Full Measures (29 page)

My eyes glanced down to the scar I knew ran through his leg. “You don’t regret losing the one thing you love? God! You were shot! Wounded! Nearly killed, and you just stay in? Do you have some kind of fucking hero complex, or something? Let me tell you, Josh. Heroes die!” My voice caught, and I sucked in a strangled breath. “They die.”

The muscle in his jaw flexed. “I haven’t lost the one thing I love, Ember. You’re still standing in front of me, and I’m fighting like hell.”

“Don’t. I’m not going to stand by and watch you die like my father. I don’t care if you’re almost done with college, nothing is worth that wait, that pain.”

“Your dad believed in his mission. He saved a lot of lives. I knew him, Ember. He was proud of what he was doing. He was proud of me!”

Jealousy stabbed deep. Josh had been friends with my dad because of Gus. He’d talked to him about things I never could, about why he chose the path he did. Josh knew my dad intimately in a way I never would, because I had been too scared, too angry with Dad’s choices to understand.

“Look what he got for it. A doctor in a hospital, not a soldier on the front, and he’s dead! Don’t try to rationalize war.”

Silence enveloped us, and I noticed the crowd gawking as they passed by at the same time Josh did. He pulled my messenger bag by the strap, gently guiding me under the nearby tree so we stopped entertaining the masses.

“Please fight for this, Ember. We are worth the fight. I love you, and that’s something I’ve never said to any girl. I love you more than hockey, or the air I breathe. You love me, too!”

That felt like a giant slap to the face. “My love? You want to use my love in this?” The tears burst free, streaking my face. “I never would have gotten close to you if I knew! I hate what you do. I hate that you lied to me. But mostly, I hate that you let me fall in love with you when you knew! I
hate
that I love you, so you don’t get to use that.” The tears drained my anger into a pit of misery.

Pain radiated from his eyes. “I love you enough for the both of us. I can’t regret anything that brought us together.”

His eyes, his words, they all started to melt through my resolve. “You should have said something.”

He took a tentative step, reaching out to run the backs of his fingers down my face. “I should have given you the choice and told you, but I couldn’t. You are this miracle, something I never thought I was worthy of touching, let alone calling you mine. I’ve wanted you since I was eighteen, but I was never good enough, not for someone like you.”

“Because I had a doctor daddy?” I threw his words back in his face, trying to hang on to the last vestiges of my anger. Anger would keep me alive when Josh had the power to break me.

“Because you were kind, and smart, and seemingly unimpressed with me. Oh, you’d watch; believe it, I noticed, but you had way more self-esteem than to throw yourself at anyone. I had too much respect for you to pursue you. I would have wrecked you back then.”

“You’re wrecking me now.” The confession was soft. I’d known from the picture that he’d noticed me at fifteen, but hearing him say it, the longing in his voice, brought me another notch closer to insanity. I had to be crazy to even entertain the idea of staying with him.

“I love you. You are everything, and I’m not going to let you walk away over a uniform.” He pulled on my waist, bringing me flush against his body. My traitorous nerves misfired, remembering all too well how it felt to be in his arms. “Just let me love you, December, because I can’t stop anyways. I’ve been at your mercy since I was eighteen.”

The fight bled out of me as I melted against him. His brown eyes shone in the patchy sunlight. It didn’t matter in the long run really. He only had a few months left until graduation. I did my math. “You enlisted for the typical three years, and those are up soon right?”

His jaw flexed. “Technically.”

My eyes narrowed. “There’s no technically. Don’t you dare hide anything else from me.”

He glanced around for a moment, like he was searching for his answers in the trees, the buildings around us. “I’ll be done with my enlistment the day I graduate.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Three months. I can do three months.”

His grip tightened on my waist, a little desperate. “My enlistment is up on graduation day because I’ll be discharged from service. A few minutes later, I’ll be sworn in and commissioned as an officer. I’ve been in ROTC since I was wounded. It paid my scholarship, and the guard paid my rent.”

