Devil’s in the Details (60 page)

I knew Alex was worried when I slipped a step, keeping her at bay for a second. Then when I looked at her as Ward called me up, I felt all of the fear of losing her rush over me like an avalanche and I let go, telling her I loved her. Doing so cemented so much inside of me, it cemented the fight I was now in and the one that was still coming for us.

I pushed through the double doors, looking at Alex standing in the middle of the courtyard. The night breeze twirling her skirt and hair around, making her look like an image right out of any romantic movie. I reached into the jacket pocket, opening the matchbook and removing a match, I read the note one last time before lighting the thing on fire and dropping it in a ashtray.

-We need to have a conversation, Chimera. OM-

I clenched my jaw, holding the matchbook as long as I could. Watching the flames eat away the black ink and the entire message, before the heat licked at my fingers. I flicked the burning paper away and took a deep breath. "Alex, we can go home if you would like."

She kept her back to me, "Is that what you want?"

I stopped to stand a step or two behind Alex. She was upset and I knew I was the culprit. "I want you to have a good time tonight. Enjoy yourself, feel special and maybe dance with me."

Alex's head tilted up to the night sky, "Why does this always happen? We find a good place, and I mean a really good place to be and I think to myself, this is perfect. Then something or someone tugs on those mysterious parts of you and it all falls to shit." She half turned to look over her shoulder, "Can you answer that, Victoria? The why's?"

I looked down at the white pea gravel of the courtyard, "I don't understand, Alex."

She spun around, glaring at me, "Yes, you do understand. There isn't anything you don't understand, Victoria." She folded her arms over her chest, turning to look down the length of the courtyard. "You understand that Dani got under my skin tonight, casting a new set of doubts about her place in your life. You understand that I wanted this night to be about us, opening up a new chapter for us to continue writing our story in."

She paused, her jaw twitching, "You understand how much I love you and how long I have been patiently waiting for the day to hear you say it back to me." She bit her bottom lip, her eyes shining as the moonlight sunk into the tears brimming. "Dani was right, she seems to always be right about you. You say it like it's nothing, just a few words strung together."

I cringed hearing the last bit. “Alex, I meant what I said." I licked my lips, "Dani isn't right about me, she doesn't know or understand the why's I carry with me."

I took one step closer, feeling my irritation compound as I was about to open up more to this woman in front of me, knowing that it would be painful and bring her deeper into a world I was scared to live in alone, let alone bring Alex into it.

Alex shook her head, "Leave it Victoria. I will be fine in a few minutes and we can go back inside and pretend for however longer you need to."

I grit my teeth, "I've pretended for ten years. You're the first person I have shed my thick skin for." I felt my anger spiraling up, "Alex, look at me."

She sighed heavily, "Victoria, please. I want to be alone before I say something I regret."

I felt my temper flicker, her pissy attitude combined with everything else, pushed my last button. "What are you going to say, Alex? Say it, look me in the goddamn eyes and say it. I never want you to think I can't handle the truth." I half shouted it at her, startling the brunette to turn and face me. I chuckled, "I understand you're pissed off at me, pissed off that my only friend in this world, the annoying redhead is shoving me into humanity kicking and screaming. Seeing that the woman I love is the only person I have ever loved, and she is doing everything she can to make me see it and make you see that."

I looked up at the sky. "Are you pissed that I finally told you I loved you in the way I did? That it fell out of my mouth like a yawn or a spontaneous utterance? Because guess what Alex, I didn't know how to tell you that I love you and it fell out of my mouth in that moment, because looking over at you, you were the one thing in that entire room that grounded me."

I closed my eyes, "God do I love you, Alex, have from the first moment your big blue eyes looked in mine." I bit the inside of my cheek, "But through my entire life, love has been a casual idea. I don't have a good foundation of family love to stand on, just my alcoholic grandmother who isn't really mine. I never learned how to love like people wanted me to love them. The desert and the war took that away from me."

I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks, I opened the emotional dams that had been sealed for a decade. "I never thought that stupid word would ever apply to my life, I never cared about anyone to the point that I wanted to use the word until you. But then my life, my life is a complicated pile of shit at times that I am scared to love knowing I can, and probably will lose everything and everyone I love."

I glanced at Alex, staring at me with a hard look, "I struggle every goddamn day, and I know I have told you that I’m not good at expressing normal things like a normal person should. I could blame the PTSD or a thousand other things, but the thing is I struggle, and I know you see it the instant it starts, but I can't stop it. I struggle when we are outside of our bubble and I have to interact with the world I live in and not show anyone that you are the most important piece of my heart, my soul, my reason to change everything I am."

I swallowed hard, the old man's message burned in my mind, "If the world finds out how much I love you and how completely weak and human you make me, I will lose you." I half smiled, feeling the waves of exhaustion roll over me, "It's not the PTSD, it's not Dani whispering snarky comments in your ear, it's not the lifetime of lies I have told myself and the world. It's the double life I live and the fact that I have never loved anyone like I love you, Alex, and I struggle with the fear that my love might not ever be enough to keep you safe." My voice hung in the stillness of the night. I didn't realize I had been half yelling throughout the whole diatribe.

I rubbed at my forehead nervously. The truth still lingered, the full truth was right on the edge of my tongue, ready to spill out onto the courtyard. Throw the black hooded figure in between us and point at it, revealing to Alex that I was a killer. I was a killer who had killed hundreds over the years and killed for her.

