DAY 15: Roisin Black | 25 Days of Christmas
On the fifteenth day of 25 Days of Christmas, Roisin Black gave us a Christmas themed excerpt from her book Someone To Comeback To!
John looked at his front door and thought back over his career in the navy, especially his time as a SEAL, and considered any number of things he'd had to do that were unpleasant and unpalatable to him. He stared at the glossy black paint and thought how none of those things compared to what he had to do once he opened that door.
Maggie heard the door open and placed her jacket on the back of the couch. John's familiar footstep sounded, soft and slow on the polished timber and Maggie's breath caught in her throat.
His huge frame filled the entrance to the living-room and in that instant she knew. Everything about him screamed pain and for reasons she couldn't yet define, her blood chilled at the possibility of what was to come.
"Hey," she said, her voice a nervous tremor. He still hadn't looked at her.
"Hey," he replied, his voice broken and full of sorrow.
Maggie felt her pulse quicken. "What is it John?"
He raised his head, slowly, so slowly, as if looking into her eyes was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. "I'm sorry, Maggie," he started but his voice faltered and he looked away.
She took a few steps towards him and then stopped.
His eyes were black pools of agony and she was glad he had looked away because it pained her to see them.
"John what's happened?"
He took in a ragged breath and dragged his hand down his face.
"Things with Freezer aren't good. They amputated his leg today. How's that for a fucking Christmas present."
She heard the sadness in his voice and immediately wanted to go to him to offer the comfort of her touch but something stopped her. Was it the seething anger she'd heard there too?
She stood looking at him, not knowing what to say. She also felt there was more, much more.
"I'm sorry," she finally whispered.
Still, he didn't look at her, just nodded slightly in acknowledgement of her comment.
They stood there. Neither of them moving. Both silent. Each listening for the high-pitched scream of an incoming bomb.
Maggie didn't move. Her first instincts were to go to the man she loved and envelop him in her arms to ease his distress but another instinct kept her rooted to the spot.
The silence clawed at her nerves but she did nothing to break it.
Rock barked out on the deck, demanding to be let in.
Maggie turned to go to him when John shouted, "No!"
Shock shot through Maggie and she whirled around to look at him. She'd never heard him raise his voice before.
He looked at her now and his stormy eyes brimmed with an apology.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice an empty husk, as if all his energy had dissipated with the shout.
Maggie moved towards him.
He put up his hand, warning her to stay away.
Maggie's blood turned to ice.
When John opened his mouth to speak his voice was deathly quiet.
"I have something to say and it's probably best if he's not jumping around us making his usual commotion when I say it."
He looked away.
"Do you know how your mother was upset that you wouldn't be home for Christmas.... well I've been thinking maybe you should go home and be with your family. Maybe that's for the best."
His voice trailed off at the end and Maggie didn't miss the spasm of pain that contorted his beautiful face.
She stood there trying to process what he was saying. Her head already knew but her heart refused to hear it.
"John, what are you saying?" she asked, her voice tentative as if she didn't want to ask the question but she knew she had to.
He swung his head to the side and looked up at the ceiling.
"Maggie, you know what I'm saying. Please don't make me spell it out."
She grabbed on to the couch as the full realization of his words sledge-hammered their way through her heart.
"You're breaking up with me?" she gasped.
He let out an agonized sigh.
"It's for the best," he said and his voice cracked as if it couldn't cope with the words.
Maggie tightened her hold on the couch as a white-hot fury surged through her. "So let me be clear. You're breaking up with me. You're fucking breaking up with me on Christmas Eve! What sort of asshole does that!"
John's head dipped and he stared steadfastly at the floor. He'd known when he'd walked in the door this was going to be the worst day of his life, second only to hearing about his parents' deaths.
He'd known a woman as passionate as Maggie was never going to take a break-up lying down. He'd known she would be furious and he didn't expect anything less from the woman he loved. He knew she wouldn't hold back and he braced himself now for the onslaught and prayed he would survive it.
"I'm setting you free, Maggie," he tried to explain in a quiet voice which he hoped would have a calming effect. "I'm releasing you from this life with me, you deserve better. Get the hell out of here and don't look back."
He dared to look at her then and instantly wished he hadn't. Disbelief, shock and heart-breaking anger glared back at him. He felt his resolve slip a little and he looked away before the force of her emotions drilled their way through his defenses and caused his resolve to collapse completely.
She deserved better than a life with him, a life of loneliness, fear and heartache and he loved her too much to shackle her to him, to have her waiting for his return, a return that might never come and even if it did, there was a high probability it would come with too high a price for her to pay.
He looked away and his gaze fell on a picture of his mother, smiling and seemingly carefree but John knew better, his mother had never been carefree.
Maggie's voice lashed at him like a whip from across the room.
"Setting me free. Oh how gallant of you. And what about the guy who asked me to come here, to give things a chance between us. Where is he? Where is the guy who only this morning wrote in a note that he loved me? Where's the guy who made love to me last night like I was the only woman on this earth, who moaned my name into the night like it was a salve to his soul? Tell me where's that guy?"
Her words were like well placed daggers and each one of them landed a direct hit on his heart. He closed his eyes as if to shut out the pain.
"That guy was a fool who thought love was everything, like a super-power that made you immune to all the shit in this world but today he realized it doesn't. Love leaves you vulnerable, it leaves you having to deal with things you shouldn't and I won't have that for you Maggie."
Maggie looked at the man in front of her. The beautiful, glorious, most amazing man she'd ever met, who she loved to the depths of her soul. The man, who until a few minutes ago, she had been planning a future with but who now stood across from her broken and in pain.
Her fury waned.
