Page 46 of Girth (Marked Skulls MC 1)
And the only thing that could possibly make me feel better was Emma. So maybe she could be my remedy. She could be my anchor and my saving grace.
“You’re absolutely right, Jake,” I told him at last, feeling grateful to him for saying all those things to me. I needed to hear them. “I was so lost in my anger and pain that I didn’t even consider the possibility that Emma could be the key. She could be the one that can make everything better for me.”
A huge smile spread across his face. “That’s my man. So, what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to try to fix things. I’ll go to her place and explain myself. I will ask her to try again.”
“I wish you a good luck. You’ll need it.”
I knew that. But now I was finally ready to fight for her. No more mistakes or running away. I would make things right this time and give my best to get her back.
Because now I knew. There was no way for me to live my life without her. She was my everything. And I was going to make sure she was happy next to me for the rest of our lives.
Chapter 19
Emma
I was rolling around in my bed, trying for hours to fall asleep, but it was useless. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Noah, and it was wearing me down. I even called my friends to talk with them, but their questions about last night and the sudden appearance of Noah only made it more difficult for me to forget about him.
Aggravated, I stood up and marched over to my closet. At this point, all that I could do was go out for a walk to clear my mind of him. I threw on some clothes and went over to my vanity to apply some makeup, but there was a loud knock on my door that stopped me in my tracks.
My skin prickled with an unusual awareness and my heart picked up its pace on my way to the front door. I peeped through the peephole, but I couldn’t see anyone.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Noah.” I clamped my hand against my mouth, stifling a sudden gasp, and anger stirred my insides. What the hell did he want now? Wasn’t what he’d done more than enough?
I had no desire to let him in. “Go away, Noah. I don’t want to see you.”
I moved to step away from the door, but his pleading voice stopped me. “Please, Emma. I know that I fucked up. Again. But I need to see you. I need to explain to you—”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest, fuming. “You managed to trick me last night, but I won’t be a fool twice.” Tears rushed to my eyes, and I hoped I wouldn’t lose it. “I can’t believe you. After everything, you think you can play me like a toy. Do you respect me so little?”
I could hear his dissatisfied grunt on the other side of the door. “It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all. Jesus, you don’t know how special you are to me. I want to protect you, not play you!”
“I don’t care, Noah! Go away or I’ll call the cops.”
“Please, baby. Please.” His voice was becoming more and more whiny, and to my surprise, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. “I understand that you don’t want to see me, and you have the right. I just want a chance for me to explain myself. If you still don’t want to be with me after that, I’ll leave and never see you again. Just please. Just a couple of minutes.”
His voice sounded so hurt, tugging at my heartstrings. He was awful and didn’t deserve me, but no matter how angry I was, I didn’t want to see him hurt.
“Alright. I’ll listen to you, but I don’t promise you anything. Okay?”
“Okay. Yes. Anything you say.”
I let him in, stepping aside so he could pass. A twirl of pain coursed through my chest when I saw his red eyes, as if he was on the verge of crying.
“Thank you for letting me in,” he said, a smile of gratitude spreading over his face.
I crossed my arms across my chest, maintaining the distance between us. “Yes, well. You better give me a really good explanation.”
“Right.” He followed me to my living room and sat down on the couch.
I took a seat on the armchair across from him, too anxious about what he might say. What was there to say? He left me without a word again, so I highly doubted he could say anything that would make me understand him and forgive him.
The silence between us stretched, and I was starting to get frustrated that he wasn’t saying anything.
“Well? Are you going to talk, or are we just going to sit like this?” It seemed that the edge in my voice was an incentive enough for him to start talking.
He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Things have been pretty hard for me lately. And not just lately, actually. They were hard ever since I joined the army.”
“You don’t say.” I couldn’t prevent the bitterness in me, but I regretted it when I saw the pain flash in his eyes.
“Back then, I really wanted to follow my father’s footsteps. Even though you and my mother were against it, I had to join the army. My mother even tried her hardest to convince me to stay because of my father who died while on duty, but I couldn’t be convinced.”
He hung his head low, defeat visible on his face.
