Torin and Summer

Chapter 8 (Summer): Sedate Him

I'd disappointed Torin when I'd told him I didn't have an answer for him when he'd asked if I was going to give him a chance. He could learn to live with uncertainty. He could learn to live with disappointment. Maybe a taste of what I'd lived with for so long would make him appreciate what he'd put me through.

"Even if you can't give me an answer, Summer, I'm going to keep trying to make everything right between us. You're my wife, and I love you and I'm not going to walk away from us."

"You already did, Torin. To be honest, you practically sprinted away from us."

"I didn't! I never fucking did!" he was almost shouting. "I was trying to help Terry, I was trying to help the agency and I made a lot of shitty decisions that I wish I could take back because I put you too far down on my list of priorities. I was acting like I was active duty -- and who knows? Maybe I was missing working for my country so I took this assignment with the agency too seriously and definitely too far. I fucking took you for granted, I hurt you with my words, and I fucked up everything between us. I hurt you. I hurt you and it's been killing me. I don't know how you're going to forgive me, I don't know how I can make it up to you, but I know I have to try. I have to try because I love you. I love you so damn much, Summer, and I'm sorry."

"I would have given so much to hear that months ago, Torin. Before I began to feel that you didn't care for me anymore. Before I lost hope and met with a lawyer. Before she started the paperwork. Before I felt like there was nothing left between us to save because you'd given me nothing for so long."

"There's a hell of a lot of love between us to save," he insisted, getting up from the bed because he had to be moving. "We can get through this, Summer. I'll fight for us, I'll do whatever it takes."

"You're not hearing me, Torin, but that's not really a surprise because you didn't hear me for more than a year. I was fighting to save us, I was trying to make myself heard, I was trying to get you to see me. And you told me I was crazy and you couldn't deal with me any more."

"That was my frustration talking, Summer! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I was so horrible to you and I took out my frustrations on you at the situation I let myself into. I was trapped between doing my job for the agency and being a husband, and I chose the wrong one. I admit it, and it fucks me up inside, but I chose wrong. Elijah's not my son, but the only father he knew had died in my arms and Terry begged me to watch out for him. He's a little boy and I didn't know what Bridgette was capable of, and then the agency got involved, and knowing Bridgette was on their watch list made me even more scared for Elijah. There was nobody to watch out for him but me. That doesn't excuse what I did, but I want you to understand what was motivating my actions and my frustrations. I realize I should have found another way to protect Elijah without letting it destroy you and destroy us. You should have been the one I was most concerned about protecting."

I wasn't even sure how to answer all of that, but he pressed on, growing more and more agitated, which told me a lot about his state of mind. Torin was military trained to keep his cool even in the most extreme circumstances, and he was losing his shit rapidly.

"I know I should have talked to you sooner regardless of the NDA. Hell, I should have never agreed to the job without talking to you but I missed the service and wanted to serve again in some way like I used to. I made the wrong fucking decision." Realizing just how loudly he was talking, he took a minute to calm himself down. "I made the wrong decision, Summer."

He came back to the bed in a rush and sat beside me, taking my hand in his. "You'd be completely justified in divorcing me for the way I acted the last year, the last eighteen months. But I'm asking you not to. Take some time, let me show you -- remind you -- who I really am. I'll move out if you want, give you some space to think, but I'm fucking begging you not to put a period at the end of our story yet because I think we can still have that love story for the ages like you always talked about when we were dating."

"Tell me what you want from me, my Summer. Tell me what you want most and I'll give it to you."

"I want the fairytale. I want the fairytale ending," I smiled up at Torin as he braced himself above me in bed, my fingers stroking his smooth jaw. "I want us to be so in love it makes other people look at us and want the same kind of love. I want us to still be hot for each other in our sixties and seventies. I want to hold hands when we're in our eighties and still feel that same exhilaration we felt the first time we held hands. I want a love story for the ages."

"Then that's exactly what I'll give you."

"I can't give you an answer now, Torin. I'm still recovering from the surgery that I basically had to go through alone and I'm pissed about that -- in fact, I'm pissed about the entire year and a half prior to my appendectomy."

"I understand and you have every right to be pissed about the way I treated you. So, what about this: don't give me an answer right now. Let's focus on your healing. I promise I won't talk to you about anything except to ask what you want to eat, and other than that, I'll leave you alone and stay out of your way. I'll take you to your doctor's appointments without saying a word, and when you're OK to be on your own, we can talk again. At that point, I can move out or whatever you need me to do."

Since I knew I needed help around the house because of my post-appendectomy-almost-died- because-of-an-infection restrictions, I nodded. "I'll agree to that. You don't talk to me and you leave me alone to think."

"That's more than generous, Summer. Thank you."

I hadn't promised him much of anything, but I saw the tears in his eyes before he turned and walked out of my room.

Two days later, Torin had been true to his word. He'd been like a live-in waiter, taking my meal requests but otherwise not saying anything. Now we were heading to the hospital, where my doctor's office was, so he could check out my incision and make sure I was healing properly.

We were driving in silence and I wasn't sure if it was a comfortable silence or an awkward one. Maybe somewhere in between? Torin let me out at the hospital entrance as I'd told him I wanted so he wouldn't try to argue about it and he just asked me to text him when I was on my way down so he could pick me up. I nodded that I would.

My appointment went well and the doctor was pleased with the way my incision looked and with my healing progress. "Keep taking it easy, lifting restrictions still in place and I want you back in two weeks."

After I checked out, I texted Torin that I was on my way down.

I was crossing the lobby when I saw nurse Chris and a beautiful young woman. Chris saw me and waved me over, where he introduced me to Fallon. 

"Got a rare lunch break in the cafeteria with my girl," he told me, beaming, his arm around her waist. 

"Awww!" I said, happy for them.

"This is Summer," he introduced me to her.

Fallon's eyes lit up. "Summer! I heard all about you!"

"I was out of my mind when I asked for the sponge bath!" I defended myself and she laughed.

"Ha!" she giggled and shook her head. "No, I heard all about your husband. Chris said he never left your side for three days, not even to eat, and one day he was crying so hard at your bedside, the doctors thought they were going to have to sedate him because he was that upset."