Seven Letter Words #Wattys2016

Part 41

Liam

I hung her dress up in the closet and while she climbed into the shower. I slid the mirrored doors closed quickly like the dress was going to bite me. It was the perfect dress and she looked amazing in it, but it ate at me that she wouldn't be on my arm when she wore it. I shook my head and let out a small laugh without humor before letting my hands run down my face and press into my eyes. What the fuck was I doing?

I sat at the end of the bed in the dark room. I didn't want to be reminded of the time and how little of it I had left with her. After this trip we'd have no reason to stay in touch. I thought about Lucas and Bailey—all the emails they'd exchanged, but I'd already fucked up my chance to make it work for us. Lucas was smart; he'd played it cool and was her friend as they stayed in each other's lives. Had he got in deep with Baily as quickly as I'd gotten in with Juliet, I'm sure their story would have ended much differently. Once you take a flying leap from the friend zone, it's hard to argue that staying in touch while each living your own lives wouldn't get awkward.

Yes, I wanted to know how she was doing and I couldn't imagine that ever not being the case. But I also couldn't imagine hearing about her dating someone else. Her walls were too high to let me in so I was stuck in the gray area between friend with staying power and boyfriend that shared her future. I closed my eyes and pictured the wall between us. It was littered with her lists of seven letter words and I wanted to rip them all down. How could she not see that her list was unreasonable? I wanted to add scarred and wounded, because that's what was going to happen to my heart when we went our separate ways.

I considered confessing my truth. What if I told her how I felt and asked her to wait for me? I could convince her. It would be selfish and not what Pines would want, but I could do it. I could promise her emails and phone calls. I could make up the time away from her in the years after I got out. I could ask her to see what happened to her brother as a fluke in the history of Marines in her life. She'd lost him, but that was all.

The bathroom door opened and a wall of steam leaked into the room. She had a towel wrapped lightly around her body as she moved to stand in front of me. She ran her hand through my hair and I rested my forehead on her stomach. She was hot and smelled so sweet, a scent I knew I'd never forget for as long as I lived. "You ok? She asked, gently rubbing my cheek with her hand until I looked up into her eyes. Eyes that were red from tears she'd tried hiding. It nearly broke me. I felt my heart crack wide open, painfully splitting in my chest.

"I want to ask you something," I told her, praying for the strength to ask her and pushing aside any thoughts that I was being selfish.

Her towel slipped down a little and I saw the ink beneath her ribs. I saw it before, but in the heat of the moment I hadn't taken the time to ask about it and by the time we'd finished getting lost in each other, her ink was far from my thoughts. "What?" she asked.

I used my thumb to push down her towel a little further and took the opportunity to stall a few seconds longer, "What does your tattoo mean?" 777 Tinsley. The script writing was small and sat right below her rib. I knew it must have hurt terribly to have ink done there and I had a whole new admiration for the woman standing before me. I smiled up at her proudly.

"It's our address," she said softly, and the slight crack in her voice speared my heart. She sniffed and took a second to look away from me at nothing across the room. When her eyes came back to that black ink, she ran her own finger across it. "I told my dad I would be waiting for him there. I told him I'd always wait for him to come home. He'd leave on deployment and come home to that house. The last time he left he promised he'd come back, and he tried. His body was here and he was getting up every day, but he never really made it all the way back."

I felt fear wrench in my gut and it felt as though I was plummeting quickly off a cliff, my heart racing up to my throat and my lungs frozen from what I already knew was coming. I gripped her tighter as she swallowed down the lump in her throat.

"He couldn't figure out how to be here again. Everyday he tried, but he just slipped further away. He took his own life." Somewhere deep inside my gut I'd already figured out that we were headed to a cemetery. She didn't have to say it, I just knew. What kind of father wouldn't be at his son's funeral? But hearing how he passed changed everything. Juliet hadn't just lost one Marine, she'd lost them all--all of them that mattered any way.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely, my own throat rough with emotion.

"It's OK. I got the tattoo to remind me I waited. I did what he asked, and then I did what Ken asked. And now it's just a home again, not a place where dreams come true—not a place that Marines come home to. In a way I'm free and I never want to promise anyone else that I'll be there waiting. It's just a little house on tiny street," she laughed softly, "with a doomed address and two women who've had to say goodbye too many times."

And that was the truth. It was undeniable and unarguable. So I pulled her close and held her in my arms knowing I'd never have the heart to ask her to wait for another man in uniform.