“I was so stupid and selfish, and I didn’t think about our plans. I left without actually considering how hard it would be for you, and for that I have no justification. If there is anything I regret in this life, that’s that.”
“Okay, you left for the army. I can somehow understand that you wanted to follow your dreams, but what I don’t understand at all is why you stopped communicating with me. You didn’t send me even one letter. Even one, Noah. That… That pretty much destroyed me. I wasn’t the same person after that.”
He closed his eyes, tightening his jaw, his body visibly trembling. My chest ached so much seeing him like this. I had never seen him like this before. So… Fragile.
“I know.” He opened his eyes and met my gaze. “I still keep your last letter. That letter… You have no idea how bad I felt after I read it. It just messed me up and I couldn’t sleep for days…”
I glanced away, wanting to shout “Then why didn’t you respond to me?”, but I managed to keep my cool.
“Believe me, our breakup was pretty hard for me too,” he assured me. “But after my first combat, I started to experience some issues that completely changed me.”
“What issues?”
I could see it was hard for him to keep our eye contact. “I started to experience PTSD.”
My eyes widened. “PTSD?”
“Yes.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. I started having nightmares and often couldn’t sleep for days or more. Then the anger issues began. I felt so angry that I couldn’t control it. I would lash out and hurt terribly anyone that was near me. Once, I hurt one of the nurses after she patched my wounds because they told me one of the comrades from my unit died. I became furious, seeing red, and then… Then I hit her.”
“Oh God, Noah.”
He half-smiled, but it was a picture of sadness. “I felt horrible for hurting her, and that was when I realized. I’m a danger to others. I’m a danger to you. That was why I had to stay away from you and end things. I was so afraid I would hurt you, that I had to do anything—even suffer—to keep you safe.”
At first, I didn’t know what to say, taken aback by his confession. “So, you want to say that we broke up because you were scared for me?”
“Exactly. I didn’t trust myself to be stable next to you, and I didn’t want to hurt you like that nurse.” He let out a raspy sigh. “You don’t know how hard that is, Emma. How hard it is to lash out without being able to stop. Combine that with the never-ending stress, anxiety, nightmares, and fears, and you get a recipe for my life after I went to the army.”
I looked at his leg, having noticed that he was limping while walking. “Did you come back home because of your leg?” I motioned at it.
“Yes. I suffered a gunshot wound, and it healed in the meantime, but I couldn’t stay in the army anymore. Not that I would be much useful to them with PTSD. The more I
stayed there, the stronger were the symptoms, and I couldn’t handle it. I even had a therapist there, but the symptoms persisted.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I… I had no idea.”
“Don’t worry about it. No one knows until they experience it. Even I didn’t know, hell bent on joining the military and being like my father, without stopping to think even for a second what I would sacrifice. What I would lose. You’re young and foolish, and all you think about is serving your country, but you don’t count that the horrors you’ll be seeing each day will cripple you. They will turn you into a defective being. You’re losing your friends out there and yourself. It’s the fate worse than anything.”
He looked too pale, a lone tear escaping his eye and sliding down his cheek. It was too awful seeing him like this—this defeated person who looked like he wouldn’t ever be happy again.
It had never even crossed my mind that Noah would suffer this much in the army. I never stopped to think about his life there from this perspective, saddened that he had to experience all those horrors. I could see that he wasn’t alright even now, when he was away from it, and for the first time, I wished I had been there for him. I wished I was there to offer him comfort and assure him that everything was going to be alright.
“When I returned home,” he continued. “I was ready to continue my life without you. I wasn’t even planning to see you again, knowing very well that I was an asshole for hurting you seven years ago. But then I saw you at the bar, and everything changed. Just like that. I immediately knew you were the one for me, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself.”
My own tears started, a wave of love toward Noah overwhelming me. He was suffering so much during those seven years, and it was all because of his stupid notion that he needed to protect me. I was rendered speechless, the walls that I had built up against him starting to come down.
“But I couldn’t fight it anymore. I couldn’t resist you. By the time I approached you, I was unable to contain my need to be with you and show you just how much I care about you.”
He stood up and knelt in front of me, taking my hands into his. His lovely scent washed over me, and it was irresistible.
