Behind The Scene

CHAPTER 20

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, shaking my head as I struggled to accept his statement.
"Lena, let's not get into this right now, I have to get going."
"To your new job, as a firefighter," I bit back angrily.
"Yes," He snapped. "To my new job, in a new state, where I need to make a good first impression so that I don't fuck up everything that I've worked hard to get."
Folding my arms tightly over my chest, I refused to budge.
"You promised me the last time we had this conversation, that you wouldn't do this," I burst out, remembering the time that his old Captain wanted to transfer him from medic to firefighter.
"I promised I wouldn't take that job," He argued back, "And I didn't, for you."
"But this is different?"
"Yes, this is different," He said with exasperation, "I applied as an EMT, and was waiting and waiting for a position to become available, but there was nothing, and there was no chance of something coming free anytime soon."
"How do you know that? Something could have been right around the corner," I half-shouted.
"It doesn't work like that and you know it."
"Do I?" I sniped, "Because it seems like there's rather a lot about your job, and even you, that I don't know."
Even though I knew I was being a hypocrite, I couldn't stop myself from being so riled up. He'd lied to me. He'd kept something from me. As much as I was doing the same, it was different. My job couldn't get me killed. It wasn't like I'd leave for work one day, and he'd suddenly get a call to say that I wasn't going to make it home. But with him walking into burning buildings, how could I ever feel like I could relax? He knew how much I hated that idea, and he knew that I'd have never agreed to him doing it, and yet here he was... going behind my back to do just that.
"That's not fair, and you know it," He said firmly.
"Neither was you sneaking around and agreeing to a totally different job behind my back."
With a bark of cold laughter, he shook his head, looking skyward before glaring at me, his usual warm, golden eyes now ablaze with anger.
"Because all that matters is you right? How you feel, what you think? He roared, "What about me? About what I wanted throughout all this."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you're the one that left!" He shouted, "You left me behind."
His words were like a slap to the face as I heard the pain hidden beneath his anger.
"You know it wasn't like that," I said quietly.
"Do I? Because it seemed pretty easy for you to just up and leave. You didn't want to wait, but you knew I'd have to." He ran his hand over his face, and when he continued, he no longer shouted, but his anger still lurked in the deathly calm tone, "I did all of this for you, Lena, because I love you. I supported you all these years, fought on your side when your family all said how crazy you were. I promised to uproot my entire life for you, turn my back on all I knew and had, to move across the country so that you could follow your dream, and you couldn't even wait with me so that we could start the journey together."
"You said that you understood," I defended weakly.
"And I did," He shrugged, "I understood it all. I put my own feelings aside because I thought this was a two-way street, and that if ever it came down to it, you'd do the same for me. But here we are." He picked up the bag, throwing it over his shoulder, "I took the job because I couldn't bear to be away from you any longer. I knew you'd never have agreed if I'd asked you outright, but I didn't want to spend another day or week, or month back home, missing out on more time with you and missing the chance to see you finally going after what we'd dreamed about for so long."
The silence was deafening when he finished speaking, and the truth of his words struck me with such force that it felt like someone had punched a hole through my heart. I never knew how much I'd hurt him already, I'd never bothered to look beneath the brave face and supportive words he'd given me. Never considered looking deeper into how he was really coping with everything. I was too wrapped up in what I wanted to consider another view, especially one that could potentially derail my plans. There was so much that I had to be sorry for already, and now, I'd fucked up his first day here, and his first day at his new job among everything else.
"I'm sorry," I croaked, knowing that it wasn't anywhere near enough.
"Yeah. Me too," He muttered, "I've got to go, we'll talk about this later."
He started off toward the door, leaving me to pick up my keys and call after him:
"Wait, I'm giving you a lift."
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure I can figure it out on my own."
And just like that, he was gone, and once again, I was left to stew in my many fuck ups, wondering how in the hell I was going to start to fix them and make it up to the man who'd done so much for me, and who I'd screwed over in too many ways to count.