Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5) (12 page)

“What brings you by?” Gig asked.

“I can’t hang out with my friends?”

“I dunno. Been a while.”

Shit. How rude was she, popping in unannounced? “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-”

Crunch pulled her back onto the couch. “Don’t listen to him. What’s on your mind?”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“You could never bother us.” Jones smiled. “We kinda missed you.”

If that didn’t increase her guilt tenfold. “I’ve been a shitty friend lately. I know.”

“You were in the hospital,” he said. “It’s understandable.”

Yeah, but she hadn’t taken the time to reach out to any of them since then. Caroline patted his knee. “Natalie told me you were the one who scooped me up and got me on the helicopter.”

“It was nothing.”

Jonesie was entirely too humble sometimes. “Not the first time you’ve done that sort of thing for me.”

“I’d do it again if I had to.” He lifted his hand toward her eyebrow and pulled back. “You feeling better?”

“Relatively speaking.” Caroline didn’t want to burden her friends but hell, she was breaking just about every rule of relationships tonight. “I haven’t had a very good day. It’s actually been a shitcan couple of years.”

Crunch put his arm around her. “We know. What happened?”

“I trashed our apartment. Jack’s apartment, I mean.”

“In what sense?”

“Like, I demolished most of the bedroom.”

Jones scooted closer to her as Gig turned the television off.

“Why’d you do that?” Jones asked.

“Today is our anniversary,” Caroline said softly.

“Is it a tradition for you to wreck things as a celebration of your wedding?”

Trust Jonesie to try to lighten the mood. “No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I forgot what day it was.”

It was pretty obvious Jones didn’t know what to say. “Oh.”

Gig sat down on the floor facing the couch. “What really happened?”

“Jack gave me a couple of gifts and I flipped out, locked myself in the bedroom, and all but torched the place. In fact, it’s a good thing I didn’t have any matches or the entire building would be on fire right now.”

He pressed on. “Why’d you do it, Gerard? Honest answer.”

Maybe opening up to the guys hadn’t been the best idea. “I can’t – he’s being so nice to me and I don’t – I just trashed the room. I don’t know why.”

“When was the last time you looked at a calendar?” Gig asked.

“I have no idea. I used to intuitively know what day it was, but that skill has disappeared.”

Jones squeezed her knee. “Don’t mean to be a jag, but you
have
been hit in the head a lot.”

He was grinning at her. “It’s not funny,” she said.

“It is,” he said. “Man, I’m surprised you’re walking around and speaking in complete sentences.”

She smiled slightly. “It’s really not funny.”

He patted her back. “Come on. Lighten up.”

“What kind of woman forgets the day she got married?” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s more than that,” Gig said. “Something else is upsetting you. I can’t imagine that Jack wasn’t able to overlook your bad memory.”

“I wish I knew what it was.”

Gig frowned but didn’t say anything.

“You’ve been through a lot,” Crunch said quietly. “I’m glad you’re finally confronting it. First with Natalie, and now with the commander.”

Caroline wondered if Crunch would ever feel comfortable addressing her husband by name. “I’m not sure it’s helping.”

“These things take time,” Gig said. “You have to be patient.”

Patience. Everyone had to have infinite patience. Especially with her. What happened when it ran out? Caroline shook her head. “Easy for you to say. I just want to go back to the days of shooting shit at the range and beating up bad guys.”

“Or guys who are interrogating you,” Jones joked.

“That too.”

“You can’t go back to that,” Gig said. “You’re more than a mindless machine.”

Jones patted her back again. “It’s okay, Princess. You gotta deal with this, you hear? You’ve been bottling it up for too long.”

Even though their words were unexpected, they made her feel a bit better. “How come you never pushed me?”

Jones laughed. “I didn’t want you to beat me up. Can’t speak for anybody else.”

“It wasn’t our place,” Gig said. “You had to figure it out on your own.”

Crunch grinned at her. “What they said.”

Caroline sighed. “I’ve been doing a shitty job of spending time with all of you lately. I’m sorry. Jesus, I practically ignored you the last few months save for asking you to go out and risk your lives on a suicide mission.”

Crunch put his arm around her too. If they could drag Gig up on the couch they could get a group hug going. “We understand,” he said.

“We’re here if you need us,” Gig said.

She rubbed her eyes. “Do you ever think about what happened to Gabe?”

