I clawed at his hands, my eyes wide. He was choking me with his bare hands, cutting off the air to my windpipe.
Was this how it was going to end?
Was I going to die at the hands of the man I loved?
But this wasn’t him. This was a man I didn’t recognize. His blue eyes were wild and unfocused like he was somewhere else. I gasped for breath, tears streaming down my face.
I saw the moment when it registered with him that I was on the bedroom floor in a chokehold, his hands wrapped around my neck, making it impossible for me to breathe. He released me and sat back on his heels, tugging at the ends of his hair. I tried to breathe through the pain, my hand reaching up to rub my bruised neck.
“Lila,” he said, his voice raw. The moon was so bright tonight I could see the pain etched on his face. “Fuck. Lila. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
He gathered me up from the bedroom floor, pulled me into his lap and held me in his arms, his forehead pressed against mine. His tears mingled with my own.
How had we gotten to this place?
“Talk to me,” I pleaded for the hundredth time since he’d returned home a year ago. Naively, I had believed that when he came home, we could resume our regularly scheduled life. I’d been wrong. So fucking wrong. Even though I was trembling on the inside, I fought through it. I had to ask. “Tell me what happened to you,” I pleaded again. “Please, Jude, I’m begging you.”
He buried his face in the crook of my neck and said nothing. It hurt that he couldn’t talk to me about anything when we used to confide in each other. Now, I was walking on eggshells. Constantly on the lookout for his triggers. Dirt roads. The Fourth of July fireworks. A rustling in the tall grass behind the barn. He saw danger in places where it didn’t exist.
And tonight, all I’d done was wrap my arms around him while he was asleep. I’d done it on instinct, reaching for him in the middle of the night like I’d done so many times before.
Nights were the worst. The circles under his eyes were testament to his lack of sleep.
“I love you,” he said, the words ripped from his throat like they were painful. “I love you so fucking much.”
“I love you more. I… Jude…” I clung to him.
Don’t go.
Don’t leave me.
But I knew that he was already gone. I’d lost him somewhere on the other side of the world. “We need to find someone who can help you.”
He didn’t say anything. He’d been seeing a therapist but it wasn’t helping. He was convinced that no one could help him. He was giving up. I could see the defeat in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said over and over. He kept saying it like that would make everything okay. But I knew that nothing would ever be okay again.
Jude McCallister was the strongest man I’d ever known. He’d survived three deployments to Afghanistan. Five years of active duty in the US Marine Corps. He’d been shot in the head and he had survived. I kept his helmet in my closet. A huge hole had ripped through the material, but the Kevlar had stopped the bullet and had saved his life. My photo was taped inside that helmet and he said he’d carried me with him everywhere he went.
I used to think our love was strong enough to survive anything. Even a combat zone.
I was wrong.
What I hadn’t counted on was the injuries that left no scars. The broken parts that no doctor was able to fix. He’d brought that hell home with him, and I had no idea how to help him. But I would keep trying.
I couldn’t lose Jude.
He was supposed to be my forever and my always.
Jude
I sat on the edge of the mattress and I watched her sleeping. She looked so peaceful. So fucking beautiful, her wavy brown hair all messy and disheveled, her long lashes resting in the hollows beneath her eyes. Those green eyes, the same shade of green as the grass in the meadow. My gaze lowered to the purple marks on her neck that I’d put there two days ago. She used makeup to cover them, but they were still there, clear as fucking day for everyone to see. No amount of makeup could hide the truth.