"Well what if you don't have a choice in it John?" I love you and I know you love me and I believe love can see us through whatever challenges we might have to face."
She took a step towards him and reached out her arm but he recoiled from her touch. She stopped, her hand frozen in mid-air as the pain of his rejection lanced through her.
A matching agony seared through John as he watched Maggie's face twist in pain but there was no way he could let her touch him. He was desperately trying to maintain control and do what needed doing but if she made any sort of physical contact with him he knew he would be done.
"Love is enough for most people Maggie," he said, his voice raw, "but in the world I live in it's a liability. I won't take advantage of your love for me. I'm sorry I brought you into this world but it's better to break up now after a few months than down the line. You'll meet someone else, someone who can be there for you and give you a life you deserve but that won't happen if you're still tangled up with me."
Maggie stood there incredulous, listening to his words, and her anger came back ten-fold. She couldn't believe he could dismiss all that had happened between them over the last few months and talk about discarding it like it was some sort of make-believe game they'd been playing.
"Fuck you," she threw at him. "Fuck you if you think I can walk away from what we have, just forget about it, like it never happened and find someone else. I haven't found a man in thirty-six years that comes anywhere near you. I never believed a man like you even existed and now you want me to walk away from you, forget about you and move on with some other guy? Fuck you John. Fuck you because that's never going to happen and even if you came back to me injured and broken, you'd still be more of a man to me than any other man out there."
Her voice broke and she knew she was dangerously close to tears and she'd be damned if she was going to reduce herself to a blubbering mess in front of him.
He stood across the room, his head bowed, staring at the floor and she could feel small fissures starting to tear at the outermost edges of her heart.
"And what about you?" she fired at him. "Do you intend to stay single for the next eight years and then cruise the singles bars in your forties, a washed up warrior looking for something he was lucky enough to once have. Do you think you can just pick up a love like this at the local seven-eleven?"
John stood in silence letting the pain of her words wash over him like acid rain. He didn't care what happened to him as long as he never had to face the prospect of becoming a burden on her or being returned to her in a body bag.
Silence.
He looked up and Maggie was holding her head in her hands.
A sliver of fear, ice-cold, wound its way around the knot in his stomach.
She raised her head and her eyes were two fathomless pools of agony. She looked broken and it took every shred of resolve he had to stay where he was and not take her into his arms. He looked away but there was no escaping the anguish in her voice.
"I get it. I understand now. This has all been some sort of game for you, a dipping of your toes into the waters of love and now you want out. You don't love me. You've never really loved me, this was all just a charade."
Her words were like a scalpel to his heart and John's head whipped up in shock. He started to move towards her. She couldn't believe that. He wouldn't have her believing that. Everything he was doing was because he loved her. He loved her beyond reason and that was part of the problem.
He'd lost perspective and the love he felt for Maggie had caused him to lose sight of reality but today had been a reality check beyond any other, brutal and unforgiving. He wouldn't have her sobbing, like Karen, in someone else's arms over him. He wouldn't become a burden on her. But there was no way he would have her believe anything other than he loved her.
He stood in front of her now and she looked up into his eyes.
He crossed his arms and dug his fingers into his biceps in an almost superhuman effort to stop himself from holding her.
His voice shook with emotion as he spoke.
"Do not interpret my intention to set you free of me as meaning I don't love you Maggie. It's only because I love you to the extent I do, that I can do this. My life was an empty shell before you came along and you filled that shell with the sound of the ocean. An ocean of laughter and happy times. These past few months have been beyond anything I could ever have dreamed of. I was dying a slow death before I met you and I don't know how I'm going to survive without you but please don't ever say I don't love you and please don't destroy the memory of what we've had because those memories are all I'm going to have to keep me going."
She reached out her hands then and placed her fingers on his arms as if she wanted to prise them open. He steeled his resolve and not an inch of him moved. She let her fingers rest on his arms as she looked up into his eyes.
"Then why do this John? Why tear us apart? Why destroy the both of us? You've had a bad day. You got a shock when you saw the outcome for Freezer today. I understand you're upset and how seeing your friend having to go through that has rocked you to your core but it's no reason to end things between us. You once promised me you'd always be honest with me but what about being honest with yourself. What's really going on here John?"
He looked down at her, confused by her words. Hadn't he made it clear what was going on here? Hadn't he made it clear he loved her so much he was willing to sacrifice his happiness and his future so that she could go on and eventually have some in hers?
"You don't get it, do you?" she whispered, her voice a barely audible croak, "here you are the big Navy SEAL, the mighty warrior, prepared to put his life on the line, fearless and strong but you're not prepared to face what scares you most of all."
His confusion grew.
Maggie's face twisted into a sneer, his least favorite expression.
"Love, John. Love. It terrifies you."
He stepped back then, anxious to put some distance between them. She stepped towards him and her hands reached up towards his face. Tears slipped treacherously down her cheeks.
"Don't do this John, please don't do this. I'm not beyond begging you. Don't break both our hearts."
Her hands connected with his face and her fingers stuck like velcro to the dark stubble along his jaw. She turned his head to look into her eyes and the despair he saw there was too much. She went to kiss him and he cracked. He dragged her hands away and twisted out of her reach.
He needed to get away from her before she stripped away all his defenses. He had always been defenseless against her touch. He turned his back and took a few steps. His voice was brittle when he spoke but he didn't care.
"I'm going now Maggie and I think it would be best if you were gone by the time I get back."
He started to walk away but she grabbed at him.
"John, please don't do this," she pleaded but he shrugged her arm away and kept walking.
The last sound he heard before he left his house was a soft whimper like that of a puppy which has given its heart to its new owner and has just received its first kicking.
FOLLOW ROISIN BLACK
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