Torin and Summer

Chapter 14 (Torin): I Got Lost

The agency came, the police came and then the coroner came. If I hadn't already decided before, if I hadn't already figured it out previously, tonight would have cemented my decision. I was over this shit in a huge way.

Fortunately, I was able to keep Summer out of it for the most part. The various agencies and law enforcement questioned me and ruled it self defense. Bridgette's wild shot and her suspected involvement with a shadowy organization was a huge fucking help.

When they finally left with the body, Summer, who'd sat herself at the kitchen table away from the grisly scene, went to her room, and I stationed myself outside her door, waiting for it. Leaning against the wall right next to her door, ankles crossed, arms crossed over my chest, I tipped my head back and tried not to think about how close it had been, how much danger Summer had been in.

Because of me.

After an hour, it came. I heard it, and even though I was the last person she probably wanted to see right now, I was the only one here, so she was stuck with me. I knocked on her door and she was either ignoring me or hadn't heard me, so I turned the knob and walked into her room. She was face down on the bed, crying uncontrollably, her sobs shaking her body, the choking sounds biting into me.

Seeing this woman I loved in so much pain was the most helpless feeling in the world. I didn't like not being able to do anything for her, so I'd do what little I could. Sitting down on the bed, back against the headboard, I lifted Summer over to my lap.

"I'm so mad at you," she choked out, stiffening in my arms.

"Be mad at me later," I told her as I gently pressed her head to my chest. "For now, I'm just here to hold you through this Summer storm."

It was an old name for her tears. The first time I'd seen Summer cry, I'd been shocked at the intense way the tears hit hard, like an unexpected cloudburst. One minute, it was sunny; the next, rain was pouring from the dark sky and lightning was flashing all around.

"That was like a summer storm," I'd said to her when it was over and she eased herself back from me, out of my hold. "Never seen anything like it, Sum."

She'd shrugged as she wiped her eyes. "That doesn't happen often, fortunately. It has to go deep with me, but when I do cry, it just kind of bursts out of me like that."

Tucking her head under my chin, I wrapped my arms around her and, after a few minutes of holding herself stiffly, she relaxed and started crying again. If the words she was speaking were English, I couldn't tell. They were garbled and incoherent, but the confusion, horror and fear from tonight bled through every sound. I just let her talk, knowing it would be better for her to get it all out.

I could tell myself all the seemingly valid (at the time) reasons there were that I did what I had done, I could blame my willingness to stick with the job on feeling lost, I could try to explain every single shitty thing I did and said, but in the end, it didn't make a difference. The bottom line was I hurt the person I loved in many and various cruel ways.

I'd let other things take precedence over Summer, over our relationship. And I honestly didn't know if there was any coming back from what I'd done. Feeling my wife's small form shuddering in my arms was a special kind of hell. It was one thing knowing she was having a reaction to what happened, it was another to know that the what happened was because of me and my hero complex, my desire to keep working for the government.

Tolkien said not all who wander are lost, and that was true, but I'd discovered that the reverse could be just as true: those with a specific direction sure as hell could be lost. I'd always had direction, always had known my mission, but when I'd been honorably discharged, I'd been lost and it was months before I could sleep without dreaming of Terry dying in my arms.

Losing Terry the way I did was just one of the ways you could lose someone. The only way you'd see the people lost to death was through dreams...or nightmares. But losing someone who was still alive...that was almost harder to take. She was still alive, still walking the earth, but Summer was still unreachable and out of my life not due to death but to choice. I was witnessing the end of our relationship not due to death but due to my own bad decisions. 

I could see her standing right in front of me and slipping away because I'd put my needs over hers. I'd said hurtful, disrespectful things to her. I'd made Summer question my love for her and I didn't blame her because I'd shown her that I was putting myself and my needs above her. What kind of husband does that? 

The very worst kind.

Could a marriage come back from the kind of shit I'd put her through? Had I killed all the feelings she'd had for me? Did eighteen months of being a shit husband wipe out all of the extremely good years we'd had together? I didn't know, and Summer had told me she didn't know and her opinion was the only one that mattered in this case. The decision was out of my hands; my wife was the only one who could provide the answers for where we went as a married couple. 

We'd either work it out or divorce.

The only thing I could do was show her that staying married to me would be different going forward, the way we had been before I'd lost sight of my wife and had focused on me. Being a hero was enticing, and the allure of it had blinded me to my responsibilities as a husband, over and above anything else.

I hugged my wife to me more tightly, murmuring soothingly to her while thinking about what she needed, what I could do to give her what she needed. A list began to form in my mind, and although it was risky, although it wasn't what I wanted to do, it was what I needed to do for Summer. 

Her sobs began to lessen and I rubbed her back, memorizing the feel of her in my arms. Ironically, knowing what she'd gone through tonight, what she'd witnessed, I knew she needed to get some help for dealing with the terror and high emotions, the reality that she came close to losing her life. I'd gone through something similar when I'd been deployed but had buried those emotions because I was a man and uncomfortable emotions were better left ignored. I could power through that particular darkness, only...I hadn't. At least, not in a remotely healthy way.

You need to deal, too, Torin. You fucked up your relationship with your wife because you couldn't bear the thought of standing still and having to deal with Terry dying in your arms. You couldn't save him, couldn't be the hero, so you had to be the hero for his son. 

That was crystal clear, as was the wrongness of the way I'd treated my wife. So much can get in the way of a relationship and refusing to confront your own fears and never dealing with them can destroy the very thing you love the most. 

Pressing a kiss to her head, I was relieved that Summer had stopped crying as hard, her breath now hitching like a hiccup occasionally as she worked through the tears. Her head was on the left side of my chest, her hand was on the right side of my chest, covered by my hand.

This is who I am, Summer. This is the husband that I was and want to be again. Will be again if you can forgive me. That's a big ask, I know, and it may be too much, but I want to give you that fairy tale. I got lost but I swear to you, I found my way back and I'll never lose my way again.

Summer eventually fell asleep in my arms, and I held her, knowing she felt safe for now. Knowing when she woke up, things were going to change.