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In that moment, as I study my mother’s poised hand, ready to strike her son because she doesn’t want to hear the truth come out of his mouth, I decide that, in the future, when it comes to matters of the heart, I’ll never make anyone else’s relationship my fucking business.
“Just because you eat the minimum piece of toast at 2 a.m. to make sure you don’t dull too much of your buzz doesn’t mean no one else in the house needs to fucking eat!”
“Then don’t. I’ll feed him. I’ll bathe him. I’ll walk him to school. You don’t touch him, don’t yell at him. I’ll do it all.” And I let him.
“My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless.” My father is living that chant right now—believing it. Believing he’s nothing without the uniform. Institutionalized in his thinking.
BLINK. BLACK.
Last night, he forced me to sleep on the porch in the snow . . . I am poison to the men I love . . .
“You cannot apologize for that sort of thing. Those apologies do not get accepted, Tyler. Dom’s anger is my fault. Look at me,” I implore, and he does, his expression a mask of refusal even as I tell him otherwise. “I am a villain, not victim, not a damsel in stress. I made selfish choices and spoke horrible things, many of them were purposeful. Believe my truth and not what you want to see in me.”
“I miss fishin’ buddy very much.”
“the pathetic girl who wrote these letters. I despise her. I want to erase her from existence because the girl cannot be me! I don’t understand her.”
“Il a prédit que je détruirais ce qu’il y a de bon dans tout homme qui choisirait de m’aimer.” He predicted I would destroy the good in any man who chose to love me.
“Si seulement tu me laissais te montrer à quel point l’amour peut être bon, belle femme.” If only you would let me show you how kind love can be, beautiful woman.
I always miss you, General. Every fucking minute of every day I’m not with you. You looked so beautiful riding passenger yesterday, that sweaterdress, your gorgeous hair blowing in the breeze as you flashed me that fucking smile of yours. I thought I was going to lose my shit. Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. Delete. Hold.
I’ll give you back every fucking smile he steals from you, baby. I promise. Backspace. Backspace. Backspace. Delete. Hold.
Seeing my sudden shift, Tyler covers my shaking hands with his own. I bite my lip as I stare down at them. Who will steady my hands when he leaves?
“My soldier would stay,” I whisper as he lifts his hand to stroke my cheek with gentle fingers. He’s so close now that we’re sharing breath, our foreheads touching. “Soldiers don’t stay, General,” he whispers, “but your soldier will come back to you. Every fucking time you order him to.”
“this conversation is past overdue. I’m done tap dancing around this, Delphine. We can’t even go a few minutes anymore without fucking each other with our eyes, and I don’t want to, I fucking refuse to ignore it anymore.” He pins me with his fire. “I want you so fucking much, it’s eating me alive, and I’m done playing ignorant to the fact that you want me too.”
“Why not me?” He continues to gently sweep his thumb across my cheek as if I am what is most precious to him, and I feel the sincerity. Have felt it. “Why isn’t it my place? Why can’t it be? I’m the fucking man who’s been scraping you from every surface your pain leaves you lying on. Talking you down on your worst days, facing your fears with you before tucking you in at night. I don’t have a right to know?”
“I’m coming back. I swear to God, Delphine, I’m coming back to you.”
“Fucking you, making you come. Just the thought of stretching your pussy with my cock is enough to get me off.”
“I don’t live like a boy, think, act, or fuck like a boy. So, it’s probably best that you brush up on that definition before you ever think about applying it to me again.”
“Utterly and entirely yours,” I whisper in offering as she stares up at me, her lips parted, her return expression granting me my answer before I ask the question. “Tell me, beautiful,” I ask her, as tears spill over her cheeks, “is love lying to you right now?”
But unlike that piece of shit you married, I will fight for you, Delphine. I’ll fight you with everything I have to make you mine and to keep you mine. To keep you smiling and happy. To keep your beautiful face free of fear. To keep you protected and feeling safe for as long as there is breath in me.”
“I only lied about one thing tonight,” I say, glancing back at her as I bat the burning tear from my jaw. “If you meant to hurt me, well played. I’m bleeding freely, and for you, I will continue to as much as you need me to. I’ll take everything you have to throw at me. Everything. I’ll eat their sins, I’ll bathe in their wrongs, I’ll pay for the way they hurt you. I’ll take it all—for you. I’ll take it all just for the chance to be with you.”
“GET ON THE bed, spread your legs, leave your hands on your thighs, and don’t take your eyes off mine.”
Naked, open, willing, and submissive, the look in her eyes is filled with a mix of lust and permission. I may just fucking die right now.
