Her All Along

He flinched and clenched his jaw. “Do I even wanna know…?”

I wasn’t sure. I had hardly any details to paint me a picture of the circumstances, but when someone groaned about a suicide belt in his sleep, you didn’t need much more information to know that your friend had been to hell and back.

I cleared my throat and grabbed us a couple Cokes and the wing sauce before I took my seat across from him.

“You were trying to get someone called Liman to listen to you,” I said. “You’ve said his name the most. Or yelled it. Pleaded it.”

Darius stared at his plate. His fingers twitched—other than that, no visible reaction.

“On your most restless nights, you’ve tossed and turned and muttered about a suicide belt,” I finished quietly.

He cursed under his breath. “I should’ve stayed at home. I shouldn’t have come to you, man.”

“No, I’m very glad you did.” I couldn’t tell him that enough. “I don’t want you to be alone right now.”

Darius blew out a breath and opened his Coke. “Ironically, none of that played a significant part of my assignment. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, waiting for an informant when… There was another informant, a widowed café owner with two sons. I’d written him off as too suspect, and I guess I was right.”

I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to push. As long as words came out of his mouth, I considered it a win. Because he needed to talk.

“Hypothetically speaking,” he went on, “say you have the option of stopping someone wearing a suicide belt. This person stands in the middle of a busy street, surrounded by civilians. You can kill him or watch him blow up dozens of people.”

I leaned back in my seat. Would that be the café owner? A man named Liman?

Darius chuckled humorlessly. “Sounds like something you’d discuss in an ethics class in college, doesn’t it?”

I nodded with a dip of my chin.

He swallowed hard, still not making eye contact. “Now, say the person wearing the suicide belt is approximately seven years old…”

“Jesus Christ,” I breathed out.

My pulse went through the roof with the shock that tore through me, and I had nothing. Nothing I could say, nothing I could do.

Actually, there was something I had to say, and not for my sake.

“Darius, I—”

“I don’t have anything else to say about it,” he said and coughed into his fist. The distress was written all over him. As was the guilt.

“That wasn’t what I—” I blew out a harsh breath. “You did what you had to do. I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through, but I urge you to think about the lives you undoubtedly saved.”

He didn’t want to hear it. “It ain’t that simple.”

“I know it’s not. I won’t say anything else, but—there you go. Stay here and let me help out until you’re back on your feet.”

He didn’t respond verbally, but he mustered a small nod and returned to staring at the food he probably wouldn’t eat.

I’d certainly lost my appetite.

There was a sense of loss in me that I didn’t dare poke at. It wasn’t anything Darius had said. It was always there, but it became heavier when an occasion arose where I felt an urge to either take care of someone or shoulder responsibility. I didn’t feel equipped or worthy; meanwhile, I’d once made it my purpose in life to be someone’s rock. Someone’s protector.

Sometimes, I wondered if all my memories were actually real. From such an early age, between four and five, I could recall events with perfect clarity, and they always involved shielding Finn from our mother’s sadistic wrath. She’d gone fairly easy on Finn at first, but I’d seen it coming. I’d known somehow that the spankings and squeezes would morph into rougher torture, and I hadn’t even hesitated. It’d been instinct to place myself between them as much as possible.

Finn and I were the same age. I actually didn’t know who had been born first, but he had developed slower physically. When we were four, nobody would guess he was my twin. It wasn’t until we were around nine or ten that he’d caught up. It’d resulted in him being the kid brother and me shouldering the role of protector.

I’d been good once upon a time.

I couldn’t say that about the man I’d become, and that was why some memories and urges felt foreign.

I didn’t do good things anymore.

“I gotta pretend I have my shit together at dinner with the folks tomorrow.” Darius broke the silence. “You mind coming with?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be there.”

“I appreciate it.”

It was nothing. It would give me the chance to check in with the girls too. Pipsqueak was trying to stay positive by focusing on school and the fact that Ryan was coming home from his deployment in January, but Willow was pretty distracted by Jake being gone. Last time I’d had dinner over there, she’d admitted that it was affecting her performance in school.