Where was the numbness, the icy feeling that kept me distant? Instead, raw pain, gaping and ugly, clawed its way up and seized hold of me. “You’re commissioning. You’re going career.” Twenty years. The best years of his life given in service, risk.

His eyes said that he wanted to lie, but he didn’t. “Yes. That’s my plan.”

I nodded and smiled, swallowing the lump growing in my throat. Before he could say anything else, I reached up on tiptoes, wound my arms around his neck, and melded my mouth to his. I kissed him with abandon, pouring all of my love, my sorrow, my desperation into him.

As he responded, I found the tree at my back, his tongue moving with mine. His hands left my waist and held my face like I was something delicate, as he kissed me with obvious relief. Everything in my body called out for him and I gave in, angling to get closer to him, reveling that I could be so swept up in someone else.

Everything with Josh was so perfect, and yet so fucked up.

I kissed him once more, gently, drawing onto his lower lip as long as I could, savoring the taste and feel of him against my lips. “I love you so much,” I whispered against his lips. “Thank you for getting me through losing my dad. Thank you for protecting April and loving Gus. Thank you for being exactly what I’ve imagined love would really be like.”

He smiled against my lips, but pulled back startled when my tears flowed against his cheek. “December? Don’t cry.”

I shook my head and stepped out of his arms. The cool air immediately took away the sweet warmth he’d left. “I love you,” I whispered once more.

Denial drew his eyes wide. “Don’t. Don’t do this.”

I cupped his gorgeous face in my hands and smiled through the tears. “Good-bye, Joshua Walker.”

I clutched my messenger bag as I walked away, needing something, anything to feel real. Gravity was gone. I’d just lost the one person who’d been holding me to the earth.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The clock made me nervous. Two minutes left in sudden-death overtime and the Mountain Lions were tied up and down one player. Jagger never could hold his temper. From our seats, Sam and I had a clear view of him across the rink, and he looked pretty pissed.

“He’s hotter when he’s angry,” she noticed with a
click
of her tongue.

“Seriously?” I laughed her off.

“Defense! Defense!” the crowd yelled as Western State raced toward the goal.

My fingers dug into my vest as they shot and missed. The defenders swept out from behind the net and fired it up to the forwards. “Come on, Josh,” I whispered, afraid to say his name too loudly. Every time I’d heard it in the last three weeks I nearly destroyed the ground I’d gained.

Everything hurt. Breathing moved the lump in my throat. Sleeping on the other side of the wall from him meant I couldn’t sleep. Thinking about him shut me down for hours.

Thank God for the pain; it meant I hadn’t gone numb. It meant I was processing, albeit slowly, but still. I hadn’t vanished into myself. I pushed through the pain and acted as normally as I could with a broken heart. After the first day in class, when I’d only smiled politely at him and focused on Professor Carving, Josh stopped trying to talk to me.

I was thankful. I was devastated.

I knew better than to come tonight, but I couldn’t manage to stay away, not when the game was this important to him. It would be the last hockey game of his collegiate career.

Josh flew toward the Western State goal, passing up the other defenders so he was one-on-one with their goalie. My body coiled in tension. He would do it, he would win his team the league championship here. I knew it as certainly as I knew I missed him.

Deke one. Deke two. My heart stopped as he shot . . . and made it!

The arena jumped to its feet, screaming out his name. “Walker! Walker!” He’d done it: captained the League Championship team, scored the game-winning goal. I couldn’t stop the smile that consumed me any more than I could stop wanting to claim him, to say that amazing man was mine. My heart swelled with pride for what he’d accomplished.

The team cleared the bench, swarming onto the ice. He dodged the melee and instead skated over to where I stood against the glass. There was no victorious smile on his face, just those intense eyes staring out at me from under his helmet. He ripped off his glove and placed his palm to the glass where I stood. Helpless against him, I lifted mine and matched it across the glass. I heard a flash, a snap, but I didn’t care. Everything I had wanted to say to him—my pride and my happiness too—was there for him to see.

I was still in love with him. We both knew it.

A faint smile curved his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They dulled in sadness, resignation.

