His eyes flick up at me apologetically before returning to the floor.
“You said the first time didn’t mean anything,” he says. “With Freddie. That implies the second time did.”
“It did,” I say. “But not in the way you think.”
“Do enlighten me,” he says, his cheeks bright with anger. “I’m on the edge of my pew.”
“I was upset,” I say. “More than upset. I was wrecked. I was lonely, and I was overwhelmed, and you’d been gone for almost a year. I got scared that I was in over my head with all this.”
“So you’re punishing me for being in the Navy?” he asks curtly.
“I’m not punishing you for anything!” I spit back. “Do you really think that’s who I am?”
He waits a beat before shaking his head.
“But yeah, you know what, I was angry with you,” I continue. “Your first deployment was hard enough, but the second one did me in. I was mad at myself for telling you to go, but I might’ve been madder at you for letting me.”
“How could I have known you didn’t mean it? I’m not psychic,” he points out.
“Be fair, Nick. You knew it was crazy. But you wanted to go, so you believed whatever would justify it,” I say. “You didn’t want the facts to get in the way of your decision.”
“The Navy isn’t just a lark to me!” he says. “I am useful out there. I am not useful here.”
“You would have been useful to me.” The sheer need in my voice almost hurts my feelings, I hate it so much. “Look, I’m just trying to explain how jumbled my head was. I’m proud of your commitment. That’s why I never asked you to say no to the Pembroke. But you knew you were leaving me in shark-infested waters. How many times did you tell me you were afraid of bringing me into this life? We almost lost each other over that once. And we might lose each other over it again.”
“No, I think that’ll be because you kissed my brother.”
“That’s what I mean about context, Nick.” I breathe out hard through my nose. “I was spiraling. Freddie, too. We both felt lost in your family. Things got really emotional, and intense, and for a split second Freddie thought he was offering us both a way out.”
“And that was a better plan than talking to Marj?”
“I’m Marj’s job, Nick. I’m an equation she has to solve,” I say. “You are the only person who chose me. Everyone else on your side just has to make the best of the fact that I was the one person still standing when Daddy forced you to pick a bride.”
Nick looks up at me. “I never intended to keep my side of that deal,” he says. “What was he going to do, remove me from the military under great public scrutiny? Crack me over the head and wake me up in Gretna Green? I just agreed so he’d let me join up.”
“You never told me that. You never told me anything,” I said. “All I was hearing was that I was a desperate guy’s default option. And the way you charged off into the Navy and never looked back, it started to feel like maybe it was true.”
“I don’t understand why it’s so easy for you to believe the worst,” he says.
“It’s never easy, Nick, it’s agony,” I say, a sob rising in my throat.
We’re quiet while he chews on the inside of his cheek.
“I did not handle our breakup as well as I wanted to,” he says. “The longer we were apart, the more I missed…” He searches for the right phrase. “The feeling of family that you and I had. I wanted it again. I’d never had it with anyone except Freddie.”
His voice catches on his brother’s name, but he keeps going. “So yes, I slept with old girlfriends, and some new ones, and yes, I imagined whether we could have a life together. All those girls would have been easy and palatable choices if any of us had loved each other, but we didn’t, and I realized I’d already had my choice and lost her.” His eyes are moist. “And then suddenly you and I were together again. I couldn’t waste it. The timing was ghastly with the Navy, but I was afraid if I waited, something might get in between us and screw it up again.”
“And it did anyway. Again,” I say, feeling drained.