Crunch pulled back and Caroline felt Jones stiffen. Even Gig shifted away. Clearly she’d hit a sore subject.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Forget I brought it up.”

Jones stared at his feet. “I miss him. An awful lot.”

Maybe he was waiting for the floor to swallow her up, since that was what she wished would happen. “I don’t miss him as much as I should,” Caroline said.

“You miss him as a friend,” Gig said. “Which is normal.”

“I guess.”

“Gabe was a good guy,” Crunch said. “He did a lot for all of us.”

Caroline glanced over at him. “But especially me.”

Crunch smiled. “Yes. Especially you. But I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him. I owe him as much as you do.”

“Man, all I wanted was a place to crash,” Jones broke in. “And I ended up in some grand escape plot featuring Princess here.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t done it?” Caroline asked.

He gave her another hug. “Not for a minute.”

Caroline smiled at all of them. “I feel like I’m Dorothy and you’re my crew.”

“Don’t make me the Cowardly Lion,” Jones said. “Fuck that.”

She laughed. “I’m not going to assign you roles. But I’m so grateful I have you.”

“We’re not the only ones you have,” Gig said.

Goddammit. He was angling for something. Caroline looked down at her hands. “I know.”

Gig looked at his watch. “It’s late. You should go.”

She wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. “Can we watch some baseball for a little while?”

He hesitated briefly before picking up the remote. “Sure.”

The game went into extra innings. Crunch and Jones started to nod off on the couch before they caved and admitted it was past their bedtime. They headed back to their apartments and it was just Caroline and Gig in the living room. A Dodgers outfielder popped out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the twelfth and Gig turned to Caroline.

“Damn late now,” he said, yawning. “Can’t hide forever.”

Maybe she could avoid a lecture if she made a quick escape. “I know. But I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. Where I’m supposed to go.”

Gig opened the door. “Go home,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“Go home.”

Just thinking about that word, that concept, that
dream
, filled her with an interminable sadness. “I don’t have a home.”

“You know what I mean. You know where home is. Go back there. Now.”

What good would that accomplish after all she’d done? “He’s probably asleep.”

“Wake him up.”

“I don’t-”

“Then wait. You’ll figure it out. But you don’t belong here with me, or with any of us. You need to be with him. You fucking know that. You’ve
always
known that.”

“Steven-”

Gig smiled. “Don’t pull that,
Caroline
. I mean it. Jones and Crunch might not see it but I do. Get your ass back there and live your goddamn life.”

As far as lectures went, she’d gotten off pretty easy. “Okay.”

He gave her a big hug. “Don’t say I never told you anything useful.”

Caroline smiled as she pulled away. “I won’t.”

There was a knock on the door the next morning, after Jack left the apartment to check on a few things. They hadn’t spoken and though she thought it impossible, Caroline found the awkwardness between them to be increasing. She’d decided not to wake him when she returned the night before. He looked so uncomfortable laying on the couch. She draped a blanket over his shoulders and sat down on the floor watching him, debating whether to start a conversation she wasn’t ready to have. But she took the coward’s way out, pressing her lips to his forehead and brushing the hair out of his eyes before reluctantly heading for the bedroom. She spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in the bed they’d shared for the past week, wishing she was in his arms instead of alone. Jack seemed so disconsolate as he went about his breakfast routine, and it was all because of her. He barely spoke before heading out. She was trying not to dwell on it.

Caroline opened the door to find Natalie standing there. Color her unsurprised.

“Hi,” Natalie said.

“Um, hi.”

“May I come in?”

“I don’t see why not.” Caroline hurried to pick up the pillow and blanket from the couch. Jack hadn’t bothered picking up after himself before leaving.

Natalie flopped down on the cushions. “How are you doing?”

“What did he tell you?”

“Not much. I could tell he was upset, though. I helped him clean up.”

Caroline wanted to apologize to Jack that morning but since he was ignoring her, it proved impossible. “So you saw my path of destruction?”

“I did. Very impressive.”

“Is that what Jack thought?”

“No. Where did you go last night?”

She kept the flashlight on the entire time but wandered the grounds for what seemed like hours before going to see her friends. “I took a walk. I would have preferred to go to the ocean but as we all know, I am not allowed to leave the base unsupervised.”

“What would you have done by the water?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you want to hurt yourself?”

