Read Dreaming of the Billionaire 2 Online
Authors: Alice Bright
It's a funny thing, falling in love.
You can feel like you're doing everything right.
You can feel like you're getting everything under control.
You can feel like you're floating and falling at the same time.
You can explode.
You can melt.
You can die.
You can feel everything and nothing all at the same time, but it's never quite what you expected.
Love is always a surprise.
When I finally get to Sean's house, it's after 8. I waltz up to the front door, still on a high from seeing the house I'll soon be renting. It's seriously perfect. I put down a deposit on the spot and can move in next week. I'll only be five minutes away from his house, five minutes away from work, five minutes away from getting the love and kisses I want whenever I want them.
That is, if I survive what Sean wants to tell me tonight.
He opens the door as soon as I ring the bell and lets me inside. He doesn't kiss me. He just steps aside so I can come in. There's a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes are dark. Has he been crying? No. I don't think he has, but could he have been?
"Sean?" I ask. "Are you okay?"
"Let's sit down." He walks to the couch and slumps down, downing the rest of his whiskey. He slams the glass onto the table and leans his head back. I don't say anything as he closes his eyes, obviously struggling. What is it that's so horrible? What is it that he has to say?
"Baby?" I put my hand on his knee, but he jerks away. What the fuck is going on? This isn't the Sean I know. This isn't the Sean I've fallen for.
"You can't touch me, okay?" He says it slowly and deliberately, as though it's painful to say, as though he can't quite express what he wants to. It's almost like touching him is a distraction and he needs all of his energy just to get the words out.
"I'm right here," I tell him. "I'm not going anywhere. Take your time."
"I was in the military," he says, but I already know. I saw the pictures in the guest room. I know that he served. With what branch or for how long, I don' t know. He's never talked about it and that information wasn't exactly in his Wikipedia article.
"And I was overseas," he tells me. "I was happy to serve. I even volunteered to go. My dad tried to talk me out of it, said it was no place for me, but I wanted to do something. I wanted to give back." He pauses and I resist the urge to place my hand back on his knee. I want to touch him, to reach out, to have some sort of connection, but it's not what
he
needs right now.
He needs me to just be.
So I'll be.
"Everything was fine for the first few months," Sean continues. "We got into a routine, sort of. Things were normal. Things were fine. But one day, everything changed. One day, we got shot at."
I try not to gasp, but I can't help it. Shot at? Seriously? How terrifying is that? I've never even held a gun, much less heard one go off. The pain in Sean's eyes is evident, though. The horror he's feeling is real. He survived combat. He was in war and he walked away, unscathed.
Sort of.
"We didn't know what was happening at first. When it happens, you've been trained for it, you know what's going on. You get it, logically, but you don't really
get it.
There's a disconnect. It seems like it's happening to someone else."
Sean sniffs, and I look back into his eyes. Tears are running down his cheeks.
"Baby, we don't have to do this," I say calmly. "We can do this another time. It's okay. We don't have to talk about it."
"No," he says. "I've waited long enough. It's not fair to you to not know this. I should have told you a long time ago."
He takes a deep breath and continues.
"Mark was my best friend. We were inseparable. When the first shots happened, we all responded the best we could, but I didn't know he'd been hit until it was too late, until I saw the blood."
Sean starts sobbing now, crying louder, and I forget his no touching rule. Instead, I wrap him in my arms. What the fuck is going on? His best friend? Aside from my dad, I've never seen a grown man cry. The way his entire body shakes is unbelievable. The way he's breaking is unbearable. How am I supposed to be the strong one here? How am I supposed to support him through this?
"He died. He died in my arms. He died and I didn't save him. Couldn't. Didn't. He died. And I...I should have saved him."
"Sean," I hold him tighter. "Sean, it's okay. You did everything you could." I struggle to find the right words to offer comfort, knowing the entire time that nothing I say will be enough. He lost his best friend, his brother, his companion, during a time when there was nothing he could have done. He did everything he could have, but it wasn't enough.
How do you comfort someone when they're dealing with that?
Sean stops crying and pulls away, wiping his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm not trying to freak you out. You just...you need to know this about me, Violet. If we're going to make this work, you need to know what you're getting into." I know that he's right, but it doesn't make this any easier. It's not easy to listen to the person you love tell you how broken they are. It's not easy to listen to how much pain they've had to endure alone. It's not easy to hear how they hurt.
I nod and he goes on.
"When I came back, my girlfriend was waiting for me. She didn't know I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Neither one of us knew. I didn't talk about what happened and she didn't ask. She was just glad I was home."
My stomach clenches at the thought of him with another woman, a woman he shared a home with, but I try to push it aside. This isn't about jealousy right now. This is about Sean confiding in me. This is about Sean sharing his darkest pain with me.
"The nightmares were bad. Every night I'd wake up in a sweat, reliving that moment. I couldn't be in crowds. I couldn't watch television. I couldn't be around anything to do with war or guns or violence. Shit, I couldn't even drive down a gravel road. The rocks hitting the car reminded me of gunshots. I couldn't do it. I freaked out.
"Eventually, Tiffany started to get worried. I stopped going to work. I'd just lay in bed all day. It got bad. She begged me to go to counseling and I did for awhile, but then I stopped. The diagnosis scared me. The medication didn't seem to work the way my therapist promised me that it would. The whole world seemed cruel and dark."
He pauses, catching his breath. My own heart aches for Sean. How could I have not known? How could I have not seen the signs? PTSD. Of course. This explains the no sleeping in his room thing, how uncomfortable he was at the donor luncheon on campus, even how he missed work unexplainably. It explains everything. He's not hiding a secret girlfriend: he's hiding a secret world of pain and horror.
Sean is suffering.
He's broken.
He's the strongest man I've ever met, but he's damaged and hurting.
And he's not even done talking yet.
He takes a deep breath before he continues.
"One night, it all changed. The nightmare was the worst I'd ever had. It was so real. In my dream, I was seeing him die, but I fought back. Only, I was actually fighting back."
He looks at me, making eye contact.
"And it was Tiffany who was in my bed, not the shooter."
Oh my. Holy shit. What the fuck. What the fuck happened?
What the fuck did Sean do?
I don't have to wait long to find out because he keeps talking.
"I broke her wrist. She was my whole world, and I broke her."
The tears still fall, but they're silent now, racing down his cheeks and dropping onto his hands, casting me into a world I've never been a part of. No longer is this a relationship of joy and excitement, of newness and pleasure. Now there is only pain.
Now there is only darkness.
And I don't know how to find my way without a light.
Look for the third and final installment of Dreaming of the Billionaire, coming March 1st!
Alice Bright spends way too much time dreaming up characters who fall in love with each other. When she's not writing, she can be found playing her keyboard or reading a book by one of her favorite authors.