sayid’s strategy was to lie. To the world, and to himself.
And Chloe’s strategy was to make it so he couldn’t anymore. She’d given him a couple of days to cool off, had allowed him to avoid her, but now she was ready to make her move. While his defenses were down. And they were down. It was why he’d been so desperate to drive her away, she was certain of that.
“Hello, Sayid,” she said, sweeping into the dining room, Aden in her arms.
Sayid was sitting at the head of the table, a computer in front of him along with his dinner. “Chloe. I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, his voice tight.
“Oh, you mean