I clenched my jaw to hold back the words, looking up at Alex. She stood facing me with tears covering her cheeks, but she wasn't flinching or reacting to any of what I said. I had finally broken the woman, shattered her.

I shook my head, digging into my pocket for the car keys. I moved closer, picking up her hand to place the car keys in her palm. "I'm going to walk to for a while, I don't want to be here anymore." I smiled tightly, turning to walk away. "I don't know what else to say, or do, to get you to understand Alex. I'm not asking you to blindly accept my faults, or the bullshit I carry on my back. I couldn't do that to you, punish you with the life I had before you changed it all. There are things I have yet to tell you and I pray to hell and back I will find the courage to do that."

I took one step away, squinting in the direction of Goaties, my instinct suggesting I meet up with Dani and indulge in old traditions. "Tell Ward I’ll talk to him on Monday." I turned back to the still expressionless Alex. With a weak smile, I nodded, "The only thing is the world that I know is real, is how much I fucking love you, Alexandra Ava Ivers."

Sniffling I turned, tucking shaking arms close to my chest I started the wobbly walk to Goaties, shaking my head as grandma Edith's wise words filled my head. "Love will kick you in the tits any chance it can. That's the torrid affair called life, kid."

I frowned, I was starting to hate myself for every choice I had made in this torrid affair I called my life.

I watched her walk two steps away from me before I reacted. Clenching the car keys in my right hand, I shook my head before pulling my arm back and launching the keys at Victoria's back.

The black key fob glanced off her shoulder before falling into the gravel right in front of her, effectively stunning the blonde. She stumbled, looking down at the keys cradled in the white pea gravel. She turned to look over her shoulder, a confused look adding to her flushed cheeks.

I took in a steady breath, "You're taking me home, Victoria. You brought me here and you're going to take me home. That's how dates work." I tried desperately to keep my voice even and strong, but it wouldn't last long. I was completely taken aback by Victoria's strange, yet incredible outburst.

She had made up for telling me she loved me like she was reading off a grocery list by expressing almost everything I had been waiting to hear for a year, but then there were the undertones of fear, apprehension, and double meanings tucked away in her words.

I was still angry at her, but there was no chance in hell was I going to let her walk away from me like she had in the past. I needed her to stay, face me, face us and face whatever demons sitting on her shoulder. Rubbing my arms to warm them, I stared at Victoria. "I'm waiting. It's getting chilly out so you should probably hurry."

Victoria's face softened, “Alex, I thought…."

"You thought what? That you had succeeded in scaring me off for the third time? Laying open more pieces of you that you think will scare me?" I blew out an irritated sigh, "I mean I never heard you say fuck before, that part was rather different. The rest?"

I waved my hand in the air, "I've had three serious relationships in my life. My college boyfriend who turned into a shit after I thought he was the one. Then there was the X-ray tech in New York that I really wanted to be the one, and I told him I was in love with him and he proceeded to tell me he was in love with the Pediatric surgeon I worked with. They were just married last fall. Then there was the cop, James."

I sniffled, the cold air getting to me. "James was my everything. I dated him for a couple of years before it became a roommate situation. I told him I loved him and goddamn did I mean it. I had started picking out dresses and flower arrangements. Dreaming about an upstate ranch where kids and dogs could run free from the city. Then he and I came to an agreement, it wasn't love we were in. It was a fear of trying to live life to the fullest since our jobs were so unpredictable."

I paused, looking up into the stormy slate grey eyes. "Then I met you and I fought it. I fought the warm feeling you brought whenever you were near me. The crazy tingles you gave me when our hands touched, or you grabbed me from walking out into traffic because I’m a ditz. I was scared for a very long time, of the feeling choking my heart and soul and like you, I had a string of shit in my life that lead me to believe love was only for the movies and greeting cards."

I bit my bottom lip, "Then I gave up fighting and I chose to live, fear or nor fear and I fell in love with you. So deep and hard that I put blinders on to look past the little things my gut tells me to pay attention too. Yes, it's only been two weeks at best in this relationship, but it’s one that is the last one I ever want to be in. I want a future with you. A house of our own with a hopeless garden in the backyard, a dog or two that likes me but loves you, and I want to grow old sitting next to you on a porch swing looking back at the good old days." I sighed, "I don't care if this is overwhelming, my love for you has been overwhelming and new, so I understand your struggle. I really do, Victoria, because fuck, sometimes it's so hard to get through to you unless it in a situation like this. I hate confrontation, especially when it's with you."

I took a step towards Victoria. "I’ve waited patiently for you to tell me how you felt about me. It was like waiting for Christmas day and unwrapping the pony I always wanted, and when you finally say it, it's in passing like you're pointing me in the direction of the bathroom. So yes, I am pissed at you for that. We have been friends for a year and a half, I trust you implicitly and would hope you'd trust me as much to not profess your love like you just did in that room full of people."

I blew out another breath, I was on a roll and didn't want to slow down, "Then I’m pissed off at you that for whatever reasons that is trapped in your beautiful mind, you think that loving me will start the next great apocalypse. Well, you know what? So be it, Victoria. Let you being in love with me be the end of the world as we know it. Because at least at the end, while we watch the sky burn, we will know we both followed our hearts and loved truly, deeply and with reckless abandon."