Every word, every pause, every new, shy inflection in his tone is so close to what I have dreamed that for an instant I wonder whether I’m really awake. But then I see his dimming eyes and the dark circles under them and I know I must be. No matter how much he hurts me, I’ll never want this look of anguish on his face. His rare “please” echoes in the air.

“But all the reasons why you wanted me to leave are still here. What made you change your mind?”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t changed my mind. I capitulated.”

It sounds like a regret.

The tectonic plates start shifting and he pales. “Seeing you last night—white as a ghost, dress in shreds, running in the wind—” He shudders. “I haven’t prayed in twelve years and eighteen days but when I saw you, all I kept thinking was ‘Please, God, please let her be okay!’” He shudders again.

I shudder too, but for another reason. What happened twelve years and eighteen days ago? I want to ask but, instinctively, I know this is something he needs to tell me on his own. Abruptly, he grips my hand in both of his. “I’d rather be deployed again than be unable to protect you. If you hadn’t calmed me yesterday, I have no idea what I would have done…or whom I would have hurt.”

I shiver, replaying the violence emanating from him as he whirled toward Javier.

“Elisa?” His right hand flies to my cheek, then at the hollow of my neck. “I’ve scared you again.”

I nod. “Yes, a little.”

He leans away from me immediately, resting his hand on the bed. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

“I’m more afraid of what you may do to others.” I shiver again.

His jaw flexes. “I’ll destroy anything and anyone that may hurt you, Elisa. Including myself. On that point, I will not negotiate.”

“I understand that better than you think. I’d do the same for you. But it’s how little it takes for you to jump straight to destruction mode that scares me. A broken nail, Aiden? A burned dress? What if I’d fallen and sprained my ankle? Or got hit by a car?”

He says nothing but from his rigid shoulders I know that even these scenarios are triggering his vigilance.

I take his hand again. “Life happens, Aiden. One day, whether naturally or accidentally, something will happen to me. We can’t have you go on a carnage spree just because I got the flu. And what if we’re both very lucky, and one day when I’m ninety, I pass away in my sleep, probably dreaming of you. What will you do then if you’re still alive?”

He blanches. “Don’t talk about that.”

“But it’s a given. It will happen. Are you going to grab your dentures and beat people up with your cane?”

His lips twitch in a repressed smile.

“It’s not funny, Aiden. We need to prepare you for…for losing. For life.”

The semismile disappears. His eyes lose focus, as though this is a frontier beyond which he cannot see. I pull on his hand to lift him off the floor. I can’t watch him on his knees when he looks so vulnerable. I might as well be trying to lift the Coliseum but he understands my intention and sits at the edge of the bed. He grips my hand like a lifeline.

I take a deep breath, choosing my next words carefully. “Aiden, I don’t want to leave. I dread losing you like I dread boarding that plane to London. But it’s one thing for us to do this to each other and it’s quite another for Javier or Reagan or some other poor soul to bear the brunt of it. I think you should see a doctor for your anger…for your PTSD. You’re destroying your own health, your peace—”

“Okay.”

“I mean, the rate of heart attack—wait, what did you say?”

“I said okay, I’ll see someone.”

It takes me a while to find coherent words so instead I blink at him until he almost smiles. “Just like that?”

“It may be just like that for you but it has taken over a decade for me to try this again.”

“Try this again? You mean you’ve seen someone for this before?”

The tension returns to his shoulders. He looks away from me, his eyes resting on the frame I gave him on the nightstand. “Briefly—when I first came home.”

“How briefly?”

“Enough to know I didn’t want to do it.” His shoulders are straight, defiant, as though they agree with that decision, with the part of him that rejects any form of help.

“You’re punishing yourself, aren’t you? That’s why you’ve refused treatment.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his grip on my hand tightens. I take that as confirmation.

“Aiden, why? What do you think you’ve done to deserve this?” My voice rises and cracks.

His eyes start withdrawing slowly, like a prelude to the lock that signals his flashbacks. I don’t want him to drift into any horrors so I keep talking.

“Look, if it’s too hard to tell me, I’ll wait until you’re ready. Or never if that’s what you need. But you can’t just bottle this up. What about talking to the other Marines? To Marshall—”

Abruptly, his index finger flies to my lips. “Elisa, why I think I deserve this is not the point of this discussion.”

“Your health is the point of this discussion.”

“Fine, my health,” he shouts. The bluebirds outside stop chirping. He is breathing hard and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. When he looks at me again, they’re almost liquid.

“You are my health now,” he whispers. “So for you, I’ll try.”

There is only silence. No chirps. No breathing. Not even my own pulse in my ears.

“I’m your health?” I try to say the words but no voice comes out.

He must read lips because he smiles. A sad, no-dimple smile. “Are you really that surprised? From the moment I laid eyes on you, you’ve calmed me better than any drug. And believe me, there was a time when I tried them all.”

A drug… I close my eyes, breathe in, and try to find my voice. “Aiden, I have to ask you something.”

He stills. “What?”

“Well—you use words like drugs and addiction when you talk about me—” I stop because my throat constricts so tightly that it sends a zing through my jaw.

“And you’re worried that that’s all you are to me.” His voice is very soft.

I nod, twisting the sheet in my hands.

Before I can blink, he rips me from under the sheets and brings me on his lap. “Elisa, baby, no! If all I wanted was your calmness, why wouldn’t I just keep your painting? That alone is enough to do the job. I wouldn’t need you.”

“Well, I thought maybe the live thing works better?”

“It is better, but not because I get a stronger high. It’s because you’re more to me than that. You…you make me want…”

“What do you want?” I whisper, fixing my eyes on his so I miss nothing.

They still—the turquoise more translucent than ever. His lips lift into the first full smile today. “I want to take you out to concerts. Fall asleep with my nose in your hair.” He runs his fingers through my tangles. “Kiss you in broad daylight in the middle of the Rose Garden, not caring who is around us.”

All the things he cannot have.

He tips my face up so I can look at him. “I want to be your new home.”

For a long moment, I can’t speak. And that’s good. Because the only thing I want to say is I love you.

Instead, I kiss him hard. He groans and responds so forcefully that we fall back on the bed, our bodies skating across the sheets to the very edge. His hand clamps around my jaw—like it did on our first night.

“I don’t want the fantasy anymore,” he says. “I want the real girl.”

His mouth locks with mine then, our tongues twining with no more space for other words. Or even air. He grips the collar of my T-shirt and rips it off. Before my gasp leaves my lips, he shreds my knickers. His lips start a scorching path down my throat, along my collarbones, to my shoulder, closing around my left nipple. He breathes on it once and tugs gently. It stands at attention, lifting the rest of my body off the bed.