Coaxing the Roughneck

No.

No, I have to bring her to safety. A vision of her warm and safe incentivizes me to my feet. She clings to me tightly, her body shivering, and I charge forward, cutting a path through the violent wind and pelting rain.

But now that I have her in my arms, now that I have assured myself she’s alive and unhurt, the fact that we are outside, we are exposed, hits me like a sack of bricks. On all sides of the rig, white caps race toward us. Like the enemy streaking through the darkness. Coming to capture us, but this time it will be so much worse, because Cindy will have to endure the suffering and torture.

“NO!” I shout, holding her closer, stumbling up against the stairwell door, wedging her body between me and the shelter, so she doesn’t get sprayed with gunfire or shrapnel.

A jagged beam of light flashes in the sky, leaving a hiss behind. My God, is that a missile? A drone strike? Where is it going to land? They’re everywhere. The enemy is everywhere out there in the darkness and I can’t see them.

My knees lose power and I fall, still cradling Cindy, against the door.

Turn and open it.

Why can’t I turn and open it?

It could be a trap.

That’s how I was caught the first time. Shot multiple times in the back, waking up weeks later in the enemy camp, weak and abandoned by my unit. If something like that happened to Cindy. Cindy. What is she doing here in the middle of a firefight? I don’t understand. She’s too soft and sweet for this place—

“Butch!” She grasps my face in her hands, urging me to look at her. But I can’t. I’m watching her back. Guarding her. Doesn’t she know there’s an imminent threat? “Butch, look at me. We’re on the oil rig. It’s a bad storm, but we’re okay. We’re okay. You just have to get us inside.”

“No. They’re advancing. They have a lock on our location.”

“No, they don’t. It’s just the Gulf out there.” She wraps her legs tighter around my waist and scoots up, planting a soft, lingering kiss on my mouth. “I promise everything is going to be okay. You’re off the coast of Louisiana. With me. There is no enemy and no war. Just some thunder and lightning.”

On cue, a bolt of lightning bathes our surroundings in white light and I see…I see that she’s right. We are the only ones here. We’re on the rig and those movements in the darkness are waves, not people.

She is safe. My Cindy is safe.

Relief spreads from my fingertips, speeding inward where it unlocks the fear and denial clashing in my ribcage. The cold dissipates enough to move. And I do. I rip open the door and lunge inside, kicking the metal exit shut behind me. Adrenaline continues to course through me, spurred on by this wild protective instinct I have for Cindy. Mine. Mine to care for. Mine to guard. And the safest place I can think to bring her is my engine room. Because it’s been my refuge for five years. It’s the furthest place from the storm raging above. Nothing will happen to her there—I will see to it. Nothing bad happens there at all. It’s why I remain.

We begin to travel down the stairs. “Butch…”

“I’m going to make you safe.”

She nods slowly into my neck. “We don’t have to go all the way back downstairs to be safe,” she whispers. “We just need to be inside.”

“Engine room,” I say, my focus set. Immoveable. Maybe some distant part of me detects the disappointment in her tone, but I keep going, anyway, not allowing myself to acknowledge it. She’ll be safest where we’re going. She’ll see.

It only takes us a few minutes to reach my small room behind the engines. And I all but deflate as soon as we’re there, within the familiar walls, the steady hum reassuring me that nothing can reach us. We’re insulated. Far away from the camp, the danger, the pain. This is safety.

“Safe,” I mutter into Cindy’s hair. “I will warm you up now, baby. Everything is fine now.”

I feel her swallow against my shoulder and then she’s leaning back, looking around my room, my home, and…are those tears in her eyes?

Sharpness pierces my sternum, my heart rebelling painfully.

“No, Cindy.” With a miserable sound, I roll our foreheads together. “Don’t cry. You’re safe now.”

“I know,” she whispers, swiping quickly at the moisture on her cheeks. “I know I’m safe. It’s just, um…we made so much progress and I messed it up. I shouldn’t have gone outside. This is my fault. I didn’t understand…”

I search her face. “Understand what?”

“How…serious your fear is,” she whispers, stroking her fingers down the sides of my face. “It was selfish of me to expect you to leave so easily. I’m sorry.”