Chapter Four
NATE
“You need to take her with you guys, Chase; I can’t handle her,” I said the minute I got into my bedroom.
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
“She’s sick, Chase. She crumpled onto the ground when I talked. It’s not good for her here. I’m not good to be around her. You know me. I yell. I say stupid shit. I’m going to bring her to you guys in the morning.”
“Just a second.”
I could hear Chase talking to Jordan in the background. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were saying, but I assumed it was a discussion about what a jackass I was and how I already wanted to give Ana back to them. But I didn’t care. I saw that utter fear in her eyes when I came up behind her at Shady Meadows. It wasn’t anything I wanted to see again. The idea that something I had done had made her that afraid was horrible, and I wouldn’t do it to her again.
“Nate, what happened?” Jordan said as she came on the phone.
“I walked up behind her at the treatment center and said something and she crumbled onto the ground like I was going to murder her. She’s not going to do well here. I’ll bring her to you guys tomorrow.”
“Nate, is she all right now? Is she shaking or crying?”
“No, she wasn’t at all. She did cry on the way home.”
“But not now?”
“No.”
“She’s fine, Nate. Let’s give it the night and we can talk about it tomorrow. Just give her some space.”
That was exactly what I was trying to do. Just stay as far away from Ana as possible so I didn’t do anything else that made her afraid. I had dealt with a lot of guys with PTSD, and none of them had been so bad that my voice alone sent them into a meltdown. With the guys and myself, it was always loud noises or smells that triggered us. I thought I would be able to help Ana, but I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t going to be responsible for hurting her.
Before I could protest anymore, Jordan had hung up and I was left on my own again with Ana. She seemed so fragile, like she was going to break at any moment. There was no way I could be around her. I was nervous to say anything because I didn’t want to scare her or make her cry again.
Women were delicate creatures and I loved them dearly. I loved the softness of their skin, the way their bodies looked as they walked, there were so many things about women that were so lovely. But I didn’t like making a woman feel bad and I really hated that I had made Ana afraid like I had. Of course, I didn’t know I was going to scare her like that, but it still made me feel horrible.
Oh, there were so many times in my life that I had hurt women. Not physically, of course; only an absolute asshole would physically hurt a woman. But I had been young and carefree with women’s emotions and I had hurt them. But the kind of hurt that comes from an emotional breakup was nothing like what I had seen in Ana’s eyes at the treatment center. She had real hurt in those eyes, hurt that I didn’t want to go near.
I closed the door to my room and was perfectly content to sit in there and not come out until the morning. Both my room and Ana’s were plenty big enough to stay in without needing to leave for anything else but food. I would just give her as much space as possible so she could relax and wouldn’t have to worry about me or anything else that was going on.
When Jordan and Chase said that Ana was coming to stay with me, I went and bought a recliner and television for her room. I also purchased all the fluffy, girl products I could find at the drug store, so hopefully she would have everything she needed to be comfortable.
I hadn’t taken care of a woman ever in my life. Even when I dated women, I didn’t usually let them live with me. Sure, they sometimes stayed over for a night or two, but my girlfriends always had their own places and knew I wasn’t about to invite them to stay with me. In fact, I didn’t often have a woman in my life who would even stay over with me. I liked my space, and most women didn’t like coming all the way out to the woods to just hang out with me.
Women and I only worked on a small scale. I loved women, don’t get me wrong. I really loved women, but they have a level of emotions that was hard for me to deal with. I couldn’t even deal with my own emotions, so I certainly didn’t want to have to deal with the extra emotions that women had.
With each deployment, my ability to deal with shit got worse and worse. I had my way of doing things and it was the only way I liked to do things. I liked to get up in the morning and make my eggs, three egg whites and one full egg. I drank my coffee and read the digital version of the New York Times. Then I’d go work on my projects around the cabin for the afternoon and so on. When it came to weekends, I used to go into town and visit the clubs with Chase, but neither of us had done that in a while.
When I was away on assignment, I didn’t get to do my routine, but that was because we had a job to do and that was all that mattered. Job assignments could take anywhere from two days to two months, but most of them were somewhere in between. It was hard to have any sort of dating life or real relationship when I never knew just how long I would be gone.
There was always alcohol involved when I had to be around people though. It was too hard to deal with the shit that people had going on if I didn’t have a large amount of alcohol in my system. But man oh man did I enjoy the women. I would even say they were addictive to me.
The way a woman smelled was extremely primal to me. When I had stood behind Ana and just before I spoke to her, I smelled the soft, floral breeze that came off of her. If I closed my eyes, I could still smell it. And when her hand touched mine, I thought for sure I was going to step in close to her and kiss her. My body could hardly resist.
Ever since I had first laid eyes on her when Chase had sent me her picture and asked to help find her, I’d felt something toward Ana. The milky whit
e of her skin was filled with much more color than when I had first picked her up and carried her out of Stephano’s house, though. That night, I thought I was carrying a corpse for a moment, until she wrapped her arms around my neck and looked up into my eyes. I couldn’t forget those eyes.
Her grayish-blue eyes were glazed over by the drugs she was on, but I saw her look at me with an intensity that I could only describe as extreme. I felt her body in my arms when I dreamed sometimes. Her lifeless body barely hanging onto me as we ran out of Stephano’s house in the middle of the night under gunfire. She was lucky to be alive.
“Shit,” I heard her quiet voice say as a loud crash happened in the kitchen.