Natalie wasn’t wasting any time. “I don’t know,” Caroline said.

“Did you go anywhere else?” Natalie asked.

Dr. Haddad wasn’t pleased with Caroline’s answers. She could tell. “I talked to the guys.”

“Did that help?”

Caroline shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”

“What happened yesterday?”

“Are you going to keep cross-examining me?”

Natalie grinned. “Are you suggesting I need another advanced degree?”

“Absolutely not. The world has too many lawyers.”

“With such a ringing endorsement, I’ll get right on it. I love being a number.”

They were slipping off track. Natalie was trying to lighten the mood and Caroline wasn’t going to bite. “What did Jack tell you?”

“He told me it was your anniversary. And that you’d gotten a bit upset.”

Natalie was minimizing. Seriously minimizing. “Did he tell you I forgot?” Caroline asked.

“That might have come up. Why’d you trash the room?”

“You told me to break stuff when I got angry.”

“I did. I was hoping you wouldn’t break stuff that belonged to other people.”

A valid point. “I don’t know why I did it,” Caroline said. “He was being nice. He’s been trying really hard, Natalie, and I keep pushing him away.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you feel yourself having an episode or was it different this time?”

Nice for Natalie to refrain from giving her a hard time about her evasiveness. “Different. I had all this uncontrollable anger but I was aware of what I was doing.” Caroline saw the picture of her and Jack on the coffee table and picked it up. “He had this on his nightstand. I broke the frame.”

“I know. I vacuumed the glass. You pulverized that thing. You must have a hell of an arm.”

She was starting to wish she didn’t have such spectacular aim. “You should have seen the look on his face. This might be the one thing he gives a shit about around here and I demolished it.”

“It was just a frame. It can be replaced.”

Caroline put the picture back on the coffee table. “I’m regressing.”

“You’re not regressing,” Natalie said. “You’re dealing with issues you haven’t confronted yet.”

How could she remain so calm? “I’m getting worse.”

“You’re not. You made progress with me, and you’re making progress with Jack.”

“He’s sick of putting up with me.”

“No, he’s not.”

“You hesitated.”

Natalie sighed. “No, I didn’t. Stop imagining things.”

Jack had told her his calendar was clear but he’d found loads of ways to avoid her over the past week. She wondered if it would be permanent. Caroline stared down at her hands. “What if he doesn’t come home tonight?”

“He will,” Natalie said.

Again, the doctor was too calm. Too confident. “What if he doesn’t?”

“I trust you’ll know what to do if that happens.”

“I wouldn’t come back,” Caroline said.

“Why not?”

“Would you?”

“Sure.”

“You hesitated again.”

Natalie made an obnoxious gesture. “You analyze things too much.”

“Strange words coming from a psych major who’s done nothing but analyze me for the last six months.”

“It hasn’t been that long.”

Caroline smiled slightly. “Are you saying you didn’t start trying to read me from the moment I arrived here?”

Natalie had the grace to blush. “I plead the Fifth?”

“Maybe you
should
go to law school.”

“I doubt that. Did you sleep last night?”

“Not really. I haven’t slept in about two years.”

“Yes,” Natalie said. “I noticed.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You look tired.” She squeezed Caroline’s shoulder. “You need to let your guard down, relax a little.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re yourself. I’m not.”

“You’re finding your way back,” Natalie said. “And that’s okay.”

Okay. Satisfactory. Adequate. Caroline got average marks for attempting to exist. “I never used to behave this way. Why is this happening?”

“You have to find new ways to cope. You were confronted with terrible, awful people who did terrible, awful things to you and it altered your reality. It’s hard to shift back after something like that.”

She looked down at the wrinkled photo. “I can’t keep hurting him, but I can’t stop myself from doing it.”

Natalie gave her a gentle smile. “Jack knows that. Why do you think he’s been so patient with you?”

Caroline closed her eyes. It was far too early in the day to start crying. “Because he loves me.”

“Have you told him how you feel about him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you blame him for what’s happened?”

“I don’t know that either.” Caroline sniffled. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Have you two talked about it at all?”

“A little. I thought we were making progress but last night it went away.”

Natalie frowned. “Jack said the same thing. Did you have trouble communicating before all of this happened?”

“Not really. We fought occasionally but it was mostly normal stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Economic policy. Budgetary items. Political philosophy.” Caroline frowned too. “I guess those aren’t typical topics.”