“Nothing about this, us, is wrong,”
“J’ai besoin de toi . . . I need you . . . Vous êtes la porte d’entrée. You’re my front door. Tu es mon seul moyen de rentrer chez moi. You’re my only way home.”
“You brought her here,” I whisper for my mother’s sake, “into our home—” “Son—” he starts, voice strangled as he drops the bag. “I heard you fucking her,” I admit hoarsely. “I heard you destroying our family. You didn’t protect me from that, and it’s probably the one and only time I’ve ever needed your protection in the years you weren’t here. Until you became the one I needed protection from.”
“So, my own papa decided that my virtue—that my worth—was worth a spoon of heroin.”
“That doesn’t change the fact you believe me capable of using a tactic so callous to give you an answer instead of simply speaking one. So, I will make it simple for you. I don’t want your jealous fucking love, Tyler. I don’t want any man’s love for that very reason.”
“Love is the fucking liar, Soldier, and the sooner you learn that, the better soldier you will be.”
“You already love me,” I grit out. “Soldier of your heart, your words,” I remind her.
“I love my nephews with what heart remains, and they are all I have left. I won’t be the disgusting aunt who ruined their childhood and humiliated them by fucking their friends. I won’t be the laughingstock of this town who looks so desperate she has to fuck a teenage boy. Go. Do not come back to this house until that look is gone. Go, soldier. This is the last order I will give you.”
“Liar, you fucking liar,” I snap. “You were there,” I say, resentment clear as I lower my voice, “in every sense of the word. You felt it. You kissed me back. You pulled me closer. That was you, Delphine. You can’t fucking fake that.”
The same faith and trust I had in my father. It’s then I realize I foolishly fused it and projected it all into Delphine. I had given her all I had left, and she destroyed me in the same heartless goddamned way. Made me her world like my father had for a time, just to discard as easily. Cast out. Not enough. For either of them. A mistake. A mistake. A mistake.
“Please, Tyler, please cross the fucking street, look into her eyes, and t-thank her.”
“I needed more time to prove myself to you. To deserve you. To convince you. So you will remember, will know just how much I . . . love you . . . I’m so in love with you. So in love with you.”
“I wanted to make you feel what you make me feel. I just needed time.” She lowers her palms to her stomach as if she’s been kicked. “Do you think I deserved you? Never. Never once have I deserved you, but I was going to try to. I was going to try so hard to make all you’ve sacrificed, all the pain, and your patience for me worth it. But she gets to have you. She gets to be worthy of you. I just wanted to deserve you before I die!”
“So no, I have no intention of living the full life I have only imagined with you. That future you’re dreaming up for me is fucking fictional and was created out of jealousy, the same jealousy I would have if I was the one dying and I imagined you moving on. But know this—my future is being stolen right along with yours the minute you leave me.”
“Don’t baby, don’t. Please don’t,” I rasp out. “Keep fighting with me, please.”
“You brought me back to life,”
“We won. We’ve already won,” she declares victoriously.
“The reason I’m not showing you my pain is because I decided the day I found out not to mourn you until you’re gone. Not to let your illness steal our happiness and peace. I don’t know how long I can make it last, but I want to try to hold onto it for as long as possible.”
“Please don’t mourn me. Please let me go when the time comes. I want you to live a full life. You are too young to limit yourself so much. Let me be and remain your first love, Tyler, not your only. Promise me.” “I can’t promise that.” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Dom’s not here to call. He’s not here. Dom’s gone too. Everything feels gone . . . feels wrong. She’s dying. She’s leaving me.
Please, please don’t take her yet. Let me say goodbye. It’s my one ask. One. If you’re there, this is all I’ll ever ask of you.
I was always going to lose her. I haven’t slept in days because of that knowledge. The idea of sleep beckons me, and selfishly I allow that fatigue in. Maybe if I let it take me under, this pain will subside, and my heart will give out. Or maybe life will be merciful enough to complicate that sleep so I can go with her.
“You did so good, General,” I relay as my heart starts to hemorrhage, “do you hear me? You fought so well. You made us safe again. We’re all home now because of you, and sleeping more soundly. You’re the reason we’re okay. All your strategies paid off.”
“Ne me pleure pas. Promis moi. Do not mourn me so long it hurts you, Tyler. Steal your life back the first chance you get. Win again. And when you find her, or when she finds you, let yourself love her as you loved me. Live as both man and my soldier. Win again.”
“You are my forever,” I declare, knowing this is our last fight and one I can’t let her win, and I fucking hate myself for it. But I feel its truth to my core. No woman will ever be able to match her. It’s pointless to conceive of it.