He pushed backward off the glass, but before he turned to where his team was ready to engulf him, he looked back. He pointed to me, and brought his hand to his heart. Then he was swallowed up by his team, and I begged Sam to take me home.

“You sure you want to miss the party?” she asked as we pulled up to our apartment building. “It’s going to be awesome over at the house.”

I shook my head and stepped out of the car. “Not tonight. I just can’t.” I was too weak. Five minutes alone at the house with Josh and I’d be in his arms.

“Okay, baby girl. Get some sleep.”

“Be safe.” She waited until my key opened the front door and then took off for the after-party.

I dressed in my pajamas and climbed into bed, flipping the light switch off. In the darkness, I ran my fingers across the screen of my phone and got stupid.

Ember:
Hey, please don’t reply. I just need you to know how incredibly proud of you I am tonight.

What didn’t I say? That I loved him, that I’d been miserable without him these last three weeks, that he consumed my mind in a way that reminded me of drug addiction and I was going through withdrawals.

Josh:
You were in my head the whole game. You’re in my heart every minute I’m awake. I love you December Howard.

That damn lump was back in my throat, and tears threatened. I should have put the phone down. I should have tucked it into the nightstand. But I didn’t, blurry eyes and all.

Ember:
I know. And you know that I love you, Joshua Walker.

Josh:
I wish that was enough to change your mind.

Ember:
Me, too. Night, Josh.

Josh:
Night, Ember.

I swallowed back the pain, refusing to let the tears come. I couldn’t spend my entire life crying, there had to be a stopping point. I curled up with my phone on my pillow and drifted off to sleep.

Rhythmic pounding on the wall behind my head woke me up in a haze. I glanced at the clock: 2:57 a.m. What the hell? The sound continued, shaking the wall in time. What could he be doing? The only thing on that wall was . . .

Oh, fuck. His bed.

My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, which then shattered again. It’s not like he was cheating on me, right? I turned him down, broke up with him, hurt him. He’d just won the league championship tonight, what the hell did I expect from a playboy like Josh Walker? It was only surprising he’d waited this long.

But that didn’t mean I had to listen to it.

I scooped up my pillow and comforter and headed out to the couch. This time, as I lay down, I didn’t bother to stop the tears; I just let them consume me.

Monday morning, I slid into my seat in history and pulled out my notebook without looking at Josh. I couldn’t. I already envisioned him in bed with that other girl, I didn’t need to see his face to do it.

“Great game, Josh.” Mindy slid past him, running her hand along his shoulder as she claimed her seat. Maybe it was her.

I bit my lip and kept my eyes on my blank paper.

“Calm down, everyone.” Professor Carving pulled his notes onto the lectern. “Oh, and congratulations, Walker. That was quite a shot.”

“I had some great inspiration.”

I nearly gagged on my coffee.

“You must have,” Professor Carving agreed. “Now, we’re onto the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, and I’m assuming you’ve all done the required reading?”

A few muttered assents greeted him.

“Oh no? Pop quiz it is.” A collective groan went up. “Easy peasy. Just write your name on the top and, to the best of your recollection, write down your favorite line from the address.”

I scrawled my name across the top line and brought out of memory exactly what had stuck in my mind. Like I’d ever forget it.

He waited a few minutes before ending the quiz. “Okay, now everyone pass your paper to the right.”

I stuck my paper out at Josh without looking at him. His fingertips brushed against the back of my hand, scalding me, destroying me all over again.

I took Patrick’s paper from my left. He was quiet, unassuming, and, unfortunately for his sex life, kind of acne-ridden. But he was sweet as could be.

“Who wants to read the paper they have? Mindy?”

She cleared her throat, sounding like a porn star. “Forescore and seven years ago—”

“Ah, easy way out! Who else do we have?”

“I will,” Josh answered.

No. I didn’t want to hear his voice, but since plugging my ears and rocking back and forth wasn’t an option, I had to listen.

“Mr. Walker, let’s hear it.”

Josh’s voice was clear and strong. “
That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

There was no sound over the erratic beat of my heart.