“No run of the mill marital woes?”

She didn’t see any point in bringing up pedantic shit. “I let a lot of stuff slide because I knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything. I figured if it didn’t bother me all that much, then what was the point? Jack let me get away with a lot too.” Caroline laughed shortly. “Both my husbands did that. Huh.”

Natalie chuckled. “I’ve been letting you get away with stuff so maybe you’re just that good.”

“Good, or manipulative?”

“Definitely not manipulative. Oddly endearing, more likely.”

Caroline wondered if Jack would describe her that way. “We didn’t start drifting apart until after the president was killed. I started getting suspicious, started causing trouble, I guess. Jack didn’t want to hear about it.” The truth had been staring her in the face and she’d just now gotten around to meeting its gaze. “We never had any issues until I failed to go along with the program. Until our comfortable life started to unravel.”

“Do you blame Jack for that?”

“No. I should have seen it coming. We got married so quickly.”

“I know. You wanted to smooth his run for governor.”

Caroline got the feeling Natalie and Jack had discussed this before. “Told him I wouldn’t marry him if he didn’t enter the race. So, he did.”

“And you gave up your career.”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret that?”

Caroline let out a harsh breath. “I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if we made the right decision. If I did.”

“He didn’t force you to do it, did he?”

“No, it was my idea. I didn’t want to be in Washington anymore. I wanted change. I wanted happiness. And I wanted the same for Jack. He used to tell me how much he appreciated what I’d given up for him. It never occurred to me that I might end up resenting him for my own choices.”

“You think you’ve made some bad decisions?”

Was Natalie being intentionally daft? “Oh, I don’t think tracking down stolen, classified government documents and getting myself targeted by the feds was the best use of my time, do you?”

“There are a great many people who would disagree. You did what had to be done.”

Caroline shook her head. “Someone else could have done it.”

“Others probably tried. But none of them were in your position. You had the ability to convey your message on a much grander scale than an ordinary citizen.”

“Or be taken down that much harder.”

“What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t pursued the issue? You think you’d still be in Harrisburg?”

Oh, that was a can Caroline wouldn’t want to open. Speculation got her into trouble. “Probably not.”

“How often did you and Jack really talk about your feelings? About anything?”

Caroline hesitated. “Only after something particularly intense or tragic had happened. That’s not good, is it?”

“No.”

“And now we’re in a perpetual limbo, a never ending challenge. Do you think that’s why we can’t communicate with each other?”

“I think you’re both terrified of what the other is thinking.”

Caroline wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe our entire marriage was a fraud.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Caroline. Because you and Jack are the only married couple in the world who have had trouble talking to each other.”

“You know what I mean.”

“This isn’t the usual marital scenario. You’re both incredibly articulate people but that doesn’t mean you automatically know what to say when confronted with deeply complicated issues. You’re wrestling with some terrible demons and you’re afraid to tell each other what they are.”

Caroline didn’t want to think about how many demons Jack had. Hers kept multiplying. “When I talk to you, I can discuss it rationally. And it almost makes sense. When I’m with him, it’s like I’m looking for a reason to distrust him or to snap at him. Like I want to hate him.” She hung her head. “I hit him the other day.”

“I know,” Natalie said softly.

She brought her head back up. “He told you?”

Natalie answered the other, unspoken question first. “He came to see me that afternoon. He was more upset at how he treated you, to be honest.”

“I still shouldn’t have slapped him.”

“Well, no. You shouldn’t have. But he understands why you did. Although I will tell you that as a general policy, hitting people is not advisable. You really need to work on that, Caroline.”

She’d never been quick to violence. It was unsettling to know how easily she could snap. “I know.”

“I will also add that while I think the two of you need to watch your tempers, it’s encouraging that you’re attaching your guilt to something legitimate. I don’t expect you to engage with each other in that way again. Do you?”

“No.” Caroline winced. “What else does he feel guilty about?”

“Caroline, come on. You really don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”

“I told him it wasn’t his fault.”

“You think that’s enough to make his feelings disappear? Put yourself in his shoes. He’s spent the last eighteen months racked with guilt over what he believes was the worst decision he’s ever made in his entire life. What if you had done it? How would you feel?”

“Do you think that’s why I keep